During the ’70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, and early oughts, I worked at The Longhorn Bar, First Avenue, and the Uptown Bar in Minneapolis. Throughout those years, I worked at a handful of record shops in New York and Minneapolis, wrote for Your Flesh magazine, and several US weeklies, including City Pages, and published an arts journal / ‘zine called The New Puritan ReView for about thirteen years. I also recorded a few thousand bands during that time.
Many of the live recordings I made over the years were fairly random bar gigs, done on random nights, and of varying lo-fi sound (and performance) quality, but still managed to provide an interesting overview of the kinds of music being made by many local bands spanning a few decades. The point was simply to document the scene that surrounded me, by curating an audio archive that could provide a glimpse into a segment of regional music history. Being an artist myself, I tried to encourage bands to use lo-fi recordings like these for their own DIY promotion and releases. A few actually did, but many didn’t seem to take the idea seriously.
Back in the day I *always* asked for permission to record the local bands, and although the notes I kept are minimal, I was often running multiple decks in those days, so its pretty likely in most situations that I would have provided the bands with a 2nd master tape that same evening. There are bound to be a few exceptions, but not many.
In recent years, as I’ve been trying to connect with all the bands I recorded, many of the people I’ve heard back from seem surprised to learn that I have a recording of their band, and they don’t remember me at all. While I reckon my ego will survive being erased by clouded memories, there is still the matter of what to do with all of these cassettes.
Moving forward, I would like to believe that some of these recordings might mean something to the artists who created the music, otherwise I’ve wasted much of my life recording all this music, and have been hanging on to a lot of wasted tape!
These days I’m retired and living outside of Portland Oregon, where I run a small run lathe-cut record operation for bands who want small quantities of records for gigs, touring, etc. I’m trying to clear out space, so it would be nice to be able to clear out these tapes, and also to re-address the possibility of doing something with any of these recordings.
What follows are some options for any of the bands who get back in touch, so I can figure out what to do with all of these tapes I’ve been carting around for all these years:
• If you would like the physical cassettes of your band(s), let me know where to send them (with the caveat that if your band is on a tape with another band, you may have to duke it out with each other).
• If you would like the digital files [transferred in 24-bit / 48kHz resolution to Level 8 flac files], let me know where I can send a link via wetransfer.
If you don’t want any of it, let me know if it is okay for me to post the audio files on a blog on my web site, so other fans can listen to them.
• If you might have any interest in letting something from your recordings be released as a small run lathecut record, let me know, since that is what I do these days, and we can talk about that in a bit. Something like this would be a great fundraiser, or a way to generate funds which can be donated to a charity organization of your choice.
• If you can clear up any of the unidentified song titles in your set, or band members, or any other interesting tidbits of information about the band or the set, that would be great!
Also, I’ve been working on a few book projects, some of which will be a reflection on my own life in music, and as these will be going back quite a few years, I’ve been thinking about including a lathe-cut record with a book, that might include various tracks from some of the bands I grew up with and recorded over the years, along with some of my own original music.
One other thing – a non-profit organization called DemoMN in Mpls has been operating for several years as a sort of musical museum of local band history, and have offered their space as a new home for any of the physical cassettes that any of the bands don’t want. I’m holding off just sending them anything as of yet, until the artists involved have had a chance to vet their recordings and decide what they might like to do with them.
Okay, that’s all for now. I hope to hear from some of you folks!
[from the official Sonic Archives Instagram account]:
sonic_archives
Still trying to connect with a few more peeps in some of these former Minneapolis / Twin Cities bands. I’ve been the caretaker of all this audio history for more than a few years, and most of these tapes have been or are in the process of being digitized, for posterity, or…. ???
If anyone is / was in any of these bands, or you know how to put us in touch with each other, please let me know – e-mail preferred. Thanks in advance to anyone who can assist with this!
(sic) , 12 Angry Men , 12Rods , 2i , 36 Headshots , 420 All Stars , 66 Crush , Adipose Fin , Adjoining Separatists , Adjustable Boy , Paul Akin , All American Cheap Shots , All The Pretty Horses , Amish Armada , The Andromeda Strain , Apollo Kings , Arcwelder , Arm , Autumn Leaves , Azalia Snail , Babes In Toyland , Balloon Guy , Basilisk , Beangirl , Belles Of Skin City , Better Off Airport , Big Red Ball , Big Tasty , Big Trouble House , Blackthorns , Blanket , Blimp , Bloodshot , Blue Hippos , Boiled In Lead , Bone Club , Breaking Circus , Breaksea Caravel , Brenda , Brick Layer Cake , Bridge Club , Brownstar , Buffo , Busiest Bankruptcy Lawyers , The Butchers , Bwana Devil , The Calling , Calvin Krime , Camel’s Back , John Casey , Casino Royale , Chasm , Chris J , Micah Ciampi , Cockpocalypse , Coffin Cheaters , Colfax Abbey , Collosamite , Command Module , Compound Red , Cooper , Countach , Cows , Criterion , Curtiss A , Dead Rock Star , Kelley Deal 6000 , Death In Texas , Delilahs , Delores Dewberry , DFC , Dink , Dismemberment Plan , Dogfight , Dollface , Draghounds , Dreamland Faces , Drool , Drown , Druel , Duck Kicking Vulture , Dumpster Juice , Dwindle , Ear Candy , Eddie Mac , Effloresce , Escape Mechanism , Ether Bunny , John Ewing Band , Fabrice , Fat Maw Rooney , Fauna , February , Fiasco , Field Guide , Fingerhead , The Floorshakers , Florida , Flour , Frances Gumm , Freedom Fighters , Rebecca Fritz , Funseekers , Gas War , Ginger , Glass Pack Jack , Glazed Baby , Tony Glover + V3 , Gneissmaker , Gnomes Of Zurich , God Bullies , God Johnson , Great Girls Blouse , Green Machine , Grow Like Topsy , Guzzard , Halo Of Flies , Hammerhead , The Hang Ups , Grant Hart , Heroine Shieks , Dylan Hicks , Ian Hilmer , Hood , Hoolies , Paul Horn , Hot Date , Hot Karl , House Of Large Sizes , Humdinger , Husker Du , Hyentite , Hytones , Impaler , Interstate Judy , Invasion Earth , Jackass , Janis Figure , Janitor Joe , The Jewisheses , John’s Black Dirt , Jon Wayne + The Pain , Jonestown , June Sunday , Keepaways , Kentucky Gag Order , King Can , King Kustom + The Kruisers , Kitty Craft , The Kitty Vermont , Spider John Koerner , Koerner + Glover , Kontrol Panel , Land At Last , Laughing Stock , Laundry , Lefty Lucy , Lemon Grass , Leolo Ferone , Levitt 8 , Lifter Puller , Like Hell , Lily Liver , The Living Daylights , Loose Rails , Love Carp , Love Cars , Low , Luke Warm + The Late Girls , Lunar 9 , Marlee Macleod , Magnolias , Mammy Nuns , Man Sized Action , Jake Mandell , Marv , The Master Bators , Metro Division , Mezzofist , Mickey Finn , Midnight Evils , Milk , Monster Zero , Mountain Singers , Mr Projectile , Murderapolis , Muskellunge , Myriad , Nasa , The Nature Of Business , Nectar , New Rocket Union , Newport , NNB , No Apparent Reason , Northern Sparklers , Nova Mob , Casey O’Brien + Family , Oaks Of Righteousness , Ouija Radio , Out Demon Out , Overblue , Own , Paekong Mae , Pale Riders , Panel Of Experts , The Pantyhuffers , Paper Mache , James Parker, Party Of One , Pathetic Display , Peggy Suicide , People’s Joy Boy Squad , Pert Near Sandstone , Phero Ruse Zero 4 , Phull Surkle , Pilot Light , The Pins, Plate-O-Shrimp , Pleasure Pause , Poetry Grenade , Pointy Teeth , Polara , Powderfinger , Prest Asbestus , Pseudonymphs , Push On Junior , Pushrods , Quincy Punx , Lisa Raye , Red Desert , Red House , Red Level , Red Shadow Chorus , Rice , Rifle Sport , Robot Boy , The Legendary Jim Ruiz Band , Sadie Foster , Salbando , Salteens , Saucer , Sci-Fi Western , Seawhores , Shapeshifter , Shepherd Kings , Shotgun Monday , Sicbay , Tom Siler , Silver Salute , Silverene , Siscera , Sistrum , Slay Ride , Slipshod , Sliver , Sloan , Sloth , Smattering , Smut , Snag , Snails , So-So , Solid State , Soul Asylum , Space Trigger , Spaghetti Western String Quartet , The Spectors , Spittin Cobras , Spooks , Squabs , Stage Fright , Star Plastered Bliss , Steak Face , Stepchild , Stereo , STNNNG , Stray Bullets , John Strohm, Strumpet , The Stuff, Style Monkeez , Suburbs , The Subversives , Suicide Commandos , Sukpatch , The Summer People , Superball 69 , Supermodel , Surahoolies , Swingin Teens , Tal Tahir , Target Market Research , Technique Niquee , Ten Extra Pounds , Tetes Noires , Thank You , The AM , The Blue Up? , The Dig , The Hundred Flowers , The Nature Of Business , The Seven Elohim , The Stick Up , The Tinkers , The UnKinD, Thee Viceroys , Things That Fall Down , Third Eye , Thirsty Devils , Thoughtcloud , Timbuktu , Toadstool , Tora! Tora! Torrance! , Touch Is Automatic , Trailer Park Queen , Trampled By Turtles , Tufnels , Twenty Dollar Love , Uberscenester , The Undesirables , The Unstuck , Vaseline Alley , Vaz , Vedisni , Venison , Vertiform , Vertigo , Vibro Champs , Video Nasty , Vinnie + The Stardusters , Wahinis , The Wallets , Walt Mink , Ween , Whoops Kitty! , Wicketran , Willie Wisely , Eric Wivinus + Jason Kesserling , Wookiefoot , Yawo , Yoni , Your Loving Tiger , Zapruder’s Slingshot , Zuzus Petals
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