The Town Managers - More Kingsessing Sessions (1998) [2023 Remaster]

 The Town Managers - More Kingsessing Sessions (1998) [2023 Remaster]


As someone who was pretty active in the Philly punk scene, I regret that I never once got to see The Town Managers live and I don't have copies of either of their EP's (Yet!). When they were in their prime, I was busy being in 5th grade and, thus, unlikely to have stumbled into any West Philly basement shows, much as I would have liked in hindsight. In the wake of the Dead Milkmen's initial breakup in 1995, prolific and brilliant guitarist Joe Genaro (or Joe Jack Talcum) already had several new projects going on including Butterfly Joe and Touch Me Zoo. Then he formed the punk/funk/rock trio The Town Managers with Brian Michael (who played in Umiak! and has played with Joe on MANY musical projects) and Chris Peelout (from the band Firepussy and, later, The Low Budgets with Joe.)

 Note: The Low Budgets are the single greatest non-edible thing to come out of Philadelphia. Actually, come to think of it, they are technically edible. 

Everyone in this band is super talented and no two songs sound the same. Joe Jack Talcum has long been my inspiration not only as an amazing musician and songwriter but also as a great archivist of music. Here is the blurb about this recording from his website: 

"Four years ago I posted a set of Town Managers songs recorded in the basement of the house we shared on West Philly's Kingsessing Avenue in the late 1990s. That was just one of several sessions we recorded there. We typically recorded a set of songs, with all of the intstruments and vocals mic'd and mixed through a Mackie 12-channel board, with Alesis and Yamaha affects racks, to two tracks of a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder. Then, after a short break to imbibe of various alcoholic and herbal substances we would record a stereo overdub on the remaining two tracks of the Tascam through the same Mackie board. Here is another one of those sessions. This one was engineered by Vern Zaborowski and was mixed down to stereo cassette (rather than DAT). Also, a keyboard part was overdubbed along with vocals on one of the tracks. There is no date on the tape but I am guessing it was recorded in the early part of 1998."

While I, (Jello), was obviously not a part of this original session, I honestly worked pretty hard on touching up the recording for re-release. I wouldn't want these guys to be disappointed should they ever happen to hear it. I think It makes for a really awesome EP. I can't get the song "Secret" out of my head and that's just fine by me. Please enjoy.

TRACKLIST
1. Jack and Fanta (with TRFPR intro)
2. Muavian Landlord
3. Sense of Humor
4. Ode to Eazy E
5. Secret

Listen to the full album on Youtube:

DOWNLOAD

And check out Joe Jack Talcum's massive downloadable archive of the myriad musical projects he's been involved with: Jack Talcum Dot Com

And his main page for shows and new releases: Jack Talcum Dot Com

Also, you can get just about every recorded release (Many for free) from the Low Budgets on Bandcamp: Music | The Low Budgets (bandcamp.com)








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