In the golden era of young men and guitars, there sprang a cosmic confluence of time and motion, a place where ideas could dance freely on black revolvers, and be remembered for the times they were or weren’t 30-some-odd years down the line.
To be more frank and dissonant, from the moment they saw the Mops singin’ “Hold Your Hand!!!” on the tube, the thing was already up and moving. Get a geetar and some kinda wooden box to shut yourself in for a while. Hell, add four guys to flesh it out, make it LOUDER. We all know this story, tried and true, as it still spins on in barns and bathrooms, Fresno to Fryeburg, all across the good 'ol US of A. But in those twilight strains of years gone by, the equation had a different answer then than it does now. The difference? They made records. Real relics you could hold and smell and feel. (And listen to, of course...)
Some were made just for friends or family, some with obscure song titles and references to things only known to the creators. Some wanted to make it big, and some actually could have, others fell flat on their face, and yet it’s still lovable and listenable. Others seem to anticipate things far ahead of their time, like strangers wandering a shopping mall parking lot and seeing things that aren't there. Some made records like a message in a bottle, lonely testaments to the fact that, yes, they were here.
Most of these were originally "private press" records, a term denoting an independent production and release by the band or artist, pressed at a custom vinyl factory, of which there were many in the golden era of “vanity” pressings. (Hundreds of thousands of these records were made at the time.) One or two records might have been released on a major label, but almost all here were doomed to obscurity, not just now but in their time as well. I hope you find as much nourishment here as I have. These sounds make me dream.
