Category: Sunspring

Sunspring – Orange

April 22, 1995

Sunspring
Orange compact disc
[SDK-42] black and white press printed covers

Two months after the close of Slamdek, the final release cleared the tower. Just like Kinghorse’s Too Far Gone, Sunspring’s very posthumous Orange was created years after the group broke up. Orange, when coupled with the Poppy CD, theoretically compiles Sunspring’s entire back catalog and then some. Theoretically, that is, because there are a few holes technically preventing the two discs from being a complete discography.

The very first Sunspring release, the $1.50 Demo, is nowhere to be found on either disc, nor is “Love Somebody” from Written In Rock, or “Eastern Parkway” from Action Eleven. But while Orange slightly lacks in completing the other half where Poppy left off, it excels by including several Sunspring tracks which were previously unreleased and others from non-Slamdek releases. At the time of its release, 22 of its 25 tracks were out of print, making it a valuable, if not essential, resource for Sunspring material.

Orange is basically a compilation of two previous releases, The Sun Cassette and Action Eleven, plus two songs recorded as Diet Sunspring, and two songs recorded at what is referred to as the Last Session.

The Sun Cassette is presented in its entirety, including John Weiss’ secret track, “Starfish Story.” There were two mixes of the original Sun release. The first mix was done at the Slamdek House just after we recorded it in August 1991. The second was done at the Rocket House in November 1991. The Rocket House mix is the better of the two, it’s the most common version, and it’s the one that appears on Orange.

Ten of Action Eleven’s eleven tracks appear on Orange. The missing track, “Eastern Parkway,” was not really a song, but rather a short montage of street sounds I recorded from the Schuster Building apartment I shared with Chad Castetter in the fall of 1992.


A better view of the Orange cartridge pictured on the cover.

In June 1992, John Weiss was in England studying Shakespeare. In his absence, Jason Hayden, a drum machine, and I played a show and recorded six songs under the name Diet Sunspring. John Kampschaefer manned his Tascam cassette eight-track recorder for this project. The two songs we finished and mixed, “Astronaut” and “Diet Zero,” were included on 3 Little Girls Recordings’ first Aftereffects Of Insomnia compilation cassette. I had intended to mix and include the four other Diet Sunspring songs on Orange. But in January 1995 when John Kampschaefer and I got together to mix them, we found that Jason and I had never finished recording all the tracks. The unmixed songs had only the drum machine and bass tracks. The four unfinished recordings were, “Mine,” “Roberts,” “Loaded” (a Crawdad cover), and “Slightly On,” all of which were notably rearranged from their original with-drummer versions.

The Last Session took place at DSL when Forrest Kuhn and Jason Thompson were in the band. It was July 20, 1993, just before our last tour, and we recorded four songs. Two of them were for a Subfusc Records double seven inch compilation, How The Midwest Was Won, which was released that fall. Those songs were “Civic VX” and “I Don’t Like This Anymore.” The other two songs were intended for split seven inches. The first was “Love Somebody,” our Rick Springfield cover for the split with Endpoint. The other was an untitled instrumental for a split seven inch we were doing with Rodan on which the two bands would trade vocalists. That record got buried when Sunspring broke up and Rodan took off on several whirlwind tours of Europe and the United States. I returned to DSL in November 1993 to mix it as an instrumental for a Shakefork Records 10″ compilation. I titled it “Claudia Schiffer” and sent it off. When I tracked down the DAT in Chicago over a year later to compile the Orange master, the tape quality had deteriorated to an unlistenable degree. DAT’s do that a lot. They’re really temperamental little pieces of crap. The version of “Claudia Schiffer” that appears on the CD was taken from a cassette recording I made of the DAT after mixing it in November ’93. There was another mix of “Claudia Schiffer” on the same DAT (“7-a-Side Mix”) which was usable, but it had lots of crazy effects and was less representative of how the song actually sounded.

The creation of the Orange CD was a last minute whim a few days before the Sunspring reunion show at the Brewery Thunderdome, December 30, 1994. John Weiss, Jason Hayden, and I got together, hung out for a while, practiced once and played ten songs, opening for Endpoint’s last show. A few days before the show, the idea hit me that this would be the perfect (and probably last) opportunity to get some of the early Sunspring stuff onto CD. I made several hundred little cards that basically pitched the nonexistent CD in the same personalized, pre-ordering way the Metroschifter LP had been created earlier in the year. I figured that on the night of the show, there would be over 2,000 kids of the “target demographic” in the same room, and if about 10% of those kids were interested enough to send in eleven bucks, we’d be in business. Of course, John at ear X-tacy also pre-bought a bunch of ’em, as did Mike Bucayu at his new Blue Moon record store. And when the order deadline rolled around, January 30, 1995, the cat was in the bag. My personal life was far from the bag, however. So all things considered, it took me another month and a half to shoot the cover photo, get the master tape compiled, finish the artwork, and get it all sent off to Midwest in Dallas who manufactured the discs.


Sunspring reunion show, December 30, 1994 at the Brewery Thunderdome: Scott Ritcher.

I labored over the title for the CD for an entire day while working on the advertisements for it. My first instinct was to use one of Whitney Marlowe’s other names, as her nickname, “Poppy,” had given the other Sunspring CD its name. She had recently changed her name to Tennyson Epping, so Tennyson would be a logical title for Poppy’s companion disc. But as Carrie Osborne’s boyfriend, it might not have been such a smart move for me to name another CD after her high school buddy. I knew I wanted the CD to have an Atari 2600 theme, so it was almost named after my favorite game, Megamania. Then I started thinking of names we almost called other Sunspring records. While working on Action Eleven, I almost changed the name of the band to Louisville, so that was a candidate, and the Slinky 7″ had a host of alternate titles such as Anatomy of a Murder and Orange. I was sick of worrying about it so I went with Orange. Later, I decided to somehow incorporate the title into the Atari 2600 theme. Looking at a bunch of Atari cartridges, I used the Macintosh to create label designs and packaging for a fictitious game called Orange. I spent a lot of time working with colors because I didn’t know whether or not the CD packaging was going to be in color. That would all depend on how many orders came in, which I wouldn’t know until nearly the last minute, and I wanted it to look as realistic as possible. Carrie helped me out a lot one night by letting me “borrow” about six hours’ worth of Macintosh time and color printouts at Kinko’s when I was fine-

tuning the designs. After relabeling River Raid, Fishing Derby, and some other Activision games with labels of the fictitious games Sunspring, Field Hockey, and Orange, I put the cartridges in a dusty box with some other cartridges and shook it up. When the games were realistically beat-up, I took about 30 pictures of them stacked on top of my Atari with other games. In fact, the Megamania game pictured on the front cover is fake, too, which I made so it would look more consistent with the other fake games.

The CD’s arrived in the third week of April, a few days before Kinghorse’s return to the stage. I quickly personalized all of the inserts on my dad’s laser printer, and got them assembled. I alphabetized the discs and took them to the big show at the Grand Theatre in New Albany. The Kids could just come up to the table, state their name, and pick up their disc. About a quarter of the folks who ordered Orange were at the show, and were pleasantly surprised to get their discs that day. The following day, Hilary Newton and I hand-delivered about forty more CD’s to local addresses we recognized or could easily find. Personally distributing the discs at the show and door-to-door saved me over $200.00 in postage. What other record labels do you know of offer personalization and home delivery? The entire pressing of Orange was 1,000 units.

LINER NOTES:

01 Slightly On
02 Incite
03 Desert Song
04 Implode
05 Epitaph
06 Vision
07 Mine
08 Spices and Bones
09 Silver Spring
10 Engage
11 Starfish Story
12 Revolving Door
13 Lump
14 I Don’t Like This Anymore
15 Once In
16 Roadburn
17 Pale
18 Days Before
19 Ten Eighty Three
20 Ground
21 Carrie Osborne’s Song
22 Astronaut
23 Diet Zero
24 Civic VX
25 Claudia Schiffer

Jason Hayden, bass/vocals on 22
Scott Ritcher, guitar/vocals/all instruments on 11-21
John Weiss, drums/vocals on 11
Forrest Kuhn, drums on 24 & 25
Jason Thompson, bass on 24 & 25
John Kampschaefer, real drums on 22

Extra special thanks to: our families, John Kampschaefer, John Timmons, Mike Bucayu, Carrie Osborne, Scott Broadhurst, Stacey Urban, Peter Havranek, King G & the J Krew, Endpoint, Michael Quinlan, Tennyson Epping, faculty and students of Louisville Collegiate School, and all Sunspringers, without whom this would have been impossible.

Endpoint & Sunspring – Written in Rock: Songs of Rick Springfield

December 4, 1993
Endpoint & Sunspring
Written in Rock: Songs of Rick Springfield split seven inch
[SDK-33] photocopied covers and inserts; first 1,000 with translucent vellum overlay, next 500 with two-color photocopied covers


First pressing cover with translucent vellum overlay.

In the summer of 1993, Endpoint and Sunspring teamed up again on several occasions. One of these was a 9,000 mile journey around the United States playing our music for the kids. The other one was this unforgettable seven inch of Rick Springfield covers. Sunspring played a show at the Machine in March, during which we pulled a cover of Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like The Wolf” out of the bag… along with 40 pounds of confetti (three garbage bags full of punched holes Michael Jarboe “borrowed” from Kinko’s). This inspired a conversation between Duncan and I a few weeks later at Baja Bay, a Highlands Mexican restaurant, which transformed from a discussion of great, old songs, to the idea of creating the seven inch you see documented here.

My love for Rick Springfield’s music was no secret. So, as soon as everyone in both bands agreed that the record was a good idea, Sunspring learned the song, “Love Somebody,” a Top 20 hit from the Hard To Hold soundtrack, and scheduled time at DSL. Our rendition was just under three minutes, not including the last note which was held out for two minutes and twenty seconds. Samples from Hard To Hold were layered in over the finale.

Things with Endpoint moved a little more slowly. The original plan was to have both bands record early in the summer, so the record could be pressed and finished before the Endpoint/Sunspring U.S. tour in August. Things didn’t stick to that schedule, however, and Endpoint ran out of time before the tour. By the time the tour was over, things were even farther off the mark. When the nine boys returned to Louisville for a day before the final four-day stretch, Jason Thompson quit Sunspring, prohibiting the band from finishing the remaining dates. Nonetheless, Endpoint finished the tour without us, and finally visited DSL in October to record their song for the seven inch. They tackled “Jessie’s Girl,” Rick’s first million seller and only Number One hit. Endpoint’s version was (swallow) a little grungy, yet unmistakably Endpoint.

August 1993, Endpoint and Sunspring United States Tour in Tucson, Arizona: Scott Ritcher, Kyle Crabtree, Pat McClimans, Rob Pennington, Andy Tinsley, Chad Castetter, Jason Thompson, Forrest Kuhn, Duncan Barlow.

It was a strange picture when the two bands performed their Rick Springfield covers live, almost as if the kids had never heard the songs. This might make sense as some of them were born in the early eighties when the songs were hits. Endpoint played theirs at Tewligans in November shortly before the seven inch came out, while we had played ours at the Machine in July.

Just as the first Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″ demonstrated, the two bands were considerably stylistically different from each other. Endpoint had changed a lot since 1991. They had released another album, Catharsis, on Doghouse, as well as a seven inch of punk rock cover songs, Idiots.

Bassist Kyle Noltemeyer quit in late 1992. Doug Walker of Majority Of One from Toledo, Ohio, filled in on bass for Endpoint’s European tour that winter. Drummer Lee Fetzer had left the group when they returned from Europe in January 1993. He joined Enkindel on guitar. Duncan’s friend Chris Higdon of Falling Forward suggested his cousin, Kyle Crabtree, as a replacement. Kyle wasn’t into hardcore really, but was a powerful drummer. They were in a bind, though, and tried him out.

Kyle learned Endpoint’s set in a week before some north eastern shows they had lined up, and “came through like a champ.” Curtis Mead of Split Lip from Indianapolis took over temporarily in the musical chairs game that was Endpoint’s bass position. After a few months, he retired and Pat McClimans of Scab from Lafayette, Indiana, moved to Louisville to fulfill a dream playing for one of his favorite bands. Kyle and Pat stayed with Endpoint and the lineup didn’t change again between summer 1993 and their last show in December 1994. Of course, the band still included vocalist Rob Pennington, and guitarists Duncan Barlow and Chad Castetter. This lineup recorded the Aftertaste album during the summer of ’93 and The Last Record EP in December ’94. Both of those were also on Doghouse.

Cover of Rick Springfield’s 1988 album Rock Of Life that the cover of the Endpoint/Sunspring 7″ is a takeoff of. Below, second pressing seven inch cover.

Sunspring’s last stand had apparently come and gone. Jason and I got back together in September without Forrest and began writing songs and looking for a new drummer. We wanted to write all new songs and possibly change the name of the band. We began practicing, doing only the most recent Sunspring songs. We first tried Jon Smith, who was exactly the type of drummer we were looking for, but he seemed too busy with other projects. That fell apart after only two practices. A more successful series of practices with John Causey followed. That lasted about a month and a half. Ultimately, it seemed that it might be best to just let it die. Other than a one-show reunion of the Hayden/Ritcher/Weiss lineup in December 1994, Sunspring never played again. Our last show had been August 15, 1993 in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Shortly before the tour began, Chad and I were evicted from the apartment we shared above the Cherokee Animal Clinic at Eastern Parkway and Baxter Avenue. That apartment lasted us about eight months in 1993 during which Slamdek got knocked into a more organized state with the help of Chad and my girlfriend Carrie Osborne, a bright economics major at Bellarmine. Slamdek added a fax machine and beefed-up distribution, actual stock on hand, and revamped the packaging on older releases. The turnaround time on direct mail orders was the shortest it ever was. Needless to say, the loss of the apartment meant the loss of a headquarters for the label. With the upcoming Endpoint/Sunspring tour in August ’93 as an impasse for employment, it also left Chad and I homeless for about a month on either side of the tour. My mom and Carrie took care of mail orders during the tour.

While on the tour, Pat and I grew to be great friends. Afterwards, I returned to work at ear X-tacy and moved into the apartment at 2217 Grinstead with Duncan, Kyle Noltemeyer, and Matt Loeser. This lasted until December when I moved into a house at 1233 Bardstown Road with Layla Smith and Carrie. Pat moved into the Grinstead apartment and stopped by our house often on his way to and from work at Mid City Mall’s Subway. He became a major player in Slamdek. The time was right for him to come in and fill the absence left when I lost the apartment with Chad. Pat and I worked on filling mail orders, assembling records, listening to Steve Martin albums, and recording parodies of Shelter songs under the name Shitler (“In Depants of Regularity” and “The Ooze”).

The cover artwork for Written In Rock was modeled after, or rather stolen, from Rick Springfield’s last album Rock Of Life, released in 1988 on RCA. As well, the seven inch is named for a song from his 1985 masterpiece, Tao. The seven inch received a good deal of verbal questioning looks from reviewers, but one particular review stands out in retrospect. That review was praise and endorsement from a summer ’94 edition of RLS: Rick’s Loyal Supporters, the quarterly newsletter of the Rick Springfield fan club. Now that was pretty cool. The newsletter even reprinted the liner notes from the seven inch. Written In Rock’s liner notes consist of a fourteen-paragraph biography of Rick and an explanation of his importance to Endpoint and Sunspring. An additional insert to the seven inch was a lengthy story of the Endpoint/Sunspring U.S. tour, complete with photos. The record also included a CD discography listing for both bands and Rick Springfield.


August 1994, Endpoint in California: Rob Pennington.

The first pressing of Written In Rock was 1,000 units, 900 on black vinyl, and 100 on clear. The covers were solid light grey cardstock copied on the Xerox 5090. The titles were not printed on the cover itself, but rather on a square sheet of translucent vellum paper placed in front of the actual cover. This paper, in addition to being particularly expensive, had to be visually monitored as the copies were being run. Afterward, each sheet had to be individually hand-cut. Michael Jarboe and Carrie oversaw the copying at Bardstown Road’s Kinko’s at Stevens Avenue. Pat and I later enjoyed the cutting and folding process. Thommy Browne also stopped by the house to help assemble records on a few occasions. Because of the uniqueness and expense of the vellum paper, I took full advantage of it. It came in 8.5″x11″ sheets. Obviously, a seven inch cover being cut out of the sheet leaves a 4″x8.5″ piece of unused area. In this area, I had two 4″x4″ cassette covers printed. One was for The Telephone Man’s SDK-35 cassette, and the other was for an upcoming LG&E cassette. Only about fifteen of the T-Man covers were used, but all of the LG&E cassettes came from this batch of translucent vellum.

The second pressing was 500 units, some of which were still around when Slamdek went out of business. All of those were on black vinyl. The covers were slightly different. Due to the expense, the translucent vellum overlays were 86-ed for the second pressing. Instead, they were photocopied on the same light grey cardstock with the titles in black and the photo in brown. This brought the total units in circulation to 1,500. Both bands later released retrospective CD’s of their previous work on Slamdek. But to avoid dealing with calculating royalties and all that nonsense, neither band included their Rick Springfield song on their CD anthologies.
Engineered by Mike Baker. Recorded at Dave Stewart Land.

LINER NOTES:

Endpoint side:
Jessie’s Girl

Sunspring side:
Love Somebody

Special thanks to: ear X-tacy Records, John Timmons, Jeffrey Lee Puckett, Mary & Allan Ritcher, Chris Higdon, Mark Damron.

Endpoint:
Duncan Barlow, guitar
Chad Castetter, guitar
Kyle Crabtree, drums
Rob Pennington, vocals
Pat McClimans, bass

Sunspring:
Forrest Kuhn, drums
Scott Ritcher, guitar/vocals
Jason Thompson, bass

The Slamdek Record Companyslamdek.com
K Composite Media,

Sunspring – Poppy

June 4, 1993

Sunspring
Poppy cassette & compact disc
[SDK-31] CD: four color process printed inserts. Cassette: laser-printed one-of-a-kind inserts in books-on-tape long box, laser-printed labels

Sunspring PoppyThe “new” Sunspring entered the studio in January 1993 to record an album after having been together a little over three months. I called Mike Baker who was operating DSL studio in Jeffersontown and asked him if he’d be interested in recording the band. I really liked the clean, full, accessible sound David Stewart was able to get for Hopscotch Army’s recordings, and I was interested in taking the same approach. Nearly everything on Slamdek, and nearly every local punk record up to that point, had been recorded fairly quickly. That is, within a couple days. A band would walk into the studio, set up their equipment, the engineer would set up the microphones, and they’d start recording.

Under David’s guidance, Hopscotch Army would set up their equipment, set up microphones, and then begin working on tones. “Working on tones” is the process of listening to the way instruments sound through the recording equipment, then fine tuning those sounds. Hopscotch Army approached the recording process from a very involved standpoint of creating sounds on a whole, rather than as simply documenting their songs to tape. Setting up and working on instrument tones could sometimes take several days before a single note was ever recorded. After the recording process was finished, mixing was also approached as an ongoing and precise process. Among other features, DSL was equipped with a computerized, automated mixing system. Using it, the levels for mixing were set as they ordinarily would be during mixing, except that they were set into computer instead of using the physical mixing board. If certain instruments had to be louder or quieter during any certain part of a song, those level changes could be programmed. The songs went through many mixing “practices,” during which changes could be made. There was no guesswork when the songs actually went to the master tape. Everyone in the room could hear the final version play before it was set in stone. I was fascinated by this approach to recording and mixing, and was very interested in how Sunspring’s brash, dissonant style would sound if fed through this process. Dare we say, building it cleanly and crisply as a pop album.

Mike told me that he’d be interested in working on the Sunspring album. In fact, Mike told me that he and David were interested in bringing more bands in to have DSL function as any normal studio. If the Sunspring album were to turn out well, a whole new side of Louisville’s music scene would be interested in the studio. On the telephone, over a month before Sunspring entered the studio, Mike and I discussed our ideas for the recording process. The band was drawing fairly good sized crowds at our shows and as a result we had the kind of money available to invest in this time-consuming recording process.

We finally entered the studio January 5, 1993. The majority of tones were knocked out the first day. On January 7, the rest of the sound was ironed out and recording of basic tracks began. This continued the following day, with vocals and extra guitar tracks being taken care of the day after that. After spending 23 hours across four days, the instruments and vocals for all twelve songs had been recorded; about 33 minutes of music. We were suffering from sensory overload and decided to take a break before mixing the record.

We returned to DSL about a month later, February 6, to begin the mixing process. Mixing the as-yet-untitled album took nearly as long as recording it; about 17 hours in three days. Some of these hours were also spent laying an assortment of samples into the songs. More than half of the album’s songs are touched by borrowed sounds which range from a radio relay of Soviet Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dying upon reentry in Soyuz 1 (between “First Sip Of Coffee” and “Name”) to a CD of the band Spectrum being scanned (beginning of “Lump”) to strategically placed single piano notes (“Mine”) to Bob of Bob’s RV’s on The Simpsons (during the fade out of “Lump”) to a subtle Elvis Presley thanking his audience (end of “Diet Zero”) to a snippet of Poppy’s SMPTE timecode track (beginning of “One Box Of Answers”). Ex-Sunspring drummer John Weiss came back from American University in December 1992, and was still in town when Sunspring was recording Poppy. He stopped by DSL to hear how the band had evolved on the day we were recording vocals. As a result of his visit, John’s voice is heard (along with some hilarious, demonic effects) as a two second guest vocal for the words “just once” during “Slightly On.”

Mixing was completed on February 8, bringing the total cost of the $25 an hour recording process to $1,006.25, about $85 per song, or fifty cents per second. We focused on playing some shows to raise money to get the CD’s made, an expense we shared with Slamdek. Break Even Point was still planning a vinyl issue of the album in Europe, but couldn’t offer any money to help pay for recording. When this news came over, we discussed whether or not Break Even Point should even be allowed to make the record. Sunspring didn’t have a contract with the label, so neither side was bound to give the other anything. No one had certainly forgotten the great story of when B.E.P. put out explaining of which could be an entire book in itself. Two Ross Perot-esque chart graphs accompany the lyrics. “Growth In U.S. Productivity” gives a decade-by-decade history of its declining total: 1961-70, 32.6%; 1971-80, 13.3%; 1981-90, 11.3%. Contrasting it on the next page is “Total U.S. Federal Debt In Trillions of Dollars” which is between $0 and $1 trillion from 1970 to 1981, then skyrockets, quadrupling to over $4 trillion in 1992. The cover also features two band photos taken by Michael Jarboe at Sunspring practice in January, a small ear X-tacy advertisement, a detailed track listing with exact times for all 30 tracks, the lyrics to the twelve album songs, and an empty yellow rectangle with the leader, “This CD belongs to:”

June 4, 1993, Sunspring at the Machine: Jason Thompson.

When everything was finally ready, it was shipped off to American Helix in Lancaster, Pennsylvania who did the printing and manufactured the discs. About two and a half months later, June 4, 1993, the CD’s arrived. Luckily, the delivery was made on the same day we were playing the first show of a tour in Louisville. The show at the Machine was with Endpoint, Telephone Man, and Worlds Collide. To a sold out house, we sold over fifty (of ear X-tacy’s) copies of the CD that night, as well as four dozen shirts, and we were paid $1,100 for playing. This sum plus all the merchandise was not only a rare occurrence that never repeated itself, but also paid back a huge amount of the money we borrowed to get the CD’s made. The spirits were willing, so to speak.

In August 1993, the we put together a gift to the faculty and students of Louisville Collegiate School commemorating the immortalization of school’s stairway on Sunspring’s album cover. The framed letter, which now hangs in the lobby of the upper school, around the corner from the actual stairway, includes a copy of the CD and its cover. It reads,

Dear Mr. Selvig, Students and Faculty of Louisville Collegiate School,
You probably recogize this picture as being taken in your Upper School stairway. Between classes one day in 1988, a few members of Collegiate’s Class of 1990 took a break there. By chance there was a camera in a book bag, and Carrie Osborne snapped this picture of Whitney “Poppy” Marlowe reflecting on the day’s events. Whitney’s split-second of thought was captured forever.

After five years of residing in Carrie’s photo album, the picture was stumbled upon. Shortly after, it was selected to grace the cover of Sunspring’s first album. For lack of an album title, Whitney’s high school nickname “Poppy” was chosen.

For Sunspring, this image represents our ideas very well. The uniform reminds us that we are all ultimately equal. Her exceptionally white socks assure us that we are lucky in having such luxuries . . . yet her expression doesn’t let us forget that our inner thoughts and feelings remain our most valuable assets. We have also certainly not forgotten that one of Sunspring’s first performances, April 1991, took place in Collegiate’s gym.

Through Slamdek and Cargo Records America, Inc. of Chicago, Sunspring’s “Poppy” CD’s and cassettes have sold throughout the United States and Canada. Break Even Point Recordsof Italy has issued a European version of the album as a 12” vinyl LP. Every single copy of every version of the album sold worldwide carries this familiar image of Louisville Collegiate School.

We would like this gift to stand as an expression of our gratitude. For today and every day that somebody sees the cover of “Poppy” and thinks of Collegiate, or any time someone passes through the Upper School stairway and thinks of Sunspring, we thank you.

It’s dated August 30, 1993, and signed by the three band members. Those of you keeping score and paying attention out there may have noticed a few embarrassing discrepancies. In the first line the word “recognize” is spelled wrong. Pretty impressive when you’re writing a letter to a school. And the third paragraph refers to “one of Sunspring’s first performances, April 1991…in Collegiate’s gym. We all know from earlier in the book that the show was May 10, 1991, in Collegiate’s auditorium. Right? Duh.

Another tribute to the school was a Sunspring t-shirt design which was a takeoff on the infamous Collegiate gold P.E. shirt. The back of the shirt listed all of Sunspring’s shows, along with who was in the band, what other bands played, where the show was, and how much we got paid for playing. These shirts were made in November 1993, a few months after the band broke up.

Other than the seven songs called “Twit” and the twelve-song album, the Poppy CD includes eleven additional bonus tracks. Those songs are the Slinky 7″, “House” (the Cerebellum cover from Merry Christmas), the Sunspring side of the Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″, and the four songs recorded November 30, 1994 at Sound On Sound: “Diet Zero,” “First Sip Of Coffee (Noisy Mix),” “Revolving Door (Turbo),” and “Roadburn.” The modifier “Noisy Mix” designates it as a slightly different mix of the same recording which appeared on Aftereffects of Insomnia, Volume 2. And “Turbo” was added to “Revolving Door” simply because the version is especially unintentionally fast. The version of “Roadburn” is the same one that opens Slamdek Merry Christmas Is For Rockers.

The first order of Poppy discs was 1,000 units, all of which sold during the first year. A second batch of 500 was manufactured in spring 1994 at a different pressing plant, Zomax, as American Helix had been bought by KAO Optimedia and no longer worked in orders of less than 10,000. When CD’s are manufactured, two different glass mastering processes can be done. One is the most common, least expensive, and has a total playing time of 74 minutes. The other is more expensive and can add six additional minutes to the program. The original order of Poppy CD’s was of the 80-minute variety. When the second order was placed and the mechanical parts had to be shipped to another plant, the new plant could not make 80-minute CD’s. Well, they could, but they would have to completely remaster the disc, at an additional cost of $600. At the time, Slamdek was on a very tight budget (as it almost always was), and I opted to just delete the last two songs rather than delay the repressing longer while more money could be raised. Without the last two songs, the disc still boasted 28 songs in 73 minutes. Still a great deal for ten bucks. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t really feel like any song was worth $300, especially those two.

The Slamdek cassette version of Poppy is fairly rare, having sold only 56 copies. About a dozen were made with a color-copied cover design similar to the CD. The remainder were all one of a kind. Matt Ronay had been playing with feeding unusual paper (like random magazine pages) through his laser printer. I caught on to this idea and made a bunch of Sunspring tape covers this way. They were mostly pages out of one of my sister’s high school German textbooks, foreign fashion magazines, and paper samples Matt and I collected on a visit to Fetter Printing while planning the Ennui 7″ cover.

Break Even Point’s vinyl LP was finally released in September 1993, about a month after the band broke up. The Italian label sent fifty copies and everyone in Sunspring finally had their wish fulfilled of being on an actual vinyl album. Unfortunately, B.E.P. totally cheesed out and printed the album jackets in black and white. I had sent an intentionally low resolution version of the cover photo of Whitney which was to be printed at about 25 lines per inch. That is, with very big dots. The black and white covers were printed at normal resolution and look really jaggy. Completely not the desired effect. Other than the first box of fifty records, not another cent has found its way across thw ocean, nor has any report of the quantities that the vinyl version of Poppy sold. And that’s not to insinuate that any news or payments would not be welcomed now.

LINER NOTES:

Side one:
Christmas Morning 2:50
Time Bomb 2:30
First Sip Of Coffee 2:43
Name 4:10
Diet Zero 2:50
Slightly On 1:53

Side two:
Mine 4:34
Lump 2:32
One Box Of Answers 2:33
Street 2:08
Revolving Door 2:08
Lay Low 2:53

Compact disc track listing:
(01-12 Poppy LP)
01 Christmas Morning 2:50
02 Time Bomb 2:30
03 First Sip Of Coffee 2:43
04 Name 4:10
05 Diet Zero 2:50
06 Slightly On 1:53
07 Mine 4:34
08 Lump 2:32
09 One Box Of Answers 2:33
10 Street 2:08
11 Revolving Door 2:08
12 Lay Low 2:53
(13-19 Twit CD-only cuts)
13 Twit, Faceless Carrie 0:45
14 Twit, Punch Out 0:16
15 Twit, Apples 0:33
16 Twit, I Love K Composite 0:39
17 Twit, USA Nylon 3:00
18 Twit, Rob Pennington 0:24
19 Twit, Rave Is Stupid 3:53
(20-23 Slinky 7″ + 1)
20 Faceless 2:07
21a House, edit 4:05
21b Magnet 2:34
22 Christmas Morning 3:28
23 Street 3:15
(24-26 Split 7″)
24 Don’t Just Stand There 2:46
25 Silver Spring 1:29
26 Kendall Ann Costich 1:49
(27-30 Howie 92 Demos)
27 Diet Zero 2:55
28 First Sip Of Coffee, noisy mix 2:44
29 Revolving Door, turbo 2:35
30 Roadburn 2:55

Forrest Kuhn, drums
K. Scott Ritcher, guitar/vocals
Jason Thompson, bass

Recorded and engineered by Mike Baker at DSL.

Thank you: Dr. Kuhn, Elizabeth Kuhn, Robyn Craxton, John “Ticketmaster” Timmons, Miss Carrie Elisabeth “Valentine’s Day” Osborne, Kevin Quan, Tony “Cutie” Cox, Amy Riddel, Princess Layla “Ler” Smith, Victor “Vince” Jory, Chris Barber, Joey “Fixing Do Charge” Mudd, Jane Staussberg, Mike Huggins, Chad “Drumstick” Harrison, Heather Shea, Derrick “Grassy” Snodgrass, Jer, Tim “Hard Drive” Furnish, Brian “Nice Hair Buddy” Vihldahl, Andy “Tweedle Dumbest” Lawrence, Josh “Let’s Make a Deal” Sachs, Jason Yann, Chad “Naugahide Gem” Castetter, Duncan “Pepsi” Barlow, Newt, Michael “Screenin’ Fool” Jarboe, Kyle “Wireless” Noltemeyer, Mike Thompson, Dave “Fuck You” Cook, Mary “Jane Fonda” and Allan “Techno Poppy” Ritcher, Hopscotch Motherfuckin Army, Nintendo, Super NES, Sega Game Gear, Adam + Scott n’ Steve from the Sancred Organization, Jon “50% of the door” Cook, Kill, Telephone Man, Jason “Thanks for not showing me how to play bass” Hayden, Mark “Sports Bar” Ritcher, Johnny “Takin’ Care of Business” Weiss, Stan Starks and Channel 15 WKPC TV, Giuliano “BEP931213” Calza, VSC, Kim (berly) Suzanne “Blow it out Your Ass” Coletta, SEG, Matthew Moore “Ron Barn” Ronay, Greta “Harvest” Ritcher, Kendall “Bubblegum” Costich, Atari and 2600 players everywhere, Betsy “Retarded Chicken” Porter, Chris “Bakta School” Higdon, Claudia “You never call me anymore” Schiffer, Nancy “Is Fat” Sud, Billy Hughes is a liar, Jesus Rosebud and Goober the Baptist, Alice Jane “Ner” Davenport, Rob “No More Beans” Pennington, Lee “Seconds” Fetzer, Samantha “Big House” Axton, Jeff “Aquatic Expert” Mueller, Kimber J. “First Sip Of Coffee” Sampson, Edward “90210” Lutz, Edith Marie “No nickname is worse than Edith” Hendren, Jay “Tic Tac Toe” Robbins, Will “Winga Winga Winga” Chatham, Superstar Francy Yingling and Tucker and Curtis, Mindy “Mallbait” Shapero, Vince Meese, Jason “Won-Ton” Newman, Carrie “Pacer” Newman, Ms. Kari “Bananas” Alford, Roadblock, Bill “Cock and Balls” Barbot, LG&E, Gary Collard, Annie “Freak” Nelson, Brad Kremer, Rat S. Garrison, Timothy “Aaahhhh” Moss, Kecia “I’ll talk you down” Middleton and all the nice people of The Machine, Mike Hardin, Tom “Yeah Thomas” Hornung, Sue SxE Leach, Mike “Junior Achievement” Bucayu, Speedy Beaver, Andy “From Endpoint” Tinsley, Lisa “New Mexico” Sainz, Andy and Libby Polk, Jeremy “the willpower of Richard Simmons” Podgursky, Kyle “Sweatshirt” Tabler, El Jefe, Jason “110% Loud” Noble, Guyton & McGee, Danny “The Beast” Flanigan, Kristin “Psycho Magnet” Wilhelm, Simon “The Longer One” Furnish, Shaggy, Jay and Gary, Whitney “Poppy” Marlowe, Colonel Nathaniel Breckenridge “Loverbones” Pipes, Robin “That’s alright Blair” Wallace, Howell “Don’t touch that” Gano, Christi “Arruba” Canfield, and everyone else who has helped, supported, inspired and loved us.

Slamdek Singles

March 24, 1993

Slamdek Singles
compiled seven inches and cassette EP’s plus unreleased material, 1989-1992
various artists two-cassette set
[SDK-32] transparent color copied covers, books-on-tape long box with inserted 8-page booklet

The Slamdek Singles box set was a great idea with beautiful packaging, but also a victim of bad circumstances. Its length of 35 songs in 101 minutes, took an average of nearly a half hour of machine time to record each set. Its expensive, transparent, full color packaging increased its price even more than its two tapes did. It became a specialty item as it had to be kept on the store counter. Its small size and high price tag of around $16 made it too easy to steal.

The diversity of the material it included took several months to compile and assemble for release as a single unit. Slamdek Singles had been in the works since late 1992. Its liner notes include the lyrics to all 35 songs, as well as complete discography, personnel, and production listings for each group. And other than the convenience and novelty of putting all the songs together, the set had a purpose.

“The Slamdek Singles two tape set is the result of several years of dedication, emotion, and hard work by many people. The short 101 minutes that it plays are miniscule in comparison to the time and effort needed to reach this milestone. The songs compiled here are provided as either previously unavailable, currently out of print, or never before issued on cassette. They have all been transferred directly from the original digital masters.”

Slamdek Singles compiled all of Slamdek’s essential EP’s released between 1989 and 1992. This consisted of: the Crain/Deathwatch 7″, the first Endpoint/Sunspring 7″, the Your Face cassette, Sunspring’s Slinky 7″, Ennui’s Olive 7″, and the Jawbox cassette. Its previously unavailable material consisted of two tracks by Sister Shannon, plus one from Christmas 1990; two tracks by LG&E, plus one from Slamdek Merry Christmas Is For Rockers; and two tracks from Ennui, combined with their track from Rockers and their Olive 7″, thus presenting all seven songs they recorded. And the Ennui tracks are incidentally presented in the order in which they were recorded, rather than in the sequence of their seven inch. Are you getting all this?

A production snag occurred when the Sister Shannon DAT could not be located. The unreleased Sister Shannon tracks were one of my main interests in putting the collection together. After several days of phone calls, it turned up at DSL. Another snag came up when one of my two DAT machines was not working properly. I asked John Kampschaefer for his assistance at the last minute, and he graciously obliged. A majority of the digital sequence editing was done in John Kampschaefer’s parents’ basement.

There are some Slamdek EP’s released between ’89 and ’92 which are missing from the collection. They are, the Cerebellum cassette, which was still in print when Slamdek Singles was created, and three EP’s which were left off of the compilation because they had been released to cater to the special interests of selective audiences, Crawdad’s Loaded, the 7 More Seconds cassette, and Sunspring’s $1.50 Demo. The back outside panel of the package has a brief historical introduction, “The Slamdek Record Company began in November 1986 with the release of a cassette by Pink Aftershock. Since then, a combination of thirty-one more cassettes, seven inches, digital audio tapes, videocassettes, and compact discs have been released encompassing a wide range of sounds and ideas. This two tape set compiles most of the cassette EP’s and all the seven inches from the past four years. Also included is a valuable amount of previously unissued material, as well as photographs and the lyrics to all thirty-five songs. Slamdek Singles is the small result of the huge amount of dedication the bands in Louisville (and beyond) share. The time, effort, emotion, and memories that are part of this milestone are things on which no one could ever put a price.”

The lengthy liner notes are synopsized here. And naturally, the discographies are no longer current. Any clarifications and lyrical excerpts are [in brackets]:


The very expensive, full color, transparent books-on-tape long box packaging of Slamdek Singles helped the two tape set meet an early demise. Back cover photo is of Robin Wallace, Todd Smith, and Scott Ritcher at Juniper Hill during the Your Face session in 1988.

SIDE ONE:

Deathwatch: Ignorance Downfall, Wool, Dignity.
Rob Pennington vocals, Duncan Barlow guitar, Greg Carmichael guitar, Rusty Sohm drums, Jason Graff bass.

These songs: Recorded at ARS, Barret Avenue, February 1988. Released as one side of the Crain/Deathwatch split 7″. The record was a limited edition of 300 copies which were given away at a Crain, Endpoint, and Sister Shannon show at the Zodiac Club, September 7, 1990. Deathwatch became Endpoint later in 1988.

Deathwatch Discography:
•Deathwatch cassette, self-released, February 1988, out of print
•Crain/Deathwatch split 7″, Slamdek No. 9790, September 1990, limited edition

[“Punk rock is now a fashion show. You’ve got your boots, so black they glow. Hair stuck up with a can of spray. Punk rock, hardcore, it’s all the same. You’ve got your boots, but what’s to show?”]

Endpoint: Promise, Priorities.
Rob Pennington vocals, Duncan Barlow guitar, Chad Castetter guitar, Lee Fetzer drums, Jason Hayden bass.

These songs: Recorded at Sound On Sound, Frankfort Avenue, November 1990. Produced by Howie Gano and the EPA. Released on the Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″

Endpoint Discography:
•If The Spirits Are Willing cassette/DAT, Slamdek No. 9 (prev. 1797), June 1989
•Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″, Slamdek No. 21, March 1991
•In A Time Of Hate LP/cassette, Conversion No. 10, June 1991
•Catharsis LP/CD, Doghouse No. 10, August 1992
•EP2 live 7″, Break Even Point No. 7, November 1992
•Idiots 7″ of cover songs, Doghouse No. 15, December 1992, limited edition

[“Love is gone, locked from your heart. Lust is strong, it’s all you feel. Close your mind to all commitment, you broke her will. Relationship, a mountain we climbed, fell to an immoral world.”]

Your Face: Magenta Bent, Old Hat New Hat.
Robin Wallace vocals, Greta Ritcher guitar, Tishy Quesenberry drums, Dawn Hill bass.

These songs: Recorded at Juniper Hill Creative Audio, December 1988. Released as a cassette single, this was their only release.

Your Face Discography:
•Magenta Bent cassette single, Slamdek No. 1550, January 1989, out of print.

[“Would it make you feel good to see tears running down his face? Howling with a mad delight, you put him in his place. Revenge is something you can touch, the water in his eyes. Throw it back into his lap, all those little lies.”]

Sister Shannon: Carolina, Haint, Goreman.
Robin Wallace vocals, Greta Ritcher guitar, Kevin Coultas drums, David Ernst bass.

These songs: Recorded in Kevin’s parents’ basement live to digital two track [DAT], December 1990. Produced by K. Scott Ritcher and Dave Ernst. “Goreman” appeared on the 1990 Slamdek Christmas tape, and the band broke up in early 1991. [Sister
Shannon was named after Sacred Heart Academy’s Dean of Students, Sister Shannon Maguire.]

Sister Shannon Discography:
•none released

[“Tied on her back, down on a quilt, where fear becomes a sweat stain. That’s all I know about tacks and thumbs. It’s the same as sex or being raped. The hot metal of his weapon says go girl go girl go girl. Dig the pelvic ditch. Carolina… The fetid swamp sits there on the fact that should be fiction. This cracked man dips into his gun powder, dipping in the handfuls of sweet sweet misery, to eat like rock candy and rot her teeth. Carolina… Too close now to examine the heat from his fingers. He pouts into the metal of his misogynist weapon, no one sees his mercy. This cracked man, oh this cracked man. Gonna take me down. Carolina…”]

SIDE TWO:

Sunspring: Don’t Just Stand There, Silver Spring, Kendall, Faceless, Magnet, Christmas Morning, Street.
K. Scott Ritcher guitar/vocals, John Weiss drums, Chad Castetter bass on 1-3, Jason Hayden bass on 4-7.

These songs: Recorded at Sound On Sound. “Don’t Just Stand There,” “Silver Spring,” and “Kendall” produced by Howie Gano and K. Scott Ritcher, March 1991. Released on the Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″. The other four songs produced by Howie Gano, November 1991. Released as the Slinky 7″.

Sunspring Discography:
•$1.50 Demo cassette, Slamdek No. 3950, April 1990, out of print
•Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″, Slamdek No. 21, March 1991
•Sun cassette, Slamdek No. 24, August 1991
•Slinky 7″, Slamdek No. 26, March 1992
•Action Eleven cassette, Slamdek No. 29, October 1992, limited edition
•Poppy CD/cassette, Slamdek No. 31, April 1993 [actual release in June]
•Poppy LP, Break Even Point No. 931213, April 1993 [actual release in September]

[“I want so much to own nothing. Give me just a piece of just what I want. I’ve had it easy but I’ve made it hard. I’ve thwarted my very own efforts. You are no one, you are nothing. I always knew you hated me. You were easy but I made you hard. I made you a street that I avoided. We are everything we want to be. We never stop to think. I was sure you were the mine I thought you were, but now I’m caught with my foot on the trigger.”]

LG&E: First, Second, Third.
Duncan Barlow instruments/vocals, K. Scott Ritcher instruments/vocals.

These songs: Recorded at Slamdek, Eastern Parkway, October 1992. Produced by LG&E, except “Third” recorded March 1993 on 4 track. “First” appears on Slamdek Merry Christmas is for Rockers cassette, 1992.

LG&E Discography:
•none released

[“In the open fields, kissed by fall’s cool winds, a boy shatters the horizon. Short and somewhat stalky, his red hair blazes like fire against the charcoal gray skies that hang over the field. The rain promised a better harvest for the townsfolk, but the harvest of the boy’s soul is dry and weary. A raindrop falls on his nose, breaking his world of tranquility,
but never his realm of fascination.”]

SIDE THREE:
Ennui: Slugs, Two Headed Cow, Ennui, Gun?, Alkaline, 34 Page Book, Translucent.
Matt Ronay vocals, Lane Sparber guitar, Tim Houchin bass, Forrest Kuhn drums.

These songs: Recorded at WGNS, 13th Street (Arlington, VA), May 1992. Produced by Geoff Turner and K. Scott Ritcher. “Alkaline,” “34 Page Book,” “Ennui,” and “Translucent” comprise the Olive 7″. “Gun?” appears on Slamdek Merry Christmas is for Rockers cassette, 1992. “Two Headed Cow” and “Slugs” are previously unavailable. Ennui disbanded during summer 1992.

Ennui Discography:
•Olive 7″, Slamdek No. 27, September 1992

[“Sometimes when I wanna go, I stop and stare and reflect back to the times when I was switching body parts on G.I. Joe’s and killing birds with guns. Leah’s birthday’s brownies we rolled them up, put them on a chair. Lunch ladies’ eyes always bearing down on us. Disobedient, carefree, irresponsible, and burning slugs with Tim.”]

SIDE FOUR:
Jawbox: Twister, Ballast, Bullet Park, Tools & Chrome, Secret History.
Jay Robbins guitar/vocals, Kim Coletta bass, Adam Wade drums.

These songs: Recorded at Upland Studio (Arlington, VA), January 1990. Recorded by Barret Jones, produced by Alferd Packer. All songs except “Bullet Park” comprised the first Jawbox 7″ on DeSoto Records which was released simultaneously with the Slamdek cassette. Slamdek’s extra cut is a tambourine-less mix of its recording for a Maximumrocknroll compilation. Jawbox is, so far, the only non-Louisville band to be released on Slamdek.

Jawbox Discography:
•Jawbox cassette, Slamdek No. 1782, April 1990, out of print
•Jawbox 7″, DeSoto No. 2, May 1990, out of print
•Grippe LP/cassette/CD, Dischord No. 52, June 1991
•Ones + Zeros 7″, Dischord No. 61, March 1992
•Novelty LP/cassette/CD, Dischord No. 69, August 1992
•Tar/Jawbox Static split 7″, Touch and Go/Dischord, February 1993
•Jackpot Plus! 7″, Dischord No. 77, February 1993

[“Blood marks the road where the animal left its life behind, in a red stain that the rain will wash away. Fall of night foretold, sky colors like a bruise, and I think of ones I used to know and the paths they had to choose. For we are born and we remain forever trapped inside our heads, alone. No human chords are struck without a resonance in other lives, but the echoes we hold onto seem as arbitrary as the times.”]

Crain: The Fuse, Proposed Production.
Joey Mudd vocals on “Proposed Production,” Tim Furnish guitar, Jon Cook bass, Will Chatham drums, Drew Daniel vocals on “The Fuse”

These songs: Recorded at Sound On Sound, January 1990. Recorded by Howie Gano. Released on the Crain/Deathwatch split 7″. Three other songs from this same 17-song session were part of the Rocket 7″ released later.

Crain Discography:
•Crain/Deathwatch split 7″, Slamdek No. 9790, September 1990, limited edition
•Rocket 7″, Automatic (Liability) No. 1, April 1991, out of print
•Speed LP/cassette, Automatic (Liability) No. 3, May 1992

[“They said the newspaper, it could never lie, but they hid the truth about the way she died. Asked mother how it happened, she said she wasn’t sure. It’s a strange disease that finds its own cure. I can project my own reasons, I can speculate, how grandmother fell into such a state. Mother made me swear I wouldn’t go that way. A promise is a promise is a promise that I shouldn’t have made.”]

After the four months it took to assemble, Slamdek Singles met an early fate after about two months of release. Fewer than fifty units of it had been manufactured when Sunspring’s upcoming Poppy CD helped to do it in, in more ways than one. The first way was financially, as virtually all the money coming in from sales of all Slamdek releases was being allocated to help pay for manufacturing the very costly Poppy discs, the first CD fully funded by the label. Another way the Poppy CD cut the life of Slamdek Singles was by duplicating all seven of its Sunspring songs. Additionally, the Grippe CD on Dischord was inclusive of four of the five Jawbox songs.

Slamdek Singles was then essentially desired only for its twelve exclusive cuts. This was hardly enough to warrant its elaborate transparent, full color packaging with twenty-three other songs. Each unit cost about $6.50 each to manufacture, the wholesale price was $10.75, and the few dozen units that were made sold for about $15.00. I stole the idea for the colorful, transparent packaging from the British CD single of “True Love Will Find You In The End” and the limited CD version of Soul Kiss, both by Spectrum. The same two CD’s were later sampled on Sunspring’s Poppy and Metroschifter’s New Mexico Drum Machine Demos.

The Endpoint and Deathwatch songs eventually ended up on the CD version of If The Spirits Are Willing the following year. LG&E’s tracks resurfaced on the LG&E cassette in December 1993. The exclusive songs by Ennui, Jawbox, and Sister Shannon disappeared from print, as did the reissued tracks by Your Face and Crain.

ADDITIONAL LINER NOTES:

Back cover photo: Greg Lynch. • Special assistance: Robin Wallace, Carrie Osborne, Matthew M. Ronay, Duncan Barlow, Jon Cook, David A. Stewart, Mark Ritcher, Mike Baker, and Chad Castetter. • Compilation and packaging: K. Scott Ritcher. • Additional digital sequencing: John F. Kampschaefer. • Thanks also to DeSoto Records, Automatic Wreckords, DSL, and Cosmic Software, for their much appreciated cooperation in this release.

Slamdek Merry Christmas Is For Rockers

December 12, 1992

Slamdek Merry Christmas Is For Rockers
various artists cassette
[SDK-29] color copied covers, books-on-tape long box with inserted 6-page booklet, laser printed labels

The 1992 Christmas tape documented several notable beginnings, but was ultimately more a product of habit than inspiration. Following the previous year’s super-creative Christmas effort was a tall order. And 1991 also had the advantage of a consistent sound by having its nine songs uniformly recorded in the same studio. But with or without comparison to the Louisville covers on 1991’s Merry Christmas cassette, 1992’s Slamdek Merry Christmas is for Rockers fell short of the mark.

It had all the typically big Slamdek names, Endpoint, Crain, Sunspring; it introduced several new bands, Rodan, The Pale Blue Star, and LG&E; and continued the work of others, Hopscotch Army, Ennui, Concrete, Lather, and Telephone Man. Its books-on-tape box packaging and full color cover were handsome, but costly, and it included a candy cane. Tim Furnish, who was DTP manager at Bardstown Road Kinko’s at Stevens Avenue, did the color scanning. And Carrie Osborne, Kim Sampson, and Mike Jarboe, who were also employed there, cut me a deal on the color copies for the covers. The color images were designed blindly on the black and white Macintosh Classic at my parents’ house, and printed on the 300 dpi color Tektronix printer at Kinko’s. There was now a 300 dpi black and white printer at the house, which was used for the black and white insert.

While the packaging was fairly elaborate, my apparent lack of enthusiasm for the release was demonstrated in the liner notes. “Traditionally, this pack of liner notes is filled with long-winded, overly informative ramblings that amount to a 95-paragraph pep talk essay on how great Louisville is and how cool our bands are. Since we’re all pretty much aware by now that Louisville’s shitty bands are much better than many other cities’ good bands, we’ll skip the speech this year. One major point that should be made, though, is that there are so many different kinds of bands doing so many different types of things here that narrowing it down to eleven songs is hardly fair. A lot of bands who wanted to be on the Christmas tape this year couldn’t because of scheduling problems and space limitations. To them we apologize. You can guarantee that next year’s will be much better scheduled and will be ALL Christmas songs!” [The following year’s Christmas tape was cancelled due to a lack of response from the bands. Pulse was the only one who actually completed a Christmas song for the tape, “Good King Wencheslas.” Endpoint was going to do “Silent Night,” Sunspring “Let It Snow,” etc.]


Slamdek Merry Christmas Is For Rockers insert, unfolded to 6 1/4 by 10 1/2 inches, copied on blue-gray speckled, recycled paper. Center photo above is from Christmas 1981, as Mark, Scott, and Greta Ritcher open their new Atari 2600 Video Computer System. Left photo below, from winter 1975, is Mark and Scott on a sled.

The back cover of Slamdek Merry Christmas is for Rockers also had a brief, and slightly more enthusiastic and comprehensive introduction, “For five of the past six years, Louisville bands have come together on the annual Slamdek Christmas tape. 1992 is no different. It’s a tape of songs which are compiled just to be heard. Each song is very different from the others around it. They’re all written by different people and recorded in different places, but they all came from the hearts and minds of the angst-ridden, wound-up kids of Louisville, Kentucky. And while they’re not traditional Christmas Carols, they are Christmas songs because they’re the gifts of reassurance we give to each other every year.”
It should be noted that the title, Slamdek Merry Christmas is for Rockers, is not a reference to the Slamdek Rockers field hockey team. That formed in late 1993, nearly a year later. If anything, perhaps the name of the cassette inspired the name of the team, but neither is directly responsible for the other. And, unusual for Slamdek releases, the tape also carries a dedication, “Dedicated to the four of us who left this year for the next life. You’re never forgotten.” The four, who were not named, were Karla Millan, Ramona Lutz, Shanda Sharer, and Tim Wunderlin.

The liner notes are straight to the point, and presented in a uniform order with band members [drummer, then guitarist, then singer, then bassist], products available [“available stuff” with postpaid prices and addresses], and each group’s plans [beginning with the word “And”]:

Sunspring “Roadburn”

Produced by Howie Gano at Sound On Sound on 16 tracks. Drums by Forrest Kuhn, guitar/vocals by K. Scott Ritcher, bass guitar by Jason Thompson, and guest sample by Layla Smith. Available stuff: Slinky 7″ or Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″ $3.50 each ppd, Sun cassette $6 ppd. [Slamdek’s address]. And they are working on an 11-song LP to be released on Break Even Point Records from Italy in Spring 1993.

[The LP referred to was Poppy, which became 12 songs and was recorded in January and February 1993. It came out as a Slamdek CD in June 1993, a Slamdek cassette the following month, and the European LP pressing on Break Even Point sailed in September. The guest sample is Layla saying, “I was walking down the street when I looked over at a brick wall that said Layla is fat and I laughed. Then I went home and I cried.”]

Crain “Coalmine #666”

Recorded on 4 track at the Rocket House by Jon Cook. Drums by John Causey, guitar/vocals by Jon Cook, guitar by Tim Furnish, and bass guitar by Jason Hayden. Available stuff: Speed LP $7.50 ppd. Monster 7″ $3 ppd. [Automatic Wreckords’ address]. And a CD of Speed plus lots of extra songs will also be out soon.

[The CD version of Speed never came out on Automatic. John Causey left the group
which soon signed with Restless Records. On Restless, they recorded and released a second album, Heater, named after a project band Causey, Cook, and Hayden had been in when Hayden joined Crain. The album Heater has Jon Cook playing drums, guitar, and singing, with Tim also playing guitar and singing, and Jason on bass and singing. The band Heater did two songs called “Crackhouse” and “Sleepwalker” on the 3 Little Girls cassette compilation Aftereffects of Insomnia. This same recording of “Coalmine #666” later appeared on Simple Machines Records’ Working Holiday 7″, October, with the Grifters on the other side.]

Telephone Man “Condensed”

Recorded on 8 track [cassette] by Tim Houchin at his house. Drum machine/bass by Tim Houchin, guitar/vocals by Matt Ronay. Available stuff: Telephone Man cassette $4.50 ppd [Cluewrench Tape Co. c/o Slamdek] see address under Sunspring. And they are planning a second tape for release in spring ’93.

[The second tape was never completed. Tim Houchin left to form Zugzwang with Ben Brantley. Zugzwang’s approach to recording was the same and they released a seven inch which became the only record on their own label, Sweetheart Records. Matt Ronay turned Telephone Man into a full band by changing the name to The Telephone Man, and adding Ashli State of Snakeater on bass, and Nick Hennies on drums. They recorded a self titled cassette for Slamdek in September 1993.]


Books-on-tape long box packaging. Special gift candy canes included inside Slamdek Merry Christmas Is For Rockers cassettes were purchased in bulk at Bigg’s Hypermarket in Middletown.

Lather “Sorry”

Recorded live at Tewligans. Drums by Brian Toth, guitar/vocals by Jeremy Podgursky, guitar by Sean Wolfson, and bass guitar/vocals by Brian Kaelin. Available stuff: Lather 7″ $3.50 ppd. Automatic Wreckords see address under Crain. And there is also an $8 ppd LP of Jeremy Podgursky and Brian Kaelin’s former band Dybbuk out from Self Destruct Records [address].

[Lather’s 7″ release was postponed and eventually came out on Self Destruct instead of Automatic. Between April and June of 1993, they recorded six more songs at Sound On Sound. Those tracks were compiled with their four 7″ songs as a CD on Self Destruct, A Modest Proposal, released in fall 1993. Lather broke up during the summer of 1994, having thanked Glenn Danzig on every release.]

Endpoint “Thought You Were” (alternate vocal take)

Recorded on digital 2 track by K. Scott Ritcher at Juniper Hill, an outtake from If The Spirits Are Willing, 1989, produced by Todd Smith. Drums by Rusty Sohm, guitar by Duncan Barlow, vocals by Rob Pennington, and bass guitar by Jason Graff. Available stuff:
If The Spirits Are Willing cassette $7 ppd and Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″ $3.50 ppd from Slamdek. Also: Catharsis LP $8 ppd, CD $10 ppd [Doghouse Records address]. And they have a 7″ picture disk of 4 cover songs coming out from Doghouse in 1993.

[This track was recorded on DAT while Rob was recording his vocals. It’s preceded and followed by short segments of dialog between Rob and Rusty who are talking with engineer Tom Mabe, who is in the control room. Endpoint was on tour in Europe when Slamdek Merry Christmas is for Rockers was released, and were surprised to see this song on it when they returned in January. The 7″ picture disk ended up being a standard 7″ called Idiots. Issued in a limited edition by Doghouse in 1993, it contains covers of “Building” by Embrace, “Attitude” by the Misfits, “Circus Of Pain” by Louisville’s Malignant Growth, and “Persistent Vision” by Rites of Spring. Doghouse reissued it on CD in late 1995… also to the band’s surprise.]

Concrete “Meaningless”

Recorded on 8 track [cassette] by Scott Walker in his basement. Drums by Scott Walker, guitar/vocals by John Causey, and bass guitar by Ramon [Scott] Bryant. Available stuff: Concrete/Sancred split 7″ $5 ppd John Causey Records [address]. And chances are you’ll be hearing more of their new sound during the new year.

[Concrete was a group John Causey formed after leaving Undermine. Both bands initially had a similar sound even though he played drums in Undermine and in Concrete he sang and played guitar. With “Meaningless” they introduced a revamped, less direct approach. It didn’t last long, as they were only together about a year, and this was near the end of their days.]

Hopscotch Army “If I Had That”

Produced by Dave Stewart at DSL on 16 tracks. Drums by Dave Hoback, guitar/vocals by Mark Ritcher, guitar by Jeff Goebel, and bass guitar by Scott Darrow. Available stuff: Belief or Blurry cassettes $6 each ppd, These Shallow Hours CD $9 ppd from Slamdek. And they have a new drummer, Kevin Coultas, who used to rock with Crawdad and Sister Shannon.

[Even though These Shallow Hours was completed and listed here as being available, it was never released. Kevin stayed with the group for about six months before leaving to play with Crain. Hopscotch Army played their last show May 8, 1993 at Butchertown Pub.]

LG&E “First”

Produced by LG&E at Slamdek [the Schuster Building apartment I shared with Chad] on 8 tracks [cassette]. Instruments and vocals by Duncan Barlow and Scott Ritcher. Available stuff: t-shirt $10 ppd from Slamdek. The Slamdek Singles EP compilation cassette box set, available in February ’93, will include two more LG&E songs.

[Duncan and I finally teamed up musically after knowing each other for five years, and I got the opportunity to use the name LG&E which I had been saving for a while. The duo featured dance-able drum machine rhythms overlaid with smoothly distorted guitars and whispered, reverb-soaked vocals. Slamdek Singles was released in March 1993 and included all three of our cleverly titled songs, “First,” “Second,” and “Third.” December 1993 we released a cassette on Slamdek.]

Ennui “Gun?”

Produced by Geoff Turner and K. Scott Ritcher at WGNS on 16 tracks. Drums by Forrest Kuhn, guitar by Lane Sparber, vocals by Matt Ronay, and bass guitar by Tim Houchin. Available stuff: Olive 7″ $3.50 ppd from Slamdek. Ennui is no longer together, but two more songs from this session will also be available in the Slamdek Singles set.

[This is one of seven songs recorded at WGNS in May 1992. Four others were on the Olive 7″, and all seven were on Slamdek Singles. “Gun?” was one of Ennui’s most
recent songs when it was recorded.]

Rodan “Toothfairy Retribution Manifesto”

Produced by Tony French and Rodan at the Hat Factory on 8 tracks. Drums by Jon Cook, guitar by Jeff Mueller, guitar by Jason Noble, and bass guitar/vocals by Tara O’Neil. Available stuff: Rodan 7″ $3.50 ppd, Jason and Jeff are also King G & J Krew members whose CD is $10 ppd. Automatic Wreckords see address under Crain. And they are also going to be on a 7″ compilation out from Simple Machines Records in January with Tsunami, Superchunk, and Unrest.

[This track appeared as their debut since changing their name to Rodan from King Kid International in early December. In fact, I had to reprint the master sheet for the tape cover to change it to their new name. The Simple Machines 7″, Inclined Plane, followed it, as did a self-released cassette, Aviary. John Weiss joined on drums after returning from American University for the Christmas holidays. Their 7″ on Automatic was cancelled and ended up as How The Winter Was Passed on 3 Little Girls Recordings. John Weiss plays on one side, and Jon Cook on the other. King G and the J Krew’s CD also moved off Automatic, and came to Slamdek in May ’93. Rodan went on to record an album for Chicago’s Quarterstick Records. Rusty garnered an unusual wealth of critical acclaim for the band, who toured the United States and Europe extensively in support of it. In the wake of Rodan’s success, King G and the J Krew fizzled out of existence. Rodan played their last show at the Lounge Axe in Chicago on September 25, 1994.]

The Pale Blue Star “I Fell”

Recorded on 4 track. Guitar/vocals by Joe Mudd. The band also now includes Bill Heideman on drums and Josh Peterson on bass guitar, though they are not on this song. As he’s an ex-member of Crain, you can hear Joe on the Speed LP. Expect shows and more recordings in 1993, and for more information write to Ford Records [address].

[The Pale Blue Star made their performance debut at Slamdek’s Louisville Summer Weekend at the Machine, July 1993. At that point, the band included Breck Pipes on guitar, Kevin Coultas on drums, and Jason Noble on bass. That line up didn’t last. Another arrangement, a year later, had Joe flanked by drummer Mark Ernst, and bassist Cassie Marrett. The band played a handful of stunning shows and evolved through some more members. Ford Records was a label Joe formed in 1991 which never released anything. The Pale Blue Star were scheduled to record a Slamdek 7″, SDK-40, but that was lost when the label folded in early 1995. See page 158.]

LINER NOTES:

Side one:
Sunspring Roadburn
Crain Coalmine #666
Telephone Man Condensed
Lather Sorry (live)
Endpoint Thought You Were (alt. vocal)
Concrete Meaningless

Side two:
Hopscotch Army If I Had That
LG&E First
Ennui Gun?
Rodan Toothfairy Retribution Manifesto
The Pale Blue Star I Fell

Digital master and sequence editing by Howie Gano at Sound On Sound, December 1992. Color photograph scans by Timothy R. Furnish. Assembly by Carrie Osborne, Chad Castetter, and Layla Smith. Package by K. Scott Ritcher. • Special thanks to: Tim Furnish, John Timmons and everyone at ear X-tacy, Guiliano Calza at Break Even Point Records, Sancred, Dirk from Doghouse Records, Ford Records, Automatic Wreckords, Mike B. and Self Destruct Records, Better Days, Mary and Allan Ritcher, J.F. Kampschaefer, Dave Gabe, Billy and Tewligans, Three Little Girls, Tucker Yingling, Sean Fawbush and Quest, Edward Lutz, Kim Coletta and DeSoto, and John Weiss.

Sunspring – Action Eleven

November 17, 1992

Sunspring
Action Eleven cassette
[SDK-29] photocopied covers, books-on-tape long box with inserted 8 page booklet, laser printed labels

In August 1992, after two of Sunspring’s three members quit, the only logical move should have been to end the band. I immediately began writing and recording new songs on a Tascam cassette eight track recorder with an Alesis drum machine. In the Schuster Building apartment I shared with Chad Castetter, September 1992 was filled with indecision and new beginnings. I had a new job at ear X-tacy, was driving a dying 1976 AMC Pacer, experiencing emotional difficulties with Carrie Osborne, whom I had been dating since June, and my once-solid friendship with Joey Mudd was fading.

With a mix of beginnings, endings, and complications, the songs I wrote and recorded were generally loud, uneasy, angry, heavy, catchy, and distorted. As compared with previous Sunspring material, these songs were heavier and simpler. Without the bass melodies Jason Hayden had provided, the sound was much more focused on the guitar. I had several names for the band I was planning to form to play these songs. For several weeks I mulled over what to name the new band. Rather than doing what (in retrospect) would have been best, naming the band Action en, LG&E, or Louisville, I kept the name Sunspring and formed a new group with it. The easiest way to go would, of course, be to name the new band Sunspring, a name that thousands of people were already familiar with. Unfortunately, it was a Catch 22, because the new band was not the Sunspring those thople knew.

In the down time between when the band broke up and when I started writing songs, I first tried to combine Sunspring and Sancred. Using the name Sunspring, I anmer Adam Colvin, bassist Scott Bacon, andtarist Steve Goetschius, pracand I ticed three times. Our set included songs native to both bands. The two week experiment didn’t seem to be the right thing to do, however, and everyone walked out of it on good terms. Sancred went back to being Sancred, and I went back to square one to begin writing new songs.


“Thank you, shoppers!” October 3, 1992, Sunspring at Oxmoor Center: Jason Thompson (behind column in white hat), Forrest Kuhn, and Scott Ritcher (in black hat).

By the time I had finished a set’s worth of new material, I had also located members for the new band. Drummer Forrest Kuhn was still interested in giving it a shot, having been asked before Jason Hayden quit. And my friend Tony Cox said he knew a guy named Jason Thompson whose favorite band was Sunspring and already knew all the old songs. It was true, and Jason Thompson soon joined the band on bass. Even though the new members are not on the tape, Sunspring’s Action Eleven cassette came out after the “new” band had already played out together. Our first show was a shaky acoustic performance in the center court of the Oxmoor Center shopping mall as part of a benefit for Rock The Vote. The six-song set we played there October 3, 1992, included a mix of new and old material, and came less than two months after the last show with Weiss and Hayden. We basically played before we were ready because we thought it would be cool to play inside Oxmoor, and we figured that opportunity was pretty rare. Other shows followed about once a month as we practiced and repracticed, struggling to live up to the high expectations we faced by calling the band Sunspring. Nonetheless, we were eager to take actions, get everyone’s attention, bury the old Sunspring and grow into our own right as the only Sunspring. We even hung the same Coca-Cola banner behind us on stage. The idea was to just continue as if no member change had occurred. The old Sunspring had been planning to record an album in the fall, and that schedule was unwisely attempted to be adhered to. Action Eleven was released about a month and a half after the Oxmoor show, tagged with the subtitle Beatbox Demos For The Album, to get people familiar with the new songs. Strangely, though, only two of Action Eleven’s eleven songs ended up on our twelve-song album, Poppy. The band’s live set also leaned toward about 50% older material as well.

The new band recorded together for the first time November 30, 1992, at Sound On Sound. We did four songs during this session: “First Sip Of Coffee” was one of the last two songs Hayden, Weiss, and I wrote together; “Diet Zero” was translated from a Diet Sunspring song; “Revolving Door” and “Roadburn” were both from Action Eleven, and the band version of the latter appeared on the 1992 Christmas tape. All four of the songs from this session later ended up on the CD version of Poppy. “Roadburn” is coincidentally a song about the final Hayden/Ritcher/Weiss Sunspring tour.

Our first plugged-in show was at Tewligans for a Thinker Review benefit, October 30, 1992. We ended our set with cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Telephone Man, a new band consisting of Matt Ronay, Tim Houchin, and a drum machine, opened the show.
Sunspring continued working and eventually our numbers exceeded those of the band’s previous incarnation. I kind of felt like the numbers meant nothing if the fire wasn’t there. But we kept on, and I kept hoping it would click. In January 1993, we became one of the first outside bands to enter DSL studio, where we would record Sunspring’s only full-length album.

Action Eleven sold 233 copies, and was in print for about eight months. Its songs were
reissued in 1995 on the Sunspring back catalog compilation CD Orange. The total circulation of Action Eleven’s songs is therefore somewhere around 1,250 units.

One panel of the booklet was written by Layla Smith and called “10:30.” It did not correspond with any of the songs, but extended the theme of many of them, “I walked outside this morning and took a breath from the day. The chill in the air got caught in my throat and choked me for a moment. I opened my eyes to cast my sight out onto the colors of fall, but it was too soon for change. I felt my face against the breeze of the new day and realized nothing held me. I stood by myself again, but alone for the first time.


January 1993, Sunspring practice at the Kuhn house:
Jason Thompson, Forrest Kuhn, Scott Ritcher.

“Some cars that drive by look over at me out of habitual curiosity but there is no acknowledgment. I get into my car and the stale smell reminds me of a bad habit. I’m faced with the remnants of my life that clutter the floor. A few tapes, some gum wrappers, a little change, and a crumpled piece of paper with his name on it. They remind me that this is all a part of me and the course of my life. Seated amongst the things I’ve had, lost, and wanted.”

The booklet also included this disclaimer: “Sunspring’s Action Eleven is a Louisville-only release. No copies of it will be sold to distributors like most Slamdek releases are. Additionally, it will not be available in the long box with this booklet after the Sunspring LP is released in early 1993. So tell your buddies to get it now because this is the advance tale of Action Eleven’s short life. For our out-of-town friends who think they can get in on what’s going on here in Louisville, it is $6.00 postpaid direct from Slamdek.”

Before John Weiss and Jason Hayden left, the group received a letter from Break Even Point Records in Italy offering to release a Sunspring LP. The label had previously issued a super lo-fi live Endpoint 7″, EP2. So, at first, we sort of laughed at the option of being on the label. However, when the band was forced to start over with 2/3 new members, it seemed like a much better idea. I wrote back to Guiliano Calza of Break Even Point and accepted his offer. But from that date in the fall of 1992, the role that the European Sunspring album would play, eventually changed back to relatively less significant by the time it was actually in print, a year later.

One of Action Eleven’s songs, “Ground,” was a cover of the good song Joey Mudd performed on Slambang Vanilla’s The Memphis Sessions (that is, “good” whereas the other Slambang Vanilla songs were all jokes). Sunspring played “Ground” live twice, once when Joey was unsuspectingly in the audience at the Machine, but we never recorded it as a group. Another track, “I Don’t Like This Anymore,” became one of my favorite Action Eleven songs, but I was never pleased with any recording of it. A band version of it was recorded for a Subfusc Records compilation in the summer of 1993, which I didn’t care for that version, nor an acoustic version recorded in September 1994 by my next band, the Metroschifter. I’m not really sure why it, as well as more of the other Action Eleven songs, weren’t on Poppy.

LINER NOTES:

Side one:
Revolving Door
Lump
I Don’t Like This Anymore
Once In
Roadburn

Side two:
Pale
Days Before
Ten Eighty Three
Ground
Carrie Osborne’s Song
Eastern Parkway

K. Scott Ritcher, instruments and vocals
[not listed in booklet]

Action Eleven is especially dedicated to Joey E. Mudd, Carrie E. Osborne, and Layla L. Smith.

Thanks to all Sunspringers, Jay Robbins, Kim S. Coletta, Billy C. Barbot, Tar, the fuckin Valvoline kids, Timothy R.D. Moss, Matthew M. Ronay, Chadrick E. Castetter, Timothy R. Furnish, Leevanhook Fetzer, Jon Cook, Giuliano Calza, Duncan B. Barlow, Edith M. Hendren, Robert Pennington, Kyle J. Noltemeyer, John X. Timmons, Katherine C. Fritsch, Kendall A. Costich, Christopher Higdon, Rebecca Fritsch, Christi D. Canfield, Jason E. Hayden, John A. Weiss, Hopscarmy, Wiffie G.L. Ritcher, Chicago Gauge Rock Band, Jon M. Smith, Stepdown, Omaha’s Own Ritual Device, Chuck Olmstead, Michael #1 Jarboe & Kill, mom and dad Osborne, and LG&E.

Written by K.S. Ritcher, except “Ground” by J. Mudd, and “10:30” by L. Smith.

Sunspring – Slinky

February 22, 1992

Sunspring
Slinky seven inch
[SDK-26] photocopied covers

“I used to care so much, my God, I used to care so much. But now I’m not really even sure what it was even all about. New people come around, you know, and I just connect. I guess there’s not much yesterday in my future now. For us the streets are pathways, we’d never think to live there. Everyone’s purpose is stronger than their serving of it. Their standing is a place so much weaker than their abilities. For boys and girls like us, the kids of Louisville, Kentucky. This is who we are, we are this beat.”

Recorded in November 1991, the Slinky 7″ sealed Sunspring’s solidarity as a band and documented what I feel was the summit of our musical accomplishments. During this era, we practiced several times a week and hung out with each other as friends until all hours of the morning. It was perhaps everything a band should be; a group of people who came from very different backgrounds, cast into a larger group of people from more diverse backgrounds, where we all met. Somehow we knew there was something about each other that was important for us and through the experience of sharing days and nights together creating music, we also created a new personality that was the sum total of a little of each of us.

When the record came out, drummer John Weiss was at school at the University of Louisville, bassist Jason Hayden was working at Benihana in Hurstbourne, and I, the guitarist/singer, was on tour selling merchandise for Jawbox. Before I left, Jason and I drove 160 miles with Layla Smith to Nashville to choose a pressing plant, and drop off the DAT. We wanted to possibly have the records pressed and assembled before I went on tour. With only about a week to work with, this was a tall order. But for the excitement and hands-on experience of it, the three of us successfully annoyed receptionists, distracted mastering specialists, and took self-guided tours of Nashville Record Productions and United Record Pressing. It was also during this trip that we affectionately changed Layla’s name to Larry. After deliberating in the parking lot that sits between the two plants, we decided to go with Nashville Record because the people were nicer. Even though United was cheaper.

A week later, the three of us, accompanied by Carrie Osborne, were making another road trip. This journey was to drop me off at Jay Robbins’ house near Washington, DC. From this house in Arlington, Virginia, Jawbox and I would leave for a five-week tour of the United States with Shudder To Think. Both bands would later sign to major labels, but at this point were still on Dischord Records. Layla’s car arrived at the house around 1:00 am. Everyone said their good-byes, then Carrie, Layla, and Jason took off for the ten-hour drive back to Louisville. While I was away on tour, Jason and Layla, aided by Buzz Minnick who worked at Hurstbourne Lane’s Kinko’s, took care of getting the record covers copied. I had finished the artwork before leaving. The following week, John picked up the vinyl which had been delivered to the Slamdek House. They all got together and assembled the records, which John took to stores, and my mom sent to me on the road. One package of twenty-five seven inches on burgundy vinyl was sent to a friend of Jawbox in Pittsburgh. Their friend came to the show but had forgotten to bring the package that night to give to me. After the tour was over, Kim Coletta of Jawbox tried to get in touch with him and learned that one of his friends had been murdered and he himself had disappeared. So, possibly somewhere out there, maybe in Pittsburgh, there’s an unopened box of 25 first pressing Slinky records.

After I returned from the Jawbox tour, we were excited to get Sunspring rolling again, as we finally had our own record out. We played four shows during April and May. April 24, 1992 we were part of a surprise with Ennui at Robyn Craxton’s birthday party. Two days later we braved the Wrocklage in Lexington with Kinghorse and the Grind. May 1, Derby Eve, at George Rogers Clark Park on Poplar Level Road was with Sancred, Step Down, Shut Out, and Ennui. Sunspring and Ennui handed out Xeroxes with the lyrics of both bands for this show and the one at Robyn’s house. May 3, Sunspring played again at Another Place Sandwich Shop on Frankfort Avenue, with Circus Lupus and Crain, welcoming them back from a lengthy U.S. tour. And May 31, 1992 we were slightly out of place at a Tewligans show with Cinderblock, Indignant Few, and Bush League.
The fun had to end again, though, as John went to England for a month to study
Shakespearean literature. While John was away, Jason and I played a show at Tewligans accompanied by a drum machine and a menacing light show borrowed from Hopscotch Army. The drummerless incarnation of the group was called Diet Sunspring. At this point, doing a live show with a drum machine for a punk rock audience was possibly a death wish in Louisville. On June 21, 1992, we pulled it off, and others such as Pulse and the early Telephone Man, soon succeeded in doing the same.

Diet Sunspring even began recording during our short month of existence. John Kampschaefer, in addition to videotaping Diet Sunspring’s performance, had recently purchased a Tascam eight track recorder. He invited Jason and me to come by his house where he had a makeshift studio set up in the basement. We began laying down the basic tracks for six of the songs we played at the show. Two of these were new songs we had written while John was away, “Astronaut” and “Diet Zero.” These two songs were finished first and mixed. Jason was in the process of starting a new record label with Edward Lutz and Michael Jarboe, aptly named Three Little Girls Recordings. Their first release was a Louisville compilation cassette called The Aftereffects of Insomnia, and it included the two finished Diet Sunspring songs.

John Weiss returned from England right at the end of June, and two days later, Sunspring’s second tour was kicked off in Gainesville, Florida. Because of this tight schedule, the four unfinished Diet Sunspring songs were all but forgotten about, and remained unfinished. For touring purposes, I sold my car and bought a 1979 Chevy van from my parents. About sixty miles south of Louisville it blew a tire, and more serious problems were to come. We toured with a huge Coca-Cola banner that had the band name across it and the phrase, “Welcome to Louisville.” This perplexed people in every town. Not because of the slogan, but because this punk band appeared to be sponsored by Coca-Cola. To the contrary, we drank tons of Coke and several songs made reference to it, but we were not sponsored. During the summer of 1992, the band left a trail of salt-watered Coke machines across the country. This process of shooting hot salt water into the coin slot of a Coke machine, causes it to short out and freely dispense its beverages and spare change. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but when it did, Sunspring were the masters of it. The older the machine, the better the luck. I talked to several Hershey’s reps on the topic of sponsorship. Things were looking good for a few weeks, until one day the cold shoulder appeared from out of the blue.

The tour, despite automotive and booking problems, ended up being eleven shows in fifteen days. Upon arriving back home, we took a few weeks off, then played two shows at the Enterprise in St. Matthews. John would be going away to Washington, DC’s American University in September, so the future of the band was up in the air. John had “quit” several times during 1992 and it had become standard procedure for him to do so periodically. Jason and I had secretly practiced with other drummers preparing for the possibility that John might, at some point, leave and not come back. We liked both drummers we tried. John Causey of Undermine was one, and Jon Smith of Shut Out, Layla Smith’s younger brother, was the other. In fact, a large photo on the inside of the Slinky seven inch of Jason and me had John Causey screaming into the microphone. We used this picture on the record and on the back of one of our trademark inside-out t-shirts, because we anticipated John Causey joining the band. Jason was also interested in Brian Toth of Lather as a prospective drummer, and I mentioned Forrest Kuhn of Ennui, who had just broken up.

The last two shows that Hayden, Ritcher, and Weiss played together were August 8 with Jawbox and Sancred, and August 21 with Erchint, Lather, Shut Out, and Drinking Woman. The search was on for a drummer. Within a week of the last show, I asked Forrest if he’d like to try out. Forrest said he was interested. Two days later, Jason was offered a position in Crain and decided to take it. I then shared a one bedroom $180 apartment with Chad Castetter in the Schuster Building at Eastern Parkway and Bardstown Road. Jason stopped by with my sister, Greta, one night to break the news. Forrest was interested in trying out, but Jason was quitting. This left the future even less certain and undoubtedly, quickly killed the fire that made Sunspring.

The Slinky seven inch sold 947 copies. The first 500 were on burgundy vinyl, and the latter half on black. Its songs were later included on the Poppy CD, and the Slamdek Singles box set, bringing the total circulation of Slinky’s four songs to just shy of 2,600 units. Slinky was the first release to feature the new name of “The Slamdek Record Company” which replaced “SLAMDEK/Scramdown.” The seven inch was originally to be titled Orange, and be pressed on orange vinyl. I even made a bunch of Sunspring stickers with an Orange design. However, very close to the last minute, John proposed the name Slinky, his nickname for his blood sugar measuring device, which he constantly lost. “Where’s my slinky?” was already such a big part of the everyday vocabulary of the band, it instantly became the perfect title.

The cover photographs on Slinky were taken by Breck Pipes at Audubon Sk8 Park, January 10, 1992, the show after which Shanda Renee Sharer was murdered. Two teenage girls, Laurie Tackett and Melinda Loveless, left the show, picked up Sharer and burned her to death. The back cover shows the band and the crowd of about 300 leaning every which way, and packed wall to wall. Michael Quinlan reported the Shanda Sharer story and trial for the Courier-Journal. After it was over, he wrote a book about it, Little Lost Angel, the only such book authorized by the families of those involved. He included Slinky’s back cover photo to illustrate the steamy, frenzied atmosphere of the room that night. But Pocket Books, the publisher, removed the photo from the book, fearing legal repercussions from parents of kids pictured in the crowd.

 

LINER NOTES:

Side one:
Faceless
Magnet

Side two:
Christmas Morning
Street

Jason Hayden, bass
Scott Ritcher, guitar and vocals
John Weiss, drums

Produced by Howie Gano at Sound On Sound. Photographs by Breck Pipes.

Thanks and otherwise: Moms and Dads, David Hess, Susan Leach, Greta Ritcher, Lydia Hess, Kimber Sampson, John Causey, Mark Ritcher, Robert Marshall, Rob Roles, Tracy Marshall, Takayuki Tsuji, Joey Mudd, Elizabeth Marshall, Buzz Minnick, Groovy Kampschaefer, William A. Greene, Mike Borich, Princess Ler, E. Daniel Patterson III, Katie C. Fritsch, Don Stokes, Becky Fritsch, David Barmore, John Timmons, Andrew Buren, ear X-tacy, Franklin Fuchs, Kendall Ann Costich I, Fred Fischer, Kim Coletta, Brent Harper, Jay Robbins, Bill Wilson, Hopscotch Army, Jon Cook, Dr. Bob, Melissa Middleton, Elizabeth Beeson, Dybbuk, Action Eleven, Jason Crivello, Crain, Erica Montgomery, Tar, Ritual Device, Christi Canfield, Dave Cook, Tim Furnish, Breck Pipes, Simon Furnish, G-D, Julius Caesar, Carrie E.O., Sean Garrison, Mark Hall, Scot Macaffe, Nebraska, Endpoint, and Hershey’s. No thanks to Noisy Ass Tyson.

The Slamdek Record Companyslamdek.com
K Composite Media,

Merry Christmas

December 19, 1991

Merry Christmas
various artists cassette & compact disc
[SDK-25] black & white press printed J-cards with photocopied liner notes, on-shell cassette labeling

Merry Christmas, the 1990 SLAMDEK/Scramdown Christmas tape, is a gem of Louisville’s musical uniqueness, diversity, and cooperative abilities. The nine-band, nine-song cassette was not only unique from other Slamdek Christmas tapes, but was also a unique effort by nature of who was involved and the purpose its songs served. It was a compilation of Louisville bands paying tribute to other Louisville bands.

The cassette had a unified sound and timeliness as all of its songs were recorded especially for this release, and seven of the nine at the same studio with the same engineer. And it had a unifying effect on the scene itself by inviting bands from all “sides” to participate. Bands usually thought of as “Self Destruct bands” appeared on a release with bands usually thought of as “Slamdek bands,” alongside new bands; and all of them covering mostly unpredictable songs.

However rewarding it eventually became, creating the cassette was a fiasco. Any project that involves getting about fifty people together to learn and record new songs, then scheduling all of them at convenient times in the same studio, has all the complex logistics you might imagine it would. Because of scheduling, several bands that wanted to participate could not. Shut Out planned to be on it but couldn’t get it together in time, and Sean Garrison was going to do a solo acoustic song, but ran out of time. Having those two artists on the cassette would have expanded the level of total scene cooperation in even greater degrees in both directions.

Nine bands did pull it together during November and early December, and their master DAT’s were compiled into sequence in my bedroom at the Slamdek House on Bonnycastle. Because of the tight time constraints with Christmas approaching, the cassettes were manufactured in Philadelphia at Discmakers. Discmakers offered a five-day turnaround on small orders. This worked out beautifully, and the cassette was released almost a week before Christmas. One day while Undermine was practicing with their new drummer Will Chatham at the Slamdek House, Carrie Osborne and Breck Pipes helped me fold liner note sheets and assemble the cassettes.
The liner notes were, again, especially lengthy. They listed band members and information about the performers and the groups whose songs were being covered. The monologue began with a synopsis of the three previous Christmas cassettes, which is not reprinted here. But here’s a play by play of most of the liner notes, with commentary [in brackets]:

“This year, Louisville has turned in on itself. For the first time, everything that appears on this cassette was recorded especially for the purpose of being here. Furthermore, the 1991 Christmas cassette is all Louisville bands playing covers of their favorite other Louisville bands’ songs. The reason there is so much great music in Louisville is because there are so many great people making music here. Anyone who is the least bit interested in creating can’t help but to be constantly inspired by the people of Louisville and the energy that music has here. This meager cassette stands as each band’s tribute to the Louisville musicians that have made a difference for them. Virtually forgotten bands like Anti-Youth can now shine again, while die-hard rockers like David LaDuke finally get the respect they deserve. Overlooked Louisville musicians like Patty Smith and Mildred J. Hill, whose song is as far-reaching as the sun, find a new interpretation in the hands of the kids who grew up singing it. Mid-’80’s punk classics by Maurice and Solution Unknown also serve to bring our generations together. Inevitably, the Slamdek bands feed off themselves as Cerebellum, Crawdad, and Endpoint are all saluted in three very different ways. Finally, this is probably the only city in the world that could crank out both Slint and some members of Midnight Star, and then put them all together in a medley.

“Without further description, let’s let the music of our hometown speak for itself. Forget all about everywhere we’ve been told new music is at its best. Everyday we’ll discover a little bit more why we don’t have to go anywhere else to get what we need. This is the ongoing sound of Louisville- crank it up and Merry Christmas!”

Dybbuk “Dare To Feel”
Eric Schmidt vocals, Jeremy Podgursky guitar, Tim Wunderlin guitar, Brian Kaelin bass, Alex Charland drums.

Originally performed by Maurice, 1986


Dybbuk, 1991: Jeremy Podgursky, Tim Wunderlin, Brian Kaelin, Eric Schmidt, and Alex Charland.

“Dybbuk (pronounced DIB-ick) has a self-titled 7″ out on Self Destruct Records. They’ve been together since April 1990 and their record came out in 1991. Eric replaced previous their vocalist Branden Faulls in June 1991. They plan to record in early 1992 for another release.

“Maurice was together from 1983 to 1987 and never released any records. Britt Walford and David Pajo continued to play together in Slint with whom they released Tweez on Jennifer Hartman Records in 1989, and Spiderland on Touch and Go Records in 1991. Brian McMahan played in Slint and Maurice for a while. Maurice was also home for Sean Garrison and Mike Bucayu. They later formed Kinghorse whose 1989 Self Destruct/Steel Heart 7″ is now out of print. Kinghorse has an LP out on Caroline Records and another one scheduled for next year sometime.”

[Dybbuk recorded a full length album, Breakfast T., which was released posthumously as a Self Destruct 12″ and cassette in 1992. The band broke up earlier that year, shortly before guitarist Tim Wunderlin tragically died in an accidental asphyxiation. He was buried at Calvary Cemetery in the Highlands.

[After Dybbuk’s disbandment, Alex Charland joined Slo-Pok, and Eric Schmidt dropped out of the music scene for a while. Brian Kaelin and Jeremy Podgursky formed a new band, Lather, with drummer Brian Toth and guitarist Sean Wolfson. Lather recorded a Self Destruct 7″ in October 1992, and six more songs between April and June 1993. Those ten tracks were compiled on a Self Destruct CD, A Modest Proposal. Lather broke up in the summer of 1994.

[Slint’s Tweez was reissued on Touch and Go in 1993, and the band allegedly tried to get back together around that same time, to no avail.

[Kinghorse broke up in the fall of 1992. Their second album on Caroline never materialized. Mike Bucayu opened his Blue Moon record store in the Holiday Manor Walk shopping center in the fall of 1994. Around Christmas 1994, a Slamdek CD of nineteen unreleased Kinghorse tracks renewed interest in the group, and they reformed with Jerry Cunningham of Raze on bass. Mike was either not interested in the band, or more interested in his store.]

Step Down “Elders”
Duncan Barlow vocals, Lee Fetzer guitar, Kyle Noltemeyer guitar, Christian McCoy bass, Jon Smith drums.

Originally performed by Anti-Youth, 1986


Step Down, 1991: Lee Fetzer, Kyle Noltemeyer, and Duncan Barlow.

“Step Down formed in the summer of 1991. They recorded eight songs in November
and have put it out as a self-released cassette. Three members of Endpoint play in Step Down but play different instruments. Jon is also in Shut Out who were planning on joining this Christmas Fiesta but couldn’t because of scheduling problems.

“Anti-Youth was together in 1986. They never recorded, but ‘Can’t You See’ by Big Deal on the Louisville Sluggers compilation 7″ was originally one of their songs. Anti-Youth was Greg Smith, Todd Brashear, Gordon Gildersleeve, and Bryan Jackson.”

[Step Down changed their name to Guilt at the beginning of 1993. Shortly after the name change, Lee Fetzer left the group to join Enkindel, and Duncan Barlow began playing guitar while singing to replace him. Christian McCoy left Guilt in April 1993 and was replaced by Ashli State. Ashli played in both Guilt and the Telephone Man for a few months before leaving the latter. Guilt released a 7″, Empty?, and a 10″, Synesthesia, both on Initial Records which were later compiled on the Synesthesia CD, and an LP/CD/cassette, Bardstown Ugly Box, on Victory Records.]

Rawhide “Happy Birthday”
Breck Pipes guitar & bass, Greta Ritcher guitar, J.T. Zinn sit-in drummer.

Written by Patty Smith and Mildred J. Hill, 1893


Rawhide, 1991: Greta Ritcher and Breck Pipes.

“Rawhide, although you can see they don’t have a full line up yet, has been playing together since March 1991. They’re looking for a drummer and bass player, so write to them c/o Slamdek if you’re interested. Breck has played in Spot, Cerebellum, and Crawdad. Greta has played in Your Face and Sister Shannon. All of these bands have released records on Slamdek, but unfortunately the Cerebellum cassette is the only one that remains available today. Spot’s Proud cassette is scheduled to be reissued in January 1992. Things are looking up, so hopefully we’ll see them all again soon along with a new one from Rawhide.

“‘Happy Birthday’ was written by two Louisville ladies, Patty Smith and Mildred J. Hill, and is possibly the most widely recognized modern song in the world. The original lyrics were ‘Good Morning To You’ and the tune only caught on accidentally after they had been changed.”

[Their sit-in drummer J.T. Zinn, actually Kevin Coultas using his grandfather’s name as a pseudonym, was replaced by John Causey in early 1992. This happened after John left Undermine. David Ernst joined on bass, and Rodney Bell on vocals. Rawhide played a handful of shows but didn’t last until the end of 1992. David Ernst joined Big Wheel, John Causey joined Crain, Greta began playing drums and played them in Drinking Woman, and Breck moved to Lexington. The song “Happy Birthday” celebrated its 100th birthday in 1993.]

Sunspring “House”
John Weiss drums, Scott Ritcher guitar & vocals, Herr Hayden bass.

Originally performed by Cerebellum, 1989

“Sunspring formed in the summer of 1990 and has had two Slamdek releases in 1991. The Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″, and The Sun Cassette both are still available. Their second 7″, Slinky, was recorded in November and will be out in January. Media kills minds, Sunspring kills media.

“Cerebellum was a band from June 1988 through May 1989. Their self-titled cassette is still available from Slamdek. Cerebellum was Will Chatham, Tim Furnish, Joey Mudd, Jon Cook, Breck Pipes, and Drew Daniel. The first four of them went on to form Crain who have a 7″ out called The Rocket EP on Automatic Wreckords. Their 10-song LP will be released in early 1992.”

[Herr Hayden and The Herr were nicknames that John and I annoyed Jason Hayden with for several years. Sunspring had a run-in with the media in January 1992, when a young teenage girl, Shanda Sharer, was killed by two “friends” after a Sunspring show (see page 72). Slinky was released in February 1992. Crain’s first full length effort, Speed, was released by Automatic on LP and cassette in March 1992.]

Push Back “Wool”
Mark Brickey vocals, Billy Halter guitar, Andy Tinsley guitar, Corey Roederer bass, Leevanhook Seconds drums.

Originally performed by Endpoint, 1989

“Push Back has been together since the summer of 1991. This song is their first entry into the world of recorded sound.

“Endpoint has two albums, If The Spirits Are Willing (1989) on Slamdek, and In A Time Of Hate (1991) on Conversion Records. They have also appeared on numerous compilations and have a split 7″ out with Sunspring. ‘Wool’ was cut from their first album at the last minute because the lyrics are not to be taken seriously. They feared that people who weren’t in on the joke might not get it, and then doubt the sincerity of their other songs.”

[Leevanhook Seconds was actually Lee Fetzer. He was a part of the group again when they later changed their name to Enkindel. Andy appeared with them only for this recording.]

Hopscotch Army “Right From Wrong”
Jeff Goebel guitar, Scott Darrow bass, Mark Ritcher vocals, David Hoback drums.

Originally performed by David LaDuke, 1989

“Hopscotch Army has been together since early 1988. They have two albums, Blurry from 1989, and their new one Belief which was released in September. Both on Slamdek. Their third album is already being mixed and will possibly be available as early as February 1992 (but probably not).

“David LaDuke has been playing roots/metal/rock n’roll in Louisville since 1973. He and his group Sinbad have released several records, Sinbad, Have Rock Will Travel, and his current release, Ball Bustin Guitar Rock. His unique blend of ’70’s guitar rock with an Elvis Presley-style groove has gained him a reputation in magazines and on radio stations around the world.”

[The upcoming album mentioned by Hopscotch Army was never released.]

Undermine “Friends?”
Sean McLoughlin vocals, Takayuki Tsuji guitar, Chris Layton guitar, Scott Bryant bass, John Causey drums.

Originally performed by Solution Unknown, 1987


Undermine, 1991: Sean McLoughlin, Chris Layton, John Causey, Scott Bryant, and Takayuki Tsuji.

“Undermine formed in early 1989 and has released two seven inches on Self Destruct Records. The first one was self-titled (1990) and is out of print, the second is My Wire (1991) and is still available. In January they will be recording an album with their new drummer Will Chatham as a split release for Self Destruct and ear X-tacy Records.

“Solution Unknown was David Pajo, Kent Chappelle, Todd Brashear, Mike Bucayu, and Eric Schmidt (who does intro and outro vocals on the Undermine version). They were together from March 1986 through September 1987. Their first record was a Self Destruct 7″ in 1986, Taken For Granted. The Solution Unknown album was recorded at Inner Ear in Washington DC in 1987. The 7″ is no longer in print, but the LP is.”

[Undermine broke up before recording their first full-length work. Their 7″ and the Solution Unknown LP both went out of print. Sean McLoughlin joined Evergreen. Scott Bryant and John Causey formed Concrete who was together while John also played with Rawhide, then Crain. Takayuki Tsuji moved back to Japan and worked as an interpreter for touring English-speaking bands. Chris Layton was involved in several projects, such as The Auditory Clang and Zig Zag Way, and moved to Florida for a while. In fall 1995, Mike Bucayu and Eric Schmidt took all the Solution Unknown master reels to Sound On Sound and remixed them for a 38-song discography CD on Self Destruct.]

Shovel “Worship”
Dave Cook vocals, Chad Castetter guitar, Andy Tinsley bass, Duncan Barlow drums.

Originally performed by Crawdad, 1989

“Shovel formed very very recently and this piece of work is their first recorded stab at the world. Duncan and Chad are in Endpoint and Andy is Endpoint’s manager. Dave was in Scrub Monkey in 1990 who recorded an album entitled Shit in the back of a moving car, but it was never released.
“Crawdad was originally together from June 1989 to December 1989. Dave Ernst, Breck Pipes, Kevin Coultas, and Joey Mudd recorded a live EP, Loaded, which was released in May 1990 on Slamdek as a limited edition. In December 1990 they did a reunion show, and they are planning to do another this Christmas. Dave Ernst and Kevin were also in Sister Shannon.”

[Shovel played a few shows and self-released a cassette in early 1993. They were another spawn of long winter nights. Another Endpoint offshoot joke band, they were born at Endpoint practices at Kyle Noltemeyer’s parents’ house off Alta Vista. One of their shows was for the 1991 St. Francis Battle of the Bands. They performed a solid half hour song, during which the vibrations were so dense several audience members became sick and had to be escorted out of the building. At another show, in 1993 at the Machine, Josh Sachs was tied to a huge cross crucifixion-style. While on the cross he defecated and performed other visuals with his body to accompany the music. Shovel never played again after that.]

King G and the J Krew “Freakazoid/No Parking On The Dance Floor/Kent”
M.C. Crawdad vocals, P. Control vocals, A. Frisbee violin & guitar, Will “Cheeto” Chatham drums, M.C. Diogenes guitar & vocals, Amy Torstrick guest violin.

Originally performed by Midnight Star, 1983, and Slint, 1989

“King G and the J Krew have been together since 1989. Their first release was the 95-minute Snug Double Album EP (1990) on Hell N’Ready Records, which is not for sale anymore. Their second album will be Indestructible Songs of the Humpback Whale and will also be on Hell N’Ready sometime around February 1992.

“There seems to have been some dispute as to whether or not all the members of
Midnight Star were from Louisville. But this tune is so kickin’, that technicality has been ignored. The Slint segment qualifies it nonetheless. The fat catalog of Midnight Star stuff can be found on SOLAR Records. You know about Slint.”

[One of King G and the J Krew’s most recognizable assets was their propensity to take the joke-turned-obsession to inconceivable levels. M.C. Crawdad was Jason Mueller, P. Control was Heather Cantrell, A. Frisbee was Aaron Frisbee, M.C. Diogenes was Jason Noble. This six minute epic, while seemingly ridiculous in concept, totally defines the word brilliant and exceeds the boundaries of the Louisville-on-Louisville genre this release created. This song was recorded while the band was in the process of creating their masterful Indestructible Songs of the Humpback Whale CD; a process that took about two years to complete. And that’s virtually every single day for two years. After the release of the CD, they began playing shows as a rock band under the name King Kid International. That incarnation had Jon Cook on drums, Tara O’Neil on bass, and Jeff Mueller and Jason Noble singing and playing guitar. King Kid Int’l became Rodan in December 1992.]


April 24, 1992, Robyn Craxton’s Big Surprise: Sunspring and Ennui played a surprise birthday party for Robyn Craxton at her parents’ house off Herr Lane. Pictured left to right: Duncan Barlow, Natalie Sud, Amy Craft, Mindy Shapero, Dave Cook, Robyn Craxton, Matt Ronay, Katie McGee, Julie Brown, Scott Ritcher, and Lamecron “Pee Wee” Lockhearst. The two bands made up a song and played it together as Robyn came down the stairs.

Merry Christmas included a lengthy list of addresses and mail order prices for all records of all the bands who were covered and those who performed on this cassette. It was the first release tagged with the line, “A Product of Louisville, Kentucky,” and it was dedicated to the 83-year-old woman who was the senile landlady of the Slamdek House. She wrote us 3 to 4 page letters several times a week. At the top of each page she scrawled a creepy line drawing of a crucifix, along with the inverted date (such as 29th September 1991). She demanded that she would have no sinners living in her house. Among other things she was not legally able to request of her tenants, we were not fornicate in the building, consume certain beverages, open the blinds, nor were we to send our rent payments in colored envelopes. She did not have a telephone and her letters arrived virtually every other day. During the ten months in which 1919 Bonnycastle was the Slamdek House, she successively fired two real estate agents and an attorney, who had been hired to collect rent and make service calls for the property. Even when the agents were in charge of the property, she continued to write several times a week. The letters reiterated the moral limits by which residents of the house were expected to comply. The hassle of dealing with agents, attorneys, and constant mental harassment, eventually convinced Greta, Will, Breck, and I that it just wasn’t worth it anymore. In March 1992 we moved out, after which the house remained vacant for over three years. She reportedly died in 1993.

The bands on Merry Christmas paid for their own studio time. Howie Gano at Sound On Sound made a group rate deal with us so all bands involved could record for $20 an hour, a $15 discount. The SLAMDEK/Scramdown Merry Christmas cassette sold 252 units. 48 or so more were given to band members, and area stores and publications as promotional copies. Like many Slamdek releases, it did not turn a profit.

LINER NOTES:

Side one:
Dybbuk Dare To Feel
Step Down Elders
Rawhide Happy Birthday
Sunspring House
Push Back Wool

Side two:
Hopscotch Army Right From Wrong
Undermine Friends?
Shovel Worship
King G & the J Krew Freakazoid/No Parking On the Dance Floor/Kent

Special thanks to: John Timmons and everybody at ear X-tacy, Ken at Ken’s Records, Ben at Better Days, Kim at Kinko’s, Lynn at Op Brightside, and absolutely everyone in the entire world who has cut, folded, stuffed, bought, or sold Slamdek music this year. Even a little bit of thanks to those who have taped it off their friends. Merry Christmas!

Album engineered by Howie Gano at Sound On Sound. Project coordinated by Scott Ritcher and Howie Gano.

Sunspring – The Sun Cassette

August 11, 1991

Sunspring
The Sun Cassette cassette
[SDK-24] photocopied inserts, dot matrix labels

The Sun Cassette marked Sunspring’s official move from the world of struggling new bands with ever-changing members, to the ranks of those with a defined determination to achieve their goals. We had retained the same members (Hayden, Ritcher, Weiss) since our show at Collegiate in May 1991. And we all seemed to share a common enthusiasm for creating something new, something different yet not a novelty, and taking it places. We were ready to make it happen, but we also wanted to make sure and take the time and effort to make a quality product.

The ten-song, twenty-four minute tape was recorded on a Tascam cassette eight track recorder in four August days. It shares some songs with both the $1.50 Demo and the split 7″ with Endpoint, but has a much clearer, rawer, and more natural sound. The main noticeable difference from previous Sunspring recordings is in the way the songs are played. The Sun Cassette drastically speeds up Sunspring’s pace, and even the slower songs have an overlying feeling of urgency. A list of companies who are invited to sponsor the band, Coca-Cola, Hershey’s, Waffle House, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, and Honda also suggests a new emphasis on adrenaline. Sunspring’s massive thank you list tradition began with this

release as well. Recording occurred at my parents’ house, and mixing at the Slamdek House on Bonnycastle Avenue. A second mix was done in November at Jon Cook’s Rocket House downtown where King G & the J Krew were working on Indestructible Songs Of The Humpback Whale. There was also a new Apple Macintosh Classic at the Ritcher household now, and I was finally able to take the right amount of time to use it effectively for layouts. While the inserts were still photocopies, a relatively new Xerox high speed copier had recently arrived at the Kinko’s by U of L. The dark, crisp, clear work of the Xerox 5090 Duplicator can be found in more than half of all subsequent Slamdek releases.


October 18, 1991, Sunspring at Audubon Sk8 Park: Jason Hayden, Scott Ritcher, John Weiss.

Sunspring had very little interest in wasting time or doing things that weren’t fun or over-ambitious. And as ambitious goes, we arranged a six date tour, having only played a total of seven shows in our four months together. The Sun Cassette’s original purpose was to quickly create a tape to sell on that tour. Not only did it serve that purpose, but it held the band over until our Slinky 7″ in February 1992. And The Sun Cassette stuck around after that, staying in print for about two years. The cassette was recorded, mixed and manufactured all in the week before the tour.

Three of its songs were revamped from the $1.50 Demo: “Desert Song,” “Epitaph/Vision” (listed here only as “Epitaph”), and “Implode.” Four others were recreated from another 1990 drum machine demo, the unreleased Honda Civic EP: “Slightly On,” “Spices & Bones,” “Silver Spring” (also rerecorded on the split 7″ with Endpoint), and “Engage.” The other two songs, the band put together as a group: “Incite” and “Mine.”

A secret track was included about a minute after the end of the last song. It came to be called the “Starfish Story,” and is a three minute skit. John Weiss had done some acting in high school at Walden Theatre, so he was a natural for this role. Accompanied by romantic background music and random sound effects, John begins to have a heart-to-heart with the listeners, “Scott’s out of the room right now, so I thought I’d just play with this for a second… We’ve been mixing all day and he wouldn’t let me do anything. I wanted to do backing vocals and stuff but he wouldn’t let me. So while I’ve got a second, I thought maybe I’d tell a story or something. It’ll just take twenty minutes, maybe. We got the time, don’t we?” He then proceeds to share a sincere little story his father told him once. All through the “special” moment he’s sharing with the listeners, John and I had gone back and overdubbed ourselves making stupid noises in the background. “There was this little boy, he was on the beach. He was walking along the beach early one morning. There were starfish washed up all along the beach for miles and miles in every direction. He was walking along and every starfish he’d find, he’d pick it up, and he’d toss it into the sea. He was walking along for a while, when there was an old man, he was on the beach as well. He was watching the boy for a while. He called out to the boy, ‘Boy!’ he said. ‘Boy, you could walk along for the rest of the day. There’s starfish on this beach for miles and miles in every direction. There’s not a thing you could do. You could spend all day, you couldn’t make a difference.’ The boy looked at the old man for a second, then he looked at the starfish in his hand, and he said, ‘Yeah, but to this one I can make a difference.’ And he tossed it into the sea.” Just then you hear a door open, my feet stomping in, and books and things crashing about, and I yell angrily, “Hey! What are you doing in here?” John innocently questions back, “What? Stop?” Then there’s more crashing about and a sound as if the tape recorder has been destroyed, then silence. Not only did many people not realize there was a secret story on the cassette, some even wondered if it was real. But alas, the boys were just acting… they were just acting.


1992 books-on-tape packaging of The Sun Cassette.

The first day of the tour was a packed Louisville show at Snagilwet opening for Kinghorse, Face Value, and Evil Twin Theory. These 300 or so people were the largest crowd we had played for. In addition to the stack of Sun Cassettes, we also had a big batch of t-shirts for sale. In our first eleven shows we earned a total of $60.00, but at this show we got paid $50.00, and sold loads of shirts and tapes adding another $350.00 to it. It was a shocking, yet reassuring way to start off the tour.

The tour took us three boys (in my Honda Civic Wagon with a rooftop luggage carrier) to shows in St. Louis with Jawbox, Helmet, and Dazzling Killmen; then to Omaha where we played with 411, Bamboozled, and Say No More; Iowa City where we played with a bad band called the Halo; to Lincoln, Nebraska with Schlong, Nuisance, Say No More, and the Yard Apes; then to Chicago for Billingsgate’s last show with Guage and Dickey Mo.

The Sun Cassette sold 313 copies over about a year and a half going in and out of print. Around Christmas 1992 it was repackaged into the books-on-tape style packaging. It finally went out of print for good in spring 1993, just before the Poppy album was released. The songs from The Sun Cassette then remained out of print until it was included in its entirety on the Orange CD issued in 1995, long after the band’s break up in 1993.

LINER NOTES:

Side one:
Slightly On
Incite
Desert Song
Implode
Epitaph

Side two:
Mine
Spices & Bones
Silver Spring
Engage
Starfish Story [not listed]

Photographs by Breck Pipes • Thank you: Moms and Dads, Joey Mudd, Kendall Costich, Jay Robbins, Kim Coletta, Jane Morrow, Greta Ritcher, Eric Schmidt, Sean McLoughlin, Betsy Porter, Will Chatham, Breck Pipes, Melissa Middleton, Takayuki Tsuji, John Timmons, Jon Cook, Chris Layton, Tim Furnish, John Causey, Scott Bryant, Sean Garrison, Christi Canfield, Kim Kinko’s, Heather Cantrell, Lee Fetzer, Keith Allison, Karen Sheets, Ken Burton, Jason Noble, Rob Pennington, Kari Alford, Robin Wallace, Chad Castetter, Samantha Feldman, Tishy Quesenberry, Susanne Butler, Duncan Barlow, Impie Baby, John Kampschaefer, Jon Smith, Sissy Davis, Hopscotch Army, Layla Smith and Carrie Osborne (for the food), Simon Furnish, James Canty, the doctor, Erica Montgomery, Todd Johnson, Crain, Marcy Berns, Kelly Kemper, Mitch Osborne, Carrie Newman, Dave Cook, the Nation of Ulysses, Primal Urge, Kinghorse, Bikini Kill, Paul Curry, Dave Wagenshutz, Tim Moss, Ryan Cooper, Katherine Rieber, Scott Broadhurst, Curtis Mead, Becky Hornung, Thad Hornung, Audubon Sk8 Park, Jim Kocian, Mark Corbett, Jason Petrick, Mike Brown, Mike Fitzer, Shut Out, Permanent Death, the Fund for the Animals, Buzz Minnick, Mike Borich, Joe Malone, Rob Roles, Pat and Burke from Disdain, Dave Baker, Dave Barmore, Tet, John Toombs, Eric Ronay, Pat Benatar, Dan Sharp, Bernard (for never giving Jason a raise), Ashli State, Endpoint, Todd Cook, Mark Denny, Richard Vier, Joe Hennessy, Bill Greene, Dan Patterson III, Downpour, Bill W., Dr. Bob and friends, Andrew Buren, Brian Brooks, Franklin Fuchs, Guy, Chris, Fred Fischer, Don Stokes, Big Deal, Darren, Playful 8, Jason Crivello, Nate Brown, Elizabeth Beeson, Scot McAffe, Lydia and David, Rob and Tracy, Liz, Dybbuk and Branden, Todd Lambert, and last but not least Susan Leach. • (always hold true)

Endpoint & Sunspring

April 5, 1991
Endpoint & Sunspring
split seven inch
[SDK-21] photocopied covers and inserts

Originally not planned as a 7″ at all, Slamdek’s twenty-first release marked many new beginnings. As the label’s second entry into the world of vinyl, the Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″ put Sunspring (the band) on the map, adjusted Slamdek’s catalog numbers to start running in numerical order, and brought Endpoint back for another release on a hometown label.

Endpoint had recorded two songs at Sound On Sound in November 1990. One of them, “Promise,” was for a 7″ compilation, A Change For The Better, on Vicious Circle Records. The other, “Priorities,” was a spare song they went ahead and recorded since they were in the studio. In time, and in so many words, I coerced Duncan and Rob into letting me do a seven inch of the songs. They seemed to have reservations about it, though. One reason was that Rob wasn’t proud of the vocal tracks on the songs. Nevertheless, the stage was set for a two song Endpoint 7″ on Slamdek.

Sunspring was also hoping to do a seven inch in the near future. And both bands were especially anxious to see themselves on vinyl. So I pushed the idea of an Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″ on Duncan and Rob. Endpoint and Sunspring had very different styles, and didn’t necessarily belong on the same record together. But John and I were eager to get Sunspring rolling as a fully functioning band. As we ourselves were Endpoint fans, it perhaps made sense that while the two bands weren’t alike, perhaps their audiences would have common members.

By March 1991, Sunspring had only been together about three months. We still had Chad Castetter as a temporary bassist, had played only four small shows, and all things considered, weren’t fully prepared to go into the studio. Despite the recently smoothed compunctions of several involved parties, the Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″ was released April 5, 1991. Having the record in stores just two weeks after Sunspring recorded for it, was another demonstration of the agility Slamdek enjoyed as a small label. The five song record became very successful, outselling every other Slamdek release in its first year, and being the first Slamdek title to enjoy multiple distributors; Cargo, Resonance, Caroline, Blacklist, and Dutch East. Though the printed labels on the record read, “Limited Edition of 500,” it was repressed twice more. This brought the total units in circulation to 1,500 when it was let go out of print in late 1992. Each was hand numbered on the Sunspring side of the record as “___ of 500,” even after the numbers had passed 500. And to disprove anyone claiming to have copy #1, an unknown quantity of records from the second batch were inadvertently shipped without numbers in late 1991. Susan Leach, a friend of both bands and earlier member of Sunspring, is the owner of the genuine #001 of 500. So go call out any of your show-off friends who wrote low numbers on their second pressing copies.
In March 1993, Slamdek Singles, a short lived two cassette set of compiled EP’s, included the five songs from this seven inch. Sunspring’s Poppy CD in June 1993 included their three split 7″ songs as bonus tracks. And when Endpoint’s If The Spirits Are Willing came out on CD in late 1994, it included their two songs as well. This brings the total circulation of these five songs to about 4,600 units.

Over the course of its pre-bonus track life, as an individual release, it was subject to
several cover art redesigns. Those are illustrated on these pages.

The Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″ also created an underlying bond between the two bands that lasted until both of our final shows. In the summer of 1993, the two bands did a lengthy, tiring tour of the United States together. Sunspring unknowingly played our last show on this tour. It was August 15, 1993 in Rapid City, South Dakota with Endpoint, Shelter, 108, and Hellbender. December 4, 1993, a second split 7″ by Endpoint and Sunspring was released. On that record, Written In Rock, the two bands paid tribute to Rick Springfield, an unlikely, but common, early inspiration for members of both groups. And when Endpoint played their final show, December 30, 1994, the definitive 1991-92 version of Sunspring [Hayden, Ritcher, and Weiss] reunited to open the show with a ten song set.

The two tracks on the Endpoint side are “Promise” and “Priorities.” This version of “Promise” also appeared on the 7″ compilation A Change For The Better from Vicious Circle Records in Baltimore. “Promise” was rerecorded later for their Catharsis album on Doghouse, released in fall 1992. And a hilariously uninspired version of “Priorities” was recorded for the compilation album Only The Strong MCMXCII on Victory Records, released in late 1992.

Sunspring’s three tracks are, “Don’t Just Stand There,” a reworking of a Patty Duke single from 1964 that went to #14 on the Billboard chart, “Silver Spring,” and “Kendall.” “Silver Spring” was rerecorded for Sunspring’s Sun cassette on Slamdek in August 1991. A sample that begins the Sunspring side is from the TV movie version of Call Me Anna, the autobiography of Patty Duke. The quote is from a moment right after she received one of the 1970 Emmy Awards. She had given her acceptance speech in sign language, which was out of camera range and it had appeared to viewers as if she were just were just staring off into space saying nothing. As soon as she walked off stage, reporters hounded her with questions, to which she blankly replied, “It’s meaningless. Acting is meaningless. Television is meaningless. My life is meaningless. I’m gonna start a whole
new life.” The song “Kendall” was the oldest of the three, having been carried over from Cold Mourning.

A couple weeks after the release of the record, Chad was growing tired of playing in both Endpoint and Sunspring, and working an early morning job at Paul’s Fruit Market. He retired his temporary bass playing position in Sunspring. Jason Hayden, who played bass in Endpoint, coincidentally replaced him. After about a month of practice, May 10, 1991, the two bands shared a stage for the first time. The frenzied, controversial, animated, energetic, uproarious, and (perhaps) legendary show took place in the auditorium of Louisville Collegiate School. Collegiate is a private K through 12 school in the Highlands with a notoriously effective field hockey program.

The show began with an alternative cover band, followed by Long Arm which was a short lived hardcore band. Sunspring played third as our first show with Jason Hayden on bass, and the new line up seemed to gel instantly. I announced to the crowd of hundreds at Collegiate that the following day would be ear X-tacy’s one-year anniversary in their Tyler Park Plaza location and there would be free pizza. Endpoint’s ferocious set (including a cover of Minor Threat’s “I Don’t Wanna Hear It”) threw the evening out of control by inciting the crowd to move too much. Despite the school’s mixer-esque “No Slam Dancing” signs, rebellion lurks in every young child’s heart and movement erupted. This prompted school officials to threaten to pull the plug if it didn’t stop. And, of course, it didn’t stop. The school pulled the plug, but drummer Lee Fetzer kept playing and the kids kept singing along to the beat.

Collegiate’s school newspaper, Pandemonium, ran a story about the melee. The article by Amanda Wagoner and Karla Millan tried to clear up the rumors about what had actually happened:

… Despite the rumors recently buzzing in the school hallways, no one was hurt. Neither Upper School Head Jay Selvig nor the band he unplugged blame one another for the sudden halt of the party.

This was after the audience “started getting crazy,” said Lee Fetzer, Endpoint’s drummer.
By this time the audience had already received several warnings to calm down, this was reiterated by Selvig and Endpoint. The audience obviously ignored these notices, and seemed to test their authority…

A separate editorial called “After the Battle” was also printed:

…The band threw certain objects into the crowd and did not shut down when instructed to do so by Head of Upper School, Mr. Jay Selvig. It took the actions of pre-hired police to finally shut down the band, putting an end to the slam dancing…

The fact that the event did not run as smoothly as hoped cannot be blamed entirely on Endpoint. The Upper School Senate is equally, if not more, to blame for its naivete in hiring bands that often play for slam dancing crowds… The Senate could have easily bypassed the problems by hiring bands that are followed more by Collegiate students. Certain planners of the concert obviously knew that slam dancing and objects being thrown into the crowd occur at Endpoint performances…

Endpoint was paid the $200 they were promised, and the incident ended with no hard feelings. It turned up again (in a big way) by accident in January 1992 when a young girl named Shanda Sharer was murdered after a Sunspring show at Audubon Sk8 Park. Part of a Sunspring interview as the first story on WHAS-TV’s 6:00 news program included a clip of “Sunspring” playing at Collegiate. Newscaster Chuck Olmstead had cued the video to the most menacing-looking part. In doing so he inadvertently showed part of Endpoint’s set on the air and identified them as Sunspring. The chaotic, riotous scene, however, did go nicely with his slant on the story. The 11:00 news included an apology for the mistake.

LINER NOTES:

Endpoint side:
Promise
Priorities

Endpoint:
Duncan Barlow, guitar
Chad Castetter, guitar
Lee Fetzer, drums
Jason Hayden, bass
Rob Pennington, vocals

Sunspring side:
Don’t Just Stand There
Silver Spring
Kendall

Sunspring:
Chad Castetter, bass
K. Scott Ritcher, guitar & vocals
John Weiss, drums

Recorded at Sound On Sound. Endpoint produced by Howie Gano and the EPA, November 1990. Sunspring produced by Howie Gano and K. Scott.

Endpoint thanks: Andy, Matt from New Zealand, K. Scott, EPA, Dennis, Shelter, and Vans.

Sunspring thanks: Endpoint, Kendall, Joey, Kim and Jay, Sister Shannon, Betsy, King G + J Krew, Susan, Simon, Jon, not-so-little Dave, Christi, Tishy, Mary Verna and Techno-Poppy, Tim, Will, Kelly Sue, Marcy, John and Susanne, Lettuce Prey, Don and the Wednesday group, the fellowship, Fullout, Anne and Allan Weiss (patience and tolerance), Bill, Dan, Erica, Carrie and Layla, Max, Dale, and Crawdad.

The Slamdek Record Companyslamdek.com
K Composite Media,