Gibbering Ghosts Burning in Jelly

Back in the century passed, way back in the old days of the 80s before the birth of musick blogs, I was so into ‘zines. First Mike Gunderloy & then later Seth Friedman were god. Factsheet Five was the bible. We had our ‘zine (Long Live EAT POOP!).  It was all an extension of the Punk DIY ethos that we espouse

EAT POOP! #9 - cover by POOPSTER, poet, & artiste Frank Bella

 What was one of the greatest perks was the free musick. Every local band (San JoHaze) gave us demos & 45s & tapes & cds. But because of the FS5 network, we were in touch with other ‘zines all over the world. They wanted ours & wanted us to have theirs. That’s the way it was.

This all tied in perfectly with the underground cassette culture that was going on at the same time. I still have a special box full of crazy cassettes that don’t fit anywhere on any shelf. Ones with rocks glued to the covers; ones with hand-made felt boxes; ones with cardboard & plastic sleeves; all with crazy & sometimes extremely impressive original artwork. Anybody who had access to any sort of copying equipment (such as reel-to-reel tape recorders that came back to the States with GIs from Vietnam era [Sony - Teac - Webcor] or the portable tape to tape cassette players that first became common in the late 70s / early 1980s) could release a tape, & then publicize it through this network of fanzines that existed around the cassette scene. To us, the cassette culture was totally natural, an ideal & very proletarian  method for making available music that would never likely be recipient of any mainstream backing or promotion. We found in the cassette culture music that was more original, imaginative, challenging, beautiful, & groundbreaking than most output released by commercial bands.

Most of you musickphiles out in muscick blogland are probably aware of the great pioneer of cassette culture & 'outsider' music in the United States, R. Stevie Moore. His 'R. Stevie Moore Cassette Club' has been releasing DIY, home-recorded music steadily since the 1970s. Moore lives in Nashville & continues to make many releases in the cassette-only format.

Not as well known to the general musick hound, but legendary to us who still revere the cassette culture, was Minóy (Stanley Keith Bowsza) of Torrance,CA. Not only was he one of the acknowledged “creators” of the 1980s “homemade” independent music scene, he was also one of its most-acclaimed & well-known artists. He collaborated extensively with dozens of other luminaries in the burgeoning scene. 

 Dave Prescott / Minóy collaboration

 But Minóy is best known for his solo compositions, which number well over 100. He was the master of controlled noise. He used every sound imaginable in the world around him for the basis of his audio manipulations. Although the term noise properly identifies, perhaps, his genre, it doesn’t really do his musickal creations justice.

Minóy was very obsessive about his creations. He would stay up for days & nights on end, recording sounds & vocals, going from one cassette deck to another over & over. As heavily overdubbed as some of his compositions seem, he never used a multi-track recorder. He used cheap DIY equipment to create his compositions: guitar; shortwave radio; Radio Shack mixer (crucial for the reverb mode switch which could make very strange analog echoes); & a Casio CZ-101.

Minóy was a name that everyone knew in the 80s post-industrial cassette network, but then he stopped recording around 1992. Then he disappeared after the 90s. He has become largely forgotten.

Keith died on 3/19/10 from a myocardial infarction & liver shutdown. He had been on progressively-increasing medications over his last decade due to a number of medical problems. His health had gotten worse & he was hospitalized around 3/1/10. His death was sudden & unexpected. One day in the hospital he was joking & laughing, the next day he had become brain-dead. On Friday he was taken off life-support. R.I.P.

Here, to take you on a splendid trip, is another excellent outing from 1980's deep underground mail-art & home-taping legend Minóy. 

 Minóy  - Nightslaves cassette, Minóy Cassetteworks, 1986.

decryption code in comments

Side A -
A. Nightslaves (31:38)

Side B -
B1. Insect Trust (13:50)
B2. Gibbering Ghosts Burning in Jelly (17:27)

Enjoy,

NØ