DeKalb-A-Kopia compilation tape

Does anyone have a sleeve for this? I'm not even sure if I ever made standardized artwork for it, or if they were all done by hand or what.

Anyway what we have here is a very very lo-fi (even for here) C60 compilation taken from live shows in DeKalb, Illinois circa roughly late 2001 to late 2002. All the bands featured were DeKalb-based with the exception of They're Like A Union from Peoria, and Princess Sweepstakes, who were from Carbondale at the time. This was all recorded on my once-trusty portable Sony Tapecorder 800B(apparently Richard Nixon had one too).

Ummm, what else? That drunken moron screaming during like every song is probably me. Corduroy Vomit became Horse Parts in case ya didn't know. Scratch & Sniff catalog number 000. And who knows the missing song titles?

download-a-kopia

1. Shuffleplay & The Mutations - Make It Happen
2. Corduroy Vomit - ?
3. They're Like A Union - ??
4. Honkies With Privileges - 6x/y=HWP
5. Holtron - Holtron Theme
6. Fusco - Stranger Days
7. Hilo - Demographically Yours

8. Melony Ether Missing - ???
9. Icarus Syndrome - Foggy Night
10. Princess Sweepstakes - Black Balloon
11. Bicycle Day - Sing Songs
12. Corduroy Vomit - ????
13. Secret People - Mob Action
14. Hilo - Mint Soda
15. Fusco - Dead End Street
16. Shuffleplay & The Mutations - Go Anywhere Refrigerator

Do Something Day (C-47)

Today we delve into Andy Herald's Roll The Film Tape Co. archives for this trippy little one-off, featuring Andy, Elizabeth Hill and Chris Quaid as accompanied by intermittent woodland spectre types. I'm a bit foggy on the details relayed herein but there's a story to it, and it involves the attempts of an enchanted recorder toting mountain lady to bring watery relief to a drought-ridden enclave of bummer riding dwarves. Or something like that? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Dosomethingday!

There Are Seven Of Them CD-r

Thanks to Joe for loan of this!

777777777777777

Napoleon Blownaparte - NO NUKESKI!

Sorry for the relative inactivity of late, but I should have a whole slew of semilost Scratch n' Sniff hodgepodgery up soon. In the meantime here's some more bent attic jams on this Rugburn cassette from NBA circa summer '06. Much more of a paranoid hippy drum circle sort of feel on this one.

NO NUKESKI

1. Chromatic Box Infant
2. Gnawsome Ruffles
3. Blumpet Twerpy
4. A Better Bleat
5. Know Neuski
6. Krypto Killahs
7. Claws Have Claws Have Claws

8. Plum Drastica
9. Congolese Sweetheart
10. Berghoff By Proxy
11. Aaoowwww

new links as of 12/16/08

Shuffleplay, AEP, Secret People, and Mellowflex - Live At 809 Kimberly 7-21-01

Another deep plunge into the Bob Aspatore archives brings us this eclectic DeKalb apartment show from July 21, 2001, with cool sets all around from Shuffleplay & The Mutations, Alternative Education Program, Secret People and Mellowflex. This happened just three weeks before I moved to DeKalb and met any of these folks! So I obviously missed it and can't comment except to say this is quite a treasure as only the Shuffs ever got around to recording any kind of proper album, and this is way earlier in their development anyhoo. The Secret People set came out briefly as a tape on Scratch and Sniff in addition to a demo but AEP and Mellowflex to my knowledge only had some tracks on the Expiramental Musicians Union comp, which i'll probably get up here someday. Anyone got any comments/insights as pertains to any o' this?

Shuffleplay + AEP + Secret People + Mellowflex


Thanks again to Bob!!!

Della Drive - "A History Of Cold Places" + "Odds And Ends" EPs (new links!)

Here are a couple of splendid early EPs from Paul Kim's always evolving Della Drive project. The first DD collection "Odds And Ends" is just that; some countryish pop tunes, some faintly psychedelic instrumentals, a couple of covers and more. The "History Of Cold Places" cassette was one of the first Rugburn Records releases and features imaginitive reworkings of some of Paul's favorite tunes by other DeKalb/Scratch and Sniff folk, circa 2003. A sweet tribute and yet another PK mini-classic.






Odds And Ends cdr

1. Tired In The Head
2. Late Night Shuttle
3. After Dark
4. Sleepy Eyed Beauty
5. The Morning Sun
6. I'm Blue, I'm Lonesome (Bill Monroe Cover)
7. Lets Move To The Country (Smog Cover)
8. Shimmering
9. Good As Gold

A History Of Cold Places C-24

1. I Felt The Pull (written by Jarbaby)
2. Pretty Kitties (written by Elizabeth Hill)
3. Gaurd Of Grace (written by The Variable Why)
4. Coughs And Colds (written by Justin Bailey)
5. The Little Headhunter (written by Little Headhunter)
6. Birds (written by The Icarus Syndrome)
7. The Emerald City (written by Della Drive)

Thanks to Paul for the "History" scans (and music of course) and to Ryan for the yet-more scans!

Robot Monster - Giant's Day

This is Robot Monster's magnum opus(hahaha) concept album recorded July 21st, 2004, with roomies on tour and every inch of the 320 attic boobytrapped by all manner of broke-ass Rube Goldberg-like sound apparatus. Relates the tale of our well-meaning but ill-tempered hero Giant and his unfortunate proficiency with the metal tray. Or something like that. Of course his ass gets so owned by poisonous-flower-wielding plebs and now dutifully fertilizes 216 acres of lush Iklozhen green, with nary a marking or monument to this once-lumbering fellow in sight.

GIANT'S DAY

1. The Bitter North (Stentoip, Beloved Homeland)
2. Exiled And Sent Forth Nearly In Tears!
3. Assailed By Unwelcoming Townsfolk
4. Gray Insides Leaking Out
>5. Brandish The Metal Tray, Giant
6. A Most Terrible Temper Has Been Unleashed Today
7. Sickly Flower Stabs Giant In Heart
8. Lay His Bones In The Pastures Of Iklozhen

Reckless Triumphant cassingle

Sorry to omit the hand doodled cover for this one, but it says these were recorded July/August 04. Pretty sure using one of these little buggers.

Fugitive
Wyoming Fire

The Oracles "Optimus Grimes"

Here is the 2nd and last album by The Oracles. As far as I know it has still only been released on cassette, though a remastered version is said to be in the works. I'll swap links when the time comes, but this is really fantastic already and much deserving of your attention. The basic tracks were recorded at the tail end of their July 2005 tour in Dan Grimes' folks' garage in Cambridge, Wisconsin. The rest was added over the next year or so as time permitted.

The Oracles were:

Ryan TV Green - Drums
Elizabeth Hill - Bass
Andy Herald - Guitar
Nick Sherman - Guitar Trumpet and Casio
Nat Kundanis Grow - Guitar and Violin

everyone sang and probably did lots of other stuff too!



The Oracles - Optimus Grimes

1. Doracita
2. The Body Electric
3. Montana Monsoon
4, Elli
5. Dodododoooodo
6. Cassiasado
7. Run & Hide
8. Zool

The Variable Why - "Hazard" and "00000011" EPs

A great pair of early Scratch n' Sniff EPs from the Honorary Mayor of DeKalb, Nick Sherman. Will there ever be more?


"00000011" cassette ep

1. Gaurd of Grace
2. Elodium
3. I Love My Computer

"Hazard" cdep

1. Did You Notice I Was Here
2. I Write Terrible Songs
3. The Electrical Storm

The Variable Why

Napoleon Blownapart "Rites Of Passage" C-24

First NBA tape, recorded from July-September of 2006 most likely whilst drinking Hamms...uh I don't think we ever decided what label this came out on.

Rites
(new link)

Coin Operated 3.30.00

Wheee! I nearly splattered my brains today drinking too much coffee while listening to this rad Coin Operated set, our first plunder of what promises to be many from the Bob Aspatore archives...thanks Bob!

Recorded live at Sycamore Theatre on March 30, 2000.

Coin Operated = Matt Dotson on all instruments, sampling and mixing.

The Coin Op website seems to be down at the moment, but check out this slightly dated bio and an interview.

somethin' different

Got home from work with a few random notions of what I would post today, but then found a fix of calm and delight in listening to some handheld tape-recordings of Guatemalan street musicians, as compiled by my friend Bryan Preston (with a mic-cord up his sleeve, as ever) during a brief stay in 2002. Obviously these were made for his own enjoyment and to share with a few interested/expectant friends, and certainly not as any sort of serious ethnomusicalogical whatever undertaking. That said, I find that Bryan's insightful-in-earnest accompanying notes (as will follow this here blather) and the open-air panorama of comfortably unaffected sounds make this as transportative and engrossing to me as anything found smouldering on the shelves of the meticulously annotated and everneglected field recordings at yer local library (if you're lucky, that is).

Street Musicians of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

I recorded these preformers in Guatemala in February and March, 2002. I used a handheld tape recorder which i concealed in my jacket; I ran the microphone cord through my sleeve and held the thimble-size mic between my fingers. I was too embarrassed to approach the performers with my faulty Spanish, but I regret that I did not even try. And the performers I saw in Quetzaltenango may not have spoken Spanish as their first language anyway, as they appeared to have been visiting the city from the countryside. Just a scant generation ago, government death squads roamed this same countryside.

The Sound quality is criminally low.

These are devoted musicians, they played for hours.


Compania J. Sanches Alonzo, Tracks 1-3

1 or 2 marimba players
2 tenor saxaphones
snare, cymbal (bass and toms were not played)
rec. 3 March 2002
These fellows played all day long during a Sunday market at Parque Central, Quetzaltenango; the group was 3 younger guys, 2 middle aged. the sax players sound as if they haven't matched pitch in years. Perhaps the reeds they were using were inherited from their grandparents. The instruments were ragtag & battle-worn, as was the music. In fact, the whole situation seemed to be crumbling, but long ago they had accepted this condition as they did their lack of matching intonation. Only thusly could they so comfortably sound so alien.


family, tracks 4-10

guitar
2-stringed guitarron
maracas
rec. 4 March 2002
They played and sang all afternoon at Parque Central, Quetzaltenango. They appeared to be a family: father on guitar, 7(?) year-old son on guitarron, young teen daughter on maracas, all sang intermittently; the bystander mother occasionally sang while holding a young baby. Traffic sounds accompany this recording; observe how carhorn beeps provide a coincidental syncopated counterpoint to the music near the beginning of track 4. Birds and passersby provide atmosphere throughout. For me, this recording is a portrait of a musical family, essentially hillbillies in the eyes of the cityfolk, surrounded by encroaching and obnoxious urban life. Perhaps the hymns are derived from the activities of white missionaries, but re-interpreted, re-contextualized, etc. The strings of the guitarron looked as if they could have been shoelaces.


Alma Antiguena, track 11

5 guys on 1 marimba
string bass
trap set
rec. 10 Feb 2002
This track is the sound of a tourist marimba group playing outside a restaurant on a sidestreet off the main square of Antigua, Guatemala. They were all older men. A radio station in Quetzaltenango plays traditional-type marimba music for one hour every afternoon (music perhaps typified by Alma Antiguena, tidy, catchy and repetitive). The elder woman of the house in which I was staying seemed to enjoy it, But the younger people I talked to thought it was hokey. They listened to Pink Floyd, "More Than Words" by Extreme, and commercial rap.

Listen (new link)

Down with the body, up with the soul

Icarus Syndrome "Duelling" C-20
(ss029)

1. My Parachute Is Pots And Pans
2. The Medication Fer Don Quixote Downbody Upsoul Blues In E

bonus - Days Of Rest

Definitely one of the hidden treasures of the Scratch and Sniff catalogue here. All sounds recorded by Andy Herald in 2003.

Handmedown Satellites - Clumps

This is the newest HMDS album, Clumps. Reposted for the approximately 5 people who see this that do not frequent the S&S message board, and to stall for time whilst lazily readying future jams, of which there should be several very soon.