Limited Edition Vinyl Recordings & Handmade Musical Artifacts from Tucson, AZ
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Nau, Dean and Britta, Benny Yurco, Blank Tapes, Sean Spellman

Well, the shit has officially hit the fan at the USPS. The new postmaster general holds tons of UPS and Fedex stock, and it is in his best personal interest for the USPS to fail completely. You would think that would disqualify him for running the post office, but then you would think about all the other shit getting pulled by the government and you would just shrug and realize it is business as usual. You would also think "Maybe we should bail out the USPS since almost every American citizen relies on it in some capacity, so why are we NOT bailing that out, and instead bailing out Cruise Line companies and Billionaire Real Estate Developers who are tearing down every piece of interesting or historical architecture so they can build shitty contractor grade condos?" And again, you would shrug.

USPS is taking FOREVER these days. Don't expect it soon.

So, this may very well be your last chance to support tiny mail order labels like PIAPTK without spending $22 to ship an LP via UPS or Fedex.

This may very well be the end.

But, if it is, I hope you will raise a glass of whatever you are drinking and think of the love we put into these releases next time you listen to the PIAPTK records you already own. Because all that love will always be there.

However, artists are still cranking out great new stuff, and I am still here to cathartically help them get that stuff out into the world in a physical form for you to enjoy until we get the final surprise of overnight quadrupled postage when we log into ship them through paypal.

Got a ton of amazing stuff coming down the pipe, but it may be a little while until the next email as I am currently out on the Covidball Run from Tucson to Florida to Nashville to Tucson, and then possibly up to Portland and back. I'm the Johnny Appleseed of record lathes, and I would love to come plant one at your place if you live en route.

Coming Soon (maybe....):
-Michael Nau + Floating Action = Dream Sitch!
A long distance quarantine collaboration from two of PIAPTK's favorites... and the record is just as great as you would expect it to be.
-The Spark of PIAPTK - this will be a 4x10" boxset (discs available individually, too) that will be made to preorder and represent my most musically formative years going to shows in Denton and Dallas, TX in 1996-2001. Centro-Matic - Early Demos, Baboon - The Numb EP, The Tomorrow People - Marijuana Beach, and El Gato - Unreleased Demos. These were my favorite bands during that time period and the bands that transitioned me from small town punk rocker to pretentious indie boi. All of the bands are long gone, but they all hold hugely special places in my heart. All of the bands can be found on Spotify and I would be honored if you would check them out now to see if you want to pick up a copy during the preorder, after that they will never be available again. It's a vanity project for sure, but is a big deal for me personally.
Veronica Bianqui - ST LP - Such a great mod-garage pop record!
Briana Marela - 7"
And MAYBE a new series with releases from Jake Ingalls (Spaceface), Jason SImon (Dead Meadow), and Sugar Candy Mountain! Still in negotiations!a

INTL CUSTOMERS BEWARE: International post is taking insanely long and is very unreliable, so buy at your own risk!

This time!
Dean and Britta 7x7" Boxset - Quarantine Tapes!
Marble Blur (Michael Nau) - ST 10 song 10"
Benny Yurco (w/ Nau and Floating Action) - You Are My Dreams LP
Sean Spellman - Easterly Instrumental 10"
Blank Tapes - Look Into The Light LPs Distro


NOTE: Benny Yurco and Dean and Britta are PREORDERS. I HIGHLY Recommend you order those seperately from any other items so we can ship the items that are in stock IMMEDIATELY. The preorders will HOPEFULLY be in within a week or so, but who knows anymore?

Dean and Britta 7x7" Boxset - Quarantine Tapes!

INTL CUSTOMERS BEWARE: International post is taking insanely long and is very unreliable, so buy at your own risk!

Dean and Britta from Luna/Galaxie 500 bring you a SIX double sided 7" lathe cut box set with a star shaped one sided bonus disc for those who purchase the whole set. Dean and Britta wanted to hire me to cut these boxsets for their newly founded label, Double Feature Records, but I talked them into letting PIAPTK co-release it (in exchange for a discount! haha). They are selling them individually OR as a boxset, but I only have 50 copies of the box (250 total made), so I'm just going to sell them as a set. All of the sets include a bonus song on a star shaped 7" that is only available with the boxsets and is signed by Dean and Britta.

Offish Descripsh:

Here are Dean & Britta’s “Quarantine Tapes”; six singles, twelve songs in all, recorded at home during the lockdown spring of 2020. Some are taken from livestream performances, others are recorded from scratch in the home studio. Highlights are a remix of “Neon Lights” by Matt Fishbeck (aka Holy Shit), new covers of the Bee Gees’ “Massachusetts”, Donovan’s “Sadness,” and “He Dines Out on Death” originally by no-Wave singer Cristina who passed away in March this year.

These 7” singles run at 33rpm and are two-sided d lathe-cut on clear square shaped plastic. Each comes with a different colored sleeve by the great Californian painter Brian Calvin. If you buy all six, they will arrive in a white cardboard box with a couple of silkscreen stickers and a bonus star-shaped disc with a version of “Parking Lot” (from a recent livestream).

Full tracklisting:

1. Massachusetts / Air
2. Sadness / Ride Into the Sun
3. Neon Lights / Neon Lights (Holy Shit remix)
4. I’m So Bored With the USA / Drive
5. Most of the Time / Indian Summer
6. He Dines Out On Death / 23 Minutes in Brussels
Bonus disc for sull sets: Parking Lot

Listen to it Here!

Buy One Here!


Marble Blur (Michael Nau) - ST 10 song 10

INTL CUSTOMERS BEWARE: International post is taking insanely long and is very unreliable, so buy at your own risk!

Marble Blur (Michael Nau) - Marble Blur Instrumental 10 song 10" available in two formats. Black Vinyl with Pentagonal Glitter center label and Hand Painted Psychedelic Pic Disc.

Michael Nau is ridiculously prolific when the world is open and he is touring almost fulltime, but now that everything is shut down and touring is cancelled, he has been downright on fire. If you haven't heard the demos album he released on Suicide Squeeze, which pulled together the demos of his first two solo albums, or So On So On, his self-released home recorded quarantine album, you are really missing out. On top of that, he recorded a long distance collaborative quarantine album with Seth Kaufman (Floating Action), which we are STOKED to be releasing in the fall. And, in addition to all that, there are probably another 100 songs that he isn't showing anybody. Now that Wooden Wand has retired, Michael seems poised to take JJT's place in the PIAPTK Pantheon as the overflowing conduit to the lyrical otherworld. Anyway, enough of my yappin'.

Marble Blur - Marble Blur EP is a ten song 10" of instrumentals that Nau recorded at home during quarantine. It is available in two formats. Standard Black 10" in black sleeve with diecut glitter sticker or mega deluxe unique painted double sided 10" with trippy irridescent, glitter and/or black light paints with embedded glitter stickers inside the disc in a pic disc sleeve.

It is probably the most PIAPTK release I've released in a long time in regards to the circumstances of its' birth. Upcycling garbage, fuckups, heartbreak, redemption, more fuckups, family, quadruple the work, perseverance, etc.

So basically here is how it went:

1) 3 years ago I ordered $1500 worth of 10" CNC routed plastic circles from a new supplier and every single one of them came in warped and unusable. Unable to throw away pretty much anything, they sat in a pile on a shelf in the studio.
2) three weeks ago I had a lucid dream that gluing them back to back with opposite warps would flatten them out. And it WORKED!
3) So, I enlisted my daughter Ryer to help me paint the discs. We sat around, made all kinds of designs using the paints, had a good ol' time making about 120 copies, and watched 4 of the 8 Beethoven the St Bernard movies.
4) The next two days were my personal cutting days at the studio (sat and sun), which coincided with Ryer being at her moms', so I went down to the studio and spent about 12 hours each day cutting the audio.
5) Later in the week, I discovered that because I hadn't let the paint dry, and because we had used SOOO much paint that it had oozed out of the center hole and the edges and tiny paint flecks had gotten on the platter mat, and then onto the A-side of a LOT of the records, causing one or two (or more skips). So I play tested about 50 of them all the way through (and only found 2 usuable ones) before finally giving up and throwing them all in the trash to start from scratch.
6) And, in true me fashion, there was no fucking way I was going to let ANY project get the better of me, so I decided I was going to make them again.
7) However, because I no longer had useless plastic to work with, and each disc required two CNC routed 10" discs, meaning that each one requires not only about an hour of work to make the disc and the embedded sticker and to cut the audio, but also $13 in material cost. And since I give the artists 30% of the run as payment, just to break even and pay myself 1988 Burger King starting wages for my time (a pact that I made myself when I decided to not close down PIAPTK in 2016 (I did NOT charge myself for the 25 hours of labor wasted on my fuck up, tho)) I had to price these at $29.99. So, I talked to Michael and we decided that instead of doing 100 painted discs, we would do 50 painted and 50 standard discs at $18.99 so people could still own it for a more reasonable price.
8) Then I had to spend another grueling 24 hours cutting them again.

Buy One Here!

Listen to it Here!


Benny Yurco (w/ Nau and Floating Action) - You Are My Dreams LP

THIS IS A PREORDER. THEY SHOULD SHIP IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS.

Benny Yurco is a guy I've heard about for a LONG time. My partner in Soild Gold, Dimitri, always wanted to do a SG with him, he's good buds with Dr Dog, I heard many stories about him while I was on tour with Michael Nau in Europe, and even met him once in Joshua Tree while he was recording with Nau, McMickens, Kaufman, and Sabatino for the album that became Less Ready To Go.

Benny recorded the basic tracks for You Are My Dreams in one day and then sent it out to Nau, Kauffman, and Graeme Gibson (Nau, Fruit Bats, etc) to do some overdubs and fill it out, and had Scott McMicken and LeeAnn Cornelius from Acorn Bcorn do the art for it.

Now it is available in a ltd edition of 200 pressed LPs on "Blue Dream" and "Flor Amarilla" (100 copies each) vinyl, randomly inserted!

All orders in the first week receive a free pack of Benny Yurco rolling papers!

FROM BENNY:
"You Are My Dreams" is an experimental, improvisational, alternative world album of instinctual free thought, spirit guided, melodic & rhythmic intuition, written & recorded by composer/multi-instrumentalist/producer, Benny Yurco. The rhythm tracks were cut & dub'd on on his 1/2" tape recorder in his home studio in Vermont, Little Jamaica, one day in May of 2019. Most of the recordings were then sent to dear friends/fellow musicians/recordist, Seth Kauffman (Floating Action/Angel Olsen/Jim James), Michael Nau, & Graeme Gibson (Michael Nau) for additional instrument overdub recordings.

YAMDs was mixed by Graeme Gibson & mastered by Christopher Colbert.

Cover Art / Art Direction by Leann Cornelius & Scott Mcmicken

This Limited Edition 12" color LP will be pressed on "Blue Dream" blue vinyl & "Flor Amarilla" yellow vinyl and will be a random color toss up to each buyer & brought to your turntable by PIAPTK Recordings. There will only be 200 LP's pressed, 100 blue, 100 yellow. Each LP also includes an art insert with lyrics/credits and a drawing by comrade/artist/musician Evan apRoberts.
Each pre order will include a custom pack of "You Are My Dreams, Roll & Dream" 1 & 1/4 organic hemp rolling papers for the blazers & dreamers among us!

"You Are My Dreams" will also be available on limited edition cassette through PressOn Records in late August!

Listen to it at Benny's Bandcamp: https://bennyyurco.bandcamp.com/releases

Buy One Here!


Sean Spellman - Easterly Instrumental 10"

PIAPTK is a pretty incestuous family tree. Most artists have deep ties to one another and usually find new artists through the old ones. Almost everybody has played with, toured with, recorded with, are a side/solo project of, dated, or are heavy buds with, etc at least a few of the other artists on the label. In fact, I started making a family tree of all the bands that I've worked with on more than one release, and there was only ONE artist that didn't have pretty solid ties to at least three other artists on the label.

Well, Sean Spellman's main band, Quiet Life has recorded with both Adam Selzer (Norfolk & Western) and Nathan Sabatino (Golden Boots, Dr Dogs in house engineer for 5 records), and is actually Scott McMickens cousin, and is buds with a bunch of that West Coast PIAPTK Crew.

So, this is Sean's solo Instrumental EP, Easterly. IT contains four instrumental tracks that were cut from his full length album, Westerly.

It's limited to 50 copies on black lathe cut10"s with all of the covers uniquely hand-decorated by Sean and his daughter.

Buy One Here!

Listen to it Here!


Blank Tapes - Look Into The Light LPs Distro

Swapped with our buddies at Nomad Eel Records for some LP copies of the GREAT new Blank Tapes LP, Look Into The Light. One LP packed full with seven extended length jammerz on metallic silver vinyl. This record is great and we only about 15 copies for sale.

If you don't already have the excellent Blank Tapes - Candy LP, pick up a 2 pk with one of each!
This is the heaviest thing The Blank Tapes have done yet! It’s a smash cut of Stones/Flamin Groovies street rock, longhair 70s-adjacent riffs and stark El Topo endless-desert-of-the-mind imagery. If you like this then you will love the countless guitar solos that blazes from both sides of this LP. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!

'Look Into The Light’ written and performed by Matt Adams. #1-3 basic tracks recorded by Tommy Dietrick at Skylab Studio In Joshua Tree, CA 2018, overdubs by Matt Adams. #4-6 recorded & mixed by Mike Post at Moosecat Recording In Los Angeles, CA 2019. #7 recorded by Matt Adams at Arroyo Seco Studio in Yucca Valley, CA, drums recorded by Nathan Sabatino. #1-3 & 7 mixed by Nathan Sabatino at Hi Dez Recording. Mastered by Paul Oldham. Art by Matt Adams.

Shaughnessy Starr - Drums #1-6
Jason Cirimele - Bass #1-3
Veronica Bianqui - Vocals #1-7

Buy One Here!

Posted on August 13th, 2020
Ceased and Desisted.

Well, crap. Yesterday we sent out an email about a new release that contained unused tracks recorded specifically for a soundtrack. And, as a joke, mentioned that you should tag the music supervisor for that soundtrack... and well, somebody might have taken us seriously, and we got slapped with a big ol' Cease and Desist. So... uh, not only were we not supposed to bother the music supervisor, but we weren't supposed to use the name of the film, etc etc. So we have scrubbed everything.

WHATEVER YOU DO... DO NOT PUT THIS RELEASE ON DISCOGS!!!!!

Mailing will be on hold for a week or so until we figure out exactly what to do.

We will be in touch.


MeaCulpa Dixon.

Posted on June 29th, 2020
Raymond Byron (Castanets), Lee Gull Baggett Burnr 2

Well, I don't even know how to start these things anymore. Same Shit, Different Day. It's like Groundhogs Day meets 12 Monkeys meets Idiocracy as reimagined by Black Mirror. But strangely, Life Goes On.

So, as usual, I've just been locking myself away in the studio, cutting records and burning through blades on my beloved Cricut cutter, my one and only pandemic friend.

But, all that shit's a downer. And I don't sell downers. I sell pick-us-uppers, and we got some killer shit to brighten your day during your indefinite home-stay.

So, let's get this rolling while mailing records is still somewhat affordable. BTW, if you haven't already, PLEASE sign this petition: https://www.change.org/p/save-the-usps

  1. redacted
  2. Raymond Byron (Castanets) – Kingdom 1 and 2 – 8” Pic disc lathe cut
  3. Lee Gull Baggett – Burnr 2 – 2x10” Lathe Cut



Raymond Byron (Castanets) – Kingdom 1 and 2 – 8” Pic disc lathe cut

Raymond Byron (Raposa) was the main force behind early aughts freak psych folk act Castanets, one of my personal favorites. Outside of a solo record (2012's excellent White Freighter) and a 2014 Castanets record, Decimation Blues, Ray has been quiet. BUT, coming very soon, he has a new LP coming out on ESP Disc (whose batshit insane roster includes Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Billie Holliday, Holy Modal Rounders, Timothy Leary, William S Burroughs, and even Charlie Manson) soon.

But, just to get a little blood in the water, we are putting out this combo single of related outtakes "Kingdom 1 & 2", which was produced and played upon by my old friend Cory Gray (Graves, Carcrashlander, etc).

Each one is on a transparent one sided 8" pic disc whose image will probably take on a more specific meaning once you hear the song and watch the record as it plays.

Hear a couple of tracks here: https://soundcloud.com/piaptkshop

Buy One Here!

Lee Gull Baggett – Burnr 2 2x10” Lathe Cut

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 is the second installment of Burnr, recorded a couple years after Burnr 1 with the same band of Greg Olin (Graves), Cory Gray (Graves/Carcrashlander), Zach Tillman (Father John Misty), Nate Ashley (Solo/Graves), and Brian Wright (Graves/Gold Leaves).

This is a double 10" on white vinyl in gatefold chipboard jacket.

If you haven't already, pick up Burnr 1 as well!

Tracklisting:
Ride Your Wild Horses
Something Shiny
Silver Moon
No Crying
Tall Grass
Farm Crunch
King of the Canyon
Welcome to the Pages
Freee Birdie
Can't Blame the Sunshine

Hear a couple of tracks here: https://soundcloud.com/piaptkshop

Buy One Here!

Posted on June 26th, 2020
Richard Santos Edition - Scott McMicken, Golden Boots, Sloppy Joe and the Cruise!

Hello again! Welcome to the Richard Santos issue of the PIAPTK newsletter. For those (most of you) who don't know him, Richard Santos is one of my favorite people. An ageless Austinite whose main passions include heavy metal, psych-pop, and yacht rock billboard chart-toppers from 1972. He is one of the most excited/excitable dudes I've ever met in my life. And he loves great music. He films videos, makes tons of collages, roadies for bands, etc. He is just an all-around good-vibes-man. And it just so happens, he randomly had a hand in ALL THREE of the releases that are coming out today. He made the collages for the Scott McMicken “Catch Ya Later” Pic Disc AND the video (along with Jeremy Bruch), He made the collage for the Golden Boots “Nite Drives” Soild Gold Poster, AND, after I sent him a Sloppy Joe and the Cruise test pressing in a big care package last month, (with no real info, but knowing it would appeal to his obsession with 70s yacht rock) he sent me a LONG letter asking tons of questions about it, and an (unsolicited) hand-written recipe for his Sloppy Joes and a $20 bill to buy the ingredients so I could cook them up myself. I did, and they were delicious, so we included the recipe in the zine that comes with the Keep on Cruisin' album.

THIS EPISODE:
1. Scott McMicken – Catch Ya Later! Pic Disc Lathe Cut
2. Golden Boots – Nite Drives Soild Gold LP
3. Sloppy Joe and The Cruise – Keep on Cruisin'

PLEASE NOTE: ALL OF THESE ARE PREORDERS. They should hopefully ship soon. They are all en-route to me via UPS, and I will ship them AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLY, but as I learned from the Floating Action Outsider Art LPs, UPS is having some issues these days. Also, the photos are either incomplete or mock-ups... that will be corrected once I get everything in from UPS (this week, HOPEFULLY). It will take about a week for everything to arrive, and a week to get everything assembled and mailed. So, HOPEFULLY two weeks?

Scott McMicken – Catch Ya Later Lathe Cut Pic Discs
Scott McMicken and Richard Santos (who toured with and filmed the Dr Dog “Bowery Ballroom” Live Video and released it under his DIY film label, Shot By A Fan) collaborated with former What Made Milwaukee Famous drummer, Jeremy Bruch to make a video called “Catch Ya Later” that featured a new Scott song, Richards' collages featuring otherworldly Leave it To Beaver era scenes of twisted domesticity, and his and Jeremys' greenscreen sock puppet work. Check the video here: https://vimeo.com/410043553

Never one to let a Scott McMicken project pass me by without asking to be a part of it, I asked Scott if we could do some pic discs of it using Richards' collages, and he said “As long as Richard is down, so am I!” and I knew Richard would be into it, so we got cranking on them. Richard emailed me 100 unique collages, so there are ONE HUNDRED different designs of this pic discs. Like all recent releases, these are not limited during this weird time. Everybody that wants one should be able to get one. I won't make them forever, but for the foreseeable future, I'm not limiting the editions. But, you can rest assured that you will own of one only a few of the version of the disc you get.

BUY ONE HERE

Golden Boots – Nite Drives Soild Gold LP
Golden Boots have been stretching out over the last few years. As the lineup has fluidly shifted around Ryen and Dimitri, the format has gone from Crumbly Western to Omnichord-Core to Instrumental Sunset tunes and everything in between. And they have been PROOLIFFFIC. Nite Drives was recorded a couple years ago during the beginning of the Instrumental period, and it has been a fan favorite since being released on tape by the band. And, since I've recently been getting more into instrumental albums myself it made perfect sense that the man who founded Soild Gold (Dimitri) would be the 12th Soild Gold release. It consists of three long format chill vibe background dinner party tunes.

BUY ONE HERE




Sloppy Joe and the Cruise – Keep On Cruisin' LP

I REALLY love this record. And the response to the soft-rollout of it has been incredible. It is available NOW to stream at all the usual streaming sites.

It's Jimmy Buffet meets Brian Wilson Meets Jerry Garcia. It's clever, self aware, self-deprecating, beautiful, funny, sad, and infectious.

It was recorded in 1975 by a Key West slacker named “Sloppy” Joe Flappens, and sat on a shelf until a year and a half ago, when he passed away and it was sent to Doug O'Donnell (former Dr. Dog guitarist) as a condition of Joe's will. Joe and Doug met in 2004 at a bar after Doug played in Key West, and they became penpals. Below is the teaser. The full story is in the zine that is included with the record. bookshelf at Joe's house for 40 years. See the teaser story below....

The Keep On Cruisin' Pack Includes:

-First Pressing Limited to 250 copies in die-cut covers.
-On Yellow with red fleck sunset vinyl.
- Includes a zine with images and what little information is known about “Sloppy Joe” Flappens and the recording session
- Includes a pack of custom Keep on Cruisin' rolling papers

THE STORY:
After a show in Key West, FL, in 2004, Dr. Dog guitarist Doug O'Donnell wandered into a run down dive bar called Chart Room, and ordered a drink. There we only a handful of lonely 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 skinny, scraggly bearded man, although in his mid-50s had the world weariness of someone far older, unrolled his own incredible history (while Doug unrolled the $5 bills of his tour per diem to keep them both in rum and cokes). This man was “Sloppy” Joe Flappen. In the late 70's, (as he told it), Sloppy Joe was one of the kings of the Southern Florida Beach Bar scene. He had a band, “The Cruise”, that would pack houses all the area, long before Jimmy Buffet's “Margaritaville” would bring Tropical Rock to the masses. Buffett and Flappen were working the same circuit, and, while not exactly friends (there was, unshockingly, a “woman to blame” for this), they occasionally played together. Joe gave him a copy of the record that night (dubbed over a Dan Fogelberg cassette), which became a favorite in the Dr Dog tour van. Joe and Doug continued to be penpals for the next decade, but eventually lost touch. When Joe passed away in 2018, he left the master tapes to Keep on Cruisin' to Doug, along with a note asking him to get it out to anyone who might care. So that is what we are trying to do.

BUY ONE HERE



Posted on May 31st, 2020
Luna, Joyner, Lee Gull Baggett, Graves & friends sing Billy Joel as Leonard Cohen, Sloppy Joe and the Cruise...

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.

Posted on May 21st, 2020