Category: 1993

December 11, 1993

LG&E – No. 28

December 11, 1993

LG&E
No. 28 cassette
[SDK-28] inserts photocopied backwards on the under side of translucent vellum paper, laser printed labels

Periodically, in the scarce free time Duncan and I had available to create other musical outlets for ourselves, we would team up and record songs as Layered Guitars and Electronics. Our name, LG&E, was obviously a take on the name of the Louisville Gas and Electric Company. LG&E songs were Tascam cassette eight-track recordings that took place in down time, wherever I lived, while I was working on other projects. They spanned over two years, borrowing time from Sunspring’s Action Eleven in September ’92, to Francy Yingling’s Third Album in September ’93, to Metroschifter’s New Mexico Drum Machine Demos in March ’94.

Like many of the other side projects the two of us had been involved in, there was a considerably small level of seriousness. That is, the group started as a joke and therefore, as there was no serious stake in the music, the group was free to fail with nothing lost. The original idea of LG&E was to exploit our positions as members of Endpoint and Sunspring and thereby entice the Kids to buy the self-indulgent, pretentious, dance-able music. But as we began to record a few songs, we realized we actually liked what we had created. Furthermore, we were surprised at how closely the finished product resembled our expectations. We aspired to combine the elements of groups like Spectrum, Charlatans UK, Spiritualized, and Stone Roses, with our own interpretation of what that combination would sound like when meshed with basic Louisvillian ideas. Our description in the Slamdek catalog included, “Soft vocals layered over smooth distortion and sellout style drum machine rhythms. Uncharacteristic of Endpoint or Sunspring.” The reverb on the guitars and whispered vocals was turned all the way up, producing a sleepy lead to our sometimes beefy electronic rhythm section.

To the degree that LG&E initially aspired to exploit our audience for our own amusement, two things became evident after the cassette was released. The first one was that you’re not taking advantage of your audience if you genuinely like the music you’re selling. Duncan and I hadn’t planned on liking the songs, we just planned on selling them. And we were caught off guard when we enjoyed the music. The second truth we found was, “You can’t sell out if nobody’s buying.”

Our only venture beyond the confines of Slamdek was a contribution to Analog Distillery’s Misfits tribute cassette, Louisville Babylon. The tape included more than twenty Louisville bands performing songs by the Misfits. The super lo-fi release was a mix of about 50% big name bands like Endpoint, Rodan, Crain, Falling Forward, and 50% new or no-name artists. LG&E’s track was “Some Kinda Hate,” which was added to updated versions of No. 28.

LG&E played a total of three shows during our two years as a “band.” The short time period of our live performances was while Duncan was also playing in both Guilt and Endpoint. For me, Sunspring was over and Metroschifter had not yet begun. LG&E’s first show was at the Brewery Thunderdome on October 9, 1993. We played for a crowd of over 1,000 people after Evergreen, and before Endpoint and Poster Children. The show was a benefit for Rant, a U of L-based literary publication that staged several multiple-day nonstop “Insomniacathon” benefit shows. For this show, Kyle Noltemeyer joined us on bass, and the drum machine tracks were piped in from a DAT.

Our next show was also a Rant benefit, about five weeks later at Tewligans with The Telephone Man, Eleven-11, Plunge, Oval, and poetry readings by Buzz Minnick and Duncan. For this show, LG&E was just Duncan and I with the drum tracks and bass lines on DAT. Our final show was performed in the same format. It was at Butchertown Pub with The Telephone Man and Hammerhead. This was the only show we got paid for, earning $75.00. We were so disappointed [embarrased] with our performance, though, that we decided to call it quits.

The LG&E cassette was different depending on when you bought it. As we recorded more songs, the tape was constantly updated, replacing a few of the not-so-hot tracks like “Third” and “Fourth” with newer ones. Additionally, free LG&E cassettes were given away at Slamdek Rockers field hockey games that included a remix of the song “Fifth” as well as the songs “Seventh” and “Seventh Point Five,” that were not available on copies that were sold. A total of 106 units of the LG&E cassette were put into circulation. As well, the songs “First,” “Second,” and “Third” were included in the Slamdek Singles box set, taking LG&E’s total cassette listening audience to just over 150 sets of ears. The selling price of No. 28 was a seven inch-esque $3.50, hoping that the low price would encourage people to try it, and if they didn’t like it, they wouldn’t feel ripped off. LG&E’s catalog number, SDK-28, for which the cassette was named, was out of sequence. It filled in the hole left when Hopscotch Army’s third album, These Shallow Hours, was cancelled about a year earlier.

LINER NOTES:

Track listing varied. The program was typically 20 minutes and included five to seven of the following tracks:
First
Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth
Some Kinda Hate
Seventh
Seventh Point Five
Filler Noises

Not listed on insert:
Duncan Barlow, instruments/vocals
Scott Ritcher, instruments/vocals

The cassette included the following disclaimer:
“The Layered Guitars and Electronics Group (LG&E) is in no way sanctioned by, nor affiliated with, the Louisville Gas and Electric Company.”

December 4, 1993

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,

October 11, 1993

The Telephone Man

October 11, 1993
The Telephone Man
cassette
[SDK-35] color copied inserts, laser printed labels. limited edition of first 50 units had handmade packaging, some in books-on-tape long boxes and some in Norelco boxes

Over the course of 1993, The Telephone Man evolved from a drum machine project into a full-fledged band. The recording of this self-titled cassette (often referred to as “No. 35”) was the band’s first visit to the studio. It not only preserved Matt Ronay’s quickly evolving songwriting abilities, but also expressed an emphasis on a return to earlier Slamdek ideals. As mentioned in the discussion of Matt’s previous band, Ennui, earlier in the book, the group of kids he came from grew up on Slamdek. The label was now to the age where it was a part of the old scene and The Telephone Man’s cassette has a decidedly retro-Slamdek look and sound, coupled with an all new approach. Matt and I were logging a lot of hours together doing the never-ending Slamdek chores of cutting, folding, mailing, and all that.
The tape came into existence during a unique timespan. The T-Man recorded these four songs in mid-September 1993, and the tape was in stores about three weeks later, a classic old-Slamdek-style turnaround. Sunspring had recorded a Rick Springfield cover in July 1993 for a second split seven inch with Endpoint (SDK-33). Endpoint hadn’t recorded yet and Sunspring was on its deathbed, so that record didn’t come out until December. Francy Yingling and I were also in the process of working on a seven inch under her name (SDK-34). Francy’s record was eventually cancelled about six months later, before it was completed (see page 155). The Telephone Man’s SDK-35 was recorded and released in a short three week time period, quickly and seemingly effortlessly, while the label’s other projects crawled toward completion at a sleepy pace. Because of The Telephone Man’s expedient progress, their cassette bridged a gap of seven months between the releases of the Sunspring CD and the second Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″. And as a result, it slipped into the fortunate position of being the only new Slamdek release for the fall, and reaching far more people than it otherwise would have. Had the other records come out on schedule, The Telephone Man, the underdog as a new band, would have been sharing advertising space with heavyweights Endpoint and Sunspring, as well as the other new entry, Francy Yingling.

In stark contrast to Matt’s earlier work, and the rest of the stuff on Slamdek, The Telephone Man’s sound was especially darker, moodier, rawer, and more direct. The band had no image they were trying to project, nor any preconceived notions that they were anything relevant to anybody. There was no thick, beefy guitar sound, or heavy handed rhythm section. Instead, their songs took shape by building from basic instrumental ideas, and expanding them to include vocals or distortion as the moods developed. The four songs clock in at just under twenty minutes. Ashli State, on bass, contributed backing vocals which expanded the sound to even wider degrees. The band’s music was dynamic, seemingly uneasy, and had a mechanical feel. Two of the songs on the tape included tracks of Matt, drummer Nick Hennies, and friend Ben Brantley banging on sheet metal and other clangy objects; an idea directly derived from Cerebellum’s cassette in 1989.

The recording and mixing took place September 18 and 19, 1993. While it was recorded at DSL by Mike Baker, The Telephone Man didn’t have the budget to work with that Sunspring did earlier in the year, nor did they desire to pour a lot of time into the recording. DSL was slowly beginning to function as a normal studio, bringing in more and more outside clients, and The Telephone Man was among the first round. They were interested in basically just setting up the equipment, turning on the tape recorders, playing their songs, doing some nominal mixing, and going home. Quite the opposite approach to recording that DSL’s previous clients Sunspring and Hopscotch Army had taken. The recording process went pretty smoothly considering it was the band’s first visit to a studio. I came along, as I had with Ennui, to listen and to be of assistance when needed. But Mike Baker ran the show and got the raw, unproduced sound the band was looking for. The tape sounds pretty much like the band sounded when they were standing there playing in the Jeffersontown home studio; provided the necessary volume is added, of course.

About two weeks before recording, The Telephone Man played a show at Iroquois Amphitheatre. The sunny, clear afternoon performance closed with the emotionally-drenched debut of a new, ten minute song, “Grandfather.”

“It’s dark in the midafternoon as light filters through drawn shades. The sheets wrapped around my body as I try to sleep, as I try to remember. The light takes my energy away. Pick me up, put me down, I’m not as pure as you thought I would be. I can’t sleep for what I remember of you. Pick me up, put me down, I’m not as pure as you thought I would be. I lit the match, I held it to my lungs, it’s supposed to bring you back. I wish you could see who I am, see what I have done, see who I am. The sky’s colors are all running through, they’re making grey, I wish you were here. I can remember the way that you smile, the way that you laugh. I know that you’re gone. The leaves fall off the trees, to the ground that you lay on, and you are not here. I wish I could say goodbye to you on that day in May, but I was somewhere else. I know that you’re somewhere else too, but I know it’s the same way.”

September 1993, The Telephone Man at Iroquois Amphiringing intheatre:
Ashli State, Matt Ronay, Nick Hennies.

The Telephone Man cassette didn’t set any amazing sales records or change the face of the earth. In fact, it only sold about 165 copies. There is no doubt that the odds were undoubtedly stacked against it. Slamdek was in the middle of a strange time, not just in the months surrounding its release, but for about six months before it and for a year after it. It was alone in the spotlight for about two months as the only new item, but when December rolled around it quickly began getting buried. Slamdek had three releases in December and another in January. In trying to keep up with all of it, the label was considerably overextended (more than usual).

Furthermore, The Telephone Man was evolving so rapidly that the tape was hardly a reflection of the group by the new year.
In December 1993, Ben Brantley joined the group on second guitar. His addition to the group expanded their horizons in all directions. The quiet parts got quieter, the heavy parts got heavier, the intricate parts got more intricate, and the contrast between vocal and instrumental portions became more extreme. The group returned to DSL in February 1994 to document four more songs. Perhaps some of their finest material, it was unfortunately never released. “Douglass Boulevard” is mostly instrumental with a quiet narrative by Matt in the middle, then he and Ben share vocals at the end. For the classic “Let Me Tell You How Much I Like You So You Can Treat Me Like Shit,” Ashli takes the lead vocal. This song appeared on a free Slamdek sampler tape given away at the first Slamdek Rockers field hockey game, March 19, 1994. And Matt handles the vocals for the dramatic “Rain = Flood” and the short and catchy “Kelly.”

After the February 1994 session, they began to settle into their niche. Their full, defining sound was one totally unique to them, yet unmistakably major league Louisvillian. But like Cerebellum and many other earlier Slamdek bands, The Telephone Man’s true importance was never fully evident until it was too late. During their two years together, they metamorphosed so constantly that they essentially played a completely different style of music every four or five months. In their later days, the stereotypical Louisville genre they were often pigeonholed into was one they helped develop during its crucial times. But as the unsung heroes of the genre, they took to the home stretch quietly.

“I will follow you, through the woods, through the fields of grain. I will walk up steps of steel, and I will brush away things that do not heal. Decision making processes can grow here if we let them metamorphosize, let them go, be free. I don’t know what I am doing when I decide where I am going. I don’t know. Needles and stitches.”

LINER NOTES:

Side one:
Muldoon
Whole Man, Half Man
I Will Follow You
Grandfather

Side two was blank.

[Some 1994 editions of the cassette have the first three songs on side one and “Grandfather” on side two.]

Produced by Mike Baker and Scott Ritcher. Cover design by Matt Ronay.

Nick Hennies, drums
Ashli State, bass/vocals
Matt Ronay, guitar/vocals

Thank you’s: ASHLI: Max Jason Dollinger (this is about you, thanks?), Suzanna Stoll, Jason N., Jeff M., Layla, Jason H., Tara, K. Scott, Mr. and Mrs. Hennies. NICK: Kendle. MATT: Scott, Ben, Nick and Ashli, Nick’s parents, Jason N., Rodan, Josh, Layla, Endpoint, Drew, Samantha, Greg King, and Buzz.

The Slamdek Record Companyslamdek.com
K Composite Media,

June 4, 1993

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 Poppy The “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.

March 24, 1993

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.