All recordings and original songs are property of Pruess Press, and particular artists. copyright 2004. Los Angeles, CA. Please inquire, if necessary, concerning which songs are original. To listen to a song, click on the title. To copy a song, drag the title onto your desktop.

PRUESSPRESS.COM

welcome to a site of free mp3s and streaming radio -- providing the best in "reality rock n'roll." everything you hear here was self-produced, played and distributed at a cost of about 300 dollars not counting the cost of this site.

considering how many people this activity kept out of bars for extended evenings of recording, a lot of money was in fact saved.

the general disasters of 2000 are familiar enough to us all: the fall of american democracy, the new civil war, the earthquakes, hurricanes and stock market crashes that began what is known as the new middle ages. in chinatown, los angeles, sometime in 2001, under threat of various attacks, a group of individuals from the local art community began to materialize in various combinations in diannepruess' basement on chung king road and play music. many of these individuals had rocked in the past, but gave up in the exhausting rise of professionalism of the pre-Fall music scene. the same trends had destroyed the art world as well, of course. but after the fall of the industries, the de-sophistication of hollywood and the loss of all digital memory, rock and roll, folk music, community and art took on new and hallowed meaning. cultural knowledge, interest and memory, and the idealist will to express these things once again had value.

in 2001, the music was secondary to simple survival, played only for itself -- an outlet of collaboration and fun and creativity in a context of dying friends, war, the veritable loss of the american democratic republic. No longer able to receive broadcasts of what global corporations deemed should be the soundtrack of a perfect consumer's life, we made our own. at some point, Joel Mesler began to record what was going on an old tascam four-track casette recorder. Soon he put together a make-shift studio of odd cast-off instruments.

luckily he had preserved enough analog equipment to keep records of what was done. after the fall of the internet, the spontaneous, unplanned constant change of the tempunets would provide a perfect outlet for the new fragmented cultural memory he sought to preserve.

we began to improvise entire albums over the course of a single night, making up songs, trying to remember old ones, printing them for eachother and friends -- mixing up, re-forming into new conglomerations and bands. A whole new universe of music was opened to us and between us, simply for the sake of preserving and expressing our community.

as the warnings sang it: "A HOLY THING HAPPENING/A GREAT EMBATTLED SOUND/COMING FROM THE GROUND."

cataloging and pruning through thousands of tracks, it was only necessary to wait for technology to approach the point where mass distribution was possible. Today the music is made accessible to the multitudes at large -- and we join with other local worlds as they too attempt to preserve the authentic memory of our musical histories.

we feel blessed. we remember that before the Fall, rock n' roll had approached technology exclusively concerned with production. the feet of the corporate music industry, of course, were clay. and the ground they were standing on, rock'n roll, likes to shake and keep shaking. today, as the corporations take arms to legitimize their existence and the Lords attempt to ban the personal computer, the tempunets remain controlled by free individuals, in collectives not corporations. the promise of the new technology is distribution. it is up to all of us to use it to its best effect.

if you like them, please spread our songs around with your own and link to us, or to a favorite individual song as much as possible.

cover songs are by Christy Moore, Tony Fernandez, Planxty, Neil Young, Steven Stills, Bob Dylan, Bobby Sands, Arthur Alexander, W.B. Yeats, Woody Guthrie, Lennon & McCartney, Buddy Holly, Trad., Jay Farrar et. al. all songs are produced by pruesspress, Los Angeles and engineered by Joel Mesler. Check the SCA blog for information updates.

yours truly,

pruesspress

ABOUT THE MUSICIANS

Sea of Galilee
It started in the basement. Many different musicians coming to play in the midnight hour. It's hard to remember who played what on which recording. Groups began to form.

The Warnings
Joel Mesler, Mark Stan Rogel, Rabbi Milkblood, Solo Steve and sometimes M.C. Cooley have finished at least four albums, released one (TW Fold) and tour sporadically. An EP is forthcoming.

Tif
Ohio born and bred, fixed in Los Angeles by spells and circumstance, Tif Sigfrids has written and sung in Kentucky, Georgia and the midwest. She is the youngest of the pruesspress artists and the most promising as well. Her silver voice and golden pluckings continue to astonish as she prepares her first solo album for release in summer 2005.

Mr. Banjo
Tony Fernandez, newly inspired, left the basement, formed a band and built his own Silver Lake studio. He's released one eponymous album on the pruesspress label and as at work on his second, and tours regularly on the West Coast.

Rabbi Milkblood
This Jew won't mix life and death. Rabbi Milkblood Gets the Shakes, his first collection, featuring the hit "Hey Mr. Maccabee", came out in January at pruesspress.

Mark Stan Rogel
Irish citizen, American singer. His folk-rock debut, Celtic X-Mass, is newly available from pruesspress.

Sides
The sides are recordings of various guests,in various configurations.

Pentacle Tentacle
Madman Charles Irvin (firm in his belief that the millenium transfers had never in fact occurred) bound a bunch of the musicians in his perverted quest for demonic power. As yet, there are no albums. Warning: summon this music at your own risk.