Alex Varanese is really cheeky. His fourteen piece series entitled “ALT/1977: We Are Not Time Travelers” is a clever, thoughtful look at what advertisements or pieces on technology would look like in the 1970s. It’s not just any technology that he uses. He has so-called time traveled in and used four vitally important pieces of technology commonly used today  (video game console, MP3 player, mobile phone and laptop) and placed them in the realm of the 1970s. It is the most efficient way of time travel since the Dolorean.

Vince Collins is an animation legend. He has been creating psychedelic short films since the 1970s, well before Tim Burton ever scared our pants off. His style is very organic, free-flowing, and made before a lot of us were even born: take THAT Adobe. Proving that you don’t need to take acid to trip anymore, check out his animation “Malice in Wonderland” (1982):

Single Bullet Theory-There is the Boy

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Karen Cooper Complex – Beeswax

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The Karen Cooper Complex is a six-piece band formed in 1970.  Their music was a marriage between rock and free jazz. The group of outsider artists  played loosely structured, improvisational rock that found itself in the realm of  the avant garde . Karen got pregnant and the band never played live  — in fact, from that point, they never played again at all. The member from the group Frank Daniel died of complications of Type I diabetes in 2004,  this volume of songs has been digitized  as a salute to his memory and in hopes that someone out there will listen to this music and say “Good work, Frank. Thanks.” We are left with this wonderful album, download it here.

Cigarettes_-Gimme_Cigarette

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Rumored to be a “Sparks” side project, Cigaretts were a bunch of punk rockers from L.A. with a teen prog background giving them a lo-fi bubble gum sound.  Their song “oh!oh!oh!”  is reminiscent of the group “Television” with it’s pre drum macine/synth  new wave sound.  Future members of “Fear” would also emerge from this group eventually. Download some of their tracks here.

The Darkening Scale is one of the solo project of David Janssen, better known for his work with the experimental duo Renaldo and the Loaf . From 1970, until the group’s demise in 1986, David and  Brian Poole (aka Renaldo M) worked together and produced a number of albums for The Residents’ Ralph Records label.

Gary Wilson-NY Surf

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Gary Wilson emerged from New York’s DIY movement with 1977’s proto-New Wave masterpiece You Think You Really Know Me, an extraordinary record which has been known to suck unprepared new listeners in like a drug and never let go. Shortly after its limited release its creator simply vanished.

The following free albums are covers of Renaldo & the Loaf done by various bands. Download both albums below.

Volume #1 album download

Volume #2 download

Earle Mankey (sometimes misspelled “Earl” in credits) (b. March 8, 1947, Washington, USA) was a guitarist for the seminal band Halfnelson, later called Sparks. He became a record producer, predominantly for offbeat Los Angeles area bands like The Runaways, Concrete Blonde, The Long Ryders, The Three O’Clock, Adicts, and Kristian Hoffman.