Hard to believe, but true:  Tim Warren of Crypt has finally pressed up "Let A Poor Boy Ride," the "lost" 2nd Revelators LP.  The cover doesn't even look ugly (by Crypt standards).  Hell, compared to the butt-ugly first LP cover, it's a wonder of graphic design artistry, but it still manages to look like a Crypt release (the "Crypt font" is in full use on the back).  I always found the fact that Crypt album covers were ugly, and the liner notes were chock full of typos, mis-numbered tracks, etc., rather endearing, actually.  Hell, it's supposed to be about the music, right?  Well, the sleeve lists two track #5's on side two, so it must be a real Crypt Records production...

Well, first of all, if you want a copy, in Europe you can get it directly from Crypt Records. In the states, get it from the following stores in Austin, Texas: Antone's Records, Breakaway, End of An Ear, Sound on Sound, Trailerspace Records, Waterloo

For those of you who don't know...

This record was recorded in 1998.  After the first Revelators tour in Europe with the Oblivians (a success!) and the first North American tour by ourselves (not so much of a success...) we had enough songs for a second album.  Having toured most of the midwest, south, and east coast, we had found Austin, Texas to be particularly hospitable.  Mike Mariconda, producer of albums by other Crypt acts such as the New Bomb Turks, Beguiled, and Devil Dogs, was at our show at Emo's and liked what we were trying to do.  Since the first album had just been straight live, with no overdubs or even mixing, really, we thought the second album should involve a little more studio trickery.  So, we enlisted Mariconda as producer, and he booked us some time in Sweatbox, a studio where a lot of the garage acts of the day had recorded.  (BTW - Sweatbox celebrates it's 16th anniversary at Emo's this weekend).

Well, shortly before the session, original drummer Mark up and quit.  What to do?  Cancel the session?  Mariconda said no.  He didn't like Mark anyway.  He suggested we get New Bomb Turks drummer Bill Randt as a replacement.  He had worked with Bill for a couple of albums already, got along with him, and thought he would be interested.  So we asked, he agreed, he came to Columbia, Missouri, to learn the songs over a long weekend.  Then we drove down to Austin and cranked the record out over a couple of days.  After recording 18 songs in a few hours for the first album, this seemed like a leisurely pace.  Walter Daniels played harmonica, and I even overdubbed two whole guitar solos.  It was like an ELO album compared to the first record.

We had only been back in Missouri for a couple weeks when Jeremiah up and quit the band as well.  Now, I never envisioned that the Revelators would have a 20 album career, but I had at least hoped to tour Europe once more.  Besides, the new record was GOOD, and I couldn't understand not caring to see it released. 

But, I couldn't really see continuing with the band and calling it The Revelators when I was the only original member out of three.  So, the band broke up, the record was never released, and I moved down to Austin and started my next group The Hard Feelings.  I started singing, not that I thought I had a great voice, but hey, one less person to quit.  (After going through one bass player per record for three albums, the Hard Feelings finally called it quits, and returning to the one man band setup with which I began my music career in 1996 seemed like a good plan...).

So, yeah, that's the story.  Now, for my younger readers, perhaps a bit of explanation is in order.  Crypt Records, home of the Back From the Grave re-issues as well as the Gories, Oblivians, Devil Dogs, Mighty Ceasers, and a handful of other bands, was THE record label that was worth a shit in the mid-to-late 1990's.  This was back in olden times, when record labels still mattered and people actually bought music. 

Of the underground rock n' roll labels, Estrus had too many matching-shirt bands, Sympathy would put out any band with a chick in it (because Long Gone John was an old lech), and In the Red was an also-ran at the time.  But Crypt had a dirty, noisy aesthetic all it's own.  It was the only label to which the Revelators even sent a demo, the only label we wanted to be on.  We played our first show opening up for the Oblivians, fer chrissakes, and that was thrill enough.  Us actually being Crypt "recording artistes" was unreal.  Even though it was the other band members who quit and not me, I've always felt a little guilty that I had a part in Crypt imploding.  Around the same time that the Revelators broke up, the Oblivians, Bantam Rooster, and mosta the other active bands quit, as well.  Tim pretty much gave up on contemporary bands after that, sticking to re-issues of 60's obscurities of dubious legality.

Sure, there were some bands of questionable quality on the label (The Pleasure Fuckers? Los Ass Draggers? The Dirtys?  Really, Tim?), but overall Crypt had an attitude and (dare I say it?) a vision that other labels lacked.  Hey, just because a vision is stupid, doesn't make it any less visionary.  The music scene then (as now), was full of sappy indie-rocker twerps who sounded like fun was a foreign concept to them.  Crypt was fun. 

Meanwhile, mainstream music (then as now) was a vast wasteland of pure garbage. 
"Let A Poor Boy Ride" was recorded in 1998.  Just look at the top songs for that sad fucking year:

1. Too Close, Next
2. The Boy Is Mine, Brandy and Monica
3. You're Still The One, Shania Twain
4. Truly Madly Deeply, Savage Garden
5. How Do I Live, LeAnn Rimes
6. Together Again, Janet
7. All My Life, K-Ci and JoJo
8. Candle In The Wind 1997, Elton John
9. Nice and Slow, Usher
10. I Don't Want To Wait, Paula Cole

Of course, that was the mainstream crap.  The indie-rock "classics" of the era were banalities such as In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel (1998), Lonesome Crowded West by Modest Mouse (1997), and - who could forget - Belle and Sebastian with If You're Feeling Sinister from 1996.  Jesus, just typing these band names is embarrassing.  People actually thought Pavement, Built to Spill, Archers of Loaf, and Dinosaur Jr. were good bands.  It was a dark time in American musical history.  The fact that there are some rock critics who actually regard these bands as "classics" of the 90's should tell you a lot about why nobody reads music magazines or listens to rock critics anymore.  And looking at the popular mainstream and indie music of the time, it also helps one understand why the music business has completely imploded a decade later.  It deserved to.

But, even in the crappiest musical eras, there has always been an underground.  The 80's gave us Wham, the Bangles, Asia, and Damn Yankees.  But if you knew where to look, it also gave us the first albums by the Cramps and the Gun Club. 

So, contrast the steaming pile of mainstream and indie garbage available at the time with the likes of a Teengenerate or Pagans record.  Crypt was a welcome relief.  It was a breath of fresh air.  It was hilarious.  Read Tim's liner notes:  Tim wanted to SHOUT directly into your EARS about the music he liked and how GREAT it was, and how if you didn't like it you were an IDIOT.   Like the example below, from one of Tim's attempts at "promotion", the Cheapo Crypt Sampler:

"Thank you, Mono, fer DMZ and turnin' me and a lotta more folks on to the SONICS, LINK WRAY, and all kindsa great shit!  Thanks also to Billy Miller, Lux, Greg Shaw, Chris Capece, and prob'ly a helluva lot more folks fer lighting the flames that fucked my life up forever and caused me to want to flip the world a gigantic bird!"

Sadly, Greg Shaw and Lux Interior are both gone now, and if anything the "contemporary music scene" is even MORE LAME now than it was when Tim was ranting against "bicycle-pant-wearing dweebs" (in King Crimson-inspired bands) and grunge rockers.  When I was discussing a new band with a friend of mine recently, I stated how I thought they were a little too precious for a supposedly rock n' roll combo.  His response:  "The days of the Oblivians and Revelators are OVER, Schooley!  This is as good as it's going to get."

But, when I finally pulled my "new" Crypt release outta the sleeve and slapped in on the turntable, eleven years after it was recorded, who knew how it would sound to contemporary ears?  My tastes have expanded, and I listen to some stuff now that surely Tim Warren would have written lengthy rants against back in the day.  I hadn't heard "Let A Poor Boy Ride" since 2001, when Tim had last talked about putting it out and asked me to write some liner notes. (I had made a point to name-drop the Hard Feelings when I wrote those, thinking it might help my then-current band.  Who knew that by the time it actually came out, THAT band would be broken up for several years, too?) 

It has aged well.

In fact, it sounds better than any new release I've heard recently.  Yeah, hipster, check back with me in a decade and let me know how well that Vivian Girls or Eat Skull record has held up.  Ha!