New Additions: She Don't Tell Secrets seven inch single by The Guise

Sometimes in the many hours of crate-digging at various record stores across town, stumbling upon one unknown record in a local bin opens up a rabbit hole of information. That's the case with, from what I've figured out so far, the only release by The Guise from 1983 on Doubletree Records that I found at Magnolia Thunderpussy a few months back. Turns out Doubletree was a second sub-label of Kingsmill Studio, which released nearly a hundred records on the main Blue Ash Records in the 1970s and 80s. The Guise also appeared on Volume 3 of the Q-FM Hometown Series with a song called "You Don't Have To Cry," a track similar to their power-pop style on this single.

The Q-FM 96 Hometown Compilations

As mentioned in a few previous posts, Q-FM 96 put out a number of "Hometown" compilations throughout the 1980s featuring an interesting variety of artists over the years. Q-FM keeps a Q-Seum page of their history and includes some screenshots. Nine total compilations were released between 1980 and 1988 - eight on vinyl and the last on cassette.

A lot of the material is expectedly radio friendly 80s AOR, pop and singer/songwriter. Occasionally, some more diverse material made the cut, such as the Willie Phoenix band The Buttons (Vol. 1), Rosie and The Jetboys (Vol. 3), Oswald And The Herringbones (Vol. 5), as well as discoveries like The Guise (Vol. 3) and Columbus (Vol. 4).

New Additions: Limited Edition EP by The Press

For someone who enjoys research and crate digging for records, a band like The Press is right up my alley. Here's how I came across their 1987 release Limited Edition EP. I was at Spoonful Records flipping through the local section, and stopped at a sealed copy of The Press 12". The band name didn't look familiar, so I flipped it over wondering what it was, and the name "Jeff Gastineau" caught my eye. How did I know that name? Why was it familiar? I pulled out my phone and searched the Discogs app for the name, which came up with Engineer credits on Razor Penguins and Eurogression, as well as contributing a track to one of the Q-FM 96 compilations. At that point, it didn't matter what The Press sounded like, I was buying the record based on the connections alone. Turns out it's pretty solid 80s pop/AOR, but more importantly I was able to locate Jeff and not long we had an interview via Skype for the book.

New Additions: Precious Metal by Rosie

Rosie only managed one studio album, and I recently tracked it down while visiting Spoonful Records - the 1981 release Precious Metal. Here's a good summation from the Boneyard Metal blog:

ROSIE were a Hard Rock band formed by ex THE GODZ guitarist Mark Chatfield in Columbus, Ohio in early 1980. The band debuted with a self titled four song 12" EP in early 1981 and contributed a further track, "Sorry (I Forgot Your Name)", to a radio station sampler album entitled "Q-FM 96 Hometown Album Project Volume 3". With bassist Jay Chesbro being replaced by Ed Means, a full length studio album entitled "Precious Metal", was recorded and issued by Doubletree Records in late 1981. In 1985 guitarist Robert West was succeeded by new member Tom Courteney. The band's second and final album, 1988's "Rosie Live!", was recorded at The Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio on November 25th and 26th 1988. Chatfield would later crop up in BOB SEGER's SILVER BULLET band, with reformed line ups of THE GODZ and with Ohio band LUVHEAD.

New Additions: Q-FM-96 Hometown Album Project Volume 3

So this is a bit of a cheat. Recently I was down at The Hippie Hut on High Street digging through their vinyl and found a copy of the Q-FM-96 Hometown Album Project Volume 3. At first, I didn't think much of it, most of these are fairly safe radio friendly music, not what I'm researching for the book. But then I scanned the track list a little closer and saw Rosie listed. Interesting choice to lead off the compilation. Then I glanced at the last track - The Jetboys! The odds of me scoring one of their lone 1981 seven inches is pretty slim, considering the only one available on Discogs at the moment is for almost seven hundred bucks. This, however, is a much cheaper way to get my hands on a recording of (the A side at least) their music.