Hank & Carol-Leigh (Mindlin). [Inquire Within.] Honolulu, HI: Sounds of Hawaii Records, [n.d.].

The recordings collected here are artifacts of a media universe that no longer exists. They were created, against very high odds, in a world in which both the means of production and the means of distribution were held as near-complete monopolies by the record industry. The reality of that is very difficult for those who didnt experience it to get their heads around. Its a smaller, more subtle exercise in imagination than trying to grasp what the world was like prior to audio recording (I recommend everyone try that at least once) but it leads to as foreign a place. In order to make these recordings, their creators had to overcome very considerable inertia. Cash had to be put down, or studio operators convinced to take an extremely unlikely chance. One had to get oneself, and ones musicians, into a room, prepared to perform the opus. Today, the inertia these brave souls overcame for the sake of their music no longer exists. In a digital universe, much that was formerly difficult becomes merely gestural. We await the deeper curators of YouTube, collecting equivalent eccentricities. They are there, surely, but are they really equivalent? I dont think so. I think the difficulty made the difference, the inertia of the culture, the heavy industry fix. Once any of these recordings were pressed, the chance of their finding appreciative listeners, of course, remained virtually nil. There was no platform on which to distribute them. Today, the outsider records and puts the recording on YouTube. And there it is, virtually in a single gesture: recorded, distributed. If not literally distributed, then certainly and globally available. Theres something else going on with the tracks assembled here, but the recordings, as recordings do, speak for themselves. And indeed I will allow them to, other than to say that I fully expect that the medley of Elton John covers will forever remain my very favorite Elton John. William Gibson

The Muzzy Band. [How was it? Live Album Too Hip!] [N.p.: 1975]. The Invaders. Spacing Out. [N.p.]: Duane Records, [n.d.]. Myrna & Sherry Emata. The Winners. Woodland Hills, CA: Lift Music Company, 1973. Ray Torske. Armageddon. Hollywood, CA: Accent Records, 1974.

1. Intro [Excerpt] The Muzzy Band, from How Was It? Live Album Too Hip!

Hey Eddie, is the tape on? Wed like to dedicate this album to all our friends. First of all, lets start with the Manasquan Dead End Kids: Mike Henry Angelo Tony Robbie Carl Angelo Tommy Ro. Headliner people: Bill Sue Jennie Barney Louie Donny Bob and that stupid trickArt Star. And we got Ginger and Jeanette, Marion, all our great friends, Cindy and Ellen, and Carmen and the Romanellis Ay! And we got Vinnie and Billy Nell and Judy over there at the fountain, Tony Serenbella, D., Johnny Maggs, the whole gang over there. Gammarelli, Tone, Robin, Tony Fettucini, Sandy, Joey Frambizz, Rudy and Jean DePaul Lou Steve and Cap Ay! Theres so many so many names but if you give a listen, and how was it, to our little album this album is just for you, our friends. And we certainly hope its not too hip for the highway.

2. Spacing Out The Invaders, from Spacing Out

While there exist privately pressed funk albums that have become more desirable in recent years, theres not one that is anywhere near as over the top as the solitary offering

from this mysterious combo. Spacing Out influenced entire cadres of new musicians: the collector Phillipe Lehman, driving force of the retro-funk Desco label that spawned the now ubiquitous Daptone, is perhaps the only person who can claim to have been ahead of Paul Major in discovering this album; The Whitefield Brothers In The Raw, released first on Lehmans Soul Fire imprint, borrows heavily from Spacing Outs tense atmosphere and punishing rhythms.Based off of the transcendent reverberations of the Space Echo slathered like gravy atop the horns, and, in some cases, the rhythm section we get a taste of what could have been in comparing the 45 and album issues of the title track. The 45 version, removed from the Space Echos analog wash, is good garage-funk but isnt a masterwork. Under the Echos influence, this Bermuda by way of Louisiana album has passed hands from seekers of psychedelic oddities to goofy funk nerds and back again. Its a holy grail of funk collecting and could have only arisen from the untethered genius of a maverick in this case, the producer Eddy Demelo working privately, indulging fantasy and creating the fantastic. Eothen Alapatt

Seldom seen islands jammer with doses of funky undercurrent, spy film cool cinematic jive, wah wah, flute, spaced out horn lines that echo/reverb over the rhythm like fog thru a tropical pick up bar. Addictive personal fave. Gets you off every time. Paul Major

3. Heaven On Their Minds Sherry and Myrna Emata, from The Winners!

This is really it: The sound that cant come from anywhere except these amazing homemade records. Sherry Emata, one of two teenage-sis-ter-keyboard-competition winners, transubstan-tiates this watery Jesus Christ Superstar cover. We lift the chalice and chug away at the bizarre-ly delicious nectar contained, with a half-assed Dr. Pepper meets Sgt. Pepper of vanity pressing tracks, as a constipated metaphor to entice you. Johan Kugelberg

Often was the case in decades gone by that an instrument manufacturer would hold a highly publicized performance contest. These contests would not only promote young and hitherto unknown musicians, but also highlight the glory of a given instrument. It is through this context that the young Emata Sisters,

Yamaha Electone Organ virtuosos, released The Winners! a 1973 split LP. Featuring an original Myrna composition and covers of pieces such as Song of India, Moonlight Serenade, Sh-Boom, The Continental, and in this case Sherrys cover of Heaven On Their Minds, the instrumentals range from whimsical lounge/exotica tones to overtly melancholic moments and raw and evocative passages. Side 1 features performances by Myrna and Side 2 is Sherrys offerings. After releasing The Winners!, Sherry and Myrna would go on to join their brothers and sisters and record the 1977 LP The Emata Family In Concert.

Sherry and Myrna moved to Lawndale, Cali-fornia with their parents when they were two. They had been born in Cebou, Philippines. Sherry was first born, followed by Myrna, then Lorna, then Gil, Jr., and finally Lionel and Randy.

Though they were to be known as a musical unit, the Emata kids began as part of a motorcycle family. Gil Emata, the father, was a great motorcycle enthusiast, applying the same drive he would later put towards the musical development of the family. Sherry Emata remembered, When I was 10 my dad bought

the three of us girls mini-bikes. Even our 7 year-old sister I cant believe he did this! And my Dad got my mom a Kawasaki 250. He thought she needed to learn how to drive.

At some point thereafter, Gil switched gears, and fully applied himself to raising a musical family. He was demanding, too, for family talent didnt come about by sheer luck. He wanted for the Ematas the same success that found The Jackson 5 and The Osmonds. It was a big change for the kids. Most depressing day of my life he sold all of the mini bikes to buy our first organ. He always wanted to play. But I saw that organ and I thought you sold our mini bikes. He never asked our permission! Never told us. Of course we had no say in anything, Sherry laughingly recalled. But we were already taking piano lessons at the time. We had two grand pianos, a regular upright, three full size organs, seven synthesizers, three accordions, including a 60 pound electric one, that I would have to close shut and play like that, three trumpets, a drum set and a lot of PA systems. We had to extend our living room the length of the house to become a music room.

Gil was a hardliner, and TV was a luxury not often afforded to the children. When they were

allowed to watch TV, their options were limited to programs like Ed Sullivan or The Lawrence Welk Show. Each child had three private music teachers. Everyone took organ and piano, and then a third teacher schooled in an elective instrument or voice.

The Winners! is the fruit of back-to-back wins at the Yamaha Electone E-5 Organ Contest by Sherry and Myrna. The liners detail, Myrna, 14, won the contest for her age group in 1972 and Sherry, 16, repeated the victory in 1973. In addition to a cash prize, an all expense trip to Japan was given to Myrna, her father Gilbert Emata and her advanced instructor Bill Thomson. The all-expenses paid Japan trip provided the girls with an opportunity to compete in the International Electone Festival on a peninsula within the Ise-Shima National Park.

Several different stages had to be won before an organist could reach Japan. There was first a local contest, followed by a regional contest, and then finally a deciding national contest. Big names and bright lights graced the Yamaha National Festival in Chicago, Sherry remembered. Yamaha spent a lot of money, she said. The judges for Sherrys national performance

included Elmer Bernstein, Jimmy Smith, Sarah Vaughan, David Clayton-Thomas, and Steve Allen as MC. Myrnas judges included Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones, and again Jimmy Smith. The girls met and took photos with Mr. Smith while seated on an organ bench. It was the heyday of Yamaha, said Sherry.

The celebratory LP The Winners! was the idea of their instructor Bill Thomson, aka the teachers teacher. Thomson, a pilot, was able to teach up and down the Golden State by flight. Sherry explained, Bill flew his own plane sometimes and he would go to different areas along the west coast teaching, so if he was in SF, he would have a studio there, to teach at, or at Saratoga thats where my teacher introduced us to him we would take lessons there, or when he couldnt come up north we would come down.

The record was cut in Glendale in an edition of 1000 copies. We thought it was the coolest thing ever. Wed never been in a recording studio before. LPs were sold at performances. The family band played an assortment of venues, from organ clubs to talent shows, Filipino Clubs, convention centers, cable stations, and makeshift concert halls. We would create our own concerts, Sherry commented. We had

two vans. Wed haul seven synthesizers and a Yamaha organ with us we were an all keyboard band. Sometimes wed have a synthesizer atop the manual organ. We were our own roadies. My brothers work hard because they know what its like to load things and get ready.

Their biggest stage was the San Jose Convention Center, where Sherry remembered fondly playing a mix of traditional Filipino tunes, disco, and lounge music. The highlight of that show was when Sherry and Myrna performed the traditional tinikling, a percussive bamboo dance in 3/4 time that then segued seamlessly into a 4/4 disco version of MacArthur Park. While Sherry was 19, they toured the Philippines for a month. Other times, while in residence at organ societies, the sisters and family played more standard material. So there was no ambiguity as to who was an Emata family member, the drummer of the group was always caucasian. The drummer always had to be non-Phillipino. So it would be, like, a white guy. So that it was clear he wasnt in the family.

Most of the Emata kids pursue music professionally, in some form or another, to this day. It looks like Gils efforts werent for nothing. Michael P. Daley

4. 666 Ray Torske, from Armageddon

Top-shelf Christian private press centered around the hot trumpet licks of Ray Torske, who trades them off with a mixed gender choir, adding to the millennial cult flavorings of the torchy/loungey lead vocals intoning repeatedly that 666 is very near to maxi-mum uncanny effect. The 24 karat win truly kicks in when the lead vox start blending with the choir and a scorching trumpet solo, all together now: 6! 6! 6! You cause all destruc-tion! You dont really care! Johan Kugelberg

Little is known about the early life of gospel trumpeter Ray Torske. According to the liner notes to his first album, Armageddon, he was discovered at a Youth for Christ rally in San Francisco, where gospel composer Audrey Mieir heard him perform. I sat spellbound at first, Mieir reports, and then I gradually realized I was hearing something more than a tremendous trumpeter! This young man was causing his horn to almost speak the words of the familiar hymn he was playing. Mieir encouraged the young performer, whose debut Armageddon was released by Hollywood-based Accent Records in 1974. Armageddon combines horn-based pop-rock

with low-key jazzy instrumentals, frequently with doom-laden lyrics about the Tribulation and the Final Judgment.

By 1977, Torske was affiliated with the Youth Crusades of America, a youth organization connected to Demos Shakarians Full Gospel Business Mens Fellowship International. Through the late 70s and early 80s, Torske toured as a performer and speaker, appearing primarily at Baptist and Pentecostal churches in Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, and Indiana. An announcement for a performance in Colorado Springs describes his performance as a family night of miracles. He also performed secularly, playing a 1979 concert of music from the swing era, rock, jazz, and disco with the Chadron State College Jazz Lab Band and Chorus in Santa Fe. Torske released two additional albums, Rise Shine (Sandy Records, n.d.) and My Tribute (Privately pressed, n.d.), a collection of instrumentals. His last recorded performance was at the Sword Womens Jubilee in Garland, Texas, a 1983 gathering organized by the fundamentalist Baptist publishing house Sword of the Lord. He now lives in Reno, Nevada. Gabriel Mckee

5. Inquire Within Carol-Leigh and Hank Mindlin, from Inquire Within

Sum greater than its parts: This husband-wife new age duo are solidly on the showtune tip even tho the lyrics cover all kinds of astral plane/reincarnation/mystical Veda type stuff. There is however a consistent exotica sensibility, possibly derived from the Hawaiian location. The languid, liquid and stonery hip hop groove of the title track echoes at a few other places on the album, and the cover art is a crude psychedelic masterpiece of sorts. Johan Kugelberg

6. Cast Your Fate To The Wind & The Breeze & I Gary Schneider, from Just For Fun Just For Friends

On one hand, this is a raging minimal synth krautrock masterpiece, worthy of a $1000 price tag at a particularly drool-covered record fair booth, but where it gets truly, really great and lands in that sacred record-collecting other place is when the recognizable keyboard licks of this lounge/exotica standard start shimmering in silvery flourishes, leading straight into Mr. Schneiders completely bananas vocoder lead vox. Johan Kugelberg

Gary Schneiders birthplace is unknown, but he has been a longtime resident of the Bay Area. He was a fixture on the 1970s and 80s gay nightclub and lounge scene in the Polk District of San Francisco; however Schneider himself was a straight-laced nerdy type, avoiding the drug-addled party scene of the era. His musical roots rested more comfortably in the olden times of Tin Pan Alley.

An avid electronics tinkerer from a young age, Schneider fell in love with the electric organ, its workings and maintenance. Synthesizers and Sonovox filled out his sound on tunes like Cast Your Fate To The Wind & The Breeze & I.

DJs were to be the death of many live acts, and Schneider bemoaned their onset. By the end of the 1980s, he had stopped performing publicly.

Gary Schneider has cut two LPs, Just For Fun Just For Friends and Very Easy, a jazzy collaboration with friends. Additionally, he has released one 45, Cast Your Fate To The Wind & The Breeze & I, along with one cassette from the mid-to-late 80s, and a number of CD-Rs from the 90s and 2000s. Will Louviere with Michael P. Daley

7. Diska Limba Man Mdico Doktor Vibes, from Liter Thru Dorker Vibes

Outside of space and time, like all the records we hold most dear, and that the record dealer prizes most dear, this proto-techno masterpiece stands alongside either of the Cybotron singles, or Sharevari as the very sounds of a future genre being pre-discovered. This is one of those records that is so naturally inspired/gifted/communicative that anyone Ive played it for has had their eyes light up, whether they are seasoned record collectors, friends, colleagues or family members. Johan Kugelberg

Bill Russell, otherwise known as Mdico Doktor Vibes, is from Guyana, and seems to be the nations only known musical export besides Eddy Grant. Early influences on the future musician included Elvis, Nat King Cole, the Beatles, and his own musically-inclined family. At some point in the 1970s, he moved from his homeland to Los Angeles and enlisted in the U.S. Army. While serving overseas, Russell watched his Army friends recording music with their own equipment, no fancy studios, no label backing, and by the time he returned to the U.S., he had decided to create his own album. Russell invested large

amounts of money into the promotion of the 1979 LP, Liter Thru Dorker Vibes. The record was issued in a single edition of 100 copies. He considered it a demo record, and sent a few out to friends, a local library, and one to a radio station. So far as is known, Russell never performed live. The sounds on the LP were produced by a Fender Telecaster and a Korg Mini, and was recorded in an outfitted garage. Russell stated that his influences at this point were Santana, Hendrix, Sly Stone, and Dixieland Jazz.

The album is highly conceptualized, from the striking stock photo on the cover and abstruse title information to the musical themes that exist throughout. The title, Liter Thru Dorker Vibes, was a politically correct way of commenting on American race relations. Through Liter, Russell hoped that light and dark-skinned people could vibe off of the same music. Liter being a cloaked version of lighter and Dorker meaning darker. Russell found the colors on the Golden Gate Bridge stock photo complimentary to his music. There is no Bay Area connection. Liter Thru Dorker Vibes is Bill Russells only recorded output. Companion Records will be reissuing the full album in the upcoming year. Will Louviere with Michael P. Daley

8. Monkey Bridge 33 1/3, from 33 1/3

33 1/3 is one of many guises for Kalassu Kay and Johnn Wintergate, wedded lovers who also go by Lightstorm and Teeth. Though their primary interest is esoteric spiritual music, inspired by their experiences with Sai Baba and with efforts that bear descriptions like, A musical journey, which probes the ultimate mystery of Self-inquiry, they also play party jams and are known best for producing the no-budget video horror movie Boarding House in 1982. The movie, which is described by the band as a spoof gone awry so that you dont know whether to laugh or to cry, exhibits a video-grain laden kaleidoscope of cheap gore, sun bunnies, telepathy, and a fantastic 33 1/3 score and performance by the band at a wasted pool party.

Lyrically, the track Monkey Bridge lands on the spiritual side of things with lines like shatter your illusion and a refrain which cries: Follow me, be free. However, the monkey yelps and the rocking jungala of the music is on the Boarding House pool party side of the spectrum. YouTube has some crushing cuts of them playing, as Lightstorm, in someones living room from back in the day, too. Michael P. Daley

9. ESP Switch Michael Farneti, from Good Morning Kisses

The Michael Farneti album, in my opinion, is one of the true masterpieces of the self-released, self-produced LPs that were released in the 70s/80s. The range of this album is hard to grasp: Farnetis straight-faced execution of songs in the outer reaches of Camus absurd man like In The Jungle, Come To Europe or Movie Star stand in counterpoint to the sublime beauty of ESP Switch or The River, songs as immediate and natural as, oh, Sound Of Silence or Little Doll. Johan Kugelberg

Michael Farneti has his sound and skills together, highly developed and realized. Many of the more obvious special private pressing LPs are enhanced by limitations, unintentional but fascinating gone wrong aspects, glorious amateur aplomb, even the tricky so bad its good designation that often accompanies surface appraisals. Detecting that real people specialness in private press LPs by more accomplished deliberate musicians like Michael Farneti, those who have their sound fully together is a more subtle affair, as the line between a unique original and an imitation of some popular sound can be deceptive, even

now you see it, now you dont elusive. But once you do hear it, get it, it remains undeniable. New ground has been broken. As hardcore longtime fans of private pressings know, back in the 70s and 80s every big used record store in every locality had totally unknown private pressings, usually in the cheapest section of the shop. Only a handful of people were obsessively looking for the personality driven self made albums as compared to genres like garage, psychedelic, progressive, etc. so they ended up in the junk piles. Then people got more connected, started trading the good spare copies they found to get stuff they needed... and then inevitably reissues abound for years of great stuff but the well dries up, the really special ones nearly all known or buried forever. So it is more special when a great one emerges from ultra obscurity, for me my copy was so obscure I dont recall when or where I got it, didnt tune in to it after I got it, but could see why I would have grabbed it with the moody pic on the back cover and a song titled ESP Switch, something could be up. And was up when I finally did drop the needle... the first four tracks are a wild ride, a sequence starting with a surreal trip to Rio, then through a swirling Movie Star crescendo of

sounds which gets hallucinatory with the lyric movie screens... on your blue jeans weirding me out nicely, then the ESP Switch is flipped on and expansive, then chill out with 19th Summer haunting moody edgy music. Include Michael Farneti in that special section where you are not only listening to a record, you are hearing life itself, the singer in your room, your room in your head, the songs creating this personality you customize to your own view in sound. One personal thing about my enjoyment of these sorts of albums with such intimate force of personality like this one is that I get a twilight zone sense, an underlying warm but surreal eerie feeling, demonstrating the superior inscrutable strangeness of reality and people over supernatural imagined worlds as being the more rewarding, mysterious and miraculous way to perceive existence. I say this in spite of the fact that the very premise I just stated implies all music is strange (which it is, of course if so you choose), but more as a matter of taste for me, the real people music self-illuminating, the people fascinating in the image they make my mind create of them. Its also about mysterious treasure from the past, the enhancement of having a period being lost in time and then rediscovered to have a timeless voice being so

communicative in a way that is his own, thats a high standard and Good Morning Kisses gets it right to you. [The reissue of Good Morning Kisses is available from Companion Records: companionrecords.com] Paul Major

10. 6.4 = Make Out Gary Wilson, from You Think You Really Know Me

When Chris Simpson, proprietor of the legendary Philly Record Exchange introduced me to the Gary Wilson LP in the early nineties, it was a game-changer for sure: Wilsons effortless Steely Dan-muso gone NY No Wave was infused with an absurd monomaniacal artistic vision so highly original that the album has inspired WFMU DJs and breakbeat cultists and connoisseurs of bizarre/illuminated poetry alike. Perennial hepcats William Gibson and Jack Womack rate this album oh so very highly in their personal pantheons. Johan Kugelberg

For years, Gary Wilsons You Think You Really Know Me seemed to have erupted from a mid-70s intellectual nowhere land between jazz fusion and the rock scene coalescing in New York dives like CBGBs. That Wilson sang poignant, troubling, unhinged lyrics most surrounding

unrequited high school crushes added a heady emotional content. It took a bit less than a full listen to suppose that Wilson was either one troubled man, or doing a damn good job of making it seem that way.

By now, Wilson has not only seen You Think You Really Know Me reissued twice but hes been the subject of a documentary and has seen thorough investigation of the his pre- and post-You Think You Really Know Me work anthologized. Analyzing You Think You Really Know Me with knowledge of his oeuvre leads to some interesting assessments. That same basement his parents, in Endicott, one hundred and eighty miles north of Manhattan that looks like it could be in Silence Of The Lambs? It looks positively groovy on the cover of Wilsons Another Galaxy jazz album, an offering that wouldnt have sounded out of place on the storied Strata East imprint. And, you know what: turns out he is a bit off, but not in the fuck-he-might-be-a-pedophile-stalker way which you might assume, after listening to 6.4=Make Out but in the way that your weirdo uncle, who you can have totally normal conversations with before he says a bunch of obnoxious shit at the dinner table, is. In person, Wilson is charming and fun, and evasive when you try to get to the bottom of all of the crazy shit hes singing about. (When asked about the

creepy overtones running through 6.4=Make Out and its refrain Shes only sixteen he responds with Well, the original version went Shes only thirteen, so I thought that was an improvement. And I was only 21 or so when I wrote it.) In the dark room where Wilson records his vocals, all bets are off.

Wilson was a product of the psychedelic 60s and, by the early 70s, was equally as obsessed with the New York Dolls and The Stooges as he was with Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Don Cherry. You Think You Really Know Me was the product of that synthesis and Wilson, an obsessive recording technician and accomplished musician, played most every instrument on the album. He turned in a well-mixed set of tapes to the QCA custom-pressing plant in Cincinnati for mastering and lacquering. He refused at least two sets of test presses and returned one finished run of records before accepting the final product and seeing his masterwork, all six hundred copies, disappear, unloved for years, into the American expanse. It was a strange time, a dreary time, Wilson now reflects. Thats all I can think of. I wasnt happy musically. On one particularly sad day in 1979, Wilson, broke, brought his last twenty-five copies of You Think You Really Know Me and sold them for a dollar apiece to a Manhattan record store. Eothen Alapatt

11. Elton John Medley Silk & Silver, from Holiday With Silk & Silver

A lot of us yearn for experiencing the uncanny through music: This drums/piano duo tour-de-force is something out of M.R. James. It is crazy, it is creepy, and then you realize that it is also pastorally beautiful, so the true testimonial is that we here experience the downright uncanny. Where we can but pretend that we spy cracks in reality as we spill self-described psychedelic music on the turntable, Silk & Silver present musical otherness a la Lovecraft or the aforementioned M.R. James. Johan Kugelberg

Silk: Robert Baldwin (piano, vocals). Silver: Delroy D. Williams (drums). Recorded: 1976.

According to Robert, S&S was all Delroys idea. Delroy was an out of work insurance adjuster and Robert (who was 10 years younger than his band mate) was playing in a Salem-area rock band called Choice, as well as a couple of other rock-oriented projects. Delroy recruited Robert for a lounge act, which played weekends for maybe only one summer. They played a lot of Ramada Inns and almost scored a permanent gig at a Red Lion, which would have been a big deal for them (it fell through).

Robert HATES the S&S album. He compares it to the old Bill Murray SNL skit and now plays it for friends as a torture device. He also wrote:

I hope you will explain to all potential listeners that I really am not all that proud of the album on many different fronts. As I told you I was experiencing laryngitis at the time of the recording and I had no say so in the mixing except for the ooohs in the background of Fire & Rain. Once again I do thank you for your uplifting comments and admiration of my old piano playing skills and going forth with this type of genre. Robert is alive and well. Delroy passed away several years ago. Will Louviere

12. Music Slave by Jade, from Jade

Larry Kindred wasnt a founding member of the Norfolk, Virginia band Jade he joined in 1971 when the ensemble, then called Master Jade, performed at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. The band asked Kindred, a percussion major, to sit in. Now, I represent them well, I guess you can call it that! he laughs. Everyone except for the drummer Harrison Robinson, is still alive. And every one of them, except for Lucius Goodson, who found religion and doesnt want anything to do with the music, is excited that people are into the stuff we did.

That stuff springing from a medley of college and garage-band kids as Kindred describes them was largely rock music. We rock, rock, rock: ready to rock out the world, he states. We played predominantly white clubs, even though we were an all black band. Keyboardist and bandleader Vernon Goodson was fond of Miles Davis, Earth Wind & Fire and Kool & The Gang but his brother Lucius brought a strong appreciation of the heavier and the funkier side of the rock spectrum, favoring Led Zeppelin and Grand Funk Railroad. Not surprisingly, their first recorded effort, the Paperman 45, issued in 1974, is a sweaty psychedelic funk workout. That single was issued on entrepreneur Joe Rileys Pesante imprint. The band met Riley through their manager Sarge Arnold Lee. Riley returned the favor by signing the band to an exclusive recording and management contract and sending Lee back to bootcamp. The next logical step, an album, was to be an all-out rock affair. Thats what Paperman was for, Kindred recalls. And we had a song we recorded called The Funk of Rock Music. But this album was not to be. Riley possibly unhappy with the unsuccessful launch of Paperman farmed out production duties to keyboardist William Smitty Smith. Smiths resume was strong

he was a member of regarded Canadian garage-rock band Grant Smith and The Power, had fronted the funk-rock band Motherlode and served as arranger for onetime Power member David Clayton Thomas Blood, Sweat and Tears ensemble.

Smitty brought us up to Sound Ideas in New York and we spent two nights laying down what you would call a foundation, Kindred recalls. And then Smitty took our master tapes, went back up to New York after we returned to Virginia, and brought in musicians to fix what wed done wrong, embellish the songs, and mix the final version. He continues: We got the finished product and we had to go out and relearn our own songs! It was disheartening. We were a young rock band. This soul album was a real shocker to our fans. Still, Kindred recalls spotty support in far flung locales like St. Louis and Los Angeles. He maintains that the band would have managed a breakthrough if they were able to record a follow up for Pesante, but, in the midst of preparations for a USO tour at the turn of 1980, Riley suffered a brain aneurism, collapsed and died. Thus, this album and an album the band recorded for blind vocalist Carmen Lindsey - never materialized.

The band maintained, remaining a viable show band until 1985. But, by that point, we were just performing commercial stuff, Kindred laments, though he and Greg Termite Rich, the vocalist on Music Slave and the majority of their solitary album, did try to record some then-current boogie demos. Looking back, I think we made a great album, it just took some time for us to realize that there were great songs on it, he reflects. We were proud of the album. We really needed to have just done another one. Eothen Alapatt

13. Come On Sign Joe E., from Love Got In The Way When people reach for Scott Walker or Brian Wilson, I reach for Joe E. The kind of touching honesty in a blue-eyed soul singer that usually gets veneered over by studio-tan can be found here: Paul Majors real people description is curiously apt. One gets such an overwhelming sense of the beauty of the human spirit in its unfiltered, confused and urgent desire for communication here. The Joe E. album is easily worthy of comparison to the Beach Boys Surf s Up and is vastly superior to Scott 4. Order the album reissued on CD at eabla.com Johan Kugelberg

Joe E. Neubauer was a South Florida con-struction worker and part-time stock car racer whod grown up listening to singers who came out of nowhere and took the charts by storm. He was interested in singing from an early age; as a child, hed sing in a tunnel under a bridge and marvel at the sound of his own voice. I used to get up underneath the damn bridge and sing to myself out there, because the echo was so good.

Soon, Joe decided he wanted to take things a step further. I wanted to make an album, so I tried singing along with instrumental tracks on the radio. It wasnt working out. Clearly, it was time to start looking for a studio.

In April of 1974, Joe signed a contract with SRS, essentially hiring them to produce one record album including all musicians, studio facilities, tape stock, and to select all songs to be recorded. Unlike most vanity labels of that era, SRS put a remarkable amount of care and talent into its projects. They took complete control, jettisoning Joes regular crew of musi-cians in favor of their own in-house band. More important, they insisted that Joes record would have a fighting chance only if it contained origi-nal material, which they would choose and ar-range. After talking it over, Joe and his support-

ive dad decided to put up the staggering sum of $20,000 for a chance at stardom.

They supplied him with publishers demos of songs by local writers, including an upbeat, mildly risqu soul number entitled Come On Sign. It was by Wayne Carson, an associate of theirs whod previously written The Letter for The Box Tops, among other hits. Joe was told to take the songs home and learn them.

In the recording studio, Joe laid down his vocals over the course of a few days, singing over a minimal backing track. A very short time later, Joe was called in to listen to his completed and pressed album. He was amazed to find that the tracks had gone from sketchy guitar-and-vocal demos to fully realized songs, complete with elaborate horn and string arrangements. I was very, very happy with it, Joe says. They definitely earned their money.

When Joe asked them what the next step would be, he was astonished by their response. They told me wed have to go to England! I was just flabbergasted. They said, Thats where you want to start. Youll get the best reviews over there and thats what we gotta do. Two weeks before the trip was to begin, Joe dropped by SRS headquarters and got the shock of his life.

The doors were locked and all I could do was bang on the door. I went next door to a welding shop, and I asked them what was going on.

To his dismay, he learned that SRS had packed up and left suddenly under cover of night. The guys at the welding shop knew that they were moving because they saw trucks out there. Theyd never seen someone move so fast in their lives, and they were throwing things in the dumpster. So I looked through it and found my tapes. Joe pulled his master tapes out of the garbage and took them home, feeling absolutely crushed.

I thought everything was going perfect until I found out that they had left town. Thats all it took and my heart fell to the floor. I lost everything I thought I had. Joes family was also very upset by the news. If words can come out of someones mouth, they came out of my dads mouth when he found out. It was a big letdown, a big letdown. Joe soon returned to the construction business, abandoning not just his hopes for the album, but also his performing career.

The album never had a chance to find its audience. It was never distributed to shops, and its eccentric promotional campaign was aborted

in midstream. The few copies that made it out into the world were promos that somehow found their way into used record stores.

Taken as a whole, the album suggests nothing less than a poor mans Elvis taking aim at a Pet Sounds for the middle-aged melancholic, and coming up with a masterpiece that, to borrow a phrase from Theodor Adorno, comprises a kind of training for life when things have gone wrong.

As for Joe, he still lives in Florida, still works in the construction industry, and still singsas a hobby. Hes cut numerous private CDs for friends and family, using Karaoke tracks as a backing. Brandan Kearney

14. Gettin Keyed Ray Harlowe & Gyp Fox, from First Rays

Talk about outsider loner loser bands, this is the stuff! THE monster acid drenched backwood seedy barband Deadish jammer with bent outlaw biker vibes. Drugged up noir acid seamy trailercamp jamerica with outlaw mystique amplified by bonafide bar denizen local squalor redeemed tripping on the beach in the FLA keys once a year amazing northern-southern meld.

Gary Schneider. Just For Fun, Just For Friends. [N.p.]: Schmaltzy Records, [n.d.]. Mdico Doktor Vibes. Liter Thru Dorker Vibes. Compton, CA: Bi Russell Records, 1979. 33 1/3. [s/t.] W. Hollywood, CA: Blustarr, 1980. Michael Farneti. Good Morning Kisses. Riviera Beach, FL: Full Moon Records, [n.d.].

Gary Wilson. You Think You Really Know Me. Endicott, NY: 1977. Silk & Silver. Holiday With Silk & Silver. Eugene, OR: Tri-Ad Studios Limited, 1976. Jade. In Pursuit. Norfolk, VA: Pesante Records, 1975. Joe E. Love Got In My Way. [Ft. Lauderdale, FL]: Soul Deep Records, 1976.

Russ Saul. Begin To Feel. Los Angeles, CA: Tribute Records, 1977. Circuit Rider. [s/t.] [N.p.: No label, 1980.]

Ray Harlowe & Gyp Fox. First Rays. Minneapolis, MN: Waterwheel Records, 1978. Cleo McNett. [All of Me.] Dallas, TX: McNett Records, [n.d.]. The Silhouettes. Conversations With The Silhouettes. [N.p.]: Segu, [1969]. Arcesia. Reachin. [Hollywood, CA]: Alpha, [1971].

Boa. Wrong Road. Detroit, MI: Snakefield, [n.d.]. Stephen David Heitkotter. [s/t.] [N.p.]: Ego, [1971]. Dennis The Fox. Mother Trucker. [N.p.]: MusArt, [n.d.]. Bob Harrison. Yellow Moon. [N.p.]: BOBco Records, 1975.

Its a cabin fever seedy storied nightlife freak bar-band of messed up sinners from MN who seem to be off on some gothic Caribbean hallucination amidst the smoky dim rooms they vibe... use gothic spook go-go strip joint organ, weavy acid lyrical Garcia leads, get wasted grooves going with a singer you have to hear to believe... the guy has bent loungelizard acid moves in the songwrit-ing. Bent vocals full of characters & tales of losers, wicked women, drugs & booze, one-night stands, scummy cracked toiletbowls in roadhouse rural pickup bars, cheap perfume, ashtrays heaped with butts, lowlife cosmic smoky places that are almost a parallel dimension to ours, stoned party-ing in the twilight zone of US local debauchery absolute priceless killer of the night! Paul Major

15. Snap Cleo McNett, from All Of Me

Dallas eccentric Cleo McNett recorded and released a host of 12 EPs and albums on the McNett imprint. He looks like he might have been your high school algebra teacher, yet somehow he managed to find a bevy of late 70s and early 80s bobby-pinned babes to pose next to him in promo photos many of which were hand-pasted onto his records white jackets. His music is universally funky, in a post-disco, pre-boogie sort of way, and is all a bit off. McNett, like Gary Wilson, played

every instrument on most all of his releases, which leads to magical moments like Snap, used as the basis of DJ Shadows Why Hip Hop Sucks In 96 from the private press enthusiasts lauded Entroducing LP. Eothen Alapatt

16. Lunar Invasion The Silhouettes, from Conversations With The Silhouettes

Top level item for a cool lounge band almost surreal at times & enhanced by red & black negative image cover that would be perfect for an acidrock LP! Mix of the real dinner/easy club schlock sound & some exotic international type instros with almost fuzz-piano, cool guitars, lotta percussion like Hashi Baba, Lunar Invasion, Sesame, Sallys Tomato. A case of real people doing their thing with the charm that makes this a fun change of pace. Paul Major

Jack Napors WRS Motion Picture Laboratory served Pittsburg for sixty years before shutting its doors this year, a victim of changing mediums in film formats. Though it had swelled from three employees in 1952 to over three hundred in its heyday, now, as it spirals through bankruptcy, it only counts two Napor and his wife. And Napor, in his seventies, would rather spend time

in his garden. Its two hundred thousand square foot building, in a forty-three acre industrial park, houses the remnants of the companys film, video and audio gear and a few hundred copies of jazz records released on Segue, the imprint Napor helped found in the late 60s. Segue released but three albums, all produced at least in part by jazz saxophonist Nathan Davis, who took residence in Pittsburgh, and a job at the University of Pittsburgh, in 1969. The first, Conversations With The Silhouettes, came about as a follow up to the jazz combos psychedelic-jazz 45 Red Snow, and features the same deep grooves that flautist, saxophonist and songwriter, the late George Bacasa developed for the bands second recorded foray (their first, a cover of Monday, Monday hints at little that the band was to achieve). Recorded on site at WRS, the album shines with a bright fidelity not often heard on private pressed jazz albums. George was working at WRS, producing and putting film together, Davis recalls. He called me and said Why dont you come over to WRS - it would be interesting if we put together a record company. When I got there, I saw Jack, George and Olaf Kunstler. It was Georges idea to call the company Segue. At that point, we became officers of the label, for what it was worth.

Conversations With The Silhouettes is, for the most part, fine Pittsburgh-jazz, and sits well next to local luminary Frank Cunimondos Mondo Records albums. But one song, Lunar Invasion, follows the footsteps of Red Snow and encompasses psychedelic rock and heavy funk over the course of a five minute jazz workout. A standout track on the album, its a singular example of what jazz might have become, had more labels like Segue existed to properly record and invest in - talented ensembles like The Silhouettes. According to Davis, Segue itself would have done well to continue its jazz trajectory. Coloring the demise of the imprint in the early 70s, he recalls: Some guy came in and said to Jack that he could make more money if he stopped messing with the jazz and put together some rock records. But those rock records broke em: the rock stuff cost more to make and was more to deal with than the jazz thing we were doing. We were simple, but Jack got greedy and the next thing you know he was out of the record business, period. Eothen Alapatt

17. White Panther Arcesia, from Reachin Arcesia

Following the death of his wife in 1970, John Arcesi, a crooner of some note (hed been signed to Capitol Records in the 50s, having spent much of the 30s and 40s recording in a variety of big bands and smaller combos), partnered with Los Angeles producer Al Firth and psychedelic upstart Johnny Greek and Greeks band to record the album Reachin Arcesia in 1971. He was 54 years old. When three hundred copies of his album were released in late 1972, they barely sold Arcesi himself seems to have kept most of them to use as personal gifts, having believed that hed managed to record and release something that would take the interested years to wrap their heads around. He was right he died in 1983 without seeing any real interest in his pice de rsistance, even though hed self-released a single from the album in 1979 in a last gasp attempt at a breakthrough.

This album could have only come together in the ad-hoc environment of the private record label, in this case Firths Alpha Records. Well never know how Arcesi and Firth met, as Firth passed away years ago (his wife, a doctor, now deceased, told Mike Vague, one of the few Angelenos who quizzed her about her husbands label, the only

thing we had in common was the bed we slept in.). But Alpha was an established, well known concern. Starting in the late 50s, anyone could walk into their Hollywood studios and record and release a 45 on the label. Vague estimates that hes seen at least forty, perhaps as many as 50 unique Alpha releases. Hed be the one to know: Firths wife showed him stock copies of each of the 45s she saved for her children, including the City Jungle 45 released first on Alpha as More Beautiful Daze and later released on Spread City and RPR under the Beautiful Daze moniker.

A Firth relative teamed up with Johnny Greek for that More Beautiful Daze release. Greek, an outcast white rocker as interested in funk as psychedelic rock, bounced back between Lou Bedells Dore and Alpha and, its assumed, dozens of other smaller concerns while still finding time to feature as a member of the garage punk band Sacred Cow on the Get Smart TV show. It was his band that concocted the backing tracks for Arcesis outlandish musings, including the Doors meets Take Five exercise White Panther.

Hank Porter, singer and principal of funk outfit 4th Coming, the most notable black band to record on Alpha, remembered the process of

recording and releasing a project on Alpha well: his band managed at least nearly ten. He confirms that, indeed, Firth would record anything, that he had what was then a state of the art sixteen track studio, and that artists could be as involved in the production process (or pressing process, as Firth shared a symbiotic relationship with local pressing plants) as they wanted. But one thing Porter made clear: there was no distribution to be found at Alpha. Each artist, Arcesi included, was offered his final product, wished the best, and sent out into the Hollywood wilds to fend for himself. Eothen Alapatt

18. Never Come Back Boa, from Wrong Road

We move on to the Detroit suburb of Auburn Heights where, in 1971, a group of very talented and determined musicians scraped together what equipment they could and, with a small amount of money, released one hell of a great album called: WRONG ROAD! This music is fresh, vibrant, arrogant, and a bit on the punk side. But whatever your thoughts may be as you sit back and listen, be reminded it was recorded in 1971, not 1966 as so much of the music is reminiscent of.

THE STORY OF BOA AS TOLD BY BOA:

The band known as Boa was formed back in 1969 when Ted Burns contacted Bob Maledon in the hall at his senior high school. Ted had seen Bob in a jam session at a mutual friends house. They jammed in Bobs garage on guitar and organ. From out of nowhere a guitar player appeared and heard them he said, She-yit. It was then decided Paul Manning would join the group to improve the sound. The three went about making noise until they decided it was time to add other members. Bob said to his friend Jim Go and find us an organist! Enter Brian Walton. Bob said to Ted Lets try to make a good impression on Brian so hell want to join the group. When Brian first walked through the door to practice, the screen door fell upon him. The impression which was made can still be found on his head today!!

A series of drummers came and went. Then one day, a small being with drumsticks in his hands entered Richard Allen and said No one will give me a chance because Im so young. Kindhearted Ted replied We will! That Saturday at practice, Richard brought over his makeshift drum kit painted like a psychedelic barber pole. He was the best drummer they had tried and was given the job.

Henceforth, the completed band became known as Anvil. Their first performance was January 30, 1970. Besides the usual cover songs and a few originals, they also performed a rock version of the Anvil chorus, and a Hamms beer commer-cial. (Paul said l gotta take a Schlitz!).

Since they had written some original tunes, they decided to record an album. The mono recording took place on March 7, 1970 at Northwest Sound Studios in Detroit. The album was not released, as only a few acetates were made of the sessions. But the Anvil sessions are a story for another time, another place. Soon afterwards, musical tastes forced the band to go their separate ways.

In 1971, the band decided to try another album and the five original members got back together again. This time, Ted played bass part of the time, so Bob could concentrate on playing piano. They wanted to change the name of the band, when from out of nowhere a burp arose which said BOA! Paul suggested The One Eyed Boa. After laughing about this for awhile, the band decided the name Boa sounded cleaner. The album was recorded live in a Tupperware warehouse, in Auburn Heights, Michigan, on a two-track tape machine owned by Brians parents, and was previously used by the band as a practice facility. All of the tracks were recorded

live, so if anyone made a mistake, they had to record the whole song over. All engineering was done by whatever friend or girlfriend happened to be there. The LP, known as Wrong Road, contained nine songs. The title song was the only one they had ever performed before. After recording the songs, it became apparent that one song would have to be omitted because of timing problems. Cant Be Real did not appear on the LP because of this. When Paul heard the finished tape for the Wrong Road album, to the amazement of all, he did not say She-yit (HOWEVER, ANOTHER FOUR LETTER WORD WAS USED!). Paul did not want anyone to know he was on the album (he was jamming with another band at the time), so he used the alias and dressed up as Captain Hook for the photos. The others, however, were content and decided to release the album themselves on May 20, 1971. The group once again broke up and the members all went on to other musical ventures.

Ted Bums, Bob Maledon, and Richard Allen are still active in music today. Ted has played bass in concert with oldies legends the Tokens, Little Eva, and Bobby Lewis. Richard was named best rock drummer in Michigan in a 1995 competition. Ted and Richard teamed up in 1995 to record a CD of Teds new material, including a couple of old Boa favorites. Bob is playing

keyboards in a country band. Brian Walton works for Disney. Paul Manning changed his name to Paul James and faded out into the night.

Special note from Ted: I would like to dedicate my work on this album to Paul James, who was my mentor and friend. Without him, none of this would have been possible.

[A version of these notes originally appeared with the Gear Fab reissue of Wrong Road. Bob Maledon also published the book Wrong Road: The Story of Boa.] Roger Maglio

Whoa this is wicked messed up hi-school druggie debauch of the top level... Utterly berserk and semi-conscious teen mania, one of the most primitive sounds ever, a brain blitz of drugged hi-school garage punk & psych. So authentic: the puke in the distance, beer breath, dirty needles, speed, acid The Doors and Cream are some influences, as crude as you can imagine! Intense deranged downer rants with a total loser vibe murder, death, losers, getting fucked over by everything Right off the bat the singer kills his girlfriend & her lover in bed & is running thru the swamps quicker than the Mississippi Murderer with a swampy desolate sound, murky & drunkenone look at

the cover pic will tell you these guys were the most degenerate bunch at their high school... One of my favorite covers ever on any 60s LP. Crude stereo basement sound & a funky press but the power of this band blows thru the walls of a million late 70s punk era blasters One of the ultimate hi-school druggie midwest rants ever, to my mind an astonishing crude flashback to if the first freaks in your neighborhood made an LP at their wildest moment. Dark & fucked up to the max Incredible! Paul Major

19. Cadillac Woman Stephen David Heitkotter, from Heitkotter

Stephen David Heitkotter was the drummer for Fresno, Californias well-regarded Road Runners garage rock band. A handsome kid, loved by his German family especially doting older brother William Heitkotter who remembers the beginning of the bands rise to regional acclaim. Back then there, there were mains to drag, dances to go to there were no drugs then. Worst thing you could do is drink a beer and smoke a cigarette, Wiliam remembers. I used to drive Steve to his dances, haul his drums over in my car. Steve would get out of the car [in] that little suit he wore, everyone would be looking at us, and wed take the drum in.

He pauses, reflectively. Everyone in the valley knew who the Road Runners were. Their 45s were in all of the jukeboxes in town.

The band cut three 45s, one for the Miramar imprint, and two for Morocco. Their third, Pretty Me, is Stephens first known composition. Steve Heitkotter and I were best friends during our high school days and before I went into the military in 1966, Ross Dwelle reflected in a Garage Hangover message board post in 2010. During my four years in the Air Force I lost contact with Steve and it appears that drugs played a big part of his life during this time. His brother concurs. Drugs: thats the only thing that could be it. He oded on speed, twice, in the 60s, William states. He was up late, thats why he did a lot of speed. Their [Road Runners] manager was into drugs, and he got Stephen hooked.

By the turn of 1970, Stephen married Nancy Taylor, a blonde beauty and moved into a sizeable house on Kerckhoff Avenue. While its not clear when, he began showing signs of paranoid schizophrenia. Dwelle: The first time I arrived at Steves house, I thought, wow, here is a guy that had a great musical career, a beautiful wife and a great house in Old Fresno. But it didnt take long to realize something was

not right with Steve. He didnt want to play drums anymore. He was experimenting with the guitar and thought he was going to be a great artist in music and on canvas. Williams ex-wife Madeline recalls him throwing himself into painting under the moniker Black Orchid. Both she and William suggest that it was his uncle Dons star-turn as friend Clint Eastwoods portrait artist in the 1971 film Play Misty For Me that encouraged Stephen to pursue his painting.

When he wasnt painting mainly paintings of outer space, according to William he was writing songs that he planned to record. Sometime in 1971, at the age of 24, Stephen enlisted Dwelle and Dwelle recommended a sixteen year old bassist, Greg Youngman, whose brother had played with Dwelle in the local ensemble The Group to record his ideas in his home.

Dwelle recalls the proceedings, which Stephen documented on a Sony multi-track tape recorder: Here we were, three guys, a 16 year old innocent kid, a rusty drummer who hadnt played in almost 5 years and a novice lead guitar and singer, jamming and trying to play five songs written by a man losing his mind. I dont know about Greg, but I know that Steve and I were probably stoned the whole time.

The sound is loose and woozy, at times veering into territories not normally witnessed by normal mortals. Madeline agrees that Stephen was accessing a plane not easily traversed in songs like the epic I Dont Mind, which sounds something like Cans You Doo Right might have become, had Malcolm Mooney decided to ramble atop the funky grooves in his American backyard rather than over those of polished, intellectual Germans. Then there is a song like Cadillac Woman which transcends its humble beginnings and chugs happily from start to finish. Ross had real good tempo and a knack for funky syncopated grooves, Youngman attests; Dwelle, for his part, downplays his contributions to the album that would see release as the untitled album now known as Heitkotter: I knew that was me on the drums (stoned) because Steve wouldnt sound that bad even stoned. We were just having fun and it felt good to play again even though we thought Steves songs were kind of strange.

Its assumed that Stephen handmade twenty to fifty copies of his album and distributed them amongst family and friends before mailing copies to major record labels and publishers. (The first copy of this album to surface in the 1980s came from a stack of discarded demos submitted to A&M, sourced by the ahead-of-the-curve Angelo

collector Geoffrey Weiss.) And then, according to Madeline, he went straight to Lake Tahoe and rented himself the biggest suite he could find waiting for those who hed beckoned to come calling. He soon ran out of money and his mother brought him home to Fresno.

This would be the only documented Stephen David Heitkotter recording; though Dwelle and Youngman recall multiple sessions recorded on seemingly endless supplies of blank tape, none have surfaced. The 70s werent kind to Stephen, as his schizophrenia worsened. By the late 70s, he disappeared for six months before surfacing in Southern California. He became argumentative and his parents, loving yet exhausted, called the police numerous times to save their son from himself. In a story familiar to many of those for whom mental illness runs in the family, they eventually caved and called the state. At some point in the early 80s Stephen became the states ward, and he has remained so ever since.

His brother William still sees Stephen once a month, usually around the middle of the month, and hes happy that people appreciate Stephens music as he knows that Stephen would appreciate the attention though he is incapable of fathoming his current surroundings. Stephens story is cautionary, but his music is truly as close

to the sublime as American rock music has ever ventured. Yet, to his brother and family, the pain and suffering is great. It doesnt matter anymore he cant even play the drums anymore, William laments, before mock-questioning, Steve, you think you can still play? The kids had more things to do back in Steves age now again they cant even drag the main. The kids gotta stop messing with drugs. Theyll screw themselves out of a lot of fun. Eothen Alapatt

20. Piledriver Dennis the Fox, from Mother Trucker

Seattles Dennis The Fox Caldirola made one of those altogether bizarre American private press albums that works as well as a myth as it does a stand-alone musical statement. Paul Major, an early proponent of The Foxs unique brand of rock n roll, wrote that listening to Mother Trucker was like seeing God in a burst condom stuck to the tailpipe of a rusty pimpmobile, finding out Jesus stole your mama, looking for the meaning of life in a puke pile by a truckstop motel before proclaiming that Caldirola was one of those smart literate guys attracted to funky situations. When asked if this is true, Caldirola laughs. Yeah! On occasion. And then he says no more.

Fact is that Mother Trucker, Calidirolas only album released under his nom-de-guerre, consisted of a series of demos he recorded for local audiophile and producer Dave Clark. There was no rhyme or reason behind the songs picked and recorded for MusArt Records MA 801. It wasnt a unified statement, but the emotions that went into writing the songs were real, Caldirola reflects. I was just trying to be a rock star. I wrote songs to play em.

He cobbled together a talented bunch of musicians including the thundering drummer Robbie Straube, whose groove anchors Piledriver to record his ideas. We were trying to get a record deal so we cut all of these tapes, of various songs, in various styles, to show how versatile I could be. Caldirola states. Then we traveled down to L.A., and spent three months in Hollywood. Until we ran out of money. I still have the reject letters from ABC, So we said Damn it, lets put out our own album.

Youd think that might have been the end of the road for The Fox and his skulk but no. Caldirola: Im one of the lucky ones I never worked in any group that got famous, but I made a living at music into my 30s.

Id play in dive bars, wherever but in Italy, in my rockabilly band Dennis and The Jets, wed play one thousand capacity venues. Caldirola toured the old country between 1982 and 1985 before settling into a gig running Seattles long running Italian festival, Festa Italiana Seattle. Hes contrite about Mother Trucker: It was a legitimate musical effort on my part, but never, in my dreams, when I started that project in 1971, did I think that all of those songs would come out on the same record. Eothen Alapatt

21. Why Dont You Do Right Bob Harrison, from Yellow Moon

Does not rock hard, but has this creepy groovin reverby flashback to the 50s zone moves that is totally in the twilight zone, basic creepy action, real people moves, awesome vocals. The closest I can compare this to is a garage version of that haunted Chris Isaak minimal spooky zone. -Paul Major

Like most Irishmen born in [sic] under the Cancer sign, BOB is full of love and he shows it through his music. He has written over 200 songs in his short life.

Bob Harrison hailed from Grass Valley, Califor-nia. Though he always had music in his heart, he reportedly spent a good while as a salesman, real estate business owner, and then President of the Chamber of Commerce, presumably all in Grass Valley. These local successes didnt sa-tiate his ambitions however, for the four-octave man of many voices took it upon himself to transition into a full-time musician, resulting in the debut LP Yellow Moon, released on his own BOBco Records. According to the liners, Bob recorded the album primarily because of the overwhelming response from his friends who watch[ed] him perform his songs in night clubs and concerts.

The brief, good-humored liner notes do not communicate the essence of this mysterious, highway traveler who possesses a distinct rockabilly croon, a sound Paul Major so acutely compared to that haunted Chris Isaak minimal spooky zone. And indeed when listening you can picture the lone headlights that glimpse fragments of cactus and neon silhouettes of ramshackle roadhouses imbued with tragic romance. As opposed to Chris Isaak, however, one gets the notion that Bob Harrison was actually indigenous to this loner world and never left, by destiny more likely than choice.

Bob Harrison has released at least two LPs, Yellow Moon and Lil Elvis, and one 45 Elvis Is Gone b/w Yellow Moon. A reissue of Yellow Moon will be released by Circadian Press. Michael P. Daley

22. Old Time Feeling Circuit Rider, from Circuit Rider

Awesome MU-bent biker-Howl from the edge... listen to it after gobbling a bottle of No-Doz and tattooing love & hate on your fingers outlaw style squirming tense parts mix with desolate desert despair, lonely moans like wolves crying across the moonlit rocks! A real twilight zone Harley rampage through sleazy bars, messed up babes, drugs, booze, and fiery observations throwing out a big and-you-thank-Im-fucked-up! to the world. Mixes acoustic and electric guitars in bluesy ways, some crazy effects and surprises sorta like Mu and Beefheart in places, definitely outlaw and on the edge. Some heavy monster psychedelic fringe jams like Limousine Ride... Mostly guitars, from lonely desert bluesy acoustic rambles to intense acid echo freakouts, all with his amazing images and observations overflowing like a beat era nightmare. Twilightzone Harley ride on No-Doz squirming inside the toadbrain of the killer on the road, it...is WAY out there. All thru

it a ripping mad humour dark as the sinister cover art of a crucified snakean absolute ten in my book...I talked to him back when & it emphasized the reality that Circuit Rider rides with the likes of the two Jerrys, Tweddle, Grudzien, Heitkotter, Higney etc... but with his own thing. This is the real stuff... Paul Major

Although Paul Major talked to Robert Thorn Oehrig, the man responsible for Circuit Rider, way back when and assumed his kinship with bonafide outsiders Peter Grudzien and Stephen David Heitkotter going so far as to call the album the real stuff... awesome MU-bent biker-Howl from the edge... sorta like... Beefheart in places he was conned.

Hailing from prosperous Westport, Connecticut, the Circuit Rider was largely Oehrigs assumed identity: at least the particulars are fictional. A poet rather than an outlaw, Oehrigs outsider status was largely self-inflicted. Oehrig was self-aware, not some idiot savant ignorant of the work of Captain Beefheart (that he was clearly indebted to). As crude press kits attached to copies sent to radio stations reveal, he was not without sincere ambition. As the lead guitar player on the session recalls, Thorn was

at once out-of-control and attentive to every detail. Although he was too drunk sometimes to manage to sing into the microphone, and occasionally his instructions to the hired musicians were to just make something up, the polished final result was intentional. The players were not a gang of ruffians briefly setting their sawed-off shotguns aside to pick up the instruments for these sessions, but were pros working for union rates (albeit uncredited on the cryptic original packaging). The primary guitar sound featured here comes courtesy of Brian Keane, better known for his work with notorious scoundrels like Paco de Lucia, Spyro Gyra, and Bobby McFerrin (his website, as of this writing, neglects to mention his work on the Circuit Rider LP).

Just as perplexing, when considering Circuit Riders anachron-istic sound, is the presence of punk and new wave players: session drummer Doug Baun was currently touring with Iggy Pop and bassist Robert Albertson was simultaneously in Voidoids-offshoot The Outsets. At least ten other players were involved on the sessions overall, and its no small feat that Oehrig managed to maintain not only a consistent sound over the course of the long player, but never revealed that its no longer 1971. Circuit Rider was neither the beginning nor the end for Thorn Oehrig. He purportedly

boiled the album down from hundreds of pre-existing poems and claims to have recorded three more full lengths in the ensuing years (some of which has been verified) and over sixty unpublished novels and hundreds of paintings (all while remaining gainfully employed as a rare book dealer.) If only Circuit Rider had emerged readymade from, as Major originally had hoped, a Twilightzone Harley ride on No-Doz squirming inside the toadbrain of the killer on the road. But the truth is just as interesting. Rob Sevier with Eothen Alapatt

23. Just to Say Goodbye Russ Saul, from Begin To Feel

This bizarro-world George Jones-style country masterpiece is what we should all imagine that we hear whenever Pink Moon by Nick Drake shows up as hold music when you are calling your bank. Johan Kugelberg

A faded stock photo of a seashore, a few vague sentences masquerading as liner notes, and possibly the most careless mastering job in the history of vinyl pressingRuss Sauls Begin To Feel appears upon initial examination to be a record produced without care, delivered without hope. Deeper examination reveals an even direr situation.

Not a true vanity pressing at all, Begin To Feel was in fact, part of a complicated tax-scam scheme perpetrated by a few record labels in 1977, after which time the short-lived loophole in the tax code was closed. In order to make this peculiar scam work, actual dummy stock had to be pressed and stored in a warehouse, though none of it was intended to be actually heard or distributed. The reason for Tributes cavalier attitude as to how the records looked and sounded was simply that these records didnt need to be entertaining in any wayall they had to do was take up space for a set amount of time. Tribute Records was never a functional label, it was the bogus subsidiary of a larger label set up solely for this purpose. The music itself likely came from discarded demo tapes sent in to the parent label by no-name aspiring artists, whose names and song titles were changed to prevent anyone finding out that their music was being used in this way. Russ Saul does not exist; this fraudulent pressing was essentially a con mans prop.

The best songs on this album have an incongruous per-sonal intensity to match the works of some of the most well-respected tortured songwriters. In fact, Russ whoever the hell he is, or was comes across at times as a small-time Hank Williams: soused on even cheaper liquor, drawn

in and battered by even worse women, his lifes work rendered anonymous by tax cheats. This album, with the woeful distribution plan in which its intended destiny was a local landfill, is the vinyl equivalent of the question, If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? For those discerning listeners who have somehow procured an escaped copy of Begin To Feel, the answer is a firm yes! Gregg Turkington

24. Ah, Music Vinny Roma, from Vinny Roma Sings

It just pops in my mind, that some of these records probably make the most convincing statement about what music is. And Im thinking of Vinny Roma, right hereAh, Music. When you hear that, the pleasure you get out of listening to music when you hear that song, you dont even have to think about it, you just go, Ah, okay. Thats beyond the words. That is the real people. That is, like, Ah Music. It just says it, in a totally non-intellectual way. That I dont you know as much as I like all the famous groups and everything like that, theres just something that hits me more immediately with people like this and its something that almost never happens to me, that personal thing like that. Paul Major

Thanks: Larry Clark, Sasha Frere-Jones, J.Rocc, Nemo at Time Lag, Gear Fab, Eabla Records, Gerald Short and Jazzman Records, Roger Boykin, Josh Davis, Mike Vague, Madeline Glenn, William Heitkotter, Jr., Swobo International, Jon Beacham/The Brother In Elysium, Bill Hayden, Jesper Eklow, John Zorn, Mike Davis.

Due to the obscurity of some of the recordings contained within this compilation, we were unable to locate the owners of select master recordings. We have created an escrow account for royalties that come due, and hope that the owners will find out about this compilation and contact us. This approach, though not desirable by any means, is the only way by which we can present some of the music contained here.

If you have any information about any master recording owners, please contact: info@sinecurebooks.com

Produced by Sinecure Books.

Annotated by Johan Kugelberg, Eothen Alapatt, Paul Major, Michael P. Daley, Rob Sevier, Will Louviere, Geoffrey Weiss, Gregg Turkington, Brandan Kearney, Jack Womack, William Gibson, Gabriel Mckee, Jack Streitman, Douglas Mcgowan, Rich Haupt, Mike Ascherman, Keegan Cooke, and Roger Maglio. Vinyl transfers by Josh Bonati Mastering and Will Cameron. Restoration and remastering by Dave Cooley for Elysian Masters, Los Angeles.

Design by Will Cameron and Leigh Graniello.

Vinny Roma. Vinny Roma Sings. [N.p.: No label], 1972. [No cat. no.] Album 1.

In traditional ourobouros style each century makes the culture which makes the century. The 20th is the only one whose popular global culture in toto exists simultaneously, and whose span continues to become ever-more accessible (if never ultimately recoverable).

Most everyone feels the need to create something if not a family then a business, a chest of drawers, a painting, a song. In the popular art of the 20th century lies not its raison dtre but its secret aspirations, its unconscious fears, its buried desires: never entered into the diary but informing every action. The more personal the art, the more revelatory of its era.

These discs are a magnificent collection of lost sounds. Organ-fronted orchestras that make you wish Washington Phillips had gone electric; a few songs imaginable as hits which still never neared any chart, western yodels that somehow become confrontations with other dimensions a la Dormmamu, bouncy numbers reveling in the forthcoming, blood-soaked apocalypse, lounge singers appearing each night at ever-more Nabokovian Holiday Inns. Singularly unforgettable interpretations of hit songs; medulla-deep explorations of a really real cosmos; music seeming to emerge directly from the singers Mark of the Beast all here.

Hard gem-like Walter Pater tells us all art constantly aspires toward the condition of music, for its emotional effect on the audience is immediate (e.g. Heroin, Billy Dont Be A Hero, etc.). Hearing these songs, I think of two things. One, Dr. J.C. Rupps famous quote once again, we have graphically illustrated the fact that we know very little about some aspects of human behavior.*

But mostly: Ah, Music! Jack Womack

*Journal of Forensic Sciences, Vol 18, No. 3, July 1973, The Love Bug.