Category: 1992

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.

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.

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