Lonesome Surprize

Back in the early 90's, well before the currently trendy (and deliberately anachronistic) 'resurgence' of cassettes, there was also a 'd.i.y.' cassette renaissance... One the best tape labels was run by Dennis Callaci from Upland, California.  'Shrimper Tapes' placed ads in fanzines like 'Mole'; they sold tapes (mostly of musicians from the 'Inland Empire') for $3 post-paid. 

Dennis also was the guitarist (not 'drummer'--thanks James) in 'Refrigerator'.  He was a good-enough musician, but the real attraction of the band comes from his brother Allan's tortured vocals.  Their first tape was called 'Lonesome Surprize', and it came out in 1991.  The title track is one of the best songs of that early 90's fanzine-driven Indie-DIY scene--and to my knowledge has never been reissued, although the song has been covered by John Darnielle's Mountain Goats [whose first couple of albums were also released on Shrimper).

here's Lonesome Surprize (first song on the tape):

01 - Lonesome Surprize

and the last song on the tape:

07 - Alligator Skinmace

Comments

[James]

"Lonesome Surprize" is a song by Refrigerator. Dennis is the guitarist, not the drummer. He and Allen wrote some of my favorite songs of the 90s ("Ceilings," "Class of Next Year," "Colton," and that's just some of the C's).

[dave]

the mountain goats cover of lonesome surprize on "9 black poppies" is fun -- it features john and allen trading vocals, with allen phoning in his vocals from like half a world a way.

[John W. Fail]

Great to hear some Refrigerator - one of my favorite bands for sure. Also ya gotta love their later, more polished stuff, particularly 99's 'Glitter Jazz' - it's a true beauty.

I'd love to know if digitised copies of 'Rael' or 'Long Play 33 1/3' are floating around anywhere out there, as I've never been able to track these down.

[Carl S.]

You know, only after reading this article did I look at my copy of the tape and discover that it's spelled with a Z. Guess I'm not paying attention.