ARSC list members,
For those of you at the conference who took
an interest in my talk, there is a surprising postscript
to it in that this email was
waiting for me when I got back home. It reproduces a recent article from
CityBeat Cincinnati in which Darren Blase
provides info about the Artpunk records he's re-releasing,
including mine. It is past my
signature.
I really appreciated the warm welcome,
fellowship and fun at this year's joint ARSC/SAM conference.
David N. Lewis
Assistant Classical Editor
All Media
Guide
1168 Oak
Valley Drive
Ann Arbor,
MI 48108
U.S.A
[log in to unmask]
734 887 8145
One of
Blase's most intriguing local projects is a proposed multiple
disc reissue
of David Lewis' Hospital Records output (including some
cable access video
footage) from the late '70s to the mid-'80s,
including such long-forgotten
art-damaged entities like BPA, Dementia
Precox, 11,000 Switches and Teddy
and the Frat Girls. Although the
original pressings from these bands were
extremely limited and not
hugely popular at the time, interest has built to
a fever pitch over
the mere suggestion that this material will see the light
of day
again in the digital age.
"There are those early QIZZ singles
produced by Bob Mothersbaugh from
Devo that are so good, they're amazing,
but they only made 200 copies
of them and you can't get them anywhere,"
Blase says. "It was all
recorded at Group Effort (in Crescent Springs) and
they still had all
the tapes. They never threw them away. It ended up they
had some
unreleased stuff and they had six songs from Auto Glamour that
never
came out. That's when it started going from doing this one CD thing
to 'You know what, let's create this complete document and just do
it.'
(Distributors) Triage and Forced Exposure are just going apesh*t
over it."
With Blase, the "apesh*t" factor seems to be of primary importance.
He estimates that the label ultimately will lose money on the
Hospital
release, but for him the loss is secondary to the fact that
the material
will be simultaneously introduced to a new audience and
restored to its
original audience.