The Agit Reader: An Interview with El Jesus de Magico

The Agit Reader: An Interview with El Jesus de Magico

by Kevin J. Elliott

Just Deserts—what does it mean? I know you guys are deep into nature, Gnosticism, ritual and psychotropic experimentation, so are we are to just take this album at face value or is there something underneath the surface we need to be looking for? 

Michael O’Shaughnessy: As far as the titles go, they are usually the last things added to pieces or albums. Short of a few of Jon’s solid title ideas, song names and record titles have always been Tony’s work. Maybe he decided that since Jon and I came up with such a stupid name for the band, he wouldn’t let either of us name anything else. Or, maybe it’s because when we talk about one song or another, we use signifiers from our own language as a band. “Jear jiki jear ja jear, jiki jear, jieeeeer” is the intro to “LGNO,” for example. Surely this sounds bland and demystifying, but it’s the truth. The titles, while brilliant, mean nothing to me as the drummer but so much to me as a listener. I have clear pictures of each song in my head while playing them, but they are myopic and solipsistic compared to the picture I get when I listen to the record and the band as a whole. I have a silly idea as to what Just Deserts means, but I want to keep that in my pocket and think about it on my deathbed. So yes, more deism, yes, more ergot and wormwood and look in the mirror and ask yourself if you’ll get your Just Deserts. Just spell it right. 

Tony Allman: To me, it’s the notion of being left, even on the smallest, most minor scale, what an ending sounds like if no one is there to witness it. 

I know this record has been in the can for a while now, but has just been released. How long ago was it finished? Where was the band’s collective headspace at that time? 

TA: It has been done for quite a while. It was sequenced a little over a year ago and most of it recorded long before that. I’m not really sure about the collective headspace. We were very far apart in many ways. 

MO: Tony finished this version of the record last summer. He had done a version before and sent it to Adam Smith (of Columbus Discount Records) to press at Musicol, but the EQ on the B-side was all womperjaw and sounded bad to everyone after the lathe was cut. Most of the songs were from the last few weeks at the funeral home (the band’s old rehearsal space) before Tony moved to that little borough where trends go to die, and then there was a slice or two from a session at Columbus Discount Records when Tony came back to grab the last of his stuff that I didn’t destroy before he signed the lease in that city of infinite rendezvous. Jon howled like a poorly exorcised ghost, and it was the type of sound that vinyl can’t capture.

Know Yer Band: El Jesus De Magico

Band: El Jesus De Magico

Members
Bass Guitar – Christopher Lasch/Sarah Yetter
Drums – Michael O'Shaughnessy
Guitar – Dave Capaldi
Keyboards – Anthony Allman
Vocals – Jon Witzky

Releases
2005 - El Jesus De Magico album (Columbus Discount Records)
2007 - Funeral Home Session 7" single (Columbus Discount Records)
2008 - Unclean Ghost / Pirate Utopia 7" single (Columbus Discount Records)
2009 - Scalping The Guru album (Columbus Discount Records)
2009 - Paha Sapa / Rapey Guys II / Klip Aught 7" single (Columbus Discount Records)
2009 - Ragtime Hors mini-album (Goaty Tapes)
2012 - Just Deserts album (Columbus Discount Records)

Know Yer Artist: Jim Shepard

Artist: Jim Shepard

Bands
Creature
Ego Summit
Lacquer
Phantom Limb
Skullbank
Snooks
V-3
Vertical Slit

Releases
1977 - Slit and Pre-Slit album (Not On Label)
1987 - Jagged Flash album (Old Age/New Age)
1991 - No Big Deal album (Iron Press)
1991 - Amsterdam album (Iron Press)
1991 - Whiskey Priest With A Master Plan (Iron Press)
1991 - The Folk City Aztec Drama Series: Volume One album (Iron Press)
1995 - Picking Through The Wreckage With A Stick album (Siltbreeze)
1995 - Morphine Monogram album (Iron Press)
1995 - Evil Deeper Love album (Thrill Jockey)
1995 - The Folk City Aztec Drama Series: Volume Two album (Iron Press)
1996 - The Evil Twin album (Iron Press)
1996 - Plays The Songs Of Kim Fowley - The Hollywood Hills Are Alive And Well 7" single (Anopheles)
1998 - Motorcycle Movie album (Iron Press)
1998 - Collisions compilation album (Iron Press)
2001 - The Dispossessed w/Charles Cicirella album (Shrimper)
2009 - The Voices Of Men 7" single (Columbus Discount Records)
2010 - V-3 Next Album (Not On Label)
2018 - The Letter Tapes album (Feeding Tube Records)
2019 - Heavy Action album (Ever/Never)

Know Yer Band: Times New Viking

Band: Times New Viking

Members
Elizabeth Murphy - Keyboards, Vocals
Jared Phillips - Guitar, Vocals
Adam Elliott - Drums

Releases
2004 - We Were High We Were Not High album (300%)
2005 - Busy Making Love & War 7" single (Columbus Discount Records)
2005 - Dig Yourself album (Siltbreeze)
2005 - We Got Rocket single (300%)
2006 - Present The Paisley Reich album (Siltbreeze)
2006 - Imagine Dead John Lennon single (300%)
2006 - Split w/Psychedelic Horseshit 7" EP (300%)
2006 - Little Amps single (300%)
2007 - My Head 7" single (Matador)
2008 - Stay Awake 7" EP (Matador)
2008 - Rip It Off album (Matador)
2008 - Shred Yr Face Tour split 7" single (Shred Yr Face)
2009 - Born Again Revisited album (Matador)
2009 - Split w/Axemen 7" single (300%/Sleek Bott)
2009 - Move To California 7" single (Matador)
2010 - No Room To Live 7" single (Times New Viking)
2010 - No Time No Hope 7" single (Oslo Grammofon)
2011 - Dancer Equired! album (Merge Records)
2012 - Over & Over 7" single (Siltbreeze)

New Additions: The Hackled Ruff & Shoulder Mane album by Necropolis

For a period of time in the 2000s, Columbus Discount Records became the most proficient label around town, putting out challenging, artistic work from a variety of bands, including Necropolis. It helped that two of three operators of CDR were also members of the band, who mostly put out 7" singles, but did manage the 2006 album The Hackled Ruff & Shoulder Mane, which I picked up via trip not to long ago to one of the local record stores (I forgot which one, sorry!). Though a bit more experimental and noise oriented then my usual preferences, what is interesting is hearing the lineage of sounds that recall the works of Jim Shepard or Mike "Rep" Hummel from thirty years earlier.

Know Yer Band: Necropolis

Band: Necropolis

Members
Adam Smith
Benjamin Holesapple
Bo Davis
Emily Davis
Kyle Heiberger
Mat Bisaro

Releases
2005 - Stalking Mark E. Smith Around NYC 7" single (Columbus Discount Records)
2006 - The Hackled Ruff & Shoulder Mane album (Columbus Discount Records)
2007 - Song For A Working Man / Cocksuckerbastardmotherfucker 7" single (Columbus Discount Records)
2007 - Stumpf b/w Van V. Art 7" single (Columbus Discount Records)
2009 - Love Theme From Necropolis 7" single (Columbus Discount Records)

Agit Reader: Feature - Bassholes Basement Tapes

For Agit Reader #77, Stephen Slaybaugh sat down with Don Howland of the Bassholes back in 2009 to discuss their latest release "...And Without A Name" released on Columbus Discount Records. Here's a snippet:

Do you think you’d have had the longevity that you’ve had if you were trying to do this full-time and were in a van together six months out of the year? 

DH: No, I went into the Bassholes hating touring, so that was never a consideration. Our one brush with fame, I suppose—on this level anyway—was when we had the Matador record. They wanted that over-produced double-album on In the Red (When My Blue Moon Turns Red Again), and instead I gave them Long Way Blues, which to me is by far the best record we ever did. It was just so freaking weird, they didn't promote us at all. We could have toured and played with Matador bands a lot, but we really didn’t do that. We opened a couple shows for Yo La Tengo. Man, talk about pain! Oh my god that was rough. I like people who have a particular sensibility to mine, and I don’t think there are that many.

Know Yer Band: Bassholes

Band: Bassholes

Members
Guitars/Vocals - Don Howland
Drums - Rick Lilash/Lamont "Bim" Thomas

Releases
1992 - Blues Roots (Archive Series - Volume One) album (In The Red Recordings)
1993 - Cowtown EP Vol. II 7" single (Anyway Records)
1992 - John Henry 7" single (Sympathy For The Record Industry)
1992 - 98 degrees In The Shade 7" single (In The Red Recordings)
1994 - Baby Go / Hell Blues 7" single (Honeyman Records)
1995 - Hey O.J. 7" single (In The Red Recordings)
1995 - Lion's Share / Jesus Book 7" single (In The Red Recordings)
1995 - (She Said I Had A) Problem / Change Had To Come 7" single (Bag Of Hammers)
1995 - Haunted Hill! (Archive Series - Volume 2) album (In The Red Recordings)
1996 - Interzone 7" single (Seldom Scene Records)
1997 - Moody/Microscope Feeling 7" single (Sympathy For The Record Industry)
1997 - Deaf Mix Vol. 3 album (In The Red Recordings)
1998 - Long Way Blues/1996-1998 album (Matador)
1998 - When My Blue Moon Turns Red Again album (In The Red Recordings)
2000 - The Secret Strength Of Depression (Live At KSPC, Claremont) album (Sympathy For The Record Industry)
2003 - Out In The Treetops 2x7" ep (Dead Canary Records)
2004 - Broken Chamber Music compilation album (Secret Keeper Records)
2005 - Bassholes (Dead Canary Records)
2006 - Jack At Night 7" single (Solid Sex Love Doll Records)
2009 - Archive Series - Vol. 7 ...And Without A Name album (Columbus Discount Records)
2010 - I Feel Like Sleeping 12" EP (Columbus Discount Records)
2013 - Boogieman Stew album (Columbus Discount Records)
2015 - In The Dumps album (Not On Label)

Columbus Monthly: Exile on High Street

In 2016 former Johnny Go's House of Music owner John Petric reflected on his history selling records on High Street, Campus Partners and more at Columbus Monthly. A snippet of that:

Campus was record-store nirvana back in those days. In addition to Mole’s, you had Singin’ Dog, Capitol City, Discount Records and Magnolia Thunderpussy, as well as Used Kids and its sister operation, School Kids, which focused on new product. The competition was fierce, and Mole’s, the first used-record store in Columbus, struggled to keep up. In 1988, I dug into my savings to buy what was left of Mole’s from the IRS for the ungodly sum of $2,500, as well as paying Ken Stone’s $3,600 in unpaid rent. I now had my own business right in the heart of campus, taking over the old Mole’s space on the second floor of the Wellington Building at 16th and High. I christened my store Johnny Go’s House O’ Music, naming it after my band, Johnny Go and the Awesome Dudes.

Know Yer Band: Psychedelic Horseshit

Band: Psychedelic Horseshit

Members
Bass/Keys – Jason Roxas
Vocals/Guitar/Keys – Matt "Horseshit" Whitehurst
Drums – "Psychedelic" Rich Johnston
Percussion/Samples - Ryan Jewell
Bass - Michael Bray

Releases
2006 - 7" single Who Let The Dogs Out? (Columbus Discount Records)
2006 - 7" split single w/Times New Viking (300%)
2007 - Magic Flowers Droned album (Siltbreeze)
2008 - Magic Flowers Dubbed album (bumtapes)
2008 - 7" single New Wave Hippies (Half Machine Records)
2009 - 2x7" single Too Many Hits (Columbus Discount Records)
2009 - 12" EP Shitgaze Anthems (Woodsist)
2009 - Golden Oldies compilation album (Wasted Vinyl Records)
2010 - Acid Tape EP (Fan Death Records)
2011 - Laced album (FatCat Records)

614 Magazine: Where Did the Punk Rockers Go?

Interesting question posed by Chris Gaitten of 614 Magazine back in 2015:

In 2008, CDR released the first of the unheard stash, Tommy Jay’s Tall Tales of Trauma, from Tommy Jay, a member of the Quotas. Jay and Rep hailed from a tiny hamlet just south of Grove City called Harrisburg, where Jay had created a practice space and studio in his home. For decades, a rotating cast of musicians known as The Harrisburg Players rehearsed and recorded there, influencing and often comprising Columbus’s underground bands. 

CDR hit overdrive in 2009, starting a singles club in addition to the new releases, reissues, and previously unheard music. They distributed 16 records that year, often at the expense of relationships and showering, Smith said. Over time, they put out releases from lo-fi luminaries like Cheater Slicks, as well as the next generation of bands like Psychedelic Horseshit 

Their production levels decreased in subsequent years, as bands like Bassholes and Cheater Slicks only recorded new music every so often, and the unreleased Harrisburg stash was eventually tapped. Koe-Krompecher had revived Anyway, and other local labels like Superdreamer Records had begun popping up.

Columbus Alive: Creating Columbus 1993-2011

In 2012, the Columbus Alive put together an interesting retrospective - 200 Arts and Cultural Moments that Shaped the City’s History. Here are some notable moments:

1996
Critics hail Howlin’ Maggie’s Columbia debut
Former Royal Crescent Mob bassist Harold “Happy” Chichester forms a new band with bassist Jim Rico, guitarist Andy Harrison and drummer Jerome Dillon. “Honeysuckle Strange” - the band’s first and only release on Columbia Records - is a success. 

2002
South Campus bars demolished
Campus Partners for Community Urban Redevelopment spent several years buying land and businesses along North High Street between Chittenden and East Ninth avenues. The group finally bulldozes everything, leveling some of the city’s grungiest and most memorable watering holes to make room for the South Campus Gateway. 

2004
Columbus Discount Records releases first single
The indie imprint unleashes “Sexy World” by Terribly Empty Pockets. It soon influences, records and/or distributes music by a treasure trove of local indie bands - Times New Viking, Necropolis, El Jesus de Magico, Guinea Worms and Cheater Slicks, among others. 

2007
Little Brother’s closes
When venerable rock club Stache’s and Little Brother’s vacated its original spot in 1997, it relocated to 1100 N. High St. under the name Little Brother’s. The esteemed club draws intriguing rock, folk, roots, reggae and country bands until its unfortunate demise.