Well, hey. Two emails in a month. And this is a long one. Due to lack of work (and anything better to do), I've had plenty of time to work in the studio and make stuff for all kinds of great artists who are churning out amazing music while they are in the same position we are. And, again, for most of this stuff, I am not limiting the numbers in the short term. I know that some of you (like me) are mega strapped and fucked for cash. I don't want you to have to use grocery or rent money on a record. But, since I had all my Mobile Vinyl Recorders gigs cancelled and my “self-employed status” has made me ineligble for unemployment in Arizona, this is my (and many of the artists) only income source. So, if you are fortunate enough to have stable income of some sort and want to help us out, it would be greatly appreciated. If you can't, then we should have a copy or two of most of these things still around when shit stabilizes and the world gets back on its' axis. Hopefully the USPS will still exist by then, because as you probably know, you-know-who is trying to destroy it, and if Media Mail goes away, mail order goes with it, and the physical media we all love is probably going to go the way of the dinosaur.
I got all of the Outsider Art Preorders in the mail and skipped town and am currently somewhere in Denver or Wyoming. Tucson opened back up and all the shitty Bro-bars were shoulder to shoulder, so Tucson is about to go down in Covid Flavored Flames, And I am NOT going to be there. But, I still have a friend sheltering in place who can hopefully do some shipping for me. If not, I'll be back in a week or so to ship everything out before taking back off to Joshua Tree or something. Shit is WHACK right now, but I hope you are all safe!
- Floating Action – Outsider Art update: Shipped OUT!
Lee “Gull” Baggett – Burnr 1 - Simon Joyner – Salt Across Your Grave 10”
- Golden Boots Livestream Needs YOUR Input!
- Sloppy Joe and The Cruise Strong and Fruity Booze Challenge! - Free lathe cut (with purchase of the LP) to everyone who participates in the challenge!
- Leonard Joel Sings Billy Cohen 10” – Graves and Friends play the songs of Billy Joel in the style of Leonard Cohen
- Dean and Britta (LUNA) – The Carnival is Over 7” Lathe Cut
Floating Action – Outsider Art Has Shipped!
Finally got these in from the plant and they should have all gotten shipped out. Check yr paypal for tracking. If you don't get what were you expecting (The BIBA add-on thing was a little confusing, and I may have fucked something up, so let me know!)
We still have a few copies left of the standard version available here! 
Lee “Gull” Baggett – Burnr (1) 2x10”
Lee Baggett is one of my favorite people on the planet. He also has one of the biggest “cult followings” in PIAPTK's history. He was one of the earliest artists on PIAPTK, and I get more email requests for the super limited 10”s I made for him back in the early days than I do The Flaming Lips and Scott McMicken records. People LOVE Lee Baggett, just like I do. He is a frequent collaborator of Little Wings, but his solo recordings are a beautifully mutant hybrid of Neil Young, Jerry Garcia, and Daniel Johnston. Jammy, shakey, loose and unpolished, but fun and beautiful.
This album, Burnr, was recorded with Graves as his backing band (not to be confused with the 2x10” Graves and Lee Gull album that we released a few years back (long sold out and highly sought after). We will also be releasing Burnr's followup, Burnr 2 very soon.
It comes on Double White 10"s in chipboard gatefold sleeves with full color paste on covers.
Simon Joyner – Salt Across Our Graves 10”s
About 10 copies of these resurface... for a ramble about why, read on:
Without getting into it too deep, a couple years back when this 10” came out, most sold out quick. But, I was on the road non-stop at that point and had (what turned out to be a very unreliable) employee cutting these for me. He phoned it in, and wasn't drop testing them all the way he was supposed to. Because of this, 25-30% of them (we think) were sub par, and pretty bad. I started getting complaints while I was on the road, so I had my fulfillment guy take them down off the site, find good discs in the records that were left to replace them, and he put them away in a box. I was on the road, nobody else emailed about it, and I kind of forgot about it. Until this month, when I was cleaning the studio and found the box, tried playing a couple and realized how shitty some of them were. So, I reached out to Simon and my purchasers to find anyone who had a bad disc, and re-cut discs for everyone and mailed them out. While I was at it, I made brand new discs for the ones that got pulled and lost in a box. So, long story, over, I now have ten copies available here: http://piaptk.limitedrun.com/products/572520
Golden Boots Livestream Needs Your Input & PIAPTK Survey
Golden Boots have been extremely busy this year, and especially during the quarantine. They got their Burning Brain Radio Show back on the air here in Tucson, they've been recording a ton, AND they've been doing a ton of Instagram Livestreams, sunset livestreams from the parking lot of their studio, and mini-sets from inside their studio. If you don't already, be sure to follow them on Instagram. On May 31 at 6pm PST, Golden Boots will be taking over the @PIAPTK Instagram and livestreaming an ALL REQUESTS set of five songs, but they need YOUR requests. So, I set up a survey to get those requests, and while I was at it, I threw on a few PIAPTK questions to help me out while you are at it. Answer as many or few of the questions as you want, but your feedback is greatly appreciated! Take the survey HERE.
Sloppy Joe & The Cruise Strong and Fruity Booze Challenge
GET A FREE LATHE CUT IF YOU MAKE A DRINK FOR YOURSELF ON IG OR FB! Details below....
You are going to be hearing a lot about the Lost 1975 Trop-Rock Masterpiece, Keep on Cruising, by Key West also-ran Sloppy Joe (Flappens) and the Cruise. This record is incredible and it grows on you with every listen, and the backstory is amazing. I am SO excited about it.
Here is the quick and dirty version, a much longer explanation of this whole thing is coming next email, but here is the story of the album.
After a show in Key West, FL in 2005, Dr. Dog guitarist Doug O'Donnell wandered into a run-down dive bar called Chart Room and ordered a drink. There were only a handful of regulars in the bar, but one of them came over and sat down next to Doug after hearing that he was a touring musician. For the next two hours, this scraggly, bearded man unrolled his own incredible history while Doug unrolled the $5 bills of his touring per diem to keep them both in rum and cokes. The man was “Sloppy” Joe Flappens. In the early to mid-70's, as he told it, Sloppy Joe was one of the kings of the southern Florida beach bar scene. His band, “The Cruise," would pack houses all over the area, years before Jimmy Buffet's “Margaritaville” took the tropical soft rock sound to the top of the charts. Buffett and Flappens worked the same circuit, and, while not exactly friends (there was, according to Joe, “a woman to blame” for this), they occasionally performed together. Sloppy Joe and the Cruise recorded one legendary album in 1975 before disbanding. A tragic accident left Joe unable to play guitar and the completed album was shelved - literally (above Joe's couch, next to his record collection). He spent the ensuing years as a fishing guide, maintaining a laid back lifestyle in obscurity until his death in 2018. At that point Doug (who had become Joe's biggest fan and occasional penpal) received the master tapes in the mail (per Joe's will) and began trying to expose the world to this lost classic.
The Sloppy Joe and the Cruise Strong and Fruity Booze Challenge! GET A FREE LATHE CUT BONUS DISC WITH PURCHASE of the LP! (lathe cut Limited to # of folks who do this challenge, and this is literally the only way to get the bonus song)
One of the tracks from the Keep on Cruising album is called “What Was In That Drink?”, and is the story of Joe mixing up a drink from whatever he has around “something sweet and thick and blue, it had a fruity flavor too, there was something vague and spicy....I think there was some grenadine, pineapple rum and mangosteen, maybe also lime and soda”.
In true Joe Flappens spirit, we ask you to record yourself mixing up a fruity drink, using whatever you have around the house... can even be a mocktail, just hopefully there is some fruit involved somewhere, but if not, we can all be sure that Joe Flappens would've given it a go, and that's good enough for me. Tell the audience why you are doing it, and then post it on FB or IG and tag @piaptk on it with the hashtags #SloppyJoeAndTheCruise. #PIAPTK and #KeepOnCruisin.
HEAR THE SONG (and the first single) HERE https://soundcloud.com/piaptkshop Also, it will go up on Spotify May 23, 2020 (maybe that is the past at this point, I'm writing this email when that is the future), so if today is past the time when that is the present, give yourself the gift of listening to it!
Graves & Friends – Leonard Joel sings Billy Cohen 10” Lathe Cuts
As you probably know, Greg Olin's band Graves is one of PIAPTK's long time favorite artist. He's been involved with Lee Gull Baggett, Fronjentress, Solid Home Life, and many other artists that we've worked with. He's a horrible self promoter (perhaps the worst I've ever worked with?) and an elementary special education teacher. But, he is prolific and his music is incredible.
Apparently, he got the idea of recording Billy Joel songs in the style of Leonard Cohen, while they were working on some Graves songs, and within an hour, everyone in the room had recorded one, and the EP was done. The next day, they put it up on Bandcamp, and that same day I reached out about doing 10"s of it, and here we are. It's done and it's great, and you will enjoy it. It is kind of insane how much these Billy Joel pop songs sound like legitimate Leonard Cohen songs!
Dean and Britta (Luna) – The Carnival is Over Lathe Cut 7”
Luna was always one of those PIAPTK bucket list bands that I've loved since I got into good music starting with Galaxie 500 when I was 15. So when I randomly met Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips at a Light in the Attic Party in LA, it was a pretty significant day. I did what I do, chatted them up, did the “schmooze” gave Dean my card, got his email, and followed up immediately, but it was over a year of no contact before he reached out about doing a for-hire job for a Kickstarter he was doing. Obviously I wanted to do a PIAPTK release, so we worked out a deal that culminated in both the bonus lathe cut for the Dean Wareham and Cheval Sombre LP (Which is EXCELLENT) AND the Phenokistoscope 7” pic disc PIAPTK released for Luna, which felt like a serious coup for me. So, naturally, when Dean reached out about a new Dean and Britta lathe cut (potentially followed by more Made-to-order discs for their livestreams, so follow their social media to keep up on that), I was pretty excited.
This is a cover of the traditional Russian folk song, The Carnival Is Over, from the 1800s, but made famous by the Seekers in the 1960s, and according to my buddy who helps me cut is “a bolero”. But it's beautiful and unique and on clear square 7”s with clear printed labels and transperency inserts. It's really fucking great.
Well, I've got a crazy amount of stuff in the works from Michael Nau, Little Wings, Golden Boots, Lee Gull Baggett, Briana Marela, Sean Spellman of Quiet Life, and a bunch of my most influential artists from my formative teenage and college years in North Central Texas. Also have a bunch of exciting artists that I'm “in negotiation” with. So, plenty of good stuff coming down the pipe.
I love all y'all and hope you are staying safe and healthy!
Mike.