"What ties the cuts together is what you're always looking for in a comp -- not surface similarity but spiritual kinship. Almost all of them are eccentric, individual, charged with energy and completely devoid of commercial compromise... It beats the hell out of most other regional comps...
It makes you want to roadtrip to Columbia". - Jennifer Kelly, Splendid
"It should be a downright revelation to people who think nothing could possibly be going on in the middle of Missouri". - Dave Heaton, Erasing Clouds
"St. Louis music fans have something to really get green over... a local band compilation so lovingly crafted and professionally presented that it should serve as a blueprint for anyone attempting to record the sounds of a scene." - Jordan Harper, Riverfront Times
"I just received (Volume 1) and it has made my entire year thus far. I laughed, I cried, I sacrificed animals at its alter". - Tony Stasiek, ex-KCOU, ex-Maneater, Punk Planet
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PMW REC:
40 recordings from Columbia, Missouri compiled by locally infamous college radio uber-DJ Jason Cafer. This value-priced 2CD set includes extensive liner notes and band photos in a whopping full-color 28 page insert. Local indie labels Faye, Emergency Umbrella, Cat Jams and Rodenburg are featured. Much graceful genre-hopping occurs from track to track, but these two 77 minute disks remain a cohesive document of the raw greatness of what locals refer to as Comomusic (www.comomusic.com). Since Columbia was the "three hour away town" Uncle Tupelo sang of, alt/insurgent/avant- country are well-represented by The Doxies, Sultans, D*tch W*tch, Starkweathers, Paradise Vending and Trailhead. The Revelators took Oblivians-style garage punk to the next level with only one guitar, well before it was in style, and were signed to Germany's Crypt Records. Jon Sheffield, one of the world's great understated electronic artists, was also signed to an excellent German label, TomLab. The Untamed Youth and Missouri Sex Offenders were the ultimate party bands dealing in garage rawk and power pop, respectively. The boys of Slugtrail are the kings of Midwest metal. Noise mongers will enjoy Nightmare Sisters, the Texas Chainsaw Mass Choir, Amputee Set and Breaker Morant. Eugenics Council is the harshest of them all, but contributes an almost dance-friendly (yet antisocial) electroclash song to this compilation. Unforgetable punk songs of classic punk styling are contributed by The Bubba Factor and Stands With a Twist. Jeff Carrillo's pre-Mahjongg band The Secretaries perform the best indie-ska song you've never heard. And then you have two of the best teenaged bands EVER, The Pows and The I Love You But I'm Not in Love With Yous. The Northerns, who described their sound as "The Kingston Trio on crack" could have been the Animal Collective of 10 years ago. The One Inch Punch provide masterful, epic hardcore instrumentals to put Explosions in the Sky to shame. Kingdom Flying Club may be the next Pavement. Billy Schuh & the Foundry, Oh*Yeah and Bockman's Euphio can fight over who'll be the next Flaming Lips. The Incontinentals were the artists' pick of Columbia, and they call their stuff "stink rock". True visionaries with a sense of humor are Duckgurl & Chickenboy, Animal Family feat MC Cat Genius (completely unorthodox winner of a Cornelius remix contest) and Swamp Fuck. Add should've-been college radio classics by Sofa Kit XL, Ramsay Wise, Catalina, Prozac Memory, Keith is My TV and East Ash. The Anthology is concluded perfectly with a gorgeous, brand new 80's-retro lounge torch song by The Company Men. This is the most solid "local band" compilation that you ever imagined to exist, and Volumes 2 and 3 will follow.
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A scene worth collecting
By Aaron Richter, senior staff writer. Posted March 04, 2005.
KCOU DJ Jason Cafer will release a two-disc anthology
Collection that goes beyond filling shoeboxes with geodes or stuffing binders with baseball cards is a task that needs to be done. It takes time, effort and, sometimes, a hefty chunk of cash to amass the kind of collection that will stand as an artifact representative of something much greater.
For the past six months, second-year psychiatry resident and long-time KCOU/88.1 FM DJ Jason Cafer has pieced together the first part of an ambitious project, collecting local music that spans three volumes and six discs.
The first installment, called Comomusic Anthology 1990-2005 Volume 1, will be released March 11 on Cafer's Painfully Midwestern Records. The album's two discs collect songs from 40 Columbia bands ranging from older acts such as Untamed Youth and Northerns to more recent acts such as The Pows and Missouri Sex Offenders, who recorded a Prince cover for this release. Available for $10, the compilation also includes 28 pages of liner notes filled with color photos and bios of each of the bands.
"What's on here is exactly what I want to be on here," Cafer says. "To me, it's my favorite CD, really. I love every single one of these songs."
Despite his infatuation with the collection, Cafer left the task of picking a favorite from the bunch to his 18-month-old son, and "There's No I In Werewolves!" by Texas Chainsaw Mass Choir emerged victorious.
"I first started playing this around the house when he was like eight months, and he would just go nuts for this song," Cafer says. "He would rock back and forth for all of them ... but this song, as soon as it starts, whatever that beat is, he'll just start swinging back and forth three times as hard. At eight months he would actually do head-banging to it."
Justin Glow, co-owner/creator of the online music community www.comomusic.com, offered to help promote and distribute the anthology through the Web site after Cafer approached him with the idea of using the site's name. As someone who has worked to unite Columbia's music scene, Glow says this release will help gather support for local acts.
"People who haven't been in this town long, or who aren't really familiar with the local music, will be surprised at the talent that this town has harbored," Glow states in an e-mail.
Addressing the project's roots, Cafer says KCOU/Directory Assistance inspired him to work on the anthology. Released in 2001, Directory Assistance was a local music compilation spearheaded by the station's then-relatively unknown General Manager Billy Schuh, who went on to co-found Columbia label Emergency Umbrella and now performs with his band, The Foundry Field Recordings.
"Anything that sews the scene together is very helpful," Schuh says. "Now our band can go play with a hardcore punk band, and that's OK."
Collecting 18 songs, including the first Mahjongg recording, Directory Assistance not only brought the local scene together, but it also provided extra motivation for bands to put out records, Cafer says.
"Ever since that came out, bands seem a little more gung ho about getting their stuff recorded," he says. "I figured KCOU would do another one of those. It just never really happened, and I thought if it's ever going to happen, I guess I'm going to have to do it."
Mastered in New York and printed in Omaha, Neb., by the same company that handles Saddle Creek albums, the Comomusic Anthology highlights the current state of Columbia music while also recognizing past local acts.
"Columbia's going through a pretty good turn of events as far as music is concerned right now," Schuh says. "The scene has picked up a bit. There are some really good bands right now. (The anthology) bridges the gap of what the scene used to be like when D*tch W*tch was around and when East Ash band was around, too."
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