GRINDSTONE REDUX - "A Documentary About 1980's Cassette Culture" (2009)

Tonight's Saturday Night Special takes us back to the 80's, and though it might have seemed like a sucky time in history to some, I think it was quite a bit better than what we got going on right now!

I'll quote from the back of the box....

"In the 1980's, there was a network of underground musicians, communicating with hand-written letters and cassettes. They were not signed to major labels. They did not get played on commercial radio. But they shared a passion for Independent music. This is their story, as they tell it" 

"Grindstone Redux" was sent to me by Chris Phinney of "Harsh Realisty Music" and is a documentary about the indie 1980's cassette tape revolution that a lot of people still don't realize even happened!

"Grindstone Redux" is mostly a series of interviews all set up by the people getting interviewed, and they were all pieced together to give the viewer a fairly decent taste of what it was all about!

Actually it's modus operandi is very similar in ways to the way we all used to trade tapes back in the day. I say we, because even though I'm not in this documentary, I was pretty entrenched in the whole scene! I thought Randy Greif's name looked familiar to me, but I just looked through all my old notes, and I didn't see his name anywhere. Randy has had a career in music for decades, and you can read all about it at Wikipedia!
For even more, Here's a link to his bandcamp page!

It just shows to go you how big this whole thing was. I sent out well over 500 tapes, and out of the ten prolific artists interviewed for this film, I only ever had contact with four of them.
Charles Goff III was one of them!
Here's a link to Mr. Goff's site called "Taped Rugs."

Don Campau has been an inspiration to us all. He'd do radio shows, tape them, and then send you a copy if he used a song of yours on his show. Besides doing that, he has produced or worked with others on probably close to a zillion tape projects, and I'm not exaggerating!

Don and I have traded lots of tapes over the years!

 Al Margolis actively ran the "Sound Of Pig Music" label from Great Neck, New York.

I have also traded a handful of tapes with Al.
Here's a link to his "If, Bwana" Bandcamp page! 
Bring something to eat, it's going to take a while to explore!

Christopher Elston did his thing as "Curious Voltage." Some of the interviewees made elaborate backgrounds for their parts like this!
This is about all I could find currently on Christopher and Curious Voltage!

Mikhail Bohonus put out sound projects as "WarWorld," "Static Effect," and "They."

I never heard of him or any of his tapes before I watched this.
You can find out a little bit more about Mikhail at this Discogs page.

Ironically I just got an email today from a guy in Lithuania who is going to release an LP of Hermanos Guzanos songs maybe some time this year and he wrote this....

" just randomly i bumped into the discogs user that had mark lanes tapes from you."

I found it kind of odd because I don't remember ever sending any tapes to Mark, but stranger things have happened, no doubt.
You can check out some of his releases here!

Andrew Szava-Kovats is the person responsible for making this cool documentary. This video is modeled after the "Grindstone" series of music compilation tapes put out by Andrew in the 1980s, hence the title "Grindstone Redux."

I never made contact with Andrew either, and I have to reiterate how varied and vast this all was. This video is pretty neat because it explains a lot about what was happening back then from a bunch of different perspectives, all the same, but different!

Here's some stuff from Andrew's True Age site!

This is Chris Phinney of the "Harsh Reality" label that is based in Memphis, Tennessee. Chris and I traded a few tapes back in the 80's and 90's, but we had lost contact until just recently.

His projects have always had wild titles like "Cancerous Growth," "Mental Anguish," "Skoptzies,"(Look It Up) and "Viktimized Karcass!" Don't be fooled by the scary titles, Chris is really a nice guy!
Chris was hit by an uninsured driver last year, and is still in bad need of funds if you've got a couple of bucks to spare. Here's a link to a Gofundme page for Chis with more details!

The last of the artists to be interviewed is Jeff Chenault of "Jeff Central."

  I have never had any contact with Jeff, but he's a very interesting artist and author, and just recently came out with this book called "Ohio Tiki" that is available on Amazon!
I'm thinking I'm going to have to get a copy of that myself, so I know you should too!
 

 

 

Most of the artists interviewed here worked in these three genres of sound, but the common bond of all the tape traders back in the day, whether they were making noise or pop songs was not what they were doing, but how they were doing it!
It was a revolution in sound, and all done with a Do It Yourself attitude!

Other subjects discussed in the video were the huge European Influence. The Germans, The Brits, The French, The Belgians etc. were all way ahead of the curve and doing this sort of thing back in the late 70's and early 80's!

Another subject discussed is "Where were the women?"

It was a fairly male dominant scene, but there were some females out there making their own brand of music too, like Heather Perkins, and Amy Denio!

There's also a great discussion on how self-made music was found, and spread around through various means like Compilation Tapes, Underground Magazines, and College Radio Stations!

There was no internet back then, and you were on your own to try and discover things!

I  think that question has already been answered!

If you'd like to know more about all this, feel free to check my other blog that is all about this subject.

Cassette Culture of the 80's and Beyond!

"Grindstone Redux" is about at an hour long, and should be mandatory viewing in music appreciation classes everywhere, or by anybody who has an interest in a small musical revolution by a ragtag group of totally unorganized people who somehow managed to independently share the things they were doing!
Although it lives on in spirit, it will never happen again, and here's your chance to know a little bit more about it yourself!  
GET YOUR OWN COPY!!