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LP
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HZR 182LP
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"Central Ohio is far more of a schizophrenic hotbed of rock than the Library of Alexandria would lead you to believe. If you squint your eyes past the big city lights & skyscrapers (Rep likes to call them 'DIEscrapers'), you can see the outlines of the fertile Ohio Valley Crescent from which much Midwest D.I.Y. Punk emerged in the aftermath of a late-60's/early-70's gestation period. When digging into the Columbus strata of petrified 70's fossil-rock pure Columbus area underground entities bubble up from the deep: Jim Shepard, Ron House, Tommy Jay, Nudge Squidfish, The Quotas, Screaming Urge... many more. It seems that in some way or another Mike Rep has been intertwined with, 'Lovingly Fucking With', melding with, accompanying and/or leading the charge with many comrades in arms into the hipster Ohio Hell unknown for 40+ freaking years. Describing the allure of the mid-70s Ohio sound to the uninitiated isn't too difficult. Take the freaked-out post-13th Floor Elevators to Velvet Underground to Stooges to RFTT/Pere Ubu barbed wire bop and compound those influences with the dawn of home recording equipment access, a D.I.Y scene began to evolve. Just the right mixture of humidity, THC & malt liquor-fueled a primal pool ripe for spontaneous generation producing much fruit from apparent sterile soil as viewed from the overlook of big city coastal-dominated Hipsterism. Rep's homemade debut single 'Rocket To Nowhere' was recorded in 1975/'released' in 1978 and nobody noticed for the next ten years. Add to that the incredible Grim-O-Comix Sequence LP packed with angst ridden 1974 basement recordings (you need to drop everything and track it down if you haven't heard this unblinkingly look into the maw of the 70's loser teen maelstrom). HERE & NOW, on Hellbender you get a full primal serving of mostly previously unheard chaos, recorded between '75 and '78, that will no doubt cause future generations to marvel at just how one could be so brutally honest, raw, and wasted yet, live to chronicle it all. Hozac Archival is bringing these sounds to you now. Why? Because it IS the kind of mind-numbing, eyeball-popping guttural pure D.I.Y. rock & roll that saved so many miserable souls from succumbing to the 'American Dream' sham, and continue to inspire the D.I.Y. spirit in all who care to dare. Mike Rep & The Quotas / Hellbender- Very rare, mostly previously unheard recordings from 1975-78, very recently gleaned straight from the long thought lost original reel-to-reel master tapes."
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LP
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540 045LP
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"The name Mike 'Rep' Hummel means many things to different people. Many equate Rep with 70's 'Proto-Punk', 80's 'D.I.Y.' or a pioneering founder of 90's 'Lo-Fi' (Rep prefers the term 'Mega-Fi' himself). Along with his bands Mike Rep & The Quotas & the seminal (Ohio) True Believers, he was also a cohort in the 90's Columbus 'supergroup' Ego Summit among a plethora of other Ohio band involvements. Also known for recording and/or mixing ('Lovingly Fucking With') such bands of note as Guided By Voices, Times New Viking, Jim Shepard, The Gibson Brothers, Strapping Fields Hands, Mount Carmel and dozens of others, mostly in their formative garage/basement incarnations. 'I prefer deflowering to retooling. Both present worthwhile challenges but working with virgin talent won't get you an STD' he once infamously said. Still others remember him for his groundbreaking Columbus Ohio homegrown label 'New Age Records' (named before there was such a thing as New Age music) which evolved into the 80's/90's cassette pioneering signpost to new space 'Old Age/NO Age' label through the 90's. And so the name Mike Rep Hummel has a polarizing effect on many who either admire or deride his body of work. Hummel's new record Darby Creek Drifter is one that is sure to draw the line even deeper into the sand. Rep sez; 'As my pal Bob Pollard' once quipped, 'this does not rock'. But it rolls baby, it rolls."
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