In early '80s Boston a group named The Bob Jones Experience created a small but dedicated following among music fans desperate for alternatives to the slick power pop overwhelming the club scene. BJX lasted about two years before collapsing under the combinedweight of personal and artistic problems, leaving behind them many bittersweet, and fuzzy, memories of absurd performances under extreme conditions, and vice versa.Personnel from BJX split in two directions: vocalist Bob Schmitz and drummer Bill Storz soon formed Steamer, which enjoyed a couple of seasons of Boston fame; bassist Sam Durant and guitarist S. N. Wight swapped instruments and formed Lunk in 1987 with drummer Jonathan Spinney and vocalist/lyricist Tom George.
Lunk has appeared on two compilation LPs out of Boston and L.A., a flexidisk single ("Ugliest Guy in the World"), a four-song EP cassette released in 1989 ("Double Bogus Terminator"), a Ratfish Records 7" single released in 1993, and the 7" EP for LGRC.
The members live in NYC, SF, and LA; as a result performances and recording dates have been rare, on the order of three or four a year since 1990. LGRC is rereleasing all previously available LUNK recordings, in one form or another.
To leave a message for Lunk: lunk@luckygarage.com
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Butte is the brain child of two former BJX members, bassist/keyboardist S. N. Wight and vocalist/lyricist Bob Schmitz; they've joined forces with longtime San Francisco experimental musician Tim Perkis and guitarist Peter MacLeod to create an unsettling new sound in which to couch Schmitz's disarming and cynical storytelling style.
Butte is currently brewing up a third release scheduled for this summer.
To leave a message for Butte: butte@luckygarage.com
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Tim has been working in the medium of live electronic and computer music for many years, performing and recording extensively in North America and Europe. His work has largely been concerned with using computer media to explore the emergence of life-like qualities in complex systems of interaction. He has performed at such venues as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Apollohouse and The Royal Conservatory in the Netherlands, Fylkingen in Stockholm and the Academie der Kunste in Berlin. His occasional critical writings have been published in The Computer Music Journal and Leonardo. In 1993 he was composer-in-residence at Mills College in Oakland California, and in 1994 received a residency from Xerox PARC.
Contact Tim directly at: timper@artifact.com
Read more about his other projects and releases at: http://www.artifact.com
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Lives in Los Angeles. Listens exclusively to sports talk radio. Couldn't play bass from 1986-87 in the Bob Jones Experience. Lead guitar, Lunk,1988 till its recent demise. Likes noise, disharmony, arrythmia. Guitar playing credo: Incompetence is the mother of invention. Favorite quote: "I could do that betta!"Contact Sam at: 213-259-8118
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According to Purse, "Purse Does Junk" was born in the wake of the Northridge earthquake when the band (roomates at the time) found nothing better to do than start an ongoing project of home 4 track recordings honoring their favorite junkies. These two tracks were culled from the first two volumes.
Their CD "10,000 Miles of Turntable Monotony" is a scientific-repetitive trans-neural sonic reproduction of a popular songbird, time-released, heat-seeking, a landscape painting, a frozen ecstatic spin of hypothetical remnant vinyl.
Purse (Marina Rosenfeld, Michael Esther and Brandon Labelle) makes its home in Los Angeles where all three landed after meeting in art school. "10,000 Miles of Turntable Monotony" is the trioÕs first full-length release with Lucky Garage, following 1995Õs 7" Purse Does Junk: Keith Richards and Johnny Thunders Tribute, Vol. 1. Purse is also featured on the recent Silverlake compilation Schoolloaf: Everything But the Crust (with Ann Magnusson, Touchcandy, Glue, others) and on the soundtrack to Suzanne MyersÕ Alchemy (with Georgia of Yo La Tengo, Helium, Nick Drake and others).
Marina, in addition to making guitar noise and singing, has had her work exhibited/performed in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, including performances of her notorious 17-woman electric guitar orchestra, The Sheer Frost Orchestra, in the international Sound Culture '96 festival and (in May '97) at NYC's Greene Naftali Gallery, and her Ultramagnetic Ultra-amateur (DJ) Orchestra in NYC at Artists Space. Michael (guitar) and Brandon (drums) (and Marina, when she feels like it) are also members of Flipside- and Cleopatra- recording Farflung, darlings of Los Angeles' space-rock/psychedelic underground.
Brandon's Id Battery (with Lauren Chasse) has released its second collection of abstract sonic rumblings on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Yod label, and recently toured Britain. Brandon has toured the US and Japan with Nick TurnerÕs Hawkwind and is also the editor of poetic-aesthetic journal Errant Bodies. A solo project by him is being pressed by Lucky Garage this fall as part of "The Crucial Seven Inchers" solo/noise/improv 7" series.
Michael is currently at work on a solo project, "Soft Weed Factor", the first project to be tracked and mixed at the newly opened Eight Hose Hookah studio in Berkeley, and makes paintings about landscape architecture and narcotics.
Contact Purse at 213-387-8188 for further information. To leave a message for Purse: purse@luckygarage.com
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THE KEN ARDLEY PLAYBOYS formed in November 1993 as the bastard son ofVictor Mount's 'The Ding Dong Twist Club' A night out at the 'DDT Club'will be spent glugging Thunderbird cocktails and eating Pork Pies whilst listening to Pinky and Perky records. For American readers,Pinky and Perky are a puppet/pig duo who hosted a children's TV varietyshow in the early sixties. 'Pork Products' feature high on the menu but so does salad cream, super lager and all manner of post war British 'We may be poor but we can still have fun' crap.
The Ding Dong ethos informs the band's philosophy but there are other influences as well.When Bob joined the band he brought his northern accent and his admiration for The Fall, which turned the band's sound into a bloody minded noisy din. Adam Dant, 'the musician' of the group, has a fondness for 'Bang Banga Boom Euro Pop', whilst both Graham Revell and Adam McEwen enjoy the music of Schoenberg.But what of the lad himself 'Mr Ken Ardley'. Although Ken is the leader of the band, liking to steal the show with his rendition of 'Windmills of My Mind' he is a recluse. Between a busy recording schedule and making live appearances at his day job (Ken is a schools inspector in the London borough of Southwark) he leads a solitary life and hang glides over his home city of Newcastle whenever he can.
Download a fascinating 20-minute on-air radio interview of Bob Smith by John Sekerka, editor of THRUST MAGAZEEN in Ontario (in ToolVox format): Bob Smith Interview
To leave a message for The Ken Ardley Playboys: kenardley@luckygarage.com
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Since their impregnation into Melbourne two and a bit years ago Wrong Body have attempted to justify their existence by regularly playing live. Their original goal of playing a Royal Command Performance has been surpassed by trying to get out of debt.
In 1996 they self-released their first 4-song 7" EP - most have been sold by now. I first saw the band play at a release party for that record at the Arthouse in Melbourne, a great club where, not coincidentally, the live cut (Mushrooms) on side B of the new single was taped.
The band lineup is: Paul guitar, Scot Bass, Pat vocals, Steve drums. They've been touring Australia of late, getting to the main cities (Sydney, Adelaide, of course Melbourne - pay attention - and some smaller sites),
playing with numerous established US and European bands with the word 'NO' in their name such as No Use for a Name, No Fun At All, NoMeansNo, NOFX, Propagandhi, All You Can Eat, Millencolin; but they get their biggest kicks playing with the amazing collection of young grind and hardcore units that Melbourne is home to; Beanflipper, Blood Duster, Damaged, Mindsnare, One Inch Punch, Womnl, to name just a few.
In April Wrong Body released, in addition to LGR S005, a CD under the Gutrench imprint, a Melbourne-based indie label, which is being distributed through Shock. Shock is the Australian distributor that is responsible for getting most of the Aussie crust and grind that is heard in the States over to the States. Stay tuned to the Lucky Garage website and this bio page for the status and availability of that CD, which is a full-on bucket bonging mindfuck...
Contact Wrong Body directly at: scot@wrongbody
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These guys from London and southern England have an apparently endless variety of modes and song styles to choose from.
Which they do not do, tending to put a bit of everything in the bucket before stirring it up and committing to tape. Loosely describable as Mr Bungle introduced to John Peel by Slayer. Or something. You just wait. Currently we're busy sequencing their CD, a mad collection of studio tracks and assemblages designed to either satisfy or enrage the widest imaginable range of listeners. Don't touch that dial!
To leave a message for Catkin: canister@luckygarage.com
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"In the beginning we were asked to play in kindergardens or evangeline schools, but then after further investigations in the materials selfdynamic and the present heartbeat we performed for a doctor conference, lessons as gymnastic-room assistants, doorkeepers, psychiatric workers, statistics extras, carpenters, toy testers, rice shakers, waspfarming, general cooking... we realized that there are tons of tasty sounds to use, enough material to be busy for eight years.
Developing a movie language without pictures, a kind of massage for the balance organs. Collaborations leading to overlays on places like Bulgarian bars, artificial caves, Swiss insurance buildings in construction, Turkish water reservoirs, Austrian weddings, Ethiopian natural history museums, breweries, at the edge of the forest..."
Contact the Jorg indirectly at: jorg@luckygarage.com
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