R. Stevie Moore single on Sweaters & Pearls Records

A few years ago I didn't even know who R. Stevie was.

My friend Travis in high school was always the one introducing me to amazing stuff. He moved to our small town school sometime my freshman year and blew minds with Eraserhead, Zappa and "Bob", in the days before the internet, plastering flyers in the hallways and busses until anything with a pipe and quotes was completely banned as a cult by the principal.
A few years ago we started using 7inches (and buckflix) as an excuse to talk about music and movies and one of those conversations (maybe even this one) ended up with me talking up Ariel Pink's Oddities... to him and Travis telling me I had to check out this guy R. Stevie Moore.
I picked up the "I hate people" single, (because god forbid I buy a whole album) and it was amazing, the 4-track style of Lou Barlow with the experimental pop weirdness of Ariel. A lightbulb went off. I could literally hear the straight line from Stevie through Pink, who I was so crazy about.
Fast forward to six months or so ago I ordered that Ku Klux Glam single from R. Stevie's site and Mike over at PIAPTK was just starting his Saturday singles series and I was inspired to try to send an email direct to R. himself.
Does he even check email? What about facebook? Was some entity posting on his behalf? Nope. He got back to me right away and seemed willing...hell, even excited to work with two nobodies on a new single. We were thrilled and emailed back and forth with Stevie to figure out which songs he'd want to get together on a tiny record from the archives. He sent a couple of photos to use for the sleeve, which I went ahead and rephotographed and glitched up. (I've been obsessed with Instagram and how pointless it is making digital files look like old photo processes when digital images have their OWN special ways of looking insane and nostalgic, thanks to decim8) Which R. was totally cool with. My friend Matt wrote the track text out when he was visiting from Boston while Travis had been doing a bunch of silk screening and I asked him to come up with something awesome for the first 50 cardboard matchbook sleeves.

The insert is handwritten tabs of "Traded my Heart for Your Parts" with some credits RSM requested and I copied them at work from ripped up legal pads and pressed it on red because I love color vinyl. That's it. 300 copies available from Sweatersandpearls.com and from R. Stevie on tour and maybe his site in the future.

The first 50 or so get the Travis cover which is a serious labor of love... This whole thing is really. We can die happy.

Pick this up over at my very own Sweaters & Pearls Records site, 5 bucks plus shipping. Obviously if you live outside the US, email jason at sweatersandpearls dot calm because USPS wants to make up for their incompetence by charging extra to ship overseas...sorry guys.

I really appreciate it. Oh and the tracks are really great, obviously.

A Second Opinion with Travis Kostell - part 2

Here's the second part of A 2nd Opinion with Travis Kostell, which is going to be a regular series. In this one we talk about the Mess Folk single on Hozac, and the Urthquake single on Spooky Tree Records.


Travis records constantly and you should check out his latest release, 'Whore's Eggs' on his blog, Choice Grinds.

Download it here

A 2nd Opinion with Travis Kostell

Recently my friend Travis from high school and I found each other online. He inspired me with the most amazing mix tapes and films in the tiny upstate town I grew up in. He moved sometime around freshman year and just had a whole world of music I had never heard of. In the days without the internet, it's hard to believe I know, but we had to make mixes for each other and borrow cassettes of anything that wasn't on the radio. I don't think I even knew who Frank Zappa was until I met Travis, from there it went into the Church of the Subgenius and a cult scare fiasco banning 'Bob' in the hallways to watching Eraserhead at his house. On top of it, he was an amazing musician who pretty much inspired me to get a 4-track and start a new band every weekend.
Everyone has a friend like Travis, so I sent him some singles I've been thinking about recently and we talked on the phone about them.

This week we got to the GGreen single from Out of Order Records, then Cave bears on Feeding Tube Records and finally Fuck Montreal on Stumparumper.

Download it here

Travis has a bunch of his own music up on his blog: Choice Grinds, I think they should be seven inches.....check it out.