Star Trap - 4 More Songs

Star Trap's 2nd album sees a departure from their early material, this time featuring vocals by the duo. Still the standard 4 song album length, we get to hear the depth of the band with their acoustic guitars, percussion, and soothing voices. Enjoy 2 of their classics, Joking on Jesus, and True Grunge (Torn Tights).

Joking On Jesus
 

True Grunge (Torn Tights)
 

Little Richard and The Pickles

Taken off the ultra rare "ish c-sides" cassette, I offer Little Richard and The Pickles recording of "I Like Dogs". This band, composed of Richard P on vocals, Brian C on guitar/vocals, Joel L on percussion, and Sean S on harmonica, only recorded this one track in 1992.

FPRP - The Off White EP

FPRP started a joke at a garage party in around 1991. Neale Shaffer had this idea of him and I starting a band on the spot. We did 1 song. Later, FPRP recorded a few more songs and released "The Off White EP" in 1993. This release features Neale on guitar/vocals, and Joel on guitar/vocals/percussion. I chose 3 songs, "Summer of 68", "Way Cheese", and "Snow". "Summer of 68" is our attempt at a love song, while "Way Cheese" is about someone Neale had met that could only say 3 words, "way", "cheese" and the name of some video game. "Snow" is about our hatred of Snow. "Informer" Snow, not the white snow. Well, he's white too, but the white stuff that falls from the sky, snow.

Summer of 68
 
Way Cheese
 
Snow
 

The Shutdowns - In The Attic

The Shutdowns were Erik S on guitar/vocals, Andrew D on bass, and Joel L on drums. After self-releasing an album, they called it quits. A year or so later, the 3 of them got together, along with John W, to record some stuff in Joel's attic. What you hear here is Andrew singing The Shutdowns track, "Breaking My Back", but not before Erik tells him that "it better be tough". After that hilarity ends, we get to hear John croon out The Ramones "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend". This is not the last time you will get to hear John and Andrew on lead vocal duties. The ish archive runs deep.

Star Trap - Star Trap Theme

Recorded on 1993 at the ish headquarters at their ½ address, this legendary recording is the first of 3 Star Trap releases. Named after the random tape it was recorded on, Star Trap, this duo featured Dave DiDonato on guitar/keyboard, and Joel Lindelof on guitar. Dave holds down the rhythm while Joel has no idea what he is doing on lead which lends to a wonderful mess. I give you the opening track, "Star Trap Theme".

The Gentleman Callers

This one off Gentleman Callers session featured Joel L on drums, Lucian C on guitar and Erik S on bass and vocals. In the summer of 2000, Erik had just come back from touring with The Dragstrip Syndicate and came to visit me in my house in Alexandria, VA. My basement had an assortment of equipment, so we decided to resurrect The Gentleman Callers, something Erik and I had done a few years earlier. We brought back "Sweet FLA", a song about a true story of a group of crazies (FFA?) who wanted to blow up Disney Word on "Gay Day". The other 2 songs I had forgotten were ever recorded, but Erik has this to say about them:

"I think that first tune was called "Baby Bitch," and is a total rip off of "All Night Long" by Thee Hypnotics. I think the second one was called "Leper Love." In one of my English classes at the time I had read a poem or something about a leper living on a colony who was pining for a girl who couldn't come near him due to his leprosy. The first line to the song is "Baby, you know how it goes. You'd love me if I had a nose." HAHAHA!"

Sweet FLA


Baby Bitch


Leper Love