Test Transmission Archive Reel 50 with Mr Douglas E Powell

 

So here we are.....Test Transmission Archive Reel 50. When I started doing these a very long time ago (about 11 years) really did not expect to get this far. So to celebrate hitting 50 my guest mix this time round is from my friend singer song writer and occasional musical collaborator, contributor to my clunky old music...the mighty Mr Douglas E Powell who also records as Bellprover https://bellprover.bandcamp.com/.
Doug has supplied a wonderful mix which starts around 24 mins in. So this time round from myself and Mr Powell we have music from The Steve Miller Band, The Residents, Beak, Kool & The Gang, Ladyhawke, The Pop Group, Lalo Schifrin, Roberto Delgado & His Orchestra, Alessanda and the Atomic Crocus, Goldbug and a whole lot more. So until Archive reel 51 and maybe another guest, keep safe wrap up warm its gonna be a long winter.

Oddness and Tinkerings from My Very Distant Past

A very very long time ago (Spring 1979 I think) my friend Craig Wilson who was very much into The Residents put it to me that we should do a cassette only release.

We would call ourselves The Marilyn Monroes. The music was to be very heavily influenced by The Residents Red Crayola Swell Maps and Vibing up the Senile Man era ATV. Craig would be Billy Artaud and I would be Pete Shoes. Now you might notice in the Fanzine interview we are now Pete Shoes, Landing Craft and Byrd??? There was never a 3rd person and as you can see the names got changed, if I remember rightly the changing of names was a brief but ongoing thing. The music for the cassette was to be recorded in my bedroom over the course of 2 evenings but in fact we did it over one evening, and like The Residents no one would ever know who The Marilyn Monroes really were. Of course as time went by we did tell people it was us. Strangely when we did the interview with the Fanzine it said we were practising in Petes Garage???? Never had a Garage it was my bedroom, perhaps we thought garage sounded better than bedroom...or maybe not. The Toy organ I used was a 1960s Sunrise Sunreed. With 25 coloured keys.

I lost my copy of the cassette many years ago. But a chance meeting one evening with Brian (who I had not seen for decades) from legendary bods Renaldo and The Loaf  proved to be very fruitful. Brian informed me that our release had inspired Renaldo and the Loaf to do a cassette release themselves. Brian also revealed that he still had a copy and would burn it to disc for me. So after many many years I finally got to see our mad old Cassette creation again.  I last saw Craig in 2007/08 (I think) He turned up round my house with some mutual friends. We chatted about old and daft times. Sadly Craig Passed away in 2018. Some more thoughts and words on all this here with Bob Fischer.

A Sunrise Sunreed organ. Mine disappeared many years ago.
Image taken from here