First, a note about the Mousemas Eve fundraiser:
Backers: 4
$115.00 Pledged of $500 Goal
4 Days to go
Okay, that’s four donations in four days. What that is four more than I ever expected to receive when I first posted this little pledge drive, time is starting to run out for this grand dream of mine. So last night we got another $20, which means a second person is going to get a sweet-as-hell high-quality photograph of a giant mouse pouring a beer out in his/her memory. Pretty cool. Thanks Nathan A., you’re one of the good guys. As for the other 926 of you who stopped by yesterday, you can all go to hell. If half of you donated a dollar we’d have reached our goal by now. If all of you donated $5 I’d be able to fly my sister out here to celebrate Mousemas Eve with me. My point is, we’ve still got quite a hill to climb before we reach that $500 goal. And now there are only four days left to achieve that goal. In case any of you have forgotten, here is a link to last year’s video that depicts how amazing Mousemas Eve is, and here is a link to the rewards you’ll receive for pledging some money to this year’s Mousemas Eve celebration. Remember, donating is as easy as clicking the little button on the right-hand side of this page that says “Donate Via PayPal” and then sending me some amount of money. Simple, right?
RIGHT!?
Ugh.
via Lost In Thyme:
“One of Texas’ most revered psych bands, The Mike Gunn spent its 5 years of life keeping the forces that threatened to pull it apart at bay. Finally, with the mysterious disappearance of its beloved drummer, in 1994 the band relented to the inevitable chaos that threatened to consume it for so long. Born on the ashes of the legendary Houston Schlong Weasel, it included John Cramer (vocals, guitar), Tom Carter (vocals, guitar), Scott Grimm (bass), Curt Mackey (drums). Mike Gunn is the name of the Schlong Weasel musician who named the band but never played in it.
The Mike Gunn put out a handful of now-hard-to-find releases, then broke up. Afterwards the former members went on to found DunLavy, Charalambides, Project Grimm, and are peripherally connected to the Linus Pauling Quartet. All are Texas-based psych bands of various styles. However, IMHO none have reached the sheer ‘blanga’ power of the original Mike Gunn.
Mike Gunn’s embrionic first single, Tom’s In The Bathroom (1990), displayed a soul tune over a slow, martial tempo. Hemp For Victory (Anomie, 1991) shows more of a Butthole Surfers via stoner-rock influence (A Song About Horses, Narcolepsy), not to mention a morbid fascination with Jimi Hendrix (Scary Black Man). Durban Poison (Double Naught, 1992), recorded with the help of Scott Ayers , has a languid sound (Nazy Eyes).
The band matured on the monumental Almaron (Double Naught, 1993 – posted on Pound For A Brown). The CD had it all: live jams, studio work, guitar insanity, smart ass John Cramer lyrics, and just a host of fucking great songs. The guitars shine like never before and the band is at its peak of creativity. Their trippy, meandering, distorted guitar workouts, best exemplified by the slow-motion raga of Dry Nod, Too bad that the vocals often spoiled ruin the emotional climax.
After this CD Tom Carter gave his walking papers to devote his time to Charalambides. The band continued on for one more year and finally collapsed upon the mysterious disappearance of Drummer Curt Mackey (later to turn up 2 years later). John Cramer started the Grimm Experience, Tom Carter started the Charalambides, and Scott Grimm started the Dunlavy. Like a beast that would not die, the next two years saw 2 posthumous releases.
The limited edition “Coduh: A Collection of Live and Studio Recordings” contained the full final live performance of the Mike Gunn and bonus studio tracks. The final scrape of the bottom came with the limited edition release of “A Dream About Jim” (vinyl-EP) on September Gurls. IN ADDITION TO 74 minutes’ worth of brain-melting psychedelia from one of the greatest Texas garage bands ever to stagger from den to rehearsal room, you also get a handy graph outlining the ratio of pot intake to listening enjoyment. Since these hemp farmers never toured, fans had to be content, anyway, with extended bong sessions grokking the three extant albums. This postscript has loads of ferocious live gunk, fuzzed-out riffers falling somewhere between MC5, Black Sabbath and Hawkwind. A lighter, more sunbaked touch comes through on the studio material, most notably the 14-minute flute/Moog/guitar inner space excursion “Holger” which sprinkles a dash of peyote into the bowl. This a limited edition CD of 920 numbered copies. It’s almost hand-made, on every cover there’s a different photograph and the insert booklet is cut with a scissor. Just to make a note on the packaging that few people notice. The front cover is silkscreened with a glow in the dark image of the Klaus Kinki phonograph from Fitzcarraldo. Few people notice this as The Mike Gunn decided to add those inserted pictures and items in front of the silkscreen thus preventing it to absorb any light and reveal the true cover.”
The Mike Gunn
Coduh
(Worship Guitars Records, 1995)
MediaFire DL Link
01. Holger
02. All Across America
03. Scary Black man
04. Tom’s Out Of The Bathroom
05. Tom’s In The Bathroom
06. Dry Nod
07. Bullinga
08. Hobbit Song [MP3]
09. Girl With No Chin
10. Resinated
11. Narcolepsy
12. Song About Horses
13. Unblinking
14. Clean
15. Holger (Couch Of Woe)
16. Symptomatic
