The Committee to Keep Music Evil Forum

Something pretty special just popped up on the tube. First(?) recording of BJM, all the way from deep in the mists of time ('90). Story and tape below, courtesy of http://internetalbemuth.blogspot.com/. Happy New Year one and all!


Living in the Lower Haight of San Francisco in the back of a record store specializing in experimental music in the early 90's came with its own set of odd occurrences, events and individuals. We had quite a few neighborhood regulars who would come in, share a cup of coffee and listen to a few minutes of music to escape the city outside and share their art, ideas, grievances and sometimes just wait for their laundry to finish drying up the block.

One of my very regular visitors during that time period was Anton, my neighbor from across the road. I was never sure if he really lived across the road, above the cafe or was one of the many artists and musicians who hung out across the street, either way it was a regular location for one of the regular people in our not-so-regular neighborhood. I liked Anton, he was clever and quick, well versed in his music and always in an impish mood even when disappointed or angry. I also enjoyed talking to Anton because he had wild ideas, was rather ambitious and was not going to be stopped - he was also quite high, quite often but was harmless.

Anton hung out with musicians and artists- he was a musician and artist and spoke often about "the best band he could ever put together. It would be waaaay out there , bigger than anything - not the manufactured slick British 'babyfood' but something supremely psychedelic and broad but accessible and dangerous". I didn't doubt Anton or his ability to do this. He had already produced one of my favorite cassette releases at the time entitled "Psalm 93 - Child of 60 Bitches".

For a homespun release, Psalm 93 had a production value that very few DIY cassettes had at the time...and a vision. Anton understood ambient drone music and had taken it to a level very few people had at the time. He abandoned that project and idea though. He had bigger aspirations I guess and really really liked swirling psychedelic rock.

One afternoon I sat on my stool behind the counter of the record store and Anton came in - a flurry - a serious flurry...dark circles under his eyes, arms moving about like windmills, a single cassette tape in his hand. "This is it - it's big. We have it now and I have the name. All of it came all at once....check it out...Brian Jonestown Masacre". I smile and laugh - it is a beautiful name, so perfect for where we are at the time, in the world, with music, for everything. He grabs a pen off the counter and scribbles "THE BRIANJONESTOWNE MASACRE ANTON 861-8683" on the front and back label of the cassette and hands it to me to put on the stereo. As the first track starts up he says , "That's it - I am sooooo down with this now and I need to sleep soon". He disappears out the door. The first Brian Jonestown Masacre demo tape - with no other information accompanying it, other than Anton's phone number - plays itself out and joins the collection of demo tapes on the shelf. It is 1990, three years before any Brian Jonestown Masacre album is released and quite possibly one of the only, or few, recordings of the original lineup.

Anton are you out there? How have you been?



From here.

this is fucking awesome, is there a site you can download the tape from, im dying to get ahold of it.

Too bad it's private. Track 2 sounds unbelievable. I want more!

Ask and you shall receive...

http://www.mediafire.com/?x657cvtizoh0izu

Hell yes! I saw this uploaded the other day on youtube but it lacked the interesting backstory. Very thankful for the upload.

On a side note, where in the blue fuck is "Psalm 93 - Child of 60 Bitches"? I must hear this golden nugget.

This is a very interesting tape, thanks for sharing! So noisy too. Much of it sounds like they were playing down in the subway with all the reverb bouncing around! Nice.

I know! All I found was the discogs page for the cassette Psalm 93 - Child of 60 Bitches. Looks great.



I need to start a new thread with Committee bands and albums I haven't been able to track down so people can add theirs to the list and we might be able to root out some of the more hard-to-find gems!

i love this forum. thanks so much for mediafire link.

it says the files been removed? ^^

http://www.mediafire.com/?jwifsqfc2s53jwa

http://www.mediafire.com/?uc64d58ayo0vli6

There ya go.

thanks so much, i do love these songs. i have them all on the pol pots album, but the sound quality here is alot better and its interesting to see the songs in the original sequence.... it makes me wonder though, where do the rest of the pol pot recordings come from? was it the same period as this tape?

in the early days, i think there were many bjm cassettes made for friends, venues, radio stations, record labels, etc. that's just how things were done. in light of his story, i do think alan herrick's tape is the first. the 1990 demo is older and a little different from pol pots. some of the songs have different vocal takes, like psychedelic sunday. all songs on the 1990 demo are on pol pots except for a long fade. pol pots has an additional 16 or so songs. anton worked then just like he does now, writing and recording all the time, always bubbling over with ideas, everything a work in progress, little to no second guessing. it was just like you see him work in his berlin studio, except he did it on a fourtrack, a friend's tascam 424.

the collection of music known as pol pot's pleasure penthouse is from a cassette anton gave me around 1991. it's hard for me to remember the date exactly. i had been living in victoria, bc and was passing through san francisco on my way back to costa mesa when i saw anton on haight street and pulled over. it was good to catch up and find out what he was doing. i went inside his flat and met a guy with a big pompadour and heavy makeup, wearing a thrift store cardigan and playing guitar on an empress couch in front of a bay window. that was jeff davies. as anton walked with me back to the car he gave me a tape. i was like, ok, thanks!

the cassette was a tdk, type 1. anton wrote "the brian jonestown massacer" on one side, misspelling massacre, and "untitled - 1991" on the other. he crammed as much music as would fit on a 90 minute cassette. the second the music fades out, the tape ends. i played it hundreds of times on my crappy car stereo in the early 90s. left it in the hot sun, etc. then the tape sat in a shoebox for 15 years, moving with me from place to place. in 2006, i had the cassette transferred to digital at mr. toads in san francisco. the guy who runs the studio, tardon feathered, did the transfer on march 3. i think it sounds pretty good for all the cassette went through, even with the 'lower' sound quality, drop outs, etc.

i gave the original cassette, a roughly eq'd version of the transfer on two cds, and a 88.2Khz .wav version on dvd to anton at the little radio show in los angeles april 21, 2006. we had not seen each other for years. i remember him saying to me, 'looking like a man' and 'thanks, i owe you one.' i also mailed a copy to pierre priot at dead bees records in france a few weeks before, but didn't hear anything. i'm not sure what happened after that, but before long the songs were shared online.

i didn't ask tardon to 'master' the songs because i didn't think it was my place to do so. now, i kind of wish i did. i thought it was going to be this huge discovery and have a proper release and so forth. over the years i've read a lot of comments saying how much people like it, and even though i had absolutly nothing to do with the music, it makes me happy that so many people have been able to enjoy it. it's funny to me to remember how i used to agonize over this in the early 90s, thinking nobody would ever hear these awesome songs. looks like i had nothing to worry about.

Reading that makes me wish even more that there was a proper release, and that those were the liner notes. Thanks for the background, Brant.

was listening..was damn sure heard some before..pol pots makes sense..regarding cassettes..yes that's how it ws done back in da day..a great way for bands to share music..as mentioned sometimes given away free at gigs..brant thanks for sharing knowledge..we learn more about BJm from sources like yourself..

Thank you. Too late for me, though.