First, check out the newest Banned Books video here XXXmas. It’s for their Christmas song off the holiday split called “XXXmas”. That record will be here on Thursday.
Second, head on over to this site and enter to win a bundle of Stumparumper records!! Merry Christmas. (Unfortunately, it’s only open to US residents I think.)
Mailing list people will be hearing from me soon. Thanks!
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Mission Creep from Banned Books.
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The winners of the Railcars pre-order contest were:
1st prize (test press) – Tony Cervantes of Riverside, CA
2nd prize (Railcars 7″) – Noah Eisenbruch of Amherst, MA
Congrats! Hope you’re all spinning those records and enjoying it.
Two new 7″s on the way very soon:
Holiday 4-way 4-way split between Banned Books, Granny Frost, Hoop Dreams, and Fuck Montreal. All songs about Christmas. 300 pressed, 100 on red vinyl.
Fuck Montreal – Winter Mange Super long (14 minutes!) 7″ ep from this unbelievably good Canadian band. 300 pressed, 100 on red vinyl.
Stay tuned.
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Banned Books 12″ mini-lp available now – features a heavyweight, 100% recycled paper silk-screened sleeve hand numbered to 300, plus an mp3 download card and a 1″ Banned Books pin! Paypal $13.00 to stumparumper@gmail.com if you’re in the US, $15US for Canada/Mexico, and $20US for the world at large. Sorry, shipping costs are ridiculous.
If you don’t want to import, please coerce your local shop to buy a whole bunch of them so you can get it cheap. Will be available at Academy Annex in Brooklyn, Norman Recs in the UK, and Bif Aufs Messer in Germany.
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Hey everybody! Please check out the NEW SITE!! Totally cool!
Also, I got the Banned Books test pressings on Friday, they sound great, and they should be pressing those things by Monday or Tuesday. Records should be available in about 2 weeks.
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Check out the interview with Craig, live from Canada:
http://www.thattoweringfeeling.com/7inpodcast/episode54scribblerpt1.mp3
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And so are the Banned Books and Railcars records!!!! Banned Books is gonna have 8 awesome tracks on their debut 12″, cut at 45rpm. Should be out by end of June. Check out three of those tracks HERE. Screen-printed sleeves!
Railcars record is also going to cure your summer blues. Great full color art, great music, free download. I can’t wait, how bout chu?
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Jason from 7inches did a really nice write-up of BOTH 7″s that Stumparumper has put out so far. You can read them in their original context at 7inches. Here they are:
The H.A.N.S. on Stumparumper records
This The H.A.N.S. single was first mentioned in Stumparumper’s blog, and I actually talked to Pat for an episode of the podcast about this release. H.A.N.S. was a band Pat had in high school, he played guitar and sings on the single.
This was hand cut by Peter King, so automatically it has this intimate quality, the crackles and pops, it adds another element to the sound which just sounds historic.
Side A: (No title?)
This is a live recording (I can’t tell if it’s maybe just the effects?) It really sounds huge, it must have been recorded in an empty gym, the kick is massively booming around the space, at least this is what I imagine my high school gym would have sounded like. This one starts out pretty sensitive, all feelings and slow electric guitar, but then really ends up rocking out for a while. I’m wondering when exactly this was recorded what kind of influences these guys were listening to…I don’t know if I’m hearing Teenage Fanclub? Maybe it’s just me.
Side B:
‘How is it?’ Sounds like here Pat starts a melody, or is trying to remember it, can’t hear exactly what they are saying but when he commits to the line, it takes off. The H.A.N.S had a pretty amazing drummer especially considering this was high school, he’s all over the kit, playing every possible piece, like a giant fill rhythm.
I keep expecting to hear an audience come in at the end.
The Superhero song: Nice post indie guitar jangle here…kind of pop, with little hooks all over. Very catchy, I can’t quite catch all the vocals here but it’s the radio friendly hit out of the three….Sellouts.
I’m impressed, I would have never had my shit together to record anything of this quality. Or even rehearse enough to play anything live, or deal with anything long enough. It seamed easier to record for the day in the kitchen or literally a garage just off the street with whoever showed up, make up a new name, press record.
The sound is pretty nicely represented here, other than the treble in sections sounds blown out probably something to do with the cutting process. I’m always amazed to hold one of these in my hands and think the masters had to be shipped to New Zealand…hand cut on individual lathe cutters one or two at a time and then shipped back to the US and then to my mailbox…crazy.
I have a clear vinyl copy # 16/20, I think there might still be one available from AnimalPsi, if they update regularly….and it’s a very reasonable $7 for a completely unique object. Did I mention the sleeve is made out of old homework? It can’t be high school homework, it looks insanely hard.
“This is the only recording that the legendary H.A.N.S. ever made as a duo, which is slightly staggering considering the number of live shows they’ve played. Now both up-and-coming composers, the members of the H.A.N.S. have agreed to release part of a fantastic 2005 session on 7″ as the first record for Stumparumper. One is impressed by the depth of their songwriting and musicianship, but also by their exuberance, which reminds us of how much joy can be had from making music. This 7″ will be released as a limited edition of 20 on clear vinyl. Each record is hand-cut on a lathe by Peter King in New Zealand, and every record will come in a hand-numbered, homemade jacket constructed from the H.A.N.S.’ old math homework.”
Pat’s also just released a couple of cassette’s as well, get over to his myspace and check out some of the other stuff there as well. This is a one man operation that goes to fund more releases. If in the future there’s room for every music fan/maker to do this….welll that sounds pretty perfect to me. We’ll all buy each others records and don’t have to have real jobs.
Call me a hippie.
A 7″ hippie.
I’m just jealous because I need to just shut up and press something of my own already.
Scribbler on Stumparumper
Scribbler:
side a
my old lady
a girl should
side b
ocean floor
few days of storm
nothing but pain
zzzzzz
Pat sent me the first couple of singles from his Stumparumper label and I’m going to be talking about them today and tomorrow. Starting off with this single from Scribbler which I loved and have been playing straight the past couple of days.
Scribbler seems to be, according to youtube, a kind of collective of a few people, either that or their friends join them onstage regularly and in the van. I counted at least 6 members playing everything from whipping flexible plastic tubes around to samplers, electric and acoustic guitar. This lends to a multifaced recording where expectations keep getting tossed out.
This single starts out with the perfect A-Side opener, ‘My Old Lady’ I love this hushed home recording feel…. quiet acoustic strumming, the soft hiss of cassette noise. I’m sure it’s going to be compared to something Neil Young or Chad Vangaalen, but those aren’t bad things to be compared to let’s face it. Maybe it’s because he’s singing about his old lady, but it’s even more to do with the vocals that have a huge far off echo combined with the tender falsetto. There’s great little moments of synth and subtle touchs of xylophone, it’s easily my favorite on the disc.
It even sounds like the tracks ends with the slow disintegration warp of the stop button.
The next track on the A-Side is a live song called ‘A Girl Should’. Someone in the audience says ‘Who?” after they say ‘Hi, …We’re scribbler’, nice touch. At first it sounds like we’re hearing a live direction of the previous track. Real quiet electric guitar picking, soft vocals but then blows up with a full backing band country rock style. A burst of drum and distortion just before the verse comes in. But scribbler likes the noise, and not content to just alt-country Palace style rock it out, when the solo slams in it’s full of effects waving around. All phaser and delay to take the whole sound in another direction entirely.
The B-Side is where things really get interesting.
Ocean Floor, another live track, gets rocking right away with plenty of low feedback for ambiance. The vocals aren’t afraid to crack and scream, we are getting a view of the stark, lonely ocean floor after all. When they get to singing the line ‘It was dark!’ it’s punctuated by feedback and cymbal crashes at a quarter time. There’s a lot of references to nature with a capital N in these tracks, but it doesn’t feel like they ever end up leaning to heavily on this country staple.
‘A few days of storm’ finds us back to the 4-track, quiet chord strumming and barely audible vocals. Just enough to hold out for another glimmer of brilliance. The mood is there, Scribbler can change direction at any time to lead you back into the woods.
Nothing But Pain is pure Sebadoh inspired 4-track experiment. The close rumble of scraping mics, slide ukulele, fully blown out vocals, some kind of feedback melody from a tortured microphone. They want you to know they can deconstruct and push boundaries with the best of them.
‘zzzzzz’ is garage enough, pushing the low of the fi into Los Llamaradas territory…. total freeform garage meltdown. Complete screaming noise rock recorded on the worst device laying around. Take that listener.
The Sleeve is ink so heavy it’s raised silver silkscreen, hand numbered by Pat and a great design. I’d tell you what’s scratched into the gutter, but you’ll have to get one to find out.
Direct from Stumparumper for $4.50…that has to be the most inexpensive single…Pat’s keeping the prices down because this thing deserves to be heard.
6 songs, nearly 13 minutes of music made especially for Scribbler’s extensive Canadian tour in March. One side beautiful and moving folk, the other an electrified aural thrashing of your senses. Is it really the same band? This long-playing 7″ does an excellent job of evoking the excitement of seeing the band live or at work with a 4-track – the rawness of the music, the snide comments of the audience, and the emotion put forth by the band. One is able to hear the many sides of Scribbler on only 2 sides of wax.
Edition of 300 (half of which went to the band) on black vinyl with hand-silkscreened and numbered jackets and hand-drawn labels. Plus some secret messages scrawled into the wax. Most have silver drawn labels, but there are 30 with pink labels and 10 with gold labels. The first 10 direct orders get gold (SOLD OUT), then the next 15 get pink (a handful left)), and the rest silver. Please specify if you want silver instead of the other colors.
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Hi everybody. So we’re in the planning stages for the debut record for Banned Books. It’s definitely going to be a 12″ record, probably 8 songs, with a screen-printed sleeve and mp3 downloads. I can also confirm that it will be great. Should hopefully be of to the press within two weeks (in early May), so it should probably be ready by mid-June.
Also, Railcars’ new album “The Cathedral With No Eyes” is coming soon too, (un)official release date is August 1. Hopefully we’ll also have a 7″ by Fuck Montreal, but that’s far from confirmed at this point.
We’re down to the last 50 copies of Scribbler, so get on that.
After being rejected 6 times from grad schools, it looks like I’m going to be headed to Queens College for a masters in music composition this fall. Much relief.
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Master-redactors is Kevin Oliver, Ben Falk, and two guitars. That’s all they need. These two guys write some of the most outstanding songs I’ve ever heard; each side of the tape contains about 17 songs (some not much more than 7 seconds long) which manages to create two absolutely mesmerizing side-long tracks. One of my favorite cassettes EVER!!! Dubbed straight from the master on chrome tapes, edition of 40.
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