Strange Mono is extremely excited to announce the release of the first of our “Unsung Gems” series featuring The Justice League of America. The JLA were active from 1979-1983 in Bergen County NJ and NYC. These 14 tracks, artfully restored and remastered by Chris Lawson-Allen, offer listeners a chance to connect with one of NJ’s totally unknown, totally worthy rock bands.

Overspilling with talent and energy the songwriting speaks for itself, from the crunchy Kinks-esque “Can’t Stop Love” and “Settled Sons'' to the powerpop guitar licks of “Palisades Park” and the melancholy political sentiment of “Madman”. Though the styles may shift from Blues Rock, to New Wave, and Powerpop the sincerity of songwriting can be heard all throughout. Our hope is to bring these total unknown 80’s rockers out of obscurity and into a new generation of listeners that desperately need them!

“They were already a band when I found their ad for a drummer in the Aquarian (which was the local music scene magazine in the tri-state area). We played a lot of places once” says drummer Geno Timlin on the band's formation . “Influences were all over the place for the four of us. We all like rock and roll and the old blues men. I think the old bio explains us pretty well. We were just having fun.”

“The Justice League of America passed its members through a decade's worth of city streets, baseball parks and suburban basements before they settled on a partially shared identity. Specifically, a hatred of triviality and a love for music, especially American music, and even more especially for the music that bounded from radios through the night air and down school hallways and, like a rock, through the windows of those who choose to ignore what they choose to ignore. The mayor of Metropolis, drawn to and repelled from what they sing, is still not sure what he thinks about these self-appointed upholders of justice. The business community remains similarly unconvinced, as well as some of their peers, who choose androgynous costumes and postures as from a big trunk placed in the attic for their business purposes. The Justice League of America -- Bryan Brown, Frank Palmieri, Gene Timlin and Bob Torsello-- plays rock and roll music, and those things which are honest that give birth and spring from it”
-From the bands original 1981 press bio

Fifth Amendment

Idiot Mambo have a dream where they exit the bedroom and enter the studio to make a catchy, cockeyed rock and roll record with their friends.


We get invited to play a show.  Jared joins to play bass.  Colbert joins in as a theatrically effective orator. We use a sample pad to trigger some beats, Benji & Leah sing and dance and we all have a great time.


Dan T offers to play drums and host us at his practice space, so he jumps in and we form a rock band.  
We put aside the sample pad and go on to play a couple awesome shows. It’s time to capture this energy and put something to tape.  The band rolls into Dan Angel’s place neighboring boner4ever. Dan A feels the vibe and cements the band as rhythm daddy-o.


Our first studio session features Dan A on drums and Jared on bass.  We have one rehearsal prior.  Dan A learns the tunes, lays down amazing rhythms and engineers the session, living up to his reputation as the hardest working man in showbusiness.  We get vocals down and start mixing a track, but we aren’t finished.  We need a second session.


Dan T performs drums on the next studio outing.  We track a couple of numbers that we’ve been knocking around on as a band. The takes are good. Dan T then intrepidly lays down beats to some completely unrehearsed songs that Benji, Leah, and Colbert brought from home. The takes are good!  We overdub bass, mess around with the Nashville guitar, do some singing.  We need more time to finish this. 


One more studio session to add pulsing percussion, get trippy, and make things really sparkle.  We paste in some synthesizers and pedal steel from home recordings.  We shake a pill bottle because it sounds better than the egg shaker. We rip a guitar solo.  We tap the glockenspiel. We wrench the noisemakers. We finesse the tape delay.  A couple more vocal embellishments.  It all fits.  


Dan A dolls up the record while intensely gazing at the album art, handcrafted by Leah. Cell phone propped on the console for the entire mixing and mastering process.  Once the kitty cats begin to dance to the music, we’re certain the track is sufficiently tarted.  Soon, all ten tracks make the cats dance, and we call it done.


The record has wreckless homages to all sorts of stuff. A pinch of punky pop, a dash of shitty Revolver. A love for early rock, a kind of thrift store glam schlock. Some country sparkle and some tripped-out r&b. It’s like a collection of theme songs about diddly.


Shoot The Star - 6 - Deathdriver

Shoot The Star - 9 - Hot Potato

Shoot The Star - 3 - Bop Til U Drop

Shoot The Star - 4 - Braindead

Please use nice headphones or proper speakers for much better listening experience!!

#psychedelic #mini-opera #freak-out #punk #learning  #vaudeville #Suvela #theatrical #pseudo-progessive #megalithic #carnival #macabre #underground #cinematic #ritual #troubadour #Bossa #Discordianism #one-man-band #Finland #gothsoul #nightmare-radio #experimental #world #art-rock #crooners #vaudeville #shockrock #ascension #dramedy #hysteria #acid-folk #pataphysics #Takabuti #noise #balladeer #hauntology #singer-songwriter #chaos #lo-fi #neo-prog #occultic #avant-garde #outsider #low-budget #hallucinogenic #elevator #freakish #phantasmic #Bricolage

The Tribulation Town Transmissions

4th of July

where is it all

groggy

bridge

a little lobby music

recorded in the smoky mountains after visiting the Cherokee reservation and having a lovely communal dinner with strangers

the first recording failed sadly you could have had two songs both interrupted by cell phones, just think of it...

Saturday at Boards is a project of improvising on random pianos that i meet in the world
the first album can be found here: https://saturdayatboards.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-saturday

it came out several years before andre 3000's iphone piano recordings just sayin no hate ;)

also also i woulda cut the last 10 seconds or so of noise (those are cicadas recorded in the same location a few hours before) but soundcloud won't share the song in the algorithm at all unless it's a full minute and there's nothing i can do about that if i want anyone to potentially hear it. just so you know.

checking out with shadows

weird you can't wear
new tracks by 5 Rocket World artists winkYface, AGLA, Clouds for Sale, and Banana Bones

all albums are free on bandcamp 
(https://fiverocketworld.bandcamp.com/)
donations are very appreciated

music can be anything
genre isnt real

reach out:  fiverocket.world@gmail.com for whatever reason.