Hello Recording Club Newsletter Archive/Summer 1993

The Hello Recording Club Newsletter
by John Flansburgh
Hey
Partytime in the Summertime 1993

OFFICIAL APOLOGY

Greetings Hello subscribers. John Flansburgh here. Well, the first three issues of the Hello Recording Club are out, and the mighty production line of our new enterprise is finally in motion. Thanks for your patience over the last few weeks, but as we are understaffed, and seriously overwhelmed with orders, it's been a bit to manage.

TMBG JOINS FRANK BLACK

Recently, on his tour through New York, John Linnell and I had the pleasure of performing twice with Hello Recording Artist Frank Black. At the Academy Theater, Linnell and TMBG-veteran saxophonist Kurt Hoffman joined Frank on three numbers off Frank's new album. At the end of the set Frank graciously invited me to perform a new TMBG song called "Spy" with him and the assembled players. (Everyone was grateful that bassist Tony Maimone was present, since Tony tours with both Frank and TMBG and was familiar with the song.) It filled my heart with a feeling of Rat Pack-like show business comradery to make my first rock "walk-on."

The next night Frank Black went to Electric Lady studios in Greenwich Village for a live radio broadcast. Electric Lady is the studio built by Jimi Hendrix in the late sixties. Although in the actual studio there is little evidence of that era, the hallways are lined with the studios original murals of half naked women operating space vehicles, and other inspiring acid visions.

The broadcast was going out live to 15 stations nation wide, and had a in-studio audience of about 100 people. Frank's performance was inspired, and while he performed a fair percentage of his album, he was trying out a new Bryan Ferry vocal style that had everyone feeling very classy.

The spirit of Rat-Pack comradery became overwhelming when John and I joined the band in a rendition of "We Are the World" during the commercial break. The live broadcast also ended with "Spy". Unfortunately, I jumbled the first verse with the second. Later, Linnell overheard that the freak out section at the end of the song will be cut out on the re-broadcast to college radio. Time restraints was the offical explanation, but I wonder if it wasn't just too ugly.

COMING UP ON HELLO

Kurt Hoffman's Band of Weeds, and Hello, the Brooklyn based house band of Hello Recording Club produced by myself and Joshua Fried.

The Duplex Planet, a unique spoken word project by David Greenberger, will be the featured October-Halloween issue!

BRIAN DEWAN - VICE PRINCIPAL OF ROCK AND ROLL

Musician, visual artist and craftsman, Brian Dewan, the premiere artist on Hello, is truly a renaissance man.

Originally from Lexington, Massachusetts and currently residing in Brooklyn, New York, you might have heard his haunted zither-stylings in the back-up band behind the Blue Man Group during their off-Broadway run and on the Tonight Show. (Unfortunately, Brian had to perform behind a semi-transparent curtain in the show, so no one had a chance to check out the way his hand-made electric zither looks. Like an over-sized auto-harp without the felt dampeners, the zither sits like a table, and is plucked.)

They Might Be Giants and David Byrne fans alike will be familiar with his album cover artwork (Lincoln and Uh-Oh respectively), and Brian peformed his own songs opening a number of shows for TMBG around the country.

NELORIES - TWO JAPANESE TEENAGERS

The Nelories are two nineteen-year-old college students from Japan. They formed their band in high school, and their first full length CD, "Mellow Yellow Fellow Nelories" was one of the best selling independent recordings in Japan in 1992.

Jun and Kazmi de Nelorie are not really sisters. When Marjorie Galen inquired about their possible familial relationship, their Japanese record company explained that the two renamed themselves de Nelorie to imply "of the Nelories" (echoing the Ramones family name).

The Nelories have been showered with praise throughout the British press, and recently performed a John Peel session for the BBC. They will be coming to win over the United States soon. Look out for their performance at New Music Seminar.

Hello Crowned President Marjorie Galen and I first heard their recordings in a record shop in Japan last spring.

FLAT OLD WORLD - "SLOW OLD DOG MUSIC"

A Manhattan-based band, Flat Old World uses traditional American folk songs as a very personal springboard for their bands sound. Familiar themes take on new life with their strange, slowed down take on the popular song. The band arrangements feature a wide variety of acoustic and electric instruments, including the ever popular tuba, at the capable hands of "Tuba" Jones. Listeners will be immediately struck by the beautiful voice of Nancy Lynn-Howell.

Breaking with our beautiful generic sleeve design, band leader Mark Lerner also designed and printed the cover and for their Hello offering. Their first edition where actually printed by hand by Mr. Lerner himself.