Magical Times

I just had to post this video. I feel like a kid after watching this. I can't wait for a new Music Tapes album. Seeing the Music Tapes in a club setting was strange, but by the end of the performance it wasn't a club anymore, and you weren't just watching the show. In that 45 minutes somehow the music just took you to somewhere else. If you think the album was from a different world, the show was another galaxy in itself.

Where It All Began

Back in 1999 Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records released Happy Happy Birthday to Me Volume 1. The CD was to be the final goodbye to my at that time what seemed to me long running zine the Bee's Knees. The zine had ran for about 4 years at that point, and the CD was like a big send off. I went around and asked bands that I had interviewed, or had reviewed to see if they had anything they might want to put on the CD. I told them I was going to press about 500 to 1,000 copies, and that each member of the band would get a copy plus a few extras. The comp filled up in a matter of a week. It was going to be a CDR at first, as my friend Anthony had a CD burner. It didn't take long but after doing the math, I figured I should have this CD proffesionally manufactured. I found a CD replicator in Canada that had the best price for raw disc manufacturing, so I figured I'd save some money and hand make the sleeves. I spent the next two months making a cake log stamp. cutting this thin cardboard into small CD jackets, and hot gluing them all together. I cut out 500 CD wallets with glueable tabs. Then I cut out 500 strips of fabric and had my mom sew them into little bags. I then stamped the wallets with the cake stamp on the front, another stamp with the address on the back, a catalog number stamp, and hand numbered each one. I did the same for a small carstock insert that went into each cloth jacket as well. I also made an insert with all the track info, and went the cheap route and had them photo copied. I posted the zine for pre-order with the CD on the old Elephant Six newsgroup, and from there a few distributors caught wind of it, and I had orders for almost the entire pressing in under a week. The zine went on to last another 6 years, and the label is still going as you can surely see to this day. The hand made element is still present in mostly pre-orders, but I still can't believe it all started for me with this little comp CD back so long ago. So today, I have for you kids out there, 3 of the tracks that have most people trying to track this thing down.

Elf Power - Historical Ant Wars
Of Montreal - Hello from Inside a Shell DEMO VERSION
the Minders - 40 Ferndal Rd

In other label news: Keith John Adams new album Unclever is out on Tuesday Feb 12th. However the pre-order copies will not ship until next week. Keith finished the 40 tracks, but he is sending me the extras this week, and so Unclever, the 2 CDR bonus discs, and the button will be shipping early next week. Sorry for the delay, but you can check out 5 more songs over at Three Imaginary Girls. I will post links when the other songs pop up this week on the other sites and blogs.

Singles Club UPDATE: Red Pony Clock sent in their song, so the next four singles to go to the plant or some are at the plant now will be/are. Red Pony Clock / Andy from Denver, Ideal Free Distribution / Poison Control Center, Tullycraft / the Smittens, and Velcro Stars / Keith John Adams. Singles should hopefully ship in late April, early May as long as nothing goes wrong at the pressing plants. FINGERS CROSSED.

Young Scotland

I love the band Orange Juice. This video is insane, but you just can't beat that song. Keep getting better Edwyn.