Audio: Larry Bolles Presents: The Long Lost Public Address System Tape Zine: Ballroom Blitz Part One: They Break Butterflies on Wheels, Don't They?

Here now, for the first time in digital format (thanks yet again to the archives of O.O.B.), is a very early Colicky Baby Records and Tapes production, the cassette portion of a zine called "Pub ic Address System 23," originally produced sometime around May 1989. If I ever get around to buying a scanner, I'll post facsimiles of the 11-page xeroxed paper mag that accompanied the cassette, but the tape is the main attraction. It's a sordid tale of deranged youth, obscenity, rock and roll, censorship, and fighting the law and losing. Loving, living, fighting, drinking, drugging, rocking, radioing, and cartooning ... in a very dirty and socially unacceptable way.

I could write a book about the events covered by this zine, but instead of that, here's the gist: We, the publishers, editors, authors, drunkards, and sexual preeverts of Northern Illinois University's finest late-1980s-era amateurish alternative newspaper, "The Public Address System," booked a show in a local church basement to raise money so we could publish the 5th issue of the paper -- which was, all accounts corroborate, was going to be a true milestone in American cheaply produced bathtub journalism. Otis Ball was gonna headline along with one of the all-time classic Chains lineups (Glenn "Killer" Donaldson on bass, Steve Blunt on guitar, and Steve Laux from Kissyfish on drums), sharing the bill with Madison, Wisconsin's Kissyfish (Ryan Jerving, Shalini Chatterjee, John Papageorge, and I'm probably forgetting somebody else) and also various other bands and ... acts. Total rock and roll media circus. Paul Krassner meets Bill Graham, in miniaturized midwestern campus Methodist church basement mufti.

Promotional work was really our forte at the time -- in fact, I think we published the paper just to have a reason to promote stuff -- and this show was no exception. It was going to be our biggest show yet, and we were promoting the hell out of it, day and night.

Unfortunately, the promotion got a little out of hand ... to understate things a little. This audio program (which, incidentally, more or less covers the first act of a soon-to-be-produced motion picture from SMonkey Productions -- working title: "Ballroom Blitz") describes what happened next.

Rapidshare download, zip file, about 58 megs in size and about 50 minutes long in total, 11 separate mp3 files, the track listing for which is as follows:

Part One - WKDI 93.5 FM

1. Intro
2. WKDI News Update with Glen Zip Gun
3. I Don't Make Decisions Well / "Random Notes" Vandalism
4. DeKalb Blues / Unknown Noise in the Studio
5. WKDI Crap News Team Report with Steve and Glen
6. Steve Visits / "Who You Workin' Fo'?"

Part Two - One O Ball

7. (Ain't Got No) Show version 1
8. (Ain't Got No) Show version 2
9. (Ain't Got No) Show version 3
10. Walk on Water
11. Hidden Track (Hey Blues Singer)

Download link here: PAS23.zip