Black Bean & Placenta Tape Club - C/D, S/D, and all that...

THE PERSONS. Oh, they rock my world something fierce.

I'm biased since through Jake Anderson of Celesteville/Gang Wizard fame I've met Mike Landucci a few times. Very friendly and impassioned at the same time (if he doesn't like something, he's not violent about it, but he's very clear about his feelings!), while his wife is most friendly and his kids are treasures. Jake still loves the story when a small Landucci dubbed a sleeping-on-the-couch Mike L. "Snorlax" after said Pokemon character.

I can't claim to have heard the vast majority of BBPTC's stuff -- there's just too much of it out there! But I've got a slew of releases, many reviewed in ye olde AMG, and I have to say that Mike's generally got a very good ear for fine stuff, and always exhibits enthusiasm for finding more to do and to listen to. And the Gang Wizard is of course the world's best Dead C tribute. :-)

I should clarify a bit -- Mike L. founded and runs the label, hurrah!

Classic! There must be somewhere around 1000 bbptc releases and probably only about 5% of them are truly great, but that's more than enough to get classic status. Mike's got the noisy side of indiepop covered and best of all, most of what he sells costs far less than you're average cd (so what if the packaging consists of a photocopied piece of construction paper folded in half). Some things I bought recently that are on bbptc include a Steward re-mix album, the Cannanes/Steward/Explosion Robinson collabo, the first Persons album and the first Figurine album and they're all excellent. Sometimes I order bbptc releases just because I never know what to expect, and although there are quite a few that I find unlistenable, when the good ones find their way into my stereo by surprise (for example, the Eric Metronome album), that moment of discovery is the best thing ever.

You can't really go wrong with Blackbean. Even if you don't like the record, you've probably spent so little money on it, it doesn't even matter. But Mike has released so much good stuff, eg: Figurine album and single
Girlboy Girl album and e.p.
Earth To Nigel 7"
Mondo Crescendo (it's all good)
Mahogany - what will become of the key of reason 12" (absolute classic, and BB put it out before Claire)
Landis 12"
Cannanes/Timonium 12" (classic)
Shermans 7"
Skywriters 7"
Wee Turtles 7"
Lenola 12" and most of the compilations have a couple of excellent tracks on them...

God. I really wish that said "your" instead of "you're" (and anything else I might have screwed up be corrected as well). Why is it that all sense of grammar and spelling goes out the window when I try to type something into a text box?

To half-way justify this post, although decidedly not pop, I like the Acceleradeck stuff on bbptc too.

the only bbptc record i own is a Blowball 12" (a flowchart spinoff i think). i love the supercheap packaging (the sleeve is a photocopied sheet of a4 stuck to a paul bowman record sleeve.

what is the acceleradeck stuff like? i have (and really like) the album on endorphin but chris's stuff is quite different record to record isn't it?

I love bbptc. Yeah there is some truly unlistenable stuff but there is a lot of very good stuff. And as people mentioned, the prices are low. bbptc is kind of liek an anti-siesta/poptones/el records in that the pacakging/design is minimal or at least of minimal importance. Once and a while though there is a surprise and an item is very nicely designed. But I think his idea is to just get stuff out there, and be damned with wasting time on non-musical details. Anyway, I love how he releases so much stuff. It's mostly pop/indiepop/low-fi oriented but there are excursions into noise like merzbow, drone, space rock, etc. Here is a list of some of the better releases, I just cut and paste from the discography or catalog page on the on the bbptc website (http://freenoise.org/BBPTC/), not all of this stuff is still available probably (sticking mostly to full lengths):
Acme 62-Aikagi "Waterproof Leaf" CD - Japanese twee stuff
Acme 57-Figurine CD new new new wave or whatever, great releases, their recent on March was one of the best of 2001
Acme 45: Girlboy Girl "Veritablement Pop" 12" - kind of indie like the wedding present
ACME 4: Mahogany "What Will Become of the Key of Reason? BBPTC90" 12" - space rock band
BBPTC 20: Boyracer "Racer 100" 12"
BBPTC 22: Beanpole 5-song 12" - twee indiepop from member of rocketship/holiday flyer
BBPTC 24: Orange Cake Mix "Grapefruit" CD - ambient dreamy home recordings
BBPTC 32: Comp #4 12" "BBPTC's Coffee Shop" w/Yak Brigade, Beanpole, Babyland, Seashell Sea, Cruise Control Pills, Overpass, Azusa Plane, $2 Guitar
BBPTC 101: Metronome "Invisible Friends" CD - home recorded low fi indiepop
BBPTC 99: Watoo Watoo "Un Peu de Moi" CD - french tweepop
bbptc 83 six cents and natalie "show me the honey" cd - bedroom pop from Tullycraft singer
bbptc 154 rabbit in red cd - mod flavored indiepop
bbptc 135 Girlboy Girl "Fresco" CD
BBPTC 184 eric Metronome-The Two-Eared Man CD - more great bedroom pop
bbptc 160 aBLe "lost love songs" cd - swedish? band similar to teenage fanclub
ACME 92-The Mondo Crescendo-"Get Faded" CD - mod rock
BBPTC 128-Color Filter-Cosmic Voyage CD - first color filter release, homemade elctronica pop
BBPTC 191-Steward 'I Was the Only Boy on the Netball Team' CD -- and the other Steward CDs
BBPTC 173-Persons 'The Lainmeyers are Persons' CD - and the new one too - kind of like a cross between the talking heads and pere ubu, spastic and fun
BBPTC 180-Watoo Watoo-Curiosites? CD
BBPTC 176-Jarond CD - member of majestic, dreamy pop
BBPTC 186-Alma CDep - swedish girl pop
BBPTC 201-Partnerships-Double Love Suicide CD - ala petshop boys
BBPTC 195-Six Cents and Natalie-When Punk Fell to Earth CD - more bedroom pop stuff
BBPTC 204-The Snow Fairies CDep - great indiepop influenced by heavenly, the cure, etc.

There's a lot of other good stuff as well, tons of stuff I haven't heard. In general, I think the quality of the label continues to improve and release more and more good stuff.

I like the Wio stuff they released.
Stay clear from the Hiatus 7" they released. Its dogshit.

There's a track by The Resonars on one of the recent comps that gives me a complete woody... "Crescent Ridge" or something...

In addition to the fine releases above, here are some more recommended BBPTC items:

* Anything Cannanes-related; there are some real Cannanes sleepers on BBPTC (e.g. the live _Crank It Up!_, which shows Stephen O'Neil to be a total guitar hero, and the split 12" with Timonium, beautiful melancholy) * Flywheel _Wrong Way 'Round The Buffet_, cool Cannanes-related and totally underappreciated guitar-rock that makes me want to work on my car and jump around a lot * Partnerships _Double Love Suicide_: smooth and sultry dancefloor stuff that only occasionally sounds like Sade, very swoony; not the sort of thing I'd expect to like at all but wow! * the 12"s by Larz and Mote (both of which are apparently out of print but both amazing, same with Wio's stuff while we're on the Benelux topic) * Rose 4 Bohdan (increasingly powerful and intense home-recorded electronica-meets-riot-nrrrd action) * and of course anything by Gang Wizard, Celesteville, Yak Brigade, Minmae, etc. etc, though of course full-disclosure rules apply

I'm not sure if the Able CD sounds like Teenage Fanclub (at first I thought Able sounded like the Eagles) but they are Swedish and they play AM country and, on this CD at least, their songwriting is as sharp as a tack. Good stuff!

I like the Wio stuff they released.
I have one of his albums on Kraak. He's from my parts and yeah he *rocks*

well that suxers: www.kraak.net

Girlboy Girl....

We should be hearing something new soon, with the new line up. They lost their drummer (erm, me actually) & now have Matty Boyracer as a replacement.

I sent them my tape, but they never replied :(

But, Transistor Six is quite cool!

I got some CDs in the dollar bin a while back based on them being BBPTC releases; the CDs by Larz & Whip. Both are pretty neat, though Whip is quite unoriginal, the songs aren't really /bad/ either.

I've also got a nice droney Azusa Plane 7" from them, and probably a handful of other things too, but I'm not sure.

i probably have about 50 or 60 BBPTC things now, thanks to mike's frequent sales. bang up fellow.

it was always fun to argue with mike on the indiepop list, and i treasure my mahogany 12" with the construction paper sleeve.

hmm i wonder what i did with my copy of that

cut it up with safety scissors and glued it to another piece of construction paper?

I'm looking for a copy of Blackbean & Placenta's 1998 holiday compilation LP. If anyone has a copy of this, I'd love to work out some kind of deal to borrow it to digitize the tracks on it and return it, along with reasonably cash compensation and a mess of digitized CD versions of it. Happy to work out any deal that makes the owner of this feel comfortable loaning out this rarity. Please respond to me at: stomlin@ewomba.com

BTW, I've emailed Mike and he's okay with this, though surprisingly he doesn't have a copy himself.

Cheers,

Steve Tomlin
stomlin@ewomba.com

do you remember what bands are on it? i have all sorts of miscellaneous blackbean vinyl so i may well have it.

"persons attack the scene" is a bloody awesome record by the way. as is the jackass EP