Latest Uvulittle Releases

We printed 100 numbered copies. Each box contains all 8 original Maestro Subgum and the Whole albums and a "Rares" CD containing some of the best of the previously un-released tracks from the archive. Box buyers also get access to the on-line archive of live and unreleased recordings. The albums are also available individually and as downloads.

Included:

A Diamond in the Dumpster
A Soft Fist in a Hard Place
Stormin' and a Fever
Hot Ol' Wadda
Jiggle the Constable
Lost Lost Lost
At the Wart Hog Museum
Don't Flirt
Rares
Maestro Subgum Online Archive

The box itself is a lovely pine box with the Maestro logo burned on the front.

By the early 90s, the creative font that was Maestro Subgum and the Whole erupted with an almost complete turnover in its song catalog. The sound changed significantly with the addition of a regular horn section, although a cappellas still happened, too.

The dual cassettes that came out of the Double Amazement sessions were dubbed Stormin’ And A Fever and Hot Ol’ Wadda. Jenny, Beau, and Miki wrote a lot of the tunes, but new member Bobby Ray contributed a couple of key songs, too.

These masterpieces are available for the first time on disc and there’s enough here to overwhelm yourself for endless hours with Bycyle, Doggy, Old Man Moon, Oh My God It’s So Beautiful, Goddamn the Empty Sky, Gotta Lotta, and many others.

Originally released in 1990. Please note: the original release of Hot Ol' Wadda contained one song that we were unable to license for this collection: "Ballad of Ten Casino Dancers," a translation of a poem by Cecília Meireles set to music by the band.

By the early 90s, the creative font that was Maestro Subgum and the Whole erupted with an almost complete turnover in its song catalog. The sound changed significantly with the addition of a regular horn section, although a cappellas still happened, too.

The dual cassettes that came out of the Double Amazement sessions were dubbed Stormin’ And A Fever and Hot Ol’ Wadda. Jenny, Beau, and Miki wrote a lot of the tunes, but new member Bobby Ray contributed a couple of key songs, too.

These masterpieces are available for the first time on disc and there’s enough here to overwhelm yourself for endless hours with Bycyle, Doggy, Old Man Moon, Oh My God It’s So Beautiful, Goddamn the Empty Sky, Gotta Lotta, and many others.

Originally released in 1990.

The 1993 album At The Warthog Museum was curated by Red Ned. The band had set out to do a live album, and indeed much of it was recorded direct to DAT at The Beat Kitchen and other venues. Some tracks were also done completely in studio (Sedistudio, Monster Disk), and the complete list of engineers and mixers included Spencer Sundell, James Koffee, Ricky Barnes, Jim Janick, John Hughes, Pink Bob, and Red Ned.

Ned put the sequence together and edited a number of Lefty Fizzle rants, used as links between many of the tunes. Bobby Ray played horns live with Mark Ray, but in the studio he was joined by Mark Messing (Sweet Muscles Messing and his No-Spaz Zoaz) on too many instruments to count (gas hose?). Beau, Jenny, and Miki wrote in various combinations that also included Bobby Ray, Bryn, John Shaw, and Curious friend Rachel X Weissman. The Greg Brown revival this time was the epic Laziness and Ignorance and the final number was a new, raw, live version of Trouble, originally recorded for Double Amazement (Jiggle The Constable and Lost Lost Lost.)

At The Warthog Museum was released on Fot Records, which later name-changed to Ponk! Records. Ponk! issued a couple of compilations, one of which included a new mix of Sticky Ticky Liquid (originally on Warthog), and another of which contained the concert rarity Private Joke, which never appeared on a Maestro album, though it was a big fave at the later reunion shows.

The seventh of their eight original releases, At The Wart Hog Museum is a "must have" for any collector.

Originally released in 1993.

Note: This is a re-issue. No additional mastering or processing has been done.

The last official Maestro Subgum and the Whole release was Don’t Flirt in 1995. The core of the group was still cranking out titles like Dust and Self-Disgust, Eat the Beauty, and Buttocks on the Moon. Much of the recording magic happened at Junior’s Motel, a converted chicken coop on a farm in Otho, Iowa, with additional tracks laid back in Chicago. The songs reflect a sound and an attitude honed by extensive gigging, first at the Lower Links Club and then at the Lunar Cabaret.

Originally released in 1995.

Note: This is a re-issue. It has not been re-mastered or processed in any way.

This double CD features live performances from Juicy John Pink's, recorded during 1976 and 1977. One of the premiere acoustic music venues in the Chicago area, it was well known for its enthusiastic, respectful audiences, warm, welcoming atmosphere, and excellent acoustics. The musicians featured here represent a sampling of some of the favorite singer/songwriters from that era.

Kendell Kardt, who composed many of the most beloved songs in Jim Post's repertoire, writes and sings about the search for love and redemption, both human and divine. His work is the expression of a passionate, questing spirit.

Sam Leopold was one of the most unusual and original performers in Chicago, with his powerful delivery, great guitar work, and quirky, inventive lyrics.

Michael Smith is an extraordinarily poetic and literate songwriter. The combination of his gorgeous melodies, jazzy, intricate guitar playing, and deeply thoughtful and beautifully crafted lyrics is thrilling. His wife, Barbara, a lyrical singer with a haunting voice, interprets his material with exquisite skill, and their harmonies are breathtaking.

David Gross's high-lonesome, soaring, yodeling tenor and beautiful songwriting perfectly express the pain of unrequited love, loss and longing.

Court Dorsey is a multi instrumental wonder, a political activist, and a brilliant social commentator. He is an entertaining performer and his songs are wryly funny while delivering a powerful message.

Jim Brewer was a traditional bluesman from the Mississippi Delta region known for his rough edged, electrifying guitar playing and singing. He joined the heavenly choir in 1988.

Who in DeKalb did not know, and love, David Williams and Michael O'Connell? They were, and continue to be, masters of the flat pick on guitar and mandolin. David's songs are rooted in the Midwest, conjuring images of corn and wheat, a red barn in a green field, freight trains, and rocking on the porch of a summer's evening, watching the fireflies.

The Long Lost Rainbow Band features two exceptional singer/songwriters: John Scott Sherrill, who has so far written eleven number one country hits, and Pebe Sebert, who cowrote "Old Flames Can't Hold a Candle to You," which was recorded by many artists, including Dolly Parton. Pebe is also the mother of pop star Ke$ha, and co-wrote five songs on Ke$ha'a new album WARRIOR. They came to visit us from Tennessee one magical September weekend, enchanting us with their gorgeous songs and stunning harmonies. We had a hard time deciding what to include here since everything they recorded that weekend was so beautiful.

Skin is the first song by Stephanie Rearick Jr. (SR JR). SR JR features Stephanie Rearick on casio and loops. Brand new as of early 2012!

We are to pleased present the debut release by The Crooked Mouth. Beau O'Reilly and Jenny Magnus (Maestro Subgum & The Whole) are joined by Matt Test (accordion, banjo, piano, backup vocals), Troy Martin (guitar, banjo, uke, backup vocals) and Vicki Walden (bass, backup vocals, shaky egg.)

The result is a string band cabaret that is folksy, honest and, at times, brutally beautiful.

Notes on The CROOKed MOUTH.
ME: I am at my most joyful on stage, in a band, singin raw or sweet. When I started to work with Matt and Troy in the CROOKED MOUTH STRING BAND, I felt this huge bear lift up inside me. I had had 5 or 6 bands before CROOKED MOUTH, but it had been several years since anything had gone from the maybe stage. With Troy and Matt we would often play without talkin, moving from song to song that I mostly already knew how to sing—Troy and Matt choosing their instruments, playing off of each other with a look of bad garlic in the mouth or the yes face. We started to add new stuff, Matt songs, stuff i was writing. Jenny, my longtime cohort in MAESTRO SUBGUM & THE WHOLE, heard us and declared that we needed a drummer and agreed to sit in. She never left, bringing with her a passel of new songs. Troy wrote a pile of new stuff. Our friend Vicki decided she would join us, and as we already knew that things go better with Vicki, she was in. Somewhere along the way, we lost the string band part and recorded a pile of songs. Here’s the first bunch. Some of them I started singing thirty years ago, some Lena wrote when she was seven.Tears Of Women was recorded before, in a duo that I had with Mr. Greenberg. Deathrag was on the last MAESTRO album. -- Beau O’rEilly

For the last decade Barry Bennett's been best known as leader of the iconic group MiLkBabY, whose alien world music made them a fixture of Chicago's left of center music scene. He's also a frequent creator of soundscapes and scores for Theatre and dance. His music has been heard at The Goodman, 16th Street Theater, CBDC, Chicago Moving Company, Chicago Dramatists, and with his own improvisational performance group The Impending Behavior Orchestra. Through it all, Bennett's music has been strange, exciting, fierce, and hypnotizing with "fiendish percussion chops and otherworldly vocalese. (Chicago Reader)"

Bennett has now decided to go it alone and is releasing his first solo CD, Death to Death! and Other Tales of Uneasy Harmony.

Why a solo album, now? This sends Bennett rolling a bit when asked directly. "I struggled with that actually, when I first realized I was making an album and not creating random pieces of music."

This is certainly not 'random pieces of music.'

Death to Death incorporates some of the ambient tribal feel of MiLkBabY and adds more song structure giving us melodies that churn through our minds, turning and folding and eventually informing our dreams. Bells, chimes, haunting piano lines, occasional Bride of Chucky vocals, some heartache, some profound beauty...

Death to Death is an exceptional work which we are proud to help bring to the world.

For fans of Dead Can Dance, Nurse with Wound and Peter Gabriel

Jenny Magnus, described by the Chicago Tribune as "Everything a performance artist should be: subversive, personal, stimulating, a little scary and simply amazing," is a Chicago-based performer, writer, director, producer and teacher.

Songs From Shows is a collection of 23 songs written over quite a few years, but used in performances and plays in the last 8 years or so. All the songs were used in ways that songs do not tend to be used in "musicals", meaning, they didn't necessarily come out of the mouths of the performers; they didn't necessarily forward the action; and they weren't necessarily about the inner state of the characters. Rather, the songs were used as a way of re-creating the idea of music in performance, not as background, or emotional manipulation (the way much music in films in used), but as meta-narratives that co-exist with the narrative texts but don't reiterate them.

Magnus has contributed to cultural life in Chicago for 13 years as a founding member of The Curious Theatre Branch, The Lunar Cabaret and the Curious School, and as a longtime member of Maestro Subgum and the Whole. Magnus produces her original work (most recently Nowhow, The Strange), produces and contributes to the annual Rhino Theater Festival, and tours her work internationally. She has performed recently at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chicago Cultural Center and in Jeff Ryner's American Parade at the Lunar Cabaret.

From the liner notes: The style of the songs is consistent in its inconsistency; the non-virtuostic use of available instruments, multi-tracked voices, and narrative sounds like toothbrushes, zippers, and crockery, all utilized in the interests of contingency and immediacy. Going into the studio, wherever it may happen to be, with an engineer, whoever he (for I have only worked with male engineers) may happen to be, and bringing only a song, and things to try out, has been my method for a long time. I go into the studio whenever I can afford it, whenever I can possibly organize it, and I experience the spontaneity of arranging the songs with a kind of ecstatic excitement, never know what is going to happen. Sometimes things don’t work and I leave the session feeling humiliated and frustrated. Most of the time I come out clutching the CD with a feeling of having gotten away with something yet again, having tricked the gods of Achievement and having made something out of nothing.

Usually I start with a click track, looking for a way to provide a steady underpinning- I had to learn this the hard way, I am not and have never been a rock steady drummer. I sing a capella to the click track, creating a scratch vocal that then serves as a basis for the arrangement. Since my theatrical method is often to use backing tracks sans the lead vocal and singing to that live, sometimes the lead on the recording is still the scratch vocal. Then I put in percussion or beats of some kind over the click track, then usually harmonies, then more beats or sounds, then support music like a piano or sung counter-melodies. All of this is like building a scaffolding on which the song can climb and hang, sometimes leaving a lot of space and letting the lyrics stand out starkly against a minimal arrangement, and sometimes building many layers of sounds until the lyric is the least interesting thing happening. There is no set way of doing it, though; I let the song, the session, the feel of the moment, the mood of the engineer, the state of my voice, influence the process. I am so open to the moment, I have let things like something falling in the background or an errant conversation inexplicably recorded be included and made intentional. The fragile balances between craft and expediency, perfectionism and fuckit-ism, and ability and aspiration, are my teetertottering parameters; I just try to work within them.

Jim Schwall's 2007 CD "Getting Old" features Jim performing solo, singing and playing acoustic 6- and 12-string guitars, recorded live in venues in or near Madison WI. There is one traditional song, one song of unknown origin and three songs by other songwriters: Bill Morrissey, David Olney and Ed Haynes. The rest of the 14 tracks are Jim's originals. About half the tunes are in some of the styles of traditional blues.

Prog-ambient-tribal-rock music.

The latest release from MiLkBabY slices and dices the world of progressive and groove-oriented electronica into slivers of Bjork-laden psychedelica a la key lime pie era Social Distortion.

"...the music of Chicago's Milkbaby is nearly impossible to quantify. The duo of Barry Bennett and Darren Shepherd engage in a bizarre blur of electronics, percussion, brass, keyboards and guitars to create an odd record filled with both ambience and dissonance. ...it's clear Milkbaby possesses an uncanny ability to cast a sonic spell and hypnotize listeners. Each of these seven songs is utterly distinct. As a reference point, think King Crimson meets Dead Can Dance. But the best track, "Father's Son," borrows respectfully from early Peter Gabriel." --- Progression Magazine

AFTER THE MOUNTAINS is Ritt's latest batch of beautiful, straight-ahead songs.

This is solid acoustic roots rock.

The songs move seamlessly from single, lingering melodies to the train-like stomp riffs that fans know from Ritt's vibrant live shows. Like this Kentuckian when he's on stage, Ritt's recordings are the fruit of years of playing - traditional music and rock and roll, in band after band, with pals, family and the occasional rival.

The Onion says, "He works the same side of the street as Greg Brown and Bruce Cockburn, with songs that are concurrently earthy, ethereal, and intelligent. "Bluebird" never specifically references politics or the economy, but it is infused with the struggle between rural and urban, family and philosophy, haves and have-nots. "The Fire Song" follows with a sense of looming despair and dark desperation that would feel right at home in the hands of Calexico."

Ritt's latest record--his fourth--features longtime pal and high-school bandmate "Kentucky Jim" Faris on the standup bass, son Wilder Deitz on piano, veteran collaborator Craig Totten on dobro and guitar, and a host of other live-show regulars.

Pike 27 leadman Dave Purcell calls Ritt's songs "gritty and intelligent" and "sweet, gentle and smoldering."

MiLkBabY returns to the studio with their new line-up to record an amazing new disc. Features Barry Bennett (acoustic and electronic percussion, vocal, keyboard, knobs-n-wires) and Darren Shepherd (electric guitar.) The songs range from quietly meditative to seriously funky and freaky. A must for improv lovers and for those looking for something a little of the beaten path. Full of great musicianship, driving beats and extreme creativity.

From soothing instrumentals to ethereal pop to dark ditties to witty excursions, Rearick delivers a cornucopia of aural moods, all via her upright piano and occasionally her trumpet. -- Goldmine

Don't waste time trying to categorize what you hear on Stephanie Rearick's latest release, The Bucket Rider. Enjoy her lyrics and her expertise on the ivories for the journey it takes you between the dynamic classics of the past and the experimental sounds of the future with a little jazz and pop thrown in for good measure. -- Circle Magazine

Imagine Tom Waits reincarnated as Debussy, playing Joni Mitchell versions of Edgar Allen Poe poems on a 1920s era piano, and you get an approximate sense of the influences singer/pianist Stephanie Rearick channels on the way to making her very unique, idiosyncratic art pop.
-- Berkshire Eagle

As much an art music disc as it is a pop recording, The Bucket Rider moves from aggressively modernist fare like the evocatively sung My Lizard to Brecht-Weill inspired work like the woozy title track. Throughout, Rearick's trilling pipes and sophisticated digits piece out some very sophisticated music. -- Isthmus

Ms. Rearick is truly an original voice and this recording is a daring achievement -- Midwest Ursine

"This band's debut release is simply delightful. Pianist and vocalist Stephanie Rearick establishes that she is no slouch with the opening track, the band's theme song. Her performance invites comparisons to Nina Simone, a situation that most players would subsequently exploit at great length… the electric guitar madness of Jon Hain will appeal to anyone who enjoys new twisted takes on psychedelia. There is also jazzy, folky, and cabaret material here, generally played with both the precision of a well-practiced band and the flair of the creatively driven lunatic." Eugene Chadbourne - All Music Guide

The Coma Savants came into being in November of 2001. The members all come from the cult band Your Mom SRO which had recently dis-banded in the middle of recording their third album. The newly formed Coma Savants quickly took control of the tapes and headed to the studio to bang out their debut CD, "Coma Savant."

Great live set by Chicago's masters of Organic Tribal Trance, MiLkBabY. Recorded June 22, 2001 at Mother Fool's in Madison, this disc shows MiLkBabY at their most extreme. Ranges from cool-breeze melodic trance to full-force beat-driven freakouts. Yes, this is MiLkBabY LIVE!!

"Much of it features spaced out operations of vibraphone, piano, and organ. There is also a series of short recitations and the use of what sounds like taped material. A remarkable track such as "Responsorial," a duet for vibraphone and acoustic piano, creates a really wonderful mood." - All Music Guide

Avant liturgical music for the metadenominational church of the mind. Evokes Tom Waits and Harry Partch, and could very well serve to unite pagans and the orthodox.

Missa Canibus uses the traditional form of the Catholic mass, but departs radically into John Cage-inspired chance techniques and draws heavily on the experiences and tecniques of Jack the Dog members, Jeff Kowalkowsi (keyboards) and Carrie Biolo (vibes).

This is a great sampler of the Mother Fool's music scene, circa 1996.

"Smack-dab in the middle of an historic and eclectic Madison, WI neighborhood stands Mother Fool's -- a tiny, intimate, smoke-free coffeehouse that is home to some of the city's most creative and refreshing musicians. But because Mother Fool's holds fewer than 100 people, owners Jon Hain and Stephanie Rearick decided to form their own record label, compile many of the coffeehouse's finest moments and release for the masses 16 stellar (and mostly acoustic) recordings from 1996 Mother Fool's performances. The 66-minute disc begins and ends with brief but humorous acoustic ditties by Biff & Blunt, whose representation here only hints at this celebrated local duo's tuneful wit. Packaged in between Biff & Blunt are some truly diverse and intimate musical messages from fun artists who still manage to take their craft quite seriously. Highlights include a cover of Willie Dixon's "Mellow Down Easy" by acoustic roots rockers Durable Goods; "Day In, Day Out" by Andy Ewen, lead guitarist and singer for the blues-rock band Honor Among Thieves; "Magnificent Sky" by the bossa-rock quintet Swimming Pool Blue, which also combines modern touches of pop and jazz for an immediately listenable blend; and "What Possesses You" by Rearick's own absurdist rock troupe Your Mom. The Only non-Madisonian appearing on the disc is Iowa's Jhaun Renken, who turns in a stunningly sparse acoustic performance with "Life of the Sparrow." Granted, not everything on Live at Mother Fool's is for everyone, although Pascal's frantic folk farce "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" grows on you. But this disc, which features exceptional sound quality for a label's first-ever release (and a live one, at that), introduces listeners to a growing colony of diverse and innovative performers. Hain and Rearick plan to release full-length albums by some of the artists appearing on Live at Mother Fool's later this year. And why not? You can never get too much of a good thing. Uvulittle Records, 1101 Williamson St., Madison, WI 53703."
-- Michael Popke