Projects
A number of my music production projects are available at Bandcamp, including:Shooby Taylor, The Human Horn (two volumes)
Songs in the Key of Z (outsider music comps, 4 volumes)
Muriel’s Treasure (vintage calypso comps, 7 volumes)
Afro-futurist maverick Sun Ra (100+ digital releases and growing)
Calypso legend The Mighty Sparrow
Raymond ScottDirector, The Raymond Scott Archives
CD Producer, Historian, Artist Estate Representative (for Reckless Night Music LLC)
One writer called Scott “The Gertrude Stein of Dada Jazz.” Scott also unwittingly underscored the mayhem of Bugs Bunny and Ren & Stimpy, invented electronic instruments, and was an overlooked pioneer of both techno and ambient sounds. Chicago Reader‘s John Corbett wrote: “Quirky, memorable [Scott] themes like ‘Powerhouse’ in Warner Bros. cartoons arguably helped shape the postwar musical aesthetic as much as anything Elvis or the Beatles did.”
Sun RaExclusive representative of Sun Ra LLC; co-producer of digital remaster series
Interview (2014) with Irwin Chusid at Sun Ra Arkive; more of the backstory here at The Believer
Official website
Sun Ra remastered catalog at Bandcamp
Sun Ra on Facebook
Sun Ra catalog in iTunes
Jim Flora
Archivist, Biographer, Preservationist, Manager of Artist Estate
Flora was a 1940s-’60s album cover designer, children’s lit author/illustrator, and hand-press publisher who made the world look like a kindergarten toy room gone anti-gravitational. The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora, which I wrote and compiled (with Barbara Economon) was published by Fantagraphics in 2004. The 2007 followup, The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora (co-authored with Barbara) proved that Flora should be known for more than jazzy LP covers and cuddly tot-lit. His rarely seen paintings, sketches, woodcuts, and prints reveal a darker, more subversive side of this underappreciated artist. Our third Flora omnibus, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora, was published in Fall 2009. A fourth, The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora, appeared in September 2013. Since late 2006, Barbara and I, representing the Flora family, have been marketing a line of fine art prints of selected works.
Songs In The Key of Z: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music
Author, CD Producer, Chronicler
The definitive—the only—book about outsider music, with two companion CDs. Starring the Shaggs, Daniel Johnston, Tiny Tim, Syd Barrett, Wesley Willis, Joe Meek, Shooby Taylor, the Cherry Sisters, Jandek, Lucia Pamela, and kindred spirits. Published in Y2K, still in print.
Juan Garcia EsquivelCD Producer; Artist Estate Representative
The King of Space Age Bachelor Pad Music and progenitor of “Boing-Zu-Zu-POW!” vocalese.
Drew Friedman Fine Art Prints
Project Manager
Exclusive line of fine art prints by the noted illustrator/caricaturist.
“Drew Friedman isn’t just a brilliant artist. He takes you back in time. He makes you smell the stale cigarettes and cold brisket and you say, ‘Thank you for the pleasure.'” — Sarah Silverman
“I stand in awe of Drew’s technique and the certain flavor of sad old America he captures. He’s an awesome talent. I love this guy’s stuff.” — Robert Crumb
The Langley Schools Music ProjectProducer; Chronicler
A gymful of untrained pre-teen voices, a hippie schoolteacher, two microphones, and a Beach Boys songbook. In October 2001 it reached #1 on Amazon.com, officially making me a one-hit wonder. Jack Black claims it inspired School of Rock, and it undoubtedly influenced the Kolacny brothers’ Scala Choir.
Beth Sorrentino
Management, co-publisher, project coordinator
Honey-voiced singer, impassioned songwriter, versatile keyboardist.
R. Stevie Moore
Manager/Publisher, sometime Producer and Editor, occasional Musical Collaborator
The Granddaddy of DIY home recording. RSM and I have known each other for 37 years, and been friends for 29—but not 29 consecutive.
Wendy & Bonnie: Genesis
Lucia PamelaCD Reissue Producer; Artist Estate Representative
She says her 1969 LP Into Outer Space was recorded on the Moon. Go ahead—prove it wasn’t.
Bob Thompson: The Sound of SpeedReissue Co-Producer; Artist Representative
The Raymond Scott OrchestretteProducer; Manager
A New York-based septet who bring Scott’s controlled lunacy into the 21st century. Radical reinterpretations of the maestro. Their 2002 album Pushbutton Parfait can be streamed on Soundcloud.
Producer Tom Wilson (1931-1978)
Research clearinghouse
Wilson was president of the Young Republican Club at Harvard and graduated cum laude in 1954. The next year he founded the jazz label Transition, where he produced some of the first recordings by Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor. In 1963 he was hired by Columbia Records, where he produced the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Bob Dylan albums (as well as “Like a Rolling Stone” on the 5th). In 1965 he practically invented folk-rock by adding—without the artists’ approval—electric backing to Simon & Garfunkel’s acoustic recording of “The Sounds of Silence.” After leaving Columbia, he produced the first recordings of the Mothers of Invention, Blues Project, Velvet Underground, and Soft Machine. In 1968, the New York Times quoted an unnamed “sympathetic observer” as saying about Wilson, “Some of the Negroes in the business don’t like him.” His friend Wally Amos said Wilson “lived his life unapologetically as a human being, not as a black man.”
Judson Fountain (The Ed Wood, Jr. of radio drama)Archivist, Reissue Producer
“As you know, they run radio programs different times. The same time it’s daytime one place while you may be listening, it’s night time some other place they’re listening at the same time you are. So if it’s daytime you’re listening to this program now, well, just listen. But if it’s night time you’re listening — STOP!, whatever you are doing. Turn out all the lights, because right now, Judson Fountain brings you a brand new radio drama, as only radio can bring it to you.”