The Myself Band: Unmasked!
The A Very Limited Recording Company is honored to usher in a brave new beginning for The Myself Band, which is, in actuality, a literal return to its very roots. Allow us to introduce the strange, compulsive, hermetic, mostly tuneless “non-songs†of a man named Willy Blanefield III.
Above: A recently-unearthed photograph of Willy Blanefield III, embracing the trash in downtown Pittsburgh, circa 1981.
As a teenager, living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Willy recorded literally hundreds of his self-styled songs, released on dozens of cassette tapes under a variety of names and personas, from the years 1978 to 1983. The obsessive and obstinate young artist often utilized half a dozen cassette recorders in order to multi-track his improvised, primitive outbursts, child-like ruminations and overtly indifferent cover versions of genuine songs. Humored by his friends and tolerated by few others, he braved scorn and even physical harm, strolling the streets of downtown Pittsburgh, a boom box upon his shoulder, blasting his abrasive, naive sounds to all within earshot.
Apparently ceasing to make his homemade tapes sometime in late 1983, Willy became a wanderer, traveling wherever his modest earnings would take him. Losing touch with most of his old friends, his music became something of a legend to the few who had experienced (endured) it. But now he is back, as all those who have listened to his three recent albums will attest to.
And while Willy plots his future, one sure to be filled with new and unique sounds, we are excited to be offering his very earliest songs on a brand new sister site. Named God Awful Record Shop (a name Willy chose in reference to an actual record retailer at which he was employed many years ago), this new site will hopefully compliment all you have come to enjoy about this one, while also shedding some light on the frenzied, busy mind of a songsmith who is tuned like no other.
The Myself Band Elicits a Certain Kind of Praise
“The sort of songs they might have turned out at the Brill Building if Jonathan Winters was Carole King!†- Bizzy Delmont, Hit Circus Magazine
“Blanefield's latest is a riveting clamor, a wholly unnecessary assemblage of basement-born dirges and voice-only tales of twee woe. The only reason this record will never have sand kicked in its face is because it will never grace a day at the beach, not even a grey one.†- Lester Dorking, Chartbuster
Hell, My Name Is...
Announcing the The Myself Band's third album in less than two years!
Hot on the heels of their popular 2007 release, On The Inside, Looking In, the enigmatic
The Myself Band return with Hell, My Name Is, a bundle of dusty, but ever-so-fresh, sonic chestnuts, carefully re-mastered from aging tape, with an ear to retaining their low-fi, subterranean charm. These nineteen post-grunge, pre-millennial 4-track basement exercises, recorded during the hellacious winter of 1996, at the infamous RatHutch Studios of then old-school Ballard, Washington, have been extracted from deep within the band’s self-imposed twenty-four years of exile. They run the gamut from the near-pretty Rose to the mournful lament Cancer (The Wooden Wheels of Workerland) to the effervescently mad Baby Boom and Laughmaster, the latter featuring the brilliant backwards-tracked bass playing of Fuss & Bother recording legend, Mojave Red, also appearing on track seventeen, the smartly-titled Pizzaface. The instrumentation of these lost classics expands greatly on the foundational acoustic guitar strumming of “We’re Back†and On The Inside, showcasing the pleasantly asthmatic accordion found on Summer Day, a tale of man’s longing for his furry friends, the giddy organ that punctuates Mouse in My Birthday Cake, a song that dares to remain faithful to its title, and a healthy dosing of drumming and bass on brooding tracks like Give Me You Pts. 1 and 2, Carry Nation and Anthrax, CA, not to mention some incendiary electric guitar playing on the emotional Your Barbary Soul. Also to be enjoyed is the haunting a cappella stylings of Brain Pudding and album closer, Angela, Television Repair Girl, a song told from the viewpoint of a lovesick, deceased fly, trapped inside the back of a broken television set. All this, plus The Story of a Frog, a heartfelt and slippery ode to Beatle George Harrison, can be found in what will surely be the record that sets the tone for music in this new year of 2008.
HELL, MY NAME IS... • IN STORES 2/7/08
The BRAND-NEW album from THE MYSELF BAND on A VERY LIMITED RECORDS
TRACK LISTING: 1. Baby Boom (1:38) 2. Give Me You Pt. 1 (2:03) 3. Pretty Face (1:22) 4. Mouse in My Birthday Cake (2:36) 5. Laughmaster (1:31) 6. The Story of A Frog (for George Harrison) (5:12) 7. Carry Nation (4:31) 8. Seagirl (1:05) 9. Cancer (the Wooden Wheels of Workerland) (4:18) 10. Summer Day (2:00) 11. Brain Pudding (4:52) 12. Your Barbary Soul (2:51) 13. Rose (0:56) 14. Holy Water (3:12) 15. Occupying Force (4:29) 16. Anthrax, CA (1:48) 17. Pizzaface (3:11) 18. Give Me You Pt. 2 (2:57) 19. Angela, Television Repair Girl (3:38)
