free full album download: THE FLASHING ASTONISHERS - ON INVOLUNTARY BLISS (2002 KR025)

Click right here for free full album download: THE FLASHING ASTONISHERS - ON INVOLUNTARY BLISS (2002 KR025)

On Involuntary Bliss is the third album by The Flashing Astonishers. Reviews all over the world were favorable, and it marks the first album the band produced with international distribution. Substandard Records (a subsidiary of New Red Archives) of San Francisco released it in March of 2002. It was very exciting to be included in the same organization that released a bunch of albums by Samiam, Anti-Flag, and UK Subs. In 2001 Belvy K of the Substandard band Libertine tapped FA drummer Bob Kane to play drums for a USA tour, and when they reached the west coast Bob handed a FA cd to Substandard label head John Joh, and with the encouragement of Belvy the arrangement to release On Involuntary Bliss was made.

Reviews for the album were largely complimentary. Big Takeover wrote "Layers of discordant guitar distortion come in strange melodies across the raspy vocals and grooves that make it all seem bright and shimmery. Up and down, back and forth; it's a ride, but it's a good one." Jersey Beat said "This is indie rock in the best sense of the term. This is melodic, crisp, highly listenable music. Recommended." The now defunct blog at invisibleyouth.com exclaimed "Good rock and loaded with beautiful melodies. Lots of spaciness and build-ups that will blow you away. Wow, this is really good. The dynamics and feeling on this is so great--- It's a rock record with lots of thought and time invested! There are parts where the simplicity is so comforting while there are parts that there is so much going on that it will carry you to another dimension!! This will win a few more listens at the very least!" Colorado magazine The New Scheme interviewed the band and wrote "With so many mediocre bands in the same arena as these guys doing really well on the college radio circuit, it’s hard to see this record not making a name for these guys."

After On Involuntary Bliss was released, limited east coast touring happened and another album was begun that remains in the vaults, with demoing and pre-production recordings made at Watchmen Studio and Acqrock Studios in Utica. Around this time the band played shows, mostly around upstate NY, with the likes of H2O, Nada Surf, Guided By Voices, Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, Saves The Day, Motion City Soundtrack, Selby Tigers, Longwave, Cropduster, Radio 4, Sheila Divine, Gam, Wallmen, and Martha Dumptruck Massacre. The New York Times once mentioned The Flashing Astonishers in an article about funny band-names, but they spelled the name wrong. It was funny.

As was true to form during this period of the band, there was a revolving door of cast members during the recording of On Involuntary Bliss, besides the main guitar slinging duo of Dan Musclow and Gregg Yeti. Lead vocalist Musclow recruited his then-girlfriend Allison Gates to sing the ballady "Capsized"; she also added oohs and aahs to "Stress Tank Ten". The bass position was handled alternately by David Kane, Chuck Gwynn, Joshua Lee Loomis and Gregg Yeti himself, who often wrote most of the basslines. Drums were mostly done by Bob Kane, with Chris Gajewski playing on 2 songs. The recording for this album produced the classic lineup that persists to this day of Musclow & Yeti, Bob Kane and Chuck Gwynn. Kane & Gwynn are a tandem machine, who after the nearly decade long hiatus of The Flashing Astonishers went on to play masterfully together for years with the other legendary powerhouse Syracuse band The Mandate Of Heaven.

The Flashing Astonishers disintegrated in early 2003 shortly after Gregg Yeti fled to try to tackle monetary and chemical imbalances. During the eight years the band was inactive, Dan Musclow recorded plenty of home demos that remain unreleased, Bob & Chuck pursued other musical trails, and Gregg Yeti spent the time making thousands of homemade copies of eps and albums with Gregg Yeti & The Best Lights and Leper Pony. Yeti also spent around a year in 2005 playing bass with The Mandate Of Heaven. In 2010 the band reunited for 2 shows, and in 2012 a few shows are scheduled and plans are being made to finish the old recordings and potentially pull together some new songs.

From the record label promo materials: "On Involuntary Bliss reveals THE FLASHING ASTONISHERS in their position as the missing link between indie rock, post-punk, and shoegazer dream pop. THE FLASHING ASTONISHERS own up to such various influences as MOGWAI, SUPERCHUNK, SONIC YOUTH, TEENAGE FANCLUB, & MY BLOODY VALENTINE, eschewing more modern conventional trends and indie-pop flavors. THE FLASHING ASTONISHERS never quite fall into the clone trap so many bands fall into, and this album was born to show the emo kids the art of constructive noise, and that interesting guitar tones override any mundane whining any day. While so many melodic bands try to sound like the taste of the day to "be cool", THE FLASHING ASTONISHERS create minty freshness by mixing old mentalities with new music. To describe the sound of On Involuntary Bliss, think GALAXIE 500 meets early PROMISE RING & PAVEMENT." Sounds about right.

The iconic cover art was a photo shot by John Joh taken of some mannequin in a storefront. The cd was entirely engineered on ADAT machines at Watchmen Studio with Doug White in Lockport, NY. Musclow & Yeti produced & mixed the album with Doug White, while Dave St Onge of DMS handled mastering. The liner notes feature an extremely long thank you list.

You can also get copies of the On Involuntary Bliss compact disc over at Amazon dot com for cheap, and most online shops everywhere (including iTunes). The band's first two albums are also available for download from the Koala Syndicate: Everything Is Gonna Stop (1998 KR002) and The Star Off Machine (1999 KR007)

Click right here for free full album download: THE FLASHING ASTONISHERS - ON INVOLUNTARY BLISS (2002 KR025) This is a high quality 320kbps mp3 download and includes free blessings from the pope. Please share this post with your friends! Look for more stuff from The Flashing Astonishers in the not-too-distant future.

Track Listing:
1. Four Chords
2. Stress Tank Ten
3. Elastomer
4. On Involuntary Bliss
5. Too Many Cigarettes
6. Capsized
7. Cognition
8. Advanced Studies And Seminar In New Trends
9. Pollock
10. Only Gone
11. (Only Gone Bonus Track)

Below is two videos for songs from the album. "Too Many Cigarettes" was shot by Rich Stahle of UVTV in 2002 and "Four Chords" features the audio from the old album with newer video shot at the 2010 reunion show, directed by Randy Tallo of Know The Feeling Productions.

Gregg Yeti & The Best Lights - My Narcoleptic Sara (2012)

OFFICIAL VIDEO for the "The Dana & Carl Version 2012" from the 2012 ep "A Unicorn Wrapped In A Rainbow", a collection of stray recordings and demos. This version of My Narcoleptic Sara is decidedly better than the 4 or 5 other versions in circulation and was recorded for Syracuse DJs Dana & Carl who do a radio show called This Is Rock N Roll Radio on Westcott Community Radio (www.westcottradio.org). Video directed by Randy Tallo and Doug White. The horse's name is Jack and he is 40 years old. He ate my keyboard. Thanks to Doug White & Toni Wolf for the horse and barn, Elise Flanders for the lovely ladyness, Steve Daniels for the suave drummings, and Randy Tallo for his talented editing & shooting. Studio recording at Watchmen Studio, Lockport NY. Check out more of Randy Tallo's work with audio & visuals at knowthefeelingproductions.tumblr.com and download full albums for free at www.koalasyndicate.com

Buy Koala Syndicate Merchandise on Cafe Press

Yep, this is pretty funny. Koala Syndicate Dog Bowls. Gregg Yeti & The Best Lights Thong Underwear. Leper Pony Baby Bibs. This is a collection of hundreds of random stray products that will greatly enhance your life. Buy stuff & support all our free music releases, and be sure to tell your friends please. Buy t-shirts, mugs & gifts from my shop.

Make Custom Gifts at CafePress

free full album download: GREGG YETI & THE BEST LIGHTS - THE HARVEST BRASS ECHO (2011 KR021)

Click right here for your free full album download: GREGG YETI & THE BEST LIGHTS - THE HARVEST BRASS ECHO (2011 KR021) The Harvest Brass Echo is the 2nd full length by Gregg Yeti & The Best Lights, and acts as a closet cleaner. The recording of these songs were all started sometime between 2001 and 2007 and never finished in that time. In 2009 & 2010 I forced myself to get them done to help clean out the closets. This explains the randomness of it all…

"Christmas Quarantine" actually started out musically as a song the Flashing Astonishers batted around, but never finished or recorded, back in 1995. "In The Dim Light Of Glowglobes" (the name a Dune reference) was mostly recorded at Watchmen Studio in 2001 as a Flashing Astonishers demo that never came to fruition. "Quality Of Armor" appeared on the "Sing For Your Meat" Guided By Voices Tribute compilation, which you should own. I like the two instrumentals "Wit Of Snails" and "A The Is Me"; they are pretty, like a field of poppies under golden late-afternoon clouds, misty after a midday drizzle. Or something.

"Ura" dates back to my first starts as a home computer recordist in 2003 or so... In 2010 when I was putting the nails in the coffins of all these old songs, I needed a real human drummer to make it real, and Doug White said he spoke to Alex Kerns of Lemuria and he was gonna drive up from where he was staying in New Jersey just to record my stupid songs. I guess he used to like FA back in the day or something, I dunno. Sweet. He played on "Little Scar" and "Ura". Nice guy. All pro. Very glad to have him on board for a minute!

"(Someone Will Be Looking) Out For You" went under the name "The Volleyball Song" for years as it collected dust in my hard drive recording backups, not because I like volleyball but because I wrote the music while playing guitar and watching some weird people play volleyball at a party. “Grey” was written by Rebekah Meek & her band Eberhardt in Durham, NC. They played the Wilmington Exchange Festival in Wilmington NC in 2008 and this song kicked our asses when we saw them play it live.

Then there's the guest vocalists!!! I love bringing female vocals into the mix, and this album features two great ones. Jehn Cerron , who sang on "Little Scar" and contributed the lyrics, does beautiful music out of Florida with her home recording set-up. She’s done plenty of online collaborations featured on her Myspace page & initially caught my ears with her project Eyelight when she played live at WEFest. We recorded this song via email, sending tracks back and forth.

Andrea Lee Higgins sang and wrote lyrics for "Red Curtain Sunlight." She & I misfired a band together for a few months in 2005 called The Star Off Machine (named after the FA album, which was named after the Dr Suess Sneetches reference), and this song is one of the very few things that came out of it alive. She has spent time in CNY, NC, NJ & NYC since then, and has plenty of good songs all over the web. We got an ep recorded, and all the covers done for it too, then it caved. I didn't want to waste all the time put into the packaging, so I just released it under my name and with a few different songs, which is why I have put out an album with FA and a solo ep under the name The Star Off Machine. It is a typical confusion of my life. The ubiquitous Bob Kane played drums on "Red Curtain Sunlight", which at one point was a Flashing Astonishers song also. FA recorded it in 2002 and it sounded like a GBV ripoff of sorts, and I took it back and used Kane's recorded drum tracks, kept mostly the same arrangement, and made it sound like a Cure ripoff, with stoned girly vocals. One day maybe you'll hear the lost FA recording, and maybe I'll post the lost ep by The Star Off Machine one of these days. Why not?

This album has been released and distributed by hand in the paper bag format on cd, with stickers, hand-stamps, and paper inserts. They look neat. So far 1000 have been made, and probably more will be made.

Track Listing:
1. Ura (7:53)
2. Little Scar (3:43)
3. (Someone Will Be Looking) Out For You (1:42)
4. Christmas Quarantine (3:38)
5. Red Curtain Sunlight (3:15)
6. Wit Of Snails (2:04)
7. In The Dim Light Of Glowglobes (5:29)
8. Grey (4:29)
9. Quality Of Armor (2:50)
10. A The Is Me (2:35)
11. Half Is Me (5:53)

Obtain your summer soundtrack of happiness here: FREE full album download: GREGG YETI & THE BEST LIGHTS - THE HARVEST BRASS ECHO (2011 KR021)

Paypal donations can be made to greggyeti@yahoo.com - any and all help is always needed!

The Mildreds - Jack The Ripper (unreleased Link Wray cover, 1995)

THE MILDREDS were an early 1990's surf-noise-punk band based in Syracuse who only put out one 7" record. Here's an unreleased song, a cover of a classic Link Wray number, which is one of several buried Mildreds songs that one day may surface. The Mildreds featured members of The Flashing Astonishers, The Electric Chick Magnets, The Dracula Jones, The Ghost Monkeys, etc. etc. Most (or all) of these photo were shot by Jeff Jones, some in NYC and some around Syracuse. Maybe someday this old unreleased stuff by The Mildreds could get released officially? Hear more of The Mildreds by clicking here! (((PS There's a buncha dooshers on You Tube in a band also called The Mildreds who dress in costumes and they suck. I hear they beat old ladies and steal their clothes. SO, know your Mildred before you use her.)))