Not to be published

Hotcha — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:00:27 +0000

various links for me to remember

Bad Compilation Tapes

Bad Compilation Tapes: still available, after 20 years, and they didn’t even raise their selling price!!!

The Cleaners From Venus

Martin Newell’s got a website? Can’t believe it, but it’s really all his, his english country gentleman style, have to check it out, will take an hour or two, probably. http://www.martinnewell.co.uk/

Third Mind Tapes

Third Mind Records seems to be out of business as well, I found their complete catalogue at discogs, of course: http://www.discogs.com/label/Third+Mind+Records. And here’s a history of the label: http://www.obsolete.com/convulsion/interviews/convulse/2.11.html

Solomonoff & Von Hoffmannstahl

Also found traces of Carola Von Hoffmannstahl, with whom we released the Great In Bed compilation (well, she released it, together with partner David Solomonoff, we collaborated with one track and got the rights to distribute it). http://www.homelandstupidity.us/author/mondoqt/. And this seems to be her personal homepage or something, very bizarre, will take some time: http://www.users.cloud9.net/~drs/index.html

Viscera, Jaffee & McGee

I’ve already posted the link to Hal McGee yesterday, but I will need more time to check out all of the stuff on his site. Sent him a mail asking if I can host Viscera’s Foreign Films on my blog, because he wants to delete it to free the space. What a coincidence, because I was thinking about a way to make this tape available again, I really like it. Maybe also for sentimental reasons, because it was one of the first US-productions that was licenced to Calypso Now for distribution. Well, and he replied immediately his OK! http://www.halmcgee.com/index.html

His partner Debbie Jaffee doesn’t seem to be around anymore, but I’ve found an exhaustive discography, at discogs, of course – seems to be THE database for indies of the 80s, will have to contribute more to it. http://www.discogs.com/artist/Debbie+Jaffe

Zan Hoffman

Also on Discogs I found out that I’m listed as an artist on a dozen titles released by crazy monster madman Zan Hoffman – I remember him as someone who wrote about once a week from the US about new collaborative projects, and it seems he’s turned out several hundreds of tapes, collaborating with everybody and their dog – have to check him out, he’s still on the scene, still crazy after all those years, how the saying goes. http://www.discogs.com/artist/Rudi+Tuscher and http://www.discogs.com/label/ZH27, also http://zanteson.blogspot.com/ and http://zh27.blogspot.com/, also http://zhcollab.blogspot.com/ and http://zhdate.blogspot.com/, even on myspace , here as well (http://www.archive.org/details/zh27) and finally at http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=132112. As Bob Dylan used to say: Oh, Mama, can this really be the end…. Louisville, Kentucky seems to be a good place for creative minds.

Miszellen

Ever wanted to know how the apartment of a die-hard Elvis fan looks like? I found a recording of the moment Radio Luxemburg announced his death, and just by chance one of those Elvis admirers had his video camera turned on. http://video.aol.co.uk/video-detail/the-king-is-dead-the-death-of-elvis-presley-as-announced-on-radio-luxembourg-by-tony-prince/2554320241

Can it be there’s a comeback of 80’s cassette culture? I keep on falling over labels who rerelease stuff on limited vinyl editions, like http://www.punk-disco.com/WSDP.htm, who for instance rerelease tapes by p16.d4 I distributed back then. They don’t seem to have a catalogue, but I found a list at http://www.discogs.com/label/Was+Soll+Das%3F+Schallplatten

Im Zusammenhang mit Swisspunk.ch bin ich übrigens noch auf diese Seite hier gestossen, noch nie gehört, wer hier wohl einkauft? Die Menge erschlägt mich jedenfalls. Swisspunks nächstes Projekt behandelt übrigens die 80er, das wird eine gute Sache, freue mich!

Mastertapes

Found a lot of master tapes in my boxes, like Years On Earth’s third tape Worlds In Collision, or Einstürzende Neubauten Architektur & Geisselnahme, both complete with some remaining original covers, so I have to think about how to release these last copies. Still on the lookout for the master of Nikki Sudden’s tape Beau Geste that he compiled especially for Calypso Now. Lots of great material still around, an estimated 100 master tapes, some from labels long gone, like Trance Port Tapes, where I bought a big box of covers back then, where I still have reel-to-reel high quality masters and dozens of covers, or Blacklight Braille, who sent me unreleased recordings for a Calypso Now release that sold maybe two copies, but are heavily sought after these days.. http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2008/09/blacklight-braille-carmarthenlp1988uk.html, http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2007/04/blacklight-braille-seachangecd1993uk.html, http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=97840218, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Ghazala. What to do with it? Will not be an easy decision.

90 Minutes of 80’s Indies

Hotcha — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:00:27 +0000

You would have guessed it: I did put a day’s worth of digging in my files tapes pix to ensure a lot of follow-ups to the tapes I’ve presented here in the last few weeks. Well, expect some heavy unheard stuff in the near future. But for tonight some ambient cut-ups… Yeah, I used to release catalogues of my tapes on a tape, usually a C-90, so you could cram as much as possible on it. I’ve uploaded one for your listening pleasure. I gave them away for free then, you just had to send a blank tape and return postage. That was the http-protocol of the offline world.

For the techies among you: It was made with an Aiwa Double Decker, the first of its kind, I believe. It was the backbone of my tape production, because it could copy a C-90 in 27 Minutes: both sides at a time at double speed. Plus it had a tiny mixing desk with a microphone input, so you had three separate channels, two for tapes, one for ambient noise or speech. I really miss those cheap simple can-do-alls….

So, that’s what you got here: two sides of the C-90 catalogue, probably from around 1986. Side one is obviously the commercial side, you’ll hear garage bands and above all the wonderful Cleaners From Venus, one of my all time faves, will tell you more soon. Side two takes no prisoners. Some fantastic snippets there. On minute 25 approx. you can hear my then incredibly powerful sax playing – now I know why the more clean punks hated me… Wow, those lungs…

Music for a unforgettable new moon night. Don’t know yet if those tapes are still around, but I really do hope so, mind blowing stuff, you’ll hear. I’ll be back with the news. Don’t hesitate to ask about something specific you heard on the tape.

The Calypso Now Audio Catalogue ~1986

Download audio file (cn cat pt 1.mp3)
Side 1 of C-90 cassette

Download audio file (cn cat pt 2.mp3)
Side 2 of C-90 cassette

Ajust playback volume to 10 and press the play button!

To download right-click Calypso Now Audio Catalogue Side 1
or Calypso Now Audio Catalogue Side 2

Hotcha's Calypso Now Label » Cleaners From Venus