Datapanik Records Compilations

Datapanik Records was primarily active in the 1990s, although they've had a few releases out in the 2010s, and their roster of bands and artists on compilations reflect their prime years.

Girly Machine, New Bomb Turks, Pica Huss, Greenhorn, Gaunt, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments are just a few that appear on the 1992 compilation Bumped By Karaoke.

1997's Ubu Dance Party features bands from all over the state, including Columbus bands like Skullbank, RC Mob, Haynes Boys, Scrawl, Pet UFO and others.

Reverbose Records Workbook Studio 25 Hour Grand Prix

I've been trying to stay away from stuff that I've been directly involved in, but I would be remiss not to mention as part of the compilation album coverage the 2004 release Workbook Studio 25 Hour Grand Prix released on Reverbose Records.

From what I recall, this was the brainchild of Neal Schmitt and Jon Chinn at Workbook, and we at Reverbose were looking for release opportunities other than just our own bands. The experience itself was quite exciting - being a part of a process where each band received one hour to record and mix their songs. For the bands, they could move in and out, but for the Workbook crew, that was a long twenty-five hours.

We ended up with a pretty eclectic and interesting batch of tunes from plenty of new and lesser-known bands, as well as more established local artists like Pretty Mighty Mighty, House Of Heroes, Greenlawn Abbey, A Planet For Texas and El Jesus de Magico.

WCBE Compilations

Although not exclusively local in format, WCBE 90.5 FM has been a massively important aspect of the Columbus music scene for decades. For a while, they were putting out regular compilation of their in-studio performances.

Across a dozen discs, you can find rare live-only tracks from Columbus artists such as Howlin' Maggie, Scrawl, Tim Easton, The Haynes Boys, Watershed, Big Back Forty, The Jive Turkeys, Jenny Mae and many more.

Sprogg Compilation Casettes

From Discogs: While in college in the early 1990s, Nick Wilson was the record buyer for Magnolia Thunderpussy and World Record (local record stores in Columbus, Ohio on the campus of Ohio State University.) His friend, graphic designer James Towning, collaborated with Wilson on the creation of both the Sprogg fanzine/magazine and the accompanying compilation tape. Sprogg was intended to be an ongoing project, but both got sidetracked by their day jobs.

Columbus bands include Girly Machine, Martyr Colony, V-3, Pica Huss, Scrawl, Monster Truck Five and Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments.

We Want Action Compilation

In 2003 We Want Action, the label run by Relay Recording put out a compilation documenting the various bands on the label or that had recorded at the studio. It's a great time-capsule of 2003 Columbus, with bands such as Tiara, Denovo, Kopaz, The Sun, Templeton, Silencio, Miranda Sound, Frotiva, 84 Nash and The Last Hotel all contributing tracks.

Columbusmusic.com Compilations

Launched in 1999, Columbusmusic.com was an alternative to the established Cringe.com in covering the local Columbus music scene. While Cringe tended to have a more narrowed focus on bands, Columbusmusic.com covered everything and had the added feature of a message board. They also put on a number of showcases and released a few compilations, featuring bands such as Go Robot Go!, Templeton, Nude, Silo The Huskie, Pretty Mighty Mighty, Kopaz, Maery Lanahan and more.

Cringe.com/pilations 2001-2004

From 2001 to 2004, Joel Treadway at Cringe.com put out four compilations that are arguably the best representation of what was happening in the Columbus music scene at the start of the '00s.

Across all four, the tracking listing is impressive in terms of quality and representation, kinking off Volume One with Silo The Huskie, Pretty Mighty Mighty, Grafton, The Jive Turkeys, Lizard McGee, Guinea Worms, A Planet For Texas, The Marbles, Media Whores, Templeton and many more.

Volume Two includes Bob City, Moviola, Orchestraville, Salt Horse, The Vincents, Flippin' Hades, F**Bomb and a solo track from Brad Swiniarski.

Volume Three highlights include Bush League All-Stars, The Evil Queens, Twin Cam, The Cusacks, Teeth Of The Hydra, The Black Swans and Mrs. Children, who would later transform into The Whiles.

Lastly, Volume Four features Trapper John, Murder Your Darlings, Denovo, The Last Hotel, The Townsmen, The Fierce Lime, and Earwig.

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).

Yet Another Fanzine: When Cows Ruled The Earth compilation

On occasion, in addition to the band releases, I'm going to post on rare/hard to track down compilations. Here is one such release: the cassette compilation When Cows Ruled The Earth from a 1985 edition of the Yet Another Fanzine zine.

Luckily, the Vinyl Mine blog posted extensively about the release, which includes tracks by Scrawl, Gibson Bros., Great Plains, RC Mob and more. Here's an excerpt:

Yet Another Fanzine were aptly titled since Columbus was a fountain of many, many zines including one of the grand-daddies - The Offense Newsletter. The music and scene echoed the proximity to Cleveland and the first punk wave (Peter Laughner and his gang of merry men) and later no-wave (Pere Ubu, etc.) as well as the Akron weirdness but with a friendly, bent elbows around the bar feel. One of those scenes where everyone knew everyone and pretty much liked each other. There's something about Ohio that drives a man person a bit crazy but in that nice mid-western way. Of course, having a huge University nearby also contributed to the pool of musicians,aspiring songwriters and most importantly bars and people with Daddy's cover charge money.  

I visited Columbus during this time, at the invitation of the great local college radio DJ (and psychologist), s. b. tobias who I met over the early Internet (the wild time between ARPA-net and Internet when several networks were duct-taped together). The weekend I visisted was also "Hands Across America" (no, we didn't participate) and we spent it drinking, hanging out with Ron House (then Great Plains now Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments), drinking, meeting Don Howland (then rock critic now 1/2 half of Gibson Bros.), listening to the Beastie Boys album, drinking and of course hanging with s. b.'s good friends Craig Koon and Keith Baker, who published Yet Another Fanzine and this tape. 

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.