WombatNation

As I was downloading the songs from the Illegal Art exhibit website that I mentioned in my last post, I was happy to see that Culturcide's They Aren't the World was one of the songs. I've got a lot of connections to that band through friends, the record store I worked at, and the Rice University radio station, KTRU, at which I used to be a DJ and the general manager.

Immediately, I dug up my copy of the "Tacky Souvenirs of Pre-Revolutionary America" album. I think it came out in late 1986 or early 1987. The front album cover has a photo taken not too far from where I used to live in the Montrose district while attending Rice. Even better though, the back of the album is a picture of the record store (Sound Warehouse) where some of the band members used to work and where I worked for nearly two years while in school. The woman in the front was my co-worker Tracey and the three guys in the middle browsing for records are Culturcide. Despite being part of a chain, it was a really great record store at that time. The employees all knew a lot about music and we carried a lot of alternative records and tapes.

Now this is definitely a case where you want to have the actual album, instead of just downloaded MP3s. The Side 1 label has the quote "It doesn't take any talent to do that" - Fan at Strake Jesuit College Preparatory, 3/1/5/86, and the Side 2 label has the quote "They completely ruined that song!" - Fans at New Music America, 4/13/86. The lyrics sheet on the inside says, "Home-taping is killing the record industry... so keep doing it. Let this record be the master for your cassette edition."

"Tacky Souvenirs" consists of songs that Culturcide recorded over with amusing, caustic lyrics. Despite their relative obscurity and the lack of an address or their names on the album, the lawyers tracked them down quickly. Unfortunately, the legal settlements pretty much bankrupted them. Of course, that didn't take much, as these guys weren't making a lot of money anyway.

For more info on Culturcide, check out this article published by the Houston Press about Culturcide's comeback in 1998. I'm quite amused to learn that I own a "collector's item". The article says the new version of Culturcide includes Scott Ayers, who I knew as the guitarist for the Pain Teens as well as Bliss Blood's husband, and Ralf Armin, who was one of the assistant managers at the Sound Warehouse and who was in the graduate school of music at Rice. At least I think this is the same Ralf.