Skullman Records

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Every once in a while I sit and think about how much help friends and fans have been to us over the past year as we’ve worked to gather together his catalog and make it available. And how grateful we are. These include:

Anton Long, who has helped in too many ways to list (including taking photos, videos, and regularly volunteering to roadie and transport drums), but also he for lending his vinyl copies of Napalm Beach’s Teen Dream and Movin’ To And Fro to transfer to CD.

Jason and Tarrah Moore for roadie help and for letting us copy their extensive catalog of Napalm Beach, Snow Bud, and Chris Newman albums on CD, and for letting us scan the album art off of their original Snow Bud cassette so that we could make a t-shirt. They have also photographed us and taken a lot of video footage.

Matt Loomis, ex-Napalm Beach roadie, for lending us his rare never-been-played copy of Rumbling Thunder (Napalm Beach & Dead Moon live in Germany) to transfer to CD. (Which we plan to do, very soon).

Bob Stewart for donating his copy of Napalm Beach’s 1984 “Pugsley” cassette.

Larry Massengale for holding on to and returning several of Chris’s albums including Napalm Beach Thunder Lizard and the very rare Snow Bud Stoned and Alone as well as the Snow Bud Vegetable Matter cassette.

Eric N. Danielson for researching and writing a (still-unpublished) biographic essay and creating a full discography.

Marcus Prem for researching and offering edits to the discography, as well as collecting just about every album Chris has done.

Jeff Larson for stocking Chris’s albums, actively working to sell them, and for selling us the last handful of original copies of Napalm Beach’s 1993 Curiosities at a very low price so that we could re-sell them, and also for writing the first ever reviews of Boo Frog’s first two albums.

Greg Sage and Zeno for getting Napalm Beach started, keeping Rock & Roll Hell in print, for mailing us the album master, and especially for 1. not taking any of Chris’s publishing, and 2. paying royalties to Chris and Sam.

Jack Endino for engineering the latest Snow Bud, mixing/mastering some of it on his own time, and also for recording a 1985 Napalm Beach performance off the radio, and 25 years later, digging it up, burning it to CD, and mailing it to us. (Among other forms of support.)

Everett True for being the most honest, original, and fearless music critic ever.

& always, our families for providing us the foundation we need to work and survive.

These are just a few… and just from this past year.
I know there are many more & I will add to this.
Where Would We Be Without Thee?
WE ARE BLESSED.

8/13 at Hobnob Grille, 8/14 at Eugenio’s on 35th and Division and then again next Friday 8/20 at Hobnob Grille 34th and Belmont. 8 to 10 PM.

Boo Frog is playing Sat August 7 at the Waterheater at the “Monster-Sized Monsters Music Video Screening + CD-Release + Tour Kick-off.” Doors @ 5. Music @ 6. Boo Frog @ 6:45. Monster Sized Monsters music video premiers at Sundown. Outdoor stage. Entire show ends 10:30 PM. Free, all ages.

Boo Frog is playing Kelly’s Olympian Thurs August 12 with Mollybolt and Minty Rosa. 10pm 21+. And then we are not playing for a while.

Chris Newman Undead solo acoustic Fri Aug 13 and Fri Aug 20 at Hobnob Grille 33rd & SE Morrison, 8-10 PM Free, all ages and Sat Aug 14 at Eugenio’s 8:30-11 PM 35th & SE Division. Free, all ages.

Erika Meyer solo electric Fri Aug 27 at Steinhaus, 82nd Avenue and the NE corner of S.E. Division. 21+ 9PM, opening for some rock bands including The Decliners.

Snow Bud and the Flower People is playing Sat August 21 Guitar Centaur Parking Lot Show w/ Hairspray Blues, Dartgun, Thee Headliners, etc. 2pm-7pm. BYO Free, all ages.

Snow Bud is making t-shirts! They will feature the design from the original Snow Bud cassette art and should be available by the time of the Centaur show.

Napalm Beach 1985 Teen Dream, which was made available as MP3 download in July, will be available as on CD-R later this month.

Napalm Beach 1983 Rock & Roll Hell to be released on vinyl soon by Burka for Everybody Records.

Napalm Beach will perform a reunion show at Club Satyricon’s final rock party October 30. Pierced Arrows are also on this bill. Others TBA

BOO FROG: Self-titled: CD
Sounds like this emerged from the swamps of Baton Rouge, but this trio actually hails from Portland. Sparse, raw sound from this three-piece, since there is no bassist. But there’s still a decent depth here. I wouldn’t say The Cramps are my favorite band, but I bet these guys might. “Birthday Girl” actually reminds me of a Kinks song, so we are treading similar moving sidewalks at times. “Throw Me a Bone” sounds like a Velvet Underground outtake that John Cale forgot to bring his viola into the session. Intriguing material that I can see myself popping in again when the mood strikes me as I’m driving home late at night. (Skullman)
— Sean Koepenick, Razorcake

by Eric N. Danielson

In the Spring of 1984 Napalm Beach finally recorded what would become their first full-length vinyl album at Triangle Recording Studios in Seattle, with Chris and Sam joined by Terry Gwartney on bass. It was released in 1985 with the title Teen Dream, but was initially only available on cassette tape.

The Teen Dream album’s recording and release was financed by Napalm’s new manager Doug Reed, who oversaw their business affairs for about two years from the Spring of 1984 to the end of 1986. The initial cassette-only release was such a hit that it kept selling out at local record stores such as Cellophane Square, who could hardly keep it in stock. The success of the 1985 cassette prompted Doug to invest the necessary money into a full blown vinyl album release on his own Here After label in the Summer of 1986. This was Napalm’s first vinyl LP and only their second vinyl since 1981’s Trap Sampler.

From the standpoint of a local fan, the Teen Dream period from 1985 to 1986 marked the peak of Napalm’s success. They played the summer Bumbershoot Festival at the Seattle Center two years in a row, the first year on the large outdoor mural amphitheater stage, and the second year on a large indoor stage. Their base of operations in Seattle became the Central Tavern in Pioneer Square, where they could headline as often as once a month, while their musical home in Portland was the Satyricon club. Alternating shows at these two clubs in two cities, combined with record and cassette sales, the band could almost make a living as full-time musicians. The sound of their music had evolved away from the new wave of the Untouchables and into a cow punk sound inspired by Jeffrey Lee Pierce and The Gun Club, whom they had opened up for in Seattle in 1982. Their hairstyles had changed too, with long flowing hair that blew in the wind replacing their short spiky dos of yore.

The highlight of a Napalm show at The Central in these days was always when they played “Road to Recovery,” usually in about the middle of their set. It was kind of the equivalent of going to see The U-Men and waiting pensively for them to play “Shoot ‘Em Down.” The audience would wait in nervous anticipation for the climax of the night.

Unlike bands that played monotonously fast hardcore punk, but also contrary to the sleepily slow moving rhythm and blues bands, and even distinct from the continuous in your face onslaught of a deafeningly loud heavy metal band, “Road to Recovery” was a roller coaster ride of alternating slow and fast, mellow and heavy. Climbing gradually up to the summit, with Chris quietly mumbling lyrics over a deceptively repetitive, hypnotic guitar riff, an intensely wild Sam Henry drum solo suddenly breaks out from nowhere raising Keith Moon’s ghost from the dead, the guitars hit a perfectly synchronized power chord, Chris belts out the lyrics’ chorus like an opera singer shouting, “I’ve got to stay alive, for the sake of rock and roll!” after which the train rolls over the summit of the mountain and the song slowly descends back into its previous hypnotic riff overlaid with quietly mumbled vocals until it hits bottom and begins the ascent back up the mountain again…

– from an unpublished essay called “Chris Newman: On The Road To Recovery.”

Out-of-print since 1986, Napalm Beach’s debut LP “Teen Dream” is now available for digital download from CD Baby. $7.75 for 11-song full-album download.

Released on cassette in 1985, Teen Dream became Napalm Beach’s first (self-titled) LP in 1986. The album was recorded on 24-track tape at Seattle’s Triangle Studios, shortly before the studio became Reciprocal Recording, where Seattle’s groundbreaking grunge-era albums would be made. Napalm Beach recorded and mixed this album in just two days, then self-released, and self-distributed it. The album and cassette became popular throughout the 1980s west coast underground. Teen Dream has been out-of-print since its initial vinyl run, and available now for the first time on MP3. This high-quality vinyl transfer is arranged in the original (cassette) song order.

Chris Newman on vocals, guitars, piano. Sam Henry on drums, and piano on the instrumental, “Visions.” Terry Gwartney on bass. Bill Stuber, Engineer.

Tracks:
1. Teen Dream
2. Buried Alive
3. Don’t Be Sorry
4. Blame It On Me
5. Up The Stairs
6. Graveyard Train
7. Gone Away
8. No Love
9. In The Night
10. Road To Recovery
11. Visions

It costs $35 to digitally release an album on CDbaby (they distribute to iTunes, etc). (Here are a few we have currently, for Napalm Beach). We have credit for one more release. Here are the possible candidates:

1. Napalm Beach first album, self-titled, aka Teen Dream (released on cassette in 1985, on vinyl 1986). This release would be a transfer from vinyl (though I think I’ll put the songs in cassette order, which was Chris’s order). Would like to find the master tapes, but IMO the album is good enough to release as a vinyl transfer.

2. Napalm Beach album Thunder Lizard. This was recorded in Germany in 1990, released in 1991 on vinyl and CD by a now-defunct German label called Satyricon Records. It was never released in the U.S. 12 tracks recorded in a 24-track studio.

3. Napalm Beach album LIVE 2008 aka Kill For My Bitch. This was recorded mostly at Dante’s, a club in Portland Oregon where Napalm Beach played a reunion show January 11, 2008. 13 songs. It was a short-run CD that quickly sold out. Exciting performance at bootleg-sound quality. I’d run a $5 special on this album, and it would be a very worthwhile download.

4. Snow Bud and the Flower People album Ripped Van Stinkle. Released 1992 on Tim Kerr records. The band recorded this album (originally titled El Kabong) at Dogfish Studios in Newburg, which shortly thereafter suffered a fire, burning up their pre-mixed master tapes. (Several other Northwest bands lost master tapes in this fire.) So the band went back into the studio and re-recorded the entire album, this time with brand-new bassist Nathan Jorg. This was the first album recorded by the current line-up of Snow Bud and The Flower People (Nathan Jorg on bass and Lance Paden on drums).

5. Snow Bud album Stoned And Alone. Released 1996 on CM/Shinola. This is a fully solo Snow Bud acoustic album, written and recorded while Snow Bud was snowed-in Spokane in the dead of winter. Very rare.

What do you think?

Everett True writes on his blog about our debut album

The music is raw and timeless, psychedelic and trippy: all fuzzed guitars and mean gruff male vocals and Dead Moon-flecked female. One suspects there’s only a minimum of musicians playing, because Boo Frog clearly understand the way silence and the space between the silences can unsettle. There’s no bass. Why would there be? Why would there be? Reverb, as ever, is their queen and castle and legacy and floating jetsam pushing aside the barges of woe.

…This seems like everything The Racounteurs could be, but are not in any shape or form. I kept expecting ‘Crushed’ to break into 13th Floor Elevators’ ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’. Boo Frog are hard. Boo Frog are heavy. Boo Frog crush.

Read the entire review (with links) here: Music That I Like: Song of the day – 128: Boo Frog