Some Awful Men b/w Woody Guthrie
Whip's FIRST single (1998)

there are 500 copies of this 7" single, all but 5 came with a different sleeve
additions are very - thank you

here are Bootleg Vol (the band performing "Woody Guthrie") bass player
Nick White's memories about the creation of the sleeves:

Looks good!  I noticed you don't have a lot of info about
the record, so here's "the skinny."  There are 500
of them--or were.  We (Bootleg Vol) had been playing
nearly weekly shows in our area when Mark Ospovat
volunteered his skills and studio access.  We recorded
six or seven songs, few of which were able to capture
our real sound, which was quite raw, and, frankly,
heavily intoxicated.  Jay never really felt good
about most of the recordings, any of them, really,
though I still have them and I still really like them.

But, out of a sense of obligation to us, to our fans
(which were plantiful and frequently female), and to
our friends at priapus, we went with woody guthrie,
which was actually one of our first songs (though if
memory serves, two dead babies was the firstest
first).  we also played black eyed susan (the song
that is now black eyed suzy), it's so sad (which is
now "it's a sag"--long story, and not that
interesting, actually), and a few others which have
not known vibration since then.

Summerly Summer was my favorite, partly because it had
a long instrumental section (and i enjoy instruments),
and partly because, well, the drummer, matt wells, was
actually a guitarist--one of the best i've ever played
with, and kevin fay, the accordian player, was
actually a drummer, (not to overuse the phrase, but
it's true) one of the best drummers i've ever played
with, and on Summerly Summer, matt was on guitar and
Kevin was on drums.  it had a much more indie-rock
sound, though still undeniably Bootleg Vol-ish.

in that same time, whip had come to realize that his
more sparse stuff was (is) really incredible--i can
think of many occasions, performances, where he was
able to silence an entire room with a single strum of
a guitar--not to mention the fact that the ladies were
starting to take a real shine to him.  and with two of
the five of us moving to strange places, putting a lot
of stock into bootleg vol didn't seem entirely wise.
thus we have a split 7" with whip as whip.

so there are 500 of them, and you may be interested in
knowing how many covers there are.  as far as I know,
there are 500 different covers.  here's how that went down.

it was always our intention to do this, but when 500
records showed up on our door, it was suddenly very
real and suddenly quite a large task.  so in the end
it was really quite spontaneous.  we collected all of
our supplies (piles of paper, magazines, pencils,
pens, charcoals, pastels, paints), and started telling
people we were having a party.  it started at noon
(such were those days), there would be plenty of cheap
booze, and plenty of fun to be had.  so folks just
wandered by and made record covers.  we were students
at an art school, and the sorts we hung out with were
all very talented, and most of them were visual
artists in one capacity or another.  (whip and justin
and i were roommates, so this was at our house.)

among the crew were, of course, the band of bootleg
vol, as well as folks that would in the future play on
timesbold recordings--pretty much everybody who would
record in the early (pre-max lichtenstein) timesbold
stuff.  (of the folks in timesbold now, only tony was
around then, and none of us knew him--or, rather, i
knew who he was, but never spoken to him.)  abby,
seth, all those folks.  Jeremy Carlisle was a roommate
too.  Who else might you have heard of--j russo
(hopewell), jim avondolio, mark ospovat, jose "joe"
pellot (r.i.p.), gabe walsh, summer morgan; basically
everyone who happened by, and, in those days, people
often happened by.

things went, people split, i went to graduate school
(i am slated for a phd in the spring of 2006).  i have
since recorded several albums, one with "HeAVE", another
with The Bedsores, and a split 12" (hopefully) with Yer
Just Negative, as well as my solo stuff, which i call
"johnny stomp" (as lame a name as that is).

so there's quite a bit of info to keep you going for a
while.  keep up the good work!

nick

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