mister cyclops
Mister Cyclops | 999.999.9979 | mistercyclops@comcast.net
THE SCHLOCK MIXES
RR-002 1984
VICTIM OF THE TIMES
HAK-88 1988
In the summer of 1988 I decided to record a 45 rpm single. This was sort of an odd thing to do since this format was already obsolete. I had already written dozens of songs by this time, so why I picked these two for my debut single release remains a mystery as they aren't that good. The record was produced at Dynamic Sound Studios in Neenah, WI on what I was told was the original 16 track machine that Jimi Hendrix used (yeah, right). Released under the Penguins in Heat banner, it features Joe Pasteris on drums (from The MisadVentures, a surf band we were in at the time). Well I'm no Jimi Hendrix as this recording will demonstrate. I sent it to dozens of radio stations, and actually heard it on the air once (at around 2 AM on a college station). I must have been pretty optimistic, because I had 500 of these pressed, most of which I still have in my garage along with other junk I can't seem to part with.
PSEUDO CLASSICAL
RR-003 1990
I guess this was supposed to be a collection of "new age" material. It suffers from overall poor sound quality and lousy production - and that is after remixing it on three separate occasions. In my defense I did not have the luxury of infinite tracks, and it was very difficult to mix and sequence the songs from 8-tracks down to stereo and have one song flow into the next. Lacking a true half track machine, I elected to use a VHS video tape machine to record the master onto at one point. My favourite song is "The Fat Man", not for any particular reason. Around the time I was remixing this project for what turned out to be the last time I was visiting Kez el-Fez at Arcane North, and he had a fine collection of masks that our dad apparently bought in Mexico and painted back in the early 1960's. Why would my dad paint these masks? Who knows, but I remembered seeing them around our house when I was a kid and was quite surprised to see them again so many years later.
MISTER CYCLOPS
RR-004 1991
Armed with an already obsolete Roland R-8 drum sequencer which cost a small fortune and brand new reel to reel recording gear which did cost a fortune, I was excited to embark on my next recording project. Just about every song on Mister Cyclops was written from a drum track. I spent hours and hours programming drum parts and playing guitar over them until I had a basic rhythm track. It took about a year to write and record, and on Thanksgiving weekend of 1990, Kez el Fez and I brought all of our recording stuff to New Holstein, WI and mixed Mister Cyclops in my mom's basement. We were also going to mix the Kez el-Fez classic Kumari's Window, but I monopolized the whole weekend with my project. When we opened Arcane Productions I found I had lots of free time, so I completely re-mixed Mister Cyclops using the Amek Einstein mixing console. That was before all of the cheap fader and EQ pots deteriorated to the point where this expensive mixing desk was completely useless.
THE LOST MIXES
RR-005 1992
In the spring of 1985 my mom, probably at my brothers urging, presented me with a brand new Fostex X-15 four track cassette recorder. Archaic by todays standards, I was thrilled to have the ability record on a true multitrack machine and spent the next few years trying to make recordings that didn't sound like they were done on a cheesy little four track cassette recorder. Some of the songs were good enough to show up on other projects, most were not. I eventually sold the well used X-15 to Kez el-Fez for way more than it was worth and he went on to produce such goodies as "Kumari's Window" with it. It was around this time that I had completed work on the Mister Cyclops CD, so I dumped everything I had from the X-15 sessions onto a DAT and called it The Lost Mixes, released on cassette in 1991 and as a two disc set in 2005. It's noteworthy that this vast goldmine of Cyclops tunes contains more tracks than Trout Mask Replica, or even The Beatles "White Album" (though admittedly it was not nearly as successful as either). In all honesty I cringe whenever I listen to this CD, but it does keep me humble.
CLOUDEDBYTHE MINDS EYE
RR-007 1993
My brother the all knowing Kez el-Fez, was taking way too long producing one of his midi projects. In an attempt to show how quickly a project could be completed, I sampled the Multimedia music library with a cheesy Roland S-10 keyboard and came up with CBTME (once again I was working at Arcane Productions and had nothing better to do). It only took about 14 days to record and mix. It took Kez el-Fez about six months to get the artwork completed however. I was heavily dosed with D-limonene fumes from a construction crew next door to our studio during this period. I noticed they all wore dust masks, which everyone knows are completely ineffective at mitigating organic vapors.
ALAMOGORDO
RR-021 1995
Surprised by the stunning success of Clouded By The Mind's Eye, I quickly took to the studio once again to try and capitalize on my ingenious and highly original recording concepts. Alamogordo was supposed to be a more refined and cerebral version of CBTME, dealing solely with the plight of atomic weapons testing victims. It has some interesting moments, but overall it is a pretty lame effort. I quickly became bored with the whole project and it shows. It was fun creating the artwork for the CD release however, and I probably spent more time on that than in making the actual recording. I took some copies to Alamogordo, NM on my way to Roswell in 1996, but I couldn't get any of the stores there to carry it. I got the impression they thought it was in poor taste which I guess it was.
JOE THE BAT
RR-028 1999
HIDEOUS
RR-045 2009
ZYKLON BISTRO 666
RR-046 2015
Work on Zyklon Bistro 666 started in the fall of 2009 and was completed in the early Spring of 2015. The title of the CD is a morphing of Zyklon B, a pesticide developed in Germany, with Beast 666, infamous practicioner of the Black Arts, Aleister Crowley. Most of the songs were written on the Ukulele. Not having a clue how to play it, I just putzed around with different fingerings until something resembling music came out.
A number of the songs on this disc were performed live, and you can view these and other fascinating videos at:
RR-002 1984
- Slip Poing
- One Day In the Life of Shebis Regal
- The Nightclub Muzak
- Sheebie Blam
- Die Traum Reihen Folge
- The Fat Burner
- Keefie Kombie
- VX Vapors
- Sleeping In My Car
- The Stub of the Czar's Cigar
- The Funeral Muzak
VICTIM OF THE TIMES
HAK-88 1988
- Victim of the Times
- No Place Like Home
In the summer of 1988 I decided to record a 45 rpm single. This was sort of an odd thing to do since this format was already obsolete. I had already written dozens of songs by this time, so why I picked these two for my debut single release remains a mystery as they aren't that good. The record was produced at Dynamic Sound Studios in Neenah, WI on what I was told was the original 16 track machine that Jimi Hendrix used (yeah, right). Released under the Penguins in Heat banner, it features Joe Pasteris on drums (from The MisadVentures, a surf band we were in at the time). Well I'm no Jimi Hendrix as this recording will demonstrate. I sent it to dozens of radio stations, and actually heard it on the air once (at around 2 AM on a college station). I must have been pretty optimistic, because I had 500 of these pressed, most of which I still have in my garage along with other junk I can't seem to part with.
PSEUDO CLASSICAL
RR-003 1990
- Prelude
- Masquarade
- The Third Eye
- Rain
- My First Martini
- Rabbits Foot
- Luna
- DaVinci Brain Cells
- Through The Wall Of Fire
- Big Ver
- The Fat Man
- Jigging The Wicks
I guess this was supposed to be a collection of "new age" material. It suffers from overall poor sound quality and lousy production - and that is after remixing it on three separate occasions. In my defense I did not have the luxury of infinite tracks, and it was very difficult to mix and sequence the songs from 8-tracks down to stereo and have one song flow into the next. Lacking a true half track machine, I elected to use a VHS video tape machine to record the master onto at one point. My favourite song is "The Fat Man", not for any particular reason. Around the time I was remixing this project for what turned out to be the last time I was visiting Kez el-Fez at Arcane North, and he had a fine collection of masks that our dad apparently bought in Mexico and painted back in the early 1960's. Why would my dad paint these masks? Who knows, but I remembered seeing them around our house when I was a kid and was quite surprised to see them again so many years later.
MISTER CYCLOPS
RR-004 1991
- The Man Without a Brain
- Time Slip
- Paradise
- Dead Hands
- The Fall
- Heaven
- Skittlie Bop Pop Pop
- Mister Cyclops
- Invisible Voices
- Upside Down
- Deserted
- The Lost Dimension
- Acappella
Armed with an already obsolete Roland R-8 drum sequencer which cost a small fortune and brand new reel to reel recording gear which did cost a fortune, I was excited to embark on my next recording project. Just about every song on Mister Cyclops was written from a drum track. I spent hours and hours programming drum parts and playing guitar over them until I had a basic rhythm track. It took about a year to write and record, and on Thanksgiving weekend of 1990, Kez el Fez and I brought all of our recording stuff to New Holstein, WI and mixed Mister Cyclops in my mom's basement. We were also going to mix the Kez el-Fez classic Kumari's Window, but I monopolized the whole weekend with my project. When we opened Arcane Productions I found I had lots of free time, so I completely re-mixed Mister Cyclops using the Amek Einstein mixing console. That was before all of the cheap fader and EQ pots deteriorated to the point where this expensive mixing desk was completely useless.
THE LOST MIXES
RR-005 1992
- One Day In The Mind Of Shebis Regal
- The Nightclub Muzak
- The Stub Of The Czar's Cigar
- Gutbombs
- Penguins In Heat
- 398-74-8935
- People Are Strange
- Muzakale Interlude
- The Fatburner
- The Funeral Muzak
- Onward And Upward
- The Infinite Sky
- The Drowning
- Keefie Kombie
- Why Do I Want To Be A Chemist?
- Sheebie Blam
- The Clestial Plumbing Muzak
- One Last Farewell To My Beloved Shebs
- Eat Meat
- Big Ver
- Touch Tone
- Reinessance Rodentia
- Early Morning
- Chaos
- The Dead Injun Muzak
- Uncle Bart
- Golden Brown
- The Untitled Instrumental Muzak
- Ned The Dead
- Penguins in Heat
- Spiders
- Instrumental Arachnids
- I Met Someone
- Periwinkle Blues
- X
- Fido
- THe Fat Man
- The Barking Dog Muzak
- Soak Yer Head
- Daydream
- No Place Like Home
- Prophile of Patrick
- Butt Gass
- Paradise
- Nightmare
- Scream
- Til I Find You
- Without A Trace
- The Sun Is Up
- Veronica
- The Ugly Man
In the spring of 1985 my mom, probably at my brothers urging, presented me with a brand new Fostex X-15 four track cassette recorder. Archaic by todays standards, I was thrilled to have the ability record on a true multitrack machine and spent the next few years trying to make recordings that didn't sound like they were done on a cheesy little four track cassette recorder. Some of the songs were good enough to show up on other projects, most were not. I eventually sold the well used X-15 to Kez el-Fez for way more than it was worth and he went on to produce such goodies as "Kumari's Window" with it. It was around this time that I had completed work on the Mister Cyclops CD, so I dumped everything I had from the X-15 sessions onto a DAT and called it The Lost Mixes, released on cassette in 1991 and as a two disc set in 2005. It's noteworthy that this vast goldmine of Cyclops tunes contains more tracks than Trout Mask Replica, or even The Beatles "White Album" (though admittedly it was not nearly as successful as either). In all honesty I cringe whenever I listen to this CD, but it does keep me humble.
CLOUDEDBYTHE MINDS EYE
RR-007 1993
- My Al Q Holic Liver Transplant
- Planet Erth (Planet Erth. You hate me. The stars are dim. Kiss me.)
- Sadistic Thoughts of a Criminal Mind
- A Green Texture
- Strange Creatures from Beneath the Sea
- Strange Aliens from Beyond Space
- Clouded By the Mind's Eye
- Sleep/Dream
My brother the all knowing Kez el-Fez, was taking way too long producing one of his midi projects. In an attempt to show how quickly a project could be completed, I sampled the Multimedia music library with a cheesy Roland S-10 keyboard and came up with CBTME (once again I was working at Arcane Productions and had nothing better to do). It only took about 14 days to record and mix. It took Kez el-Fez about six months to get the artwork completed however. I was heavily dosed with D-limonene fumes from a construction crew next door to our studio during this period. I noticed they all wore dust masks, which everyone knows are completely ineffective at mitigating organic vapors.
ALAMOGORDO
RR-021 1995
- Tickling the Dragon
- Alamogordo
- Bikini
- Novaya Zemlya
- Chelyabinsk 40
- Lop Nor
- Maralinga
- Desert Rock
- Mururoa
- Gene Cesspool Mutations
- Experiments with Humans
- Beyond Alamogordo
Surprised by the stunning success of Clouded By The Mind's Eye, I quickly took to the studio once again to try and capitalize on my ingenious and highly original recording concepts. Alamogordo was supposed to be a more refined and cerebral version of CBTME, dealing solely with the plight of atomic weapons testing victims. It has some interesting moments, but overall it is a pretty lame effort. I quickly became bored with the whole project and it shows. It was fun creating the artwork for the CD release however, and I probably spent more time on that than in making the actual recording. I took some copies to Alamogordo, NM on my way to Roswell in 1996, but I couldn't get any of the stores there to carry it. I got the impression they thought it was in poor taste which I guess it was.
JOE THE BAT
RR-028 1999
- Plutonium
- The Dead Man
- Joe the Bat
- Nosebleed
- Without You
- Brave New World
- Spanish Flies
- This is Your Mind on Prozac
- The Polynesian Palace
- Mister Jonesin'
- Al di la
- Bilbo Baggins
- Jigging the Wicks
- ~
HIDEOUS
RR-045 2009
- Spiders
- Voodoo Dead
- Completely Blind
- High
- Little Sweet Pea
- Magic Pills
- My Favourite Guy
- Psychotic Variations
- Sunny Day
- Dinglebert Eggydink
- Tinnitus
ZYKLON BISTRO 666
RR-046 2015
- Gifts
- Squash the Little Bug
- Unoriginal Sin
- Body Snatcher
- Reflection
- Far Away
- Ouch My Foot Hurts
- Junkie
- V-Lo
- Zeldor
- Forget
- Brilliant Future
Work on Zyklon Bistro 666 started in the fall of 2009 and was completed in the early Spring of 2015. The title of the CD is a morphing of Zyklon B, a pesticide developed in Germany, with Beast 666, infamous practicioner of the Black Arts, Aleister Crowley. Most of the songs were written on the Ukulele. Not having a clue how to play it, I just putzed around with different fingerings until something resembling music came out.
A number of the songs on this disc were performed live, and you can view these and other fascinating videos at:
The mysterious Polish nun wearing
a cornette, Montepulich prison, 1939.
a cornette, Montepulich prison, 1939.