Zenith Beast

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Our Story

Zenith Beast began in San Francisco in 1988 as feisty DIY publisher for the works of singer-songwriter, journalist, and poet, Larry O. Dean.

The press' first release was Dean's debut chapbook, Rate of Exchange and Other Poems. Next in line were two titles, Barking Up the Wrong Tree and QWERTYUIOP in 1989, Eyes, Ears, Nose & Throat the following year, First Washing Machine Newton Iowa: 1915 by Libby Brahms in 1991, and in 1995, Workers' Comp. (Dean met Brahms at a reading for Minotaur magazine. She was born in 1912, in Newton, Iowa, the same year and the same town that birthed the first motorized Maytag Washer. She did not start writing until very late in life, age 70, triggered by the birth of her great-grandson.) The press relocated to Chicago in the mid '90s. Dean's last book to date under the ZB imprimatur was Identity Theft for Dummies in 2003. In the early 1990s ZB also published the short-lived literary magazine, draconian measures, featuring poetry, art and fiction by some of the most overlooked, under-loved and daring writers of the time. In addition to literature, Zenith Beast has also distributed music. In 1989, Dean's band, The Fussbudgets released its cassette-only debut, Hog Wash!, followed by Dean's solo debut, Cruel & Unusual Punishment in 1990. Dean's sophomore effort was Prince Charming, in 1991. The 'budgets follow-up EP, Fresh Brood arrived that same year, followed in 1992 by Dean's third release, The Age of Anxiety and another Fussbudgets EP, Headache of the Gods. The year 1993 was a big one for Zenith Beast, with the release of The Fussbudgets' full-length cassette, The Naked & the Daft, Dean's Centrifugal Farce, and Kittenbush by singer Christine Wall. The final Fussbudgets release was the 1994 EP, sad fearful playful excited. Dean's post-Fussbudgets project was Malcontent, which released the Embarrassment of Riches EP in 1995, again in cassette-only format. Zenith Beast's Chicago-era releases include Dean's 1997 CD debut, Throw the Lions to the Christians, comprised of eight tracks from the Throw the Lions... sessions (originally recorded in SF), as well as selected numbers from the Fussbudgets and Malcontent discographies; and 2001's Sir Slob. The nascent new century found Zenith Beast laying low. Dean's work with bands, Post Office (Public Displays of Affection and Fables in Slang) and The Me Decade (Gentrification Is Theft) found release through Spade Kitty Records, and his 2004 book of poetry, I Am Spam, was published to wide acclaim by Fractal Edge Press. However, 2009 was a banner year for the resuscitation of ZB: Fun with a Purpose by The Injured Parties received a regional release in the fall (followed up by a wider release in early 2010), closely followed by a quartet of LOD singles: “Frosted Flakes” and “Thorn in My Side” that same year, “If You're Gonna Break My Heart” and “Linda Fiorentino” in 2011. In 2012, ZB embarked on the first steps toward making its back catalogue available to new generations of listeners, releasing reissues/remasters of music by The Fussbudgets, Malcontent, and Christine Wall; a reissue/remaster of Throw the Lions to the Christians in its original sequence, with extra tracks; and demos from power-pop band, Post Office. During this process, as we dug deeper into the vaults, we rediscovered a wealth of material that, for various reasons, had never been made available except piecemeal to friends and interested parties on mix tapes. That material comprises the majority of our thirteen archival releases from 1986-1993. A third of them (Dean's quartet of solo albums) are remasters of the original, cassette-only releases (including the title song to the 1990 cult film, Rabid Cop). Also included are two unreleased solo albums that chronologically predate Dean's debut, with added contemporaneous bonus material. (The fact that they were mapped out as sequenced “albums,” rather than simply collections of songs recorded during the same period, yet abandoned, is explained by Dean's deepening involvement in recording The Fussbudgets' debut, which took precedence at the time.) In addition, there are a pair of instrumental albums, and two early collections of home and studio-recorded songs. Archival music from The Fussbudgets includes a live performance, and a duo of rarities compendiums. ZB's most recent releases include The Injured Parties' sophomore album, Product Placement; Larry O. Dean's first full-length solo album in over a decade, Good Grief (produced by Chris Stamey), as well as a solo single, "Americans for Prosperity"; and the first of two Neil Young covers by the late Stephanie Morris. Music in the pipeline for release includes early '80s angsty and angular punk-ish pop from Flint, Michigan's The Tenants; 'noise experiments' from one-off Ann Arbor art-rock collective, Rococo Brides; Folk You!, a compilation of artists featured over the last fifteen-plus years at Dean's monthly songwriter round-robin of the same name; and more! Stay tuned...