#lost recordings

[weneverlearn]

From The Distillery to Eternity: A Tale of Lost Recording Tapes, Found on eBay

Red Aunts / Two Tears guitarist/singer Kerry Smith was just putzing around eBay when she saw a tape she made 20+ years ago which was being sold by some rando -- along with lots of tapes by other regional L.A. trash rock acts. A facebook post about it, copious comments, and a surprise good samaritan followed.

KERRY SMITH rockin' with the Red Aunts at a club near The Distillery studio, sometime in 1993.

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As we all regularly ponder what the hell social media is good for, a major piece of proof for the answer of “Nothing” are the comments sections on Facebook. The vitriol and vague “arguments” that can ensue (should you actually still use Facebook) get stupid and depressing very quickly.

But for every 100 like that, there are posts that actually conjure up a stable discussion, interesting connections, and maybe even some useful info.

Case in point, a recent post from Kerry Smith – Red Aunts and Two Tears guitarist/singer and all-around hilarious, life-affirming gal.

Essentially, she came across an eBay listing that was selling off a studio reel tape of an original master recording she made in 2000. After Kerry’s FB post, a number of people clicked on the link and a few realized their own tapes or someone they knew were also listed for sale.

I contacted Kerry about the situation:

“I recorded a bunch of songs there hoping to put them out as the first Two Tears record," said Kerry. "Lesley (Ishino, Red Aunts) and Danny Hole (Necessary Evils) played some drums, and I played everything else. I forgot about this all until this post was brought to my attention, and I feel sad, angry, violated, ripped off. I demo’d them all on my 4-track and worked hard in that studio. I paid for it all myself, no label help. Lots of people offered to buy them for me, and someone thought they were doing a good deed and bought it, though I had the post taken down. I don’t know why it bothers me so much, until Gar wrote from SD saying it’s an intimate and personal experience, and he said do you feel like you’ve been audio art raped? And I do."

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One of the commenters on Kerry’s post was Larry Hardy – head of In The Red Records, the legendary garage rock indie label from L.A. He added a few shocked comments, which led to a comment thread discussion of legality, ownership, old stories, etc.

Given how many bands Hardy has worked with and albums he's released, I thought he’d be one to dig into this strange, ephemeral side of life as a recording musician…

Here's a Two Tears song from that era, though not recorded at The Distillery:

So how did you first hear about this? I assume you saw Kerry's post…

LH: Yes, that’s when I first heard about this. I recognized the writing on the PQ sheets and could tell the tape originated from a recording studio called The Distillery in Costa Mesa, which is where a lot of In The Red records were recorded. I checked the eBay seller’s other auctions and discovered a number of my reels were being sold too. 

When you first saw Kerry's post, what was your first kind of emotional response?

LH: My first response was I knew exactly where the tapes came from. A few years ago another person posted a photo of some master tapes he had saying he was trying to find the bands. One of the bands was the Strange Boys, and they contacted me and said the guy had a bunch of ITR masters. I got a hold of the guy and told him my connection to the tapes, and he said he’d gotten the them from Mike McHugh and had been holding them for him, but Mike had gone AWOL. I never did get the tapes back from this guy.

Can you tell me about Mike McHugh and The Distillery, and how tapes from there might’ve ended up in this eBay seller’s possession?

LH: Yeah, [the studio] was owned and operated by Mike McHugh. He was a brilliant engineer with really good gear – the mixing board came from Muscle Shoals! And he was really down to do weird, unconventional things in the studio. He also actually liked the music. He was my go-to guy for many years. Unfortunately a combination of mental illness and substance abuse got the best of him, and he went downhill really fast and REALLY bad. One of the last sessions I had there was for the band Cheap Time, and he flipped out in the middle of the session and pulled a gun on them!

Anyway, he wound up losing his studio, and we had all the tapes still in there. Lots of other bands kept their tapes there too. I know a number of people tried to help him and tried to save all his gear but, sadly, he was beyond help. I guess a bunch of the stuff from the studio wound up in a storage locker and the bill didn’t get paid – so it all went up for auction. That’s how the guy who is selling them on eBay came into possession of them.

Are the things he's posting for sale original sessions or mastered reels?

LH: The reels being sold are the two-inch master reels. The bands would track on two-inch tape and then mix down to half-inch tape and the record would be mastered from that. Many times we would only take the mixed tape with us as that was what we’d master the record from. The studio had a room where they stored tapes, so we figured we’d leave the two-inch reels there for safe keeping.

In a way, the fact that these are original master tapes, pre-mixed/mastered tapes is even worse. These are unmixed tracks, right? 

LH: Correct. These tapes being sold are the basic tracks on two-inch tape. You could take these to a studio and remix the record with them. We would mix down to half-inch tape so the versions on those are what you hear on the record. Mastering is a separate step done in a mastering lab. This is why once the mixing was done you kind of felt like the two-inch tapes were done too. They already served their purpose.

Yeah, we all sort of leave things in the rearview mirror once the album comes out, as far as where recordings and master tapes end up.

LH: Yeah, some bands are really good about keeping track of their tapes, and some don’t really care. I know the Cramps kept all of their master tapes, but I don’t think most bands do that. I do still have a bunch of master tapes here at my house. I imagine a lot of people took their tapes with them when their session was done. They’re expensive. I did sometimes, but I was at this studio so often I just figured they were fine where they were… until they weren’t. I didn’t have any place to store them at my house anyway. Two-inch tapes take up a lot of room.

Beyond that particular story, when bands record in studios there is a kind of “gentleman's agreement” – especially amongst indie labels and smaller studios – to at least let the bands or labels know they've got their tapes before just selling them off or tossing them, right? My understanding is, if you paid the studio their fee and paid for the actual tapes, they are your's. Though I suppose if they've been sitting in a studio’s closet for 20 years, maybe there's an argument for ownership on the studio's end?

LH: We did have a general understanding when we left the tapes behind that they’d be looked after by Mike. There was also a window of time when I could’ve gone down there and gotten them all; and I didn’t want to deal with him so I just kind of let it go. The only use they would be is if you wanted to remix the record, which I guess is something that could come up.

After leaving them behind that long ago it makes sense they could end up almost anywhere. Now you have a guy selling them on eBay who doesn’t even know who the bands are.

Under Kerry's post, a person commented: "No judgement! But you own the IP [intellectual property] on these tapes as they are independent recordings. You should reach out to the seller!" Is he right?

LH: That’s true. The eBay seller rightfully owns those tapes, but neither he or anyone else who buys them can do anything with the music without the artist’s permission…. Unfortunately this guy did buy them fair and square. I’m sure Kerry paid for that tape and the recording session, but the tapes were left behind all those years ago, and they’ve been passed around a bunch since. These tapes weren’t stolen, they were left behind. It should’ve been on us to get them back if they were important to us. Of course no one could’ve predicted Mike was going to go off the rails as badly as he did. The eBay seller did nothing wrong or illegal.

Lisa Pallow, Haunted George’s wife, contacted him explaining that two of the tapes were her deceased husband’s music, and that she would like to buy them. And the way he responded to her tells me the guy is an asshole. Really the person at fault for all of this is Mike McHugh.

I'm assuming if Rocket from the Crypt tapes are involved here – there were some for sale in that listing – someone's going to take some shit for this, because they were on a major at one point, though I've no idea which RFTC recordings are on those tapes in that eBay post.

LH: Yeah, that was the one tape I saw in there that I thought would probably go for the most money and also could turn into a hassle for the seller if he hears from [RFTC leader] John Reis or an attorney. I don’t think there would be any legal recourse against this guy though.

John Sellers from ‘90s trash-punk band, the Countdowns, commented on Kerry's post, concerning The Distillery: "It was the original board from Muscle Shoals.....Mike told me that [the Rolling Stones’] Sticky Fingers was recorded through it... it had these red and green square buttons to push... totally sixties mod... he LOVED that board!!! Chris... maybe? And I forget his last name but, he had a studio in the same complex as The Distillery and would tour with JSBX selling merch back in the '90's... he told me the whole story about Mike buying that board... how he flew out and it was sent by train upon purchase and how he accompanied it from start to finish... and how Chris would walk in and Mike would be passed out... not by drugs but by obsessive inspiration and no sleep.... with a clove cigarette in his mouth... under that board... working to make it work.

I THINK that The Countdowns were one of the first to record through that board at The Distillery but... well... memories and remembering shit these days... I always referred to Mike as 'The Mad Scientist. He was an absolute thrill of an experience to work with AND... did you ever hear him play drums? FUCK ME!!!”

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LH: We did have some great times in that studio and before it all went bad. We hailed Mike McHugh as a genius. He was! It’s all very sad to me now. I have some great memories of that place. Andre Williams recorded with the Blues Explosion and Steve Mackay of the Stooges there! Good times.

Any other recording sessions at The Distillery that you remember?

LH: The wildest sessions I remember at that studio involved Andre Williams. He would get pretty drunk over the course of the session, so you had to get him on tape before he was too drunk. He had amazing stories and he was hilarious. He was also brilliant when he was lucid. He had produced records for Motown, and now he’s in Orange County with miscreants like us! 

I watched the Hunches vacuum up nails and screws off the floor while Mike recorded it so the obnoxious noise could be included on the band’s cover of the electric eels’ “Accident.” Not many engineers encourage this sort of thing. 

I went down to the Distillery for the final night of mixing the Black Lips’ Let It Bloom. The band had booked a show that night at a club directly across the street from the studio. The band left for their show, but I stayed behind with Mike while he continued mixing. I finally went over to the show and went up front. Cole Alexander had urinated into his own mouth, as he was wont to do back then, and spat the mouthful at the audience. I walked in late and went up just in time to get a face full of urine. I was now in business with the Black Lips.

My fondest memory of that studio is probably when the Necessary Evils recorded their second album. I know we were in there on New Year’s Eve. Those guys were all good friends of mine, as was Mike McHugh. The band didn’t have enough material to fill a full length album and were scrambling to cobble stuff together on the spot. It was a wonder to behold. Every one of those guys was hilarious. R.I.P. Steve Pallow.

I have tons of great memories from this studio. It’s really painful for me to think of Mike ending up like he did. Truly heartbreaking. 

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Like any Facebook thread, the mass of names and rushed, emotionally punched-out comments can make for an intriguing read. Hell, a good pal of mine and Kerry’s posted that he put in a bid and would give the tape to her if he won it. He did get a couple of the tapes in the listing, but as Kerry stated earlier here, her tape was taken down after she reported it; and my friend got a cancellation message from eBay.

For Kerry though all this is definitely not legal chit-chat, but a loss of something dear, intense, and loved. It’s the kind of mini-nightmare anyone who’s recorded in a studio and then left it for “safe keeping” always has lurking in the back of their mind.

“I feel like crying all day today because of this,” said Kerry. “I don’t know why. Mike is so talented and I really want these tapes back. I used to hang out there a lot with Ronnie when I lived in Long Beach still. So many happy memories there – grateful for the scene ! Le sigh.”

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After having wrapped up this piece, I heard from Kerry again with a possible happy ending to this story:

“I reported it as stolen, and it was pulled, and some punker dude in Costa Mesa went to get it for me," she explained, "but I didn’t ask him to. I don’t want the [eBay] guy to get the money. So the Good Samaritan kinda fucked it all up, and is supposed to mail it to me. And he paid $150 for it, so now I feel obligated to pay him back. Lots of people offered to buy it for me. And he bought RFTC and Haunted George."

Kerry asked said Samaritan (who shall remain annonymous) how he was able to get the tapes. He responded:

"Hi, thanks for getting back to me. I purchased the tapes directly from the guy... who bids on storage units. I bought a bunch of friends bands tapes and got them back to them. I knew going in that I'd lose money and I'm ok with that. Please let me gift you your tape back. Years ago I lost all of my... master reels in a storage unit that went unpaid while I was in rehab. I hate seeing strangers getting these tapes. Mike McHugh is the one to blame here. Although it’s hard to blame him with all of his mental health and addiction problems. I got my Distillery reels back from him several years ago after he lost the studio.... Anyway... I can get the tape to you or whoever you’d like me to. Larry Hardy maybe. No charge for the tape. Big Red Aunts fan by the way."

[mt-nynj-queer]

[oopsl]

Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album by John Coltrane, 2018

[radiance1]

Damian: [brushing his teeth]

The shadow hanging over his shoulder: [Gets its teeth dangerously close to Damian's shoulder]

Damian: [Shoves a toothbrush into said shadow move and starts brush]

The shadow: [Pauses before starting to let out a contented purr]

Damian then spits out the foam and washes out his mouth, then makes the shadow do the same and then picks out pjs.

Damian: [Currently decided if he should go with the cat, dog, or knife imprinted one]

The shadow: [Starts getting dangerously close to Damian with, toxic green spirals it calls eyes]

Damian: [Throws the dog imprinted one behind him at the shadow and takes the cat imprinted one for himself and tells the shadow to put it on]

The shadow: [Stares at the clothes before hesitantly putting them on before letting out a noise of distress]

Damian: [Turning around to find the shadow somehow stuck in the pjs, lets out a sigh, then starts to help them fit]

Damian then moves over to the bed, he points to one side and tells the shadow to go there. The shadow listens, laying down as Damian also lays down, grabbing the sheets and covering them both.

It barely took a few seconds for the shadow to fall asleep, and Damian stared at it. Damian wasn't quite sure why the shadow of his dead twin was following him, nor why it was even able to and seemed to hide itself from anyone who isn't Damian.

Nobody besides him knew about it, and Damian decided that he liked it. This could have been his younger brother, if the other had survived, and they would have probably been told to fight to the death to decide an heir.

At the very least, that won't ever happen.

Even if his brother was slightly unusual.

===

Danny did not remember much of the before, he remembered people with blurred faces and features, blurred colors. He remembered a lot of colors, then red, then white, then pain.

He doesn't like pain, he believes.

Then he remembered going to sleep, and then he woke up. It was dark and slimy and cramped when he woke up, especially when he realized someone else was in their with him.

Then he fell asleep again, then woke up to that same dark and slimy place, then fell asleep again, all in some weird cycle. Then, moving, and pain.

It hurt, and he was sluggish when it eventually stopped. Then came pain again, and he was asleep.

Then he woke up, again.

He didn't know what was happening, wasn't really aware of too. But he woke up next to the other who was in that dark and slimy with him, and decided he wanted to stay with them.

He wasn't aware enough for most of the things that happened when Damian grew up, but he still stayed regardless, and hide from everyone else.

Danny loves his brother, and he thinks his brother loves him too. Even if he was slightly unusual.

[jakkenpoy]

[tubbytarchia]

AND THE UNDERDOG YURI TAKES THE WIN WOOOOO ok but that was fun lol, all the ships are super neat and I really didn't expect GemPearl to win but good job guys!?

[unchxxrted]

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (2024)

Teaser reveal at the Game Awards 2023

[egophiliac]

...okay, one more, because Epel's white rabbit outfit is SENDING me. everyone in this event looks like a decadent little pastry and I want to eat them all.

(credit: lace stock)

[rongzhi]

English added by me :)

Further Details:

In 2014, while digging ground to construct the Number 7 line for the Chengdu metro, a 2300 square meter tomb with 13 graves was dug up near Mohechi (摩诃池), the former back gardens of the Prince's mansion in Sichuan (蜀王府). Of the 13 chambers in the tomb, most were single graves, and some had been plundered or were difficult to get to. Chamber #8 was found to have its seal still closed and in decent condition, with archeologists speculating that the area had been subject to earthquakes in the past, and robbers skipped over the chamber because they were afraid of the walls collapsing if the heavy stone door was moved. Chamber #8 was also discovered to contain two rooms and the engraving of a dragon and phoenix, indicating that whoever the tomb belonged to were of relatively high status.

While the royal mausoleum of the prince of Sichuan had long been unearthed, the new joint grave was originally thought to be the tomb of an aristocratic husband and wife, as the type of tomb was typical of a husband and wife pair. The area where the new tomb had been discovered was also known long ago as 公公坟 (the eunuch graves). Other tombs of court eunuchs buried around Chengdu had been discovered in 1953, 1955, 1956, 2003, 2005, and 2008.

At the same time, experts noticed that the porcelain relics buried in the Chamber #8 all shared an unusual characteristic: the male figurines had no facial hair. This led to the realisation that the figurines depicted eunuchs. Additionally, two stone tablets were eventually located which turned out to be the epitaphs for the graves, and which allowed the archeologists to confirm that the tomb did indeed belong to two imperial eunuchs from the Ming dynasty. Moreover, the tablets revealed that the eunuchs were named Wei Yu (魏玉, b.1470) and Ruan Ying (阮英, b. 1472). Both were born from poor farming families in Tongzhou (潼州; present day northern Sichuan province).

In the fourteenth year of Chenghua, there was a huge drought in the nation, so both children were sent by their families to become eunuchs in the palace as a means to survive. Being from the same area and around the same age, they would grow to become very close.

In the Ming dynasty, imperial eunuchs had great power, such that they were in charge of many government and even military affairs. Due to this, Wei Yu and Ruan Ying did not stay in Beijing to serve the emperor but instead eventually ended up as chief eunuchs in Shuwangfu, the center of government in Sichuan. Based on the epitaph and historical materials, historians concluded that Wei Yu and Ruan Ying did not necessarily overstep their power as is often the depiction of court eunuchs of the era, and in fact, they cooperated very well with the Zhu Chun, the prince of Sichuan and Hongwu Emperor's 11th son, assisting him to repair infrastructure and bringing prosperity to the people of Chengdu.

Wei Yu was favored by the prince for being clever and witty, and was bestowed the surname Shuang, so is also referred to in records as Shuang Yu (双玉). As Wei Yu's status grew, Ruan Ying's did as well.

In the 10th year of Zhengde (1515), having experienced some rough times, Wei Yu and Ruan Ying decided they wanted to be buried together and and obtained royal permission for it to be so. As they had no children, they were able to accumulate all their earnings (imperial servants were paid) and buy a plot of land. One year later, Ruan Ying passed away and Wei Yu had a tomb built with two rooms so that they could be buried together. Ten years later, when he passed away also, Wei Yu was buried with Ruan Ying, fulfilling their desire to be entombed together.

--

Additional sources:

https://www.sohu.com/a/413776430_120795605

https://m.thepaper.cn/yidian_promDetail.jsp?contid=3744568&from=yidian

https://www.toutiao.com/article/6706734279713358350/?wid=1705638571420

video (in Chinese)

video (in Chinese)

[adeleine-everyday]

day 109

magical girl adeleine! 💫

[alicenpai]

forgotten playthings, forgotten child 🧸

Jack from my series Lost & Found Children 🤍🖤

i hope to showcase more of my ocs in 2024 hehe! im FINALLY getting around to finishing art i left to rot in my folders (the pandora hearts drawing last month being one of em). if you saw the WIP of THIS particular drawing 2 yrs ago... no you didn’t 💔

my charas are very personal to me, but tbh ive always been a bit hesitant to share their stories. over time i realized ... it’s kind of a shame to not make art from one’s heart. which is something i regret a lot year after year whenever i make my yearly art summary reflection. i'm like damn i need to make more emotionally evoking pieces!!! so i'm gonna keep going in 2024 with that in mind ❤ i have to admit, although this drawing started 2 years ago, and there's a lot i would do differently if i were to supposedly draw it now - this concept goes pretty hard.

the final drawing stayed pretty close to the original concept which im so relieved for! i think part of the reason why i left it on the backburner for so long, was the fact that i included so many details, and i was unsure of how to colour the "background". (not to mention stuff like cons & real life getting in the way).

i'm glad for discovering a really handy watercolour brush, it's helped me a lot in my last few drawings, bc i dont have to colour in each detail. especially since the witch hat atelier: eternal ephemera zine piece i did. otherwise if i coloured this back in 2022 with my usual method, i'm pretty sure i really would have included a shading and highlight layer for each individual toy... HAHAHA. much to think about

oh yeah and in the last few days of drawing this i was listening to some visual kei bands. i love how some of the band members literally have been performing since like the 90s or something and DO NOT AGE and are literal vampires. every so often i fall back into visual kei (you can tangentially thank aggretsuko although yes i know it's not the same). and i kind of realized. i like Jack's edgy design so much because he looks like. a visual kei esque vampire.

[seasonofprophecy]

It shouldn't be that serious but I haaate people summarizing Simon and his struggles in Fionna and Cake as the symptoms of one mental illness or another. Like, his struggle with being content now that he's Simon again echo depression and he very well may have it. The way I've seen some people examine his character and conflict through a pathological lens, though, just picks out what words and actions they can diagnose as some documented and studied condition. They divorce his character and conflict from his setting, his time as the Ice King, and how he fits in the extended narrative of Adventure Time.

Simon is a pre-mushroom bomb era human in a post-mushroom bomb world. The people he knew, the surroundings he's come to understand, and the life trajectory he had going are all long gone. He's come to in a new society where things function in much more fantastical, irrational, and advanced ways. He's been a part of this society- even shaping it- as the Ice King, and now he must continue playing into the happenings of Ooo as Simon Petrikov. The new civilizations are alien, the new Earth functions by new social and natural laws, and he has the remains of new life that disgusts, horrifies, and humiliates him.

Simon spent almost a thousand years as a man stripped of his former values, dignity, and cognisance. As the Ice King, he lost his ability to control himself, and inflicted what would accumulate to be significant harm unto others. He learned how to get along with others by the end of his time as the Ice King, but those years were a blip in the span of a near millennium, and the degree of self-control he learned was basic decency. Simon spent his life before the mushroom bomb developing to be a composed and academic man, and endured having his antecedent personal growth and his own autonomy regarding his identity nullified by the ice crown.

Adventure time is a fantasy show that explores the consequences of the endless possibilities inherent to a fantastical setting. Powerful magic and magical existences destroy and ruin lives, abundances of mystical organisms amount to exhausting effort to defend oneself from danger, and the lack of predictability of what the world has to offer someone next spells out a compromised sense of security and stability.

Simon/the Ice King's story is one example of the show's exploration of the undesirable side of fantasy, and one story that's been built on for over eight years now. It's a story with circumstances unique to the show, with numerous writers informing its contents, with some parts planned and some spontaneous. It's a charged story, and it's narratively reductive to effectively whittle Simon's character and conflict as the showing of a real world mental illness

[goodguynickachievement]

Girls night girls night!!

[karis17love]

They're so pretty!😭💜

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage

[meigummy]

Lost Records x Life is Strange

I placed this order a few months ago thanks to @b3nsn0w-blog for commissioning me!

The idea was extremely cool <3 hope everyone is doing well ( ˶ˆᗜˆ˵ ) If you are interested in a drawing or a project do not hesitate to send me a message!