Official Green Monkey Records page Northwest Underground Rock 1980 'til the End of Time. At GMR we put out music we like. By people we like. Probably.
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We hope you like it too, but it is not required. If you do like our releases, kindly buy a few. It helps us to put out more. And tell someone else, that is always nice. Today I change our slogan. I used to say 1980-2020. That was just an arbitrary number. We will probably put stuff out until we are dead.
A ltttle indugance this morning from 2020. I am still pleased with how my take on this obscure Ornette Coleman tune came out. Ornette never recorded it. I'd had the sheet music for it since around 1978. I played everything (ok the drums are programmed, but it is real alto sax and bass clarinet) and it is near to my musical soul. Almost made a music video for this but it never quite happened. Be brave and give it a spin.
from the album Tom's Playlist
I just got this postcard from Jim of Seattle today. Scan the QR code and it will play a new J of S song, "Snorkeling, Sorkeling". Send him an email at the adress on the card and he'll send you a post card too!
Grrrizzly is recording a TV show thisThurs Feb 15th 7pm-8pm at TCTV 440 Yauger Way Oly. Come be the audience - it will be fun!
Who out there has bought glasses from an online vendor? Any reccomendations? I want to get some glasses cheap before I go to Ireland March 9. I will be having eye surgery when I get back, so these are quite short term.
Ye olde official GRRRizzly record release party is this coming Thursday at Rythms Coffee in Oly. Please note that the March 2nd show at the Mortuary is canceled.
It’s time for the latest GMR ACTION! So what is it? Huh? It’s GRRRIZZLY!!!!
Who dat you ask? Well, la GRZZZ is a two-woman Oly power-duo I recorded last summer who are ready to conquer the world in 2024. Why not! So go buy it right here, right now!!
bandcamp.https://grrrizzlyband.bandcamp.com/album/grrrizzlycom (You can also buy it right here in Oly at Rainy Day, Lantern Records and Mossy Bottom Records.)
The backstory. March 25, 2023 I went down to a dinky club in Oly to see GRRizzly playing with the great Oly band Nudity. GRRRizzly rocked. So I said let’s make a record and this is it.
Next, here’s their completely official lowdown.
Olympia, WA’s own Grrrizzly has released their brand-new debut album featuring 17 explosively heavy punk rock songs! From their first driving, hard-hitting single, "Overlooked,” to their electric, doom-laden banger “Acid Rain," which has been described as "Sabbath meets Riot Grrrl," Grrrizzly proves that they’re not f***ing around. This is one dirty duo you need to hear!
Grrrizzly is a ferocious all-girl duo featuring Lisa Koenig on guitar/vocals and Liz Franklin on drums/vocals. Lisa, whose other bands include Calamity Jane and Creep, and Liz of The Mesmerizers and Tea in the Harbor have joined forces and are making a wall of noise that will smack you in the face, chew you up, and spit you out. Lisa's raw, grunge-spirited singing and roaring punk rock guitar, mixed with Liz's smooth, brassy vocals and thunderous drum fills, create a filthy rock n’ roll tornado that blends together effortlessly.
Side effects of this album may include screaming, crying, throwing up, dancing violently, shaving your head, wearing all black, piercing every cavity on your body, getting immoral tattoos, telling your parents (or your kids) “it’s not a phase,” having a sudden urge to see Grrrizzly play live, and begging for more!
And now, here’s a little interview action:
Tom: Hi Grrrizzlies! First album - how did you like recording?
Lisa: It started off fun for me but then I had sort of a nervous breakdown in the middle of all of it and kind of checked out in the process. I had never recorded as a guitar player/ vocalist so this was all new to me. Took a couple months to come back to finish it but I am so happy with the end result! For our first album I think it's pretty darn good!!
Liz: LOVED it!! Had never professionally recorded my drumming before & had an awesome experience. It was definitely a long journey from start to finish and had its challenges throughout, but was so worth it! All thanks to the master - Tom Dyer!
Tom: How did you get started? Didn't you used to have a bass player?
Lisa: Yes, my friend Tess Fox was the bass player. I hadn't talked to her in 25+ yrs and she called me up during the pandemic and asked if I was down to play music with her. I said, "well you know I can't get to my drumset so I started learning guitar and I'm having a lot of fun with that, so I can play guitar with you." We met up at Nisqually reach at a picnic table outside, me with an acoustic guitar and she brought an acoustic bass. That's how it all started. We got Damon from Jaguar Paw to play drums (who coincidentally, is a great guitar player who said he'd been playing drums during the pandemic, lol) but then he couldn't devote his weekends to practice so we luckily found Liz thru a friend referral. So, yeah it was Tess, Liz, and I from the end of 2021 on. Tess left us in the summer of 2022 though so Liz and I went on without her and realized how fast the songs were now getting done. I started playing heavier chords and adjusted my sound to a more low rumbly distorted guitar and so we left it at that. Seems to be working for us - for now anyway!
Liz: As Lisa said, Tess was our original bassist. We were a cool trio, but ultimately it didn’t work out with Tess. But now as a duo with Lisa, I feel like Grrrizzly has transcended itself and become the band it was always meant to be. I wouldn’t change a thing about our story.
Tom: Do you play a lot - do you have shows lined up?
Lisa: No, not as much as I'd like. Liz is in school right now and says she doesn't have a lot of time for shows or even practice. We do have a couple shows coming up though! Thurs Feb 8th at Rhythm's Coffee in Olympia. It's a great coffee shop that has open mic and all ages punk/indie shows in the evenings. It's a fun place to play. (If you haven't been there you need to try their coffee!) And then Sat March 2nd we will be playing with the Stuntmen and Spiders from Uranus at the Mortuary which is gonna be awesome. Another all ages show which are the bomb in Olympia.
Liz: We definitely play shows around town pretty regularly & hope to play more in the near future! We have mostly been focusing on getting the album out for the time being. And, as Lisa said, I’m in grad school at the moment, so that takes most of my time.
Tom: Lisa - you used to be a drummer in a bunch of RiotGrrrl bands, now you're the guitar player and Liz is the drummer. What's up with that?
Lisa: Yes, I was in a band called Calamity Jane in the early 90's. Once we broke up I kind of removed myself from the music scene for uh, I don't know...about 25 yrs! Then an interview came up with a band called Skating Polly who said we were one of their influences and it kind of reignited my wanting to play music again. I'm so glad I found them, they're so cool, I love them! And now THEY'RE an inspiration to me..lol. So, when I moved back to Wash, my band, Creep, reformed in 2019 and I started playing drums again. And then the pandemic hit, then I started learning guitar and then GRRRizzly formed and here we are. I'm loving playing guitar/singing over drums. Liz is an amazing drummer. I constantly am learning new things by watching what she does. I'll go to Creep practice and be trying out her fills I watch her do at GRRRizzly practice, lol. We are such different players so it's nice to try something new. But yeah, I think I am more comfortable playing guitar and singing so it works out good. I'm digging it.
Liz: Of course I’m the drummer. I can’t play guitar for s**t. What would Grrrizzly be if we were a band of two drummers? Haha
Tom: Do you consider yourselves a feminist band?
Liz: I definitely consider myself to be a feminist. Grrrlz to the front, y’all! Love to play in a fierce female duo and listen to other badass women in music.
Lisa: I don't like to put labels on things but we do pride ourselves on being an all girl band!
Tom: If one of your songs were to be used as THE anthem to end global warming, which one would it be? Why that one?
Lisa: Great question...ha! Well Liz is probably gonna say “Acid Rain” but I'm gonna go with “Get Off of My Grass”. It wasn't meant to mean anything but rhymy placeholders till I thought of real lyrics but I spoze since the lyrics go "STOP! Get Off of my grass. And DON'T! Toss your trash. And PLEASE! Don't wipe your feet. On MY! New doormat..." Now I'm not gonna think of the song the same, lol.
Liz: Definitely Acid Rain, I love that song. It is very much a song that suits this topic. Nature fights back. Like, for example, the lyrics: “Mother Nature's wrath is coming down on man” and “Earth awaits its vengeance at last”.
Tom: Anything else you'd like to add?
Lisa: Just really looking forward to this year and how people perceive our first album! Thank you!
Liz: Rock on! & we hope you love the new album!
I received this excelllent newsletter from my friend Calvin Johnson at K Records about the state of streaming and independant music and thought I should share it with you.
January 17, 2024
The Corporate Ogre and Co.
K has been exploding the teenage underground into passionate revolt against the Corporate Ogre since 1982. In the intervening 40-odd years the music biz has changed muchly, and the underground music scene has flourished. However, the more things change the more they don't: the Corporate Ogre has never been more monolithic, nor threatened the livelihood of independent artists more completely than what we are experiencing today.
Last October Spotify, the multinational streaming service that controls a majority of musical content listened to across the planet, announced a new royalty structure for 2024 that further degrades the ability of independent, regional, underground and ethnic music artists to be financially compensated for their work. Music that generates 1000 or less annual streams will be demonitized, that is, completely denied any financial compensation under this new system.
The rationale, according to Music Business Worldwide, is classic 1984 style doublethink, with Spotify claiming to support 'real artists' while actually moving to block artists' ability to earn a living from their work. Complaining that over 100,000 new songs are added to their streaming platform daily (as if more art in the world is a bad thing), they lament "without taking this action, Spotify thinks they would have generated around $40 million.” Again, that's good, right? $40,000,000.00 more in royalties to distribute to the creators of the streamed sounds. You'd think Spotify would tout this as an example of their platform's success, and their distribution of this amount to hundreds of thousands of independent music makers as a boon to creative expression. Instead they align their "business model" with that of their fellow Ogres. The new royalty structure plows any funds generated by songs annually streaming 1000 times or less back into the pool of $ to be distributed to the most popular artists, i.e. those supported by major labels like Universal Music Group, etc. Not only are Spotify not going to pay the little peeps, they are taking said artists' hard earned money ($40,000,000.00) and handing it over to those artists and labels already earning obscene sums. What the WTF. Naturally, the major labels fully support the new Spotify royalty plan.
Damon Krukowski is an independent recording artist who has also been involved in organizing with United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) to create more opportunities for independent musicians. In a recent article printed in his Dada Drummer Almanach, A Pyramid of Inequality: Streaming Platforms Give Up Even Pretending, Damon breaks down what the new Spotify royalty plan means by reviewing actual streaming data as provided by industry sales tracking company Luminate (formerly SoundScan). Imagining music streaming as a pyramid, with the few billions-per-year streaming songs at the top, Damon shows that under the new Spotify system 86% of all music will be "demonitized." Non-compensation of underground artists made some kind of (non)sense in the old days when random sampling was used to determine whose music is getting played on the radio and listened to in venues, but in the modern digital age where every stream can be tracked and actual music use kept track of in real time there is no reason not to compensate all artists for their work. Furthermore, as streaming replaces other forms of use for musical material, the options for earning a living are reduced. According to the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), "AFM musicians are finding it harder to make a living as Made-for-Streaming work continues to eclipse traditional film/TV work. Made-for-Streaming work doesn't produce residuals for musicians, leaving them with less money."
The UMAW and other artist-friendly organizations have proposed user-centric payment systems for streaming compensation, which would be a fairer and easily workable solution for financial distribution to artists. Spotify and their ilk are not actually interested in what is fair for the artist or listener. Their main goal is to continue the concentration of wealth in the music business by their Den of Ogres.
This leaves us underground music artists with fewer and fewer options for generating financial compensation for our recorded work. Of course, that doesn't stop us from creating the work, or getting it out to the people who may appreciate it. We find many underground artists are gaining a greater percentage of their income from physical sales of music in the form of phonograph records, compact discs and cassette tapes, and other creative formats of 'download cards' bundled with posters, stuffed animals and custom artwork. Also, garments and other items available at their souvenir stands and websites. One may find a variety of such items available via The K Mail Order Dept. and our Friends & Neighbors section. We still here, punking it hardcore in 2024.
Bret Lunsford illustrates the conflict of Creativity v. Corporate Ogre, 1984.
I just posted this in reply to a post on Art Chantry's page and decided to post it here as well.
Long ago I kinda regretted I did not go to San Francisco to see the S*x Pistols for their final show in 1978. I was working at Everybody's Records when the "God Save The Queen" single came out in '77. Thought it was the greatest thing I had ever heard. More angry & rockin' than Who's Next, which was kind of my then standard for "turn it up". Their singles were great, their album not so much. I saw them live in Boston in August 2003 as a gift of some sort to my 15 year-old daughter Kat Liberty and thought they were ok at best. For Crissakes, they were in their 30's. This post got me to look on YouTube and there it is, the Winterland show. Not exactly life changing.
The S*x Pistols - Full ConcertRecorded Live: 1/14/1978 - Winterland (San Francisco, CA)More The S*x Pistols at Music Vault: http://www.musicvault.comSubscrib...
"Green Monkey Records 1st release of 2024 from the indomitable Grady Eddins of Von Cube. Yet another slab o' naughty guitar wranglin' recorded in Tumwater, WA at some mysterious juncture in the glass-fogged past. While most Von Cube is recorded pretty live, I'm pretty sure Grady overdubbed that bass. I won't tell if you don't. And of course, Nick is Nick, god-dammit! Now get to dancin'!
4 track album
In case you were wondering...
We were lucky to catch up with Tom Dyer recently and have shared our conversation below. Alright, Tom thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you? My most recent big project (in 2022) was "Olympia: A
From Pete Blecha: What great news for us lovers of Northwest music history! As The Seattle Times just announced: Seattle's longtime music magazine, The Rocket (1979-2000), has now been digitized and is viewable online: https://washingtondigitalnewspapers.org/?a=cl&cl=CL2.1986.03&sp=RCT&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------
In case you are not on the GMR mailing list:
Here's a little last-minute holiday fun for ya! A festive Tom Dyer solo Chistmas release called "Xmas Songs for Mom!"
Da scoop: A couple weeks ago weeks ago I played my first solo acoustic show since 1978 at the Nexstage Music Showcase at the Soul Cafe in Oly (none of you except Vicki were there in '78, some of you hearty souls were there in '23). I played all your jolly True Olympian favorites, plus three never-before-played-in-public numbers that I had written and released on the various GMR Christmas charity albums over the years and never played again.
As you can sort of see, it was outside - what you can't see was how dang cold it was - below 40 degrees! Guitar would not stay in tune and my hands became little dancing icebergs. It was quite fun!
Not attending was Mom. She's already been to plenty of other shows. Last Saturday, we had our little extended Dyer family holiday-get-together where Ma got a custom GMR t-shirt from me, per her request (want one? availble on our bandcamp in a variety of colors). I asked her to put it on and snapped the cover photo, which I did not yet know was a cover photo.
I was going to play her the songs from the show while she was in town, but the day got away and it never happened.
On Monday, I thought "what the heck"? I'm gonna do a fast solo recording of the songs and send them to Mom. And the rest of the world, why not? So I did. Recorded on Tuesday, released on Wednesday. Nothing fancy here, just simple. I did not worry about acheiving perfection, just getting down a little holiday fun. I even recorded one extra, unplayed obscurity, "Christmas, It's Around the Corner" which was originally on 2013's Merry Krampus charity comp, recorded with the fabulous Glenn Slater, plus the Cheeky Dames.
So there you have it. Hope you and yours are having a fabulous holiday!
td Dec 2023
I just recorded and released a new Christmas album. Whee!
9 track album
A nice Green Monkey Christmas mention/review in Bells Will Ringing! https://bellsrringing.blogspot.com/2023/12/christmas-cheer-part-9.html?fbclid=IwAR1YF5OwvU66dOvCp_LYl3qU802ERZQm07HzED7pNtaajkjWtP6jYGC-1j4
A blog about holiday songs, Christmas music and seasonal entertainment, focusing on my annual holiday music mixes and CDs.
I just did a big update to our bandcamp site and you can now view any bands videos right there on bandcamp. For example the Green Pajamas page has all their videos they have done for Green Monkey all in one tidy place. You're welcome!
The Green Pajamas formed in the spring of 1984 when Jeff Kelly and Joe Ross recorded and released their first album, 'Summer Of Lust,' pioneering Seattle’s answer to the Los Angeles Paisley Underground scene. Find more of their music here: thegreenpajamas1.bandcamp.com ... more
Hey! It's Band of Jays' jolly Xmas video!
Christmas 2023
So when I wasn't paying attention in 2020 this happened. The 100-year-old Millionair Club got a new name, When I was prez at Argosy U Seattle, we used to volunteer down there and serve lunches and do the dishes. They were the beneficiary for the first few Green Monkey Records Xmas comps. Good people, still doing good stuff!
Millionair Club Charity becomes Uplift Northwest as it enters its next 100 years of serving the Seattle community.
Tonight this hunk o' jolliness will get its first-ever public performance, sans Scott and Laura. That's right all-Tom. Come on down to the show at 6:00. Soul Cafe 2727 Westmoor Ct SW, Oly
from the album Tom & Kat's Excellent Christmas Adventure
Some of you yet may not had your breakfast. May I recomend an Alien Breakfast, possibly the third greatest song ever recorded and videoed. "I'll take some of that, too!"
Buy the song: https://greenmonkeyrecords.bandcamp.com/track/alien-breakfast-2Buy the CDr : http://greenmonkeyrecords.com/product/me-three-cd/This video can a...
Hey Christmatologists!
Julian of Band of Jays has a brand new Holiday single out just for you "Yay Its Chnristmas." Start diggin' it this very minute!
td
track by Band of Jays
Green Monkey Xmas Sale! -
The Green Pajamas will release their latest masterpiece on CD, download and streaming on March 16 2018. Phantom Lake: Northern Gothic 3 is the final installment of the trilogy which began in 2002 with Northern Gothic (Camera Obscura). It was followed up by, Box of Secrets: Northern Gothic 2 (Hidden....
Going to do my first "solo" acoustic show since 1978 or so. playing selections from my 3 Xmas albums. Come on down!
Olympia, WA
98508
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At GMR you get top notch Northwest Underground Rock sounds, both new and used. Every month we stream am Album of the Month - 100% Northwest goo and every couple months another fine GMR release. Oh Yeah!
