Otis Nugatory
"The alpha and omega of great ideas in rock music," as someone put it in the '90's. Weird music for weird people, strongly recommended for the adventurous. Odd yet compelling, smart yet gutsy: TFUL were one of the unacknowledged legends.
Favorite track: Ed Sullivan.
M.G. Turnis
Fantastic comp of some hard to find classics from the Fellers! Don't pass up on this one if you see it in a record store!
Favorite track: Blank Eyed Devil.
dashKam*
With a band whose discography already feels like a heap of hidden gems, this collection of hidden gems among hidden gems closes the gap between the endearingly familiar and the beguilingly alien. Art rock earworms, psych freak outs, sound collage, b-movie scuzz, and unabashed oddball personality find "Union" here, and it's liable to flood dopamine as much as it'll fry synapses.
Favorite track: Strange Mail.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
$12USD or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Limited vinyl version of the latest Bulbous Monocle release:
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 - These Things Remain Unassigned
(Singles, compilation tracks, rarities & unreleased recordings)
Bulbous Monocle focuses its lens further into the legacy and archives of the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. These Things Remain Unassigned — a phrase coined by Brian Hageman, one of the band’s musical snake appendages emanating from its Medusa crown — is presented by Bulbous Monocle as a double LP (gatefold jacket with a twelve page libretto). BM-03 gathers together the band’s singles, compilation tracks, outtakes and never before released gems encompassing the arc of TFUL’s musical corpus. Every track has been surgically remastered by Mark Gergis (Porest/Sublime Frequencies/Mono Pause) with his signature craftsman approach.
This collection is an auditory and visual feast. The extensive booklet included features band ephemera, concert flyers, photographs, and commentary about each track from Mark Davies. Beyond the rare singles and unreleased tracks from the TFUL archives, are cover versions from such disparate artists and composers as: Ennio Morricone, Krzysztof Komeda, The Residents, The Shaggs, Caroliner Rainbow and Pérez Prado.
“…In addition to these compilation one-offs, there were also a few studio recordings that were never quite completed or released. Throw in an alternate mix or two and the handful of singles that came out on various labels over the years, and you end up with what I feel works well as itsown body of work, a bunch of adopted oddballs that somehow fit together as a family. I hope youʼll agree with me that these things are now no longer unassigned, but part of a somewhat cohesive whole, stitched together into something mysterious and glistening —Mark Davies (2023)”
Track listing:
Side A:
2x4's
Every Day
Strange Mail
Blank Eyed Devil
The Electrocutioner
Side B
Horrible Hour
Selections from “A Fistful of Dollars”
The Kids Are In The Mud
Wally and the Ghost
San Remo
Side C
Ed Sullivan
Entoloma
Electric Chair
Flames Up Yours
Outhouse of the Pryeeeee
Side D
Selections from “Rosemary's Baby”
Sponge Dilrod
Shiny Pig
Who Are Parents
Broken Bones
Includes unlimited streaming of These Things Remain Unassigned (singles, compilation tracks, rarities & unreleased recordings)
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
Limited edition gatefold double LP. Includes 12 page booklet of liner notes, photos, band ephemera and other visual miscellanea.
Bulbous Monocle focuses its lens further into the legacy and archives of the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. These Things Remain Unassigned — a phrase coined by Brian Hageman, one of the band’s musical snake appendages emanating from its Medusa crown — is presented by Bulbous Monocle as a double LP (gatefold jacket with a twelve page libretto). BM-03 gathers together the band’s singles, compilation tracks, outtakes and never before released gems encompassing the arc of TFUL’s musical corpus. Every track has been surgically remastered by Mark Gergis (Porest/Sublime Frequencies/Mono Pause) with his signature craftsman approach.
This collection is an auditory and visual feast. The extensive booklet included features band ephemera, concert flyers, photographs, and commentary about each track from Mark Davies. Beyond the rare singles and unreleased tracks from the TFUL archives, are cover versions from such disparate artists and composers as: Ennio Morricone, Krzysztof Komeda, The Residents, The Shaggs, Caroliner Rainbow and Pérez Prado.
“…In addition to these compilation one-offs, there were also a few studio recordings that were never quite completed or released. Throw in an alternate mix or two and the handful of singles that came out on various labels over the years, and you end up with what I feel works well as its
own body of work, a bunch of adopted oddballs that somehow fit together as a family. I hope youʼll agree with me that these things are now no longer unassigned, but part of a somewhat cohesive whole, stitched together into something mysterious and glistening —Mark Davies (2023)”
credits
released October 22, 2023
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 is:
Paul Bergmann - drums, accordion
Mark Davies - guitar, bass, vocals, keyboards, banjo, Optigan, trombone
Anne Eickelberg - bass, keyboards, vocals
Brian Hageman - guitar, vocals, tapes, viola
Jay Paget - drums, keyboards, guitar
Hugh Swarts - guitar, vocals
John Frentress contributes vocals on Ed Sullivan.
Acknowledgements
With tracks from so many different releases, finding original or optimal tape sources for all these was a pretty monumental undertaking, and I was pleasantly surprised at how accommodating everyone was, scouring long forgotten boxes in the backs of storage spaces around the world. It was also wonderful to reconnect with a lot of cool people as part of the process. Special thanks to the following individuals for all their help with this:
Tim Adams
Gibbs Chapman
Peter Davis
Daniel Gill
Seymour Glass
Ben Goldberg
David Greenberger
Gary Held
Brandan Kearney
Dren McDonald
Filippo Salvadori
Shoei from Japan Overseas
Mark Szabo
Gregg Turkington
And none of this would have been possible without the devotion and expertise from Peter Conheim, who transferred miles of tapes from countless sources - baking, editing, and advising throughout the process. Truly a creative contributor to this project, and a savior of tapes making future releases possible.
The following songs were composed by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Enablers Music, BMI:
2x4s
Horrible Hour
The following songs were composed by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Accomodators Music, BMI:
Every Day
Strange Mail
Blank Eyed Devil
The Kids Are In The Mud
Wally and the Ghost
Electric Chair
Flames Up Yours
Sponge Dilrod
Shiny Pig
Broken Bones
“The Electrocutioner” was composed by the Residents, The Cryptic Corp/Pale Pachyderm Pub., BMI.
“A Fistful of Dollars” was composed by Ennio Morricone, BMI.
“San Remo” was composed by Pérez Prado, BMG.
The words to “Ed Sullivan” were written by Ernest Noyes Brookings. Music composed by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282.
The words to “Entoloma” were written by John Cage and sampled from “Indeterminacy: New Aspect of Form in Instrumental and Electronic Music”, by John Cage with David Tudor, Folkways. Music composed by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282.
“Outhouse of the Pryeeeee” was composed by Caroliner Rainbow Hernia Milk Queen, Kind Cataracts.
“Rosemary's Baby” was composed by Krzysztof Komeda, Famous Music Corporation, ASCAP.
“Who Are Parents” was composed by Dorothy Wiggin, Third World Music, BMI.
supported by 50 fans who also own “These Things Remain Unassigned (singles, compilation tracks, rarities & unreleased recordings)”
Long-form trance-y rhythmic jams, with a fun shambling edge, sounding like a cross between music from Africa's Sahel region crossed with a Tom Waits instrumental... Jascha Narveson
Former member of Fela Kuti’s Egypt 80 unveils a rich, swinging new record that pulls from jazz and soul in its high-wattage songs. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 24, 2024
supported by 49 fans who also own “These Things Remain Unassigned (singles, compilation tracks, rarities & unreleased recordings)”
Sonic Youth is one of those bands where you easily run out of superlatives to describe what they created. This could've easily come off as a cynical cash-grab by a band that had broken up 11 years prior to the release of this record, but that's not what this is. Some of my favourite Sonic Youth instrumentals. sentient meat