Sunday, December 27, 2009

TOWERS DISCOGRAPHY

Chronologically.....

11/13/04 Demo CDR.















100 Copies. Spray painted CDRS. Cover artwork by Jutin Duerr. Out of print.


















100 Copies. Spraypainted 3" CDRS with cloth sleeve and cardboard insert. There are three or four different fabric covers. All sleeves included a 1" pin. Out of print.

On this recording: Brett Green, Matt Gibbs, John Lertch, Ben Schorr and Craig Woods. These are the 2 official versions of the demo. There are innumerable versions we made on demand for shows. The unofficial versions have varrying covers. All in all, we probably burned around 500 CDRs.
Recorded by Joe Reinhart in his parents' basement in Yardley, PA in November of 2004 on a laptop. Tracklisting:
1. Mutagen/Stoner's Pot Palace
2. The Cosmic Ballet Goes On
3. Khaaaaaan
4. The Queen of Space Cows
5. Soon to be a Major Religion
Please e-mail toweringsound@gmail.com if you have picture of other versions.

S/T 7"
400 Copies. About 300 on black and 100 on white. A few were pressed on green and a green/white mix. One copy came on black and white marble wax for some reason. All numbered out of 400. Covers were designed and screen printed by Christopher Smith. The first release of Towering Sound (TS-001). Out of print.

50 test press versions. Hand assembled covers on construction paper of varying colors with photocopied inserts. All numbered out of 50. Mostly sold at one show in Raleigh, NC and through mailorder. Out of print.

On this recording: Brett Green, Matt Gibbs, John Lertch, Ben Schorr and Craig Woods. Recored by Steve Roche at Permanent Hearing Damage in West Philadelphia in April 2005. Pressed at Musicol. Tracklisting:
1. Hyptnotoad
2. Rat Stuffed With Spam
3. Smoker's Oasis

D'AMORE SPLIT 7"
500 copies. 100 on pink and 100 on clear vinyl. Roughly half the pressing came in sewn sleeves with a screen printed cover (bottom right). There are a handful of different fabrics. About half of the pressing came with paper covers with the same screen print. Most copies included a booklet. 10 test pressings (bottom left). Split release between Be Happy, Delian League, and SARS. Out of print.

10 test pressings. Each cover contains a different hand drawn image of a photograph. Drawings were done by Peter Helmis on brown craft paper. All copies were given to friends with close ties to the record.

On this recording: Brett Green, Matt Gibbs, John Lertch, Ben Schorr and Craig Woods. Recored by Steve Roche at Permanent Hearing Damage in West Philadelphia in April 2005. Pressed at Musicol. Tracklisting:
1. A Bed in a Robot's Closet
2. Still the Queen of Space Cows
3. Orange Iguanas

TAKE DOWN YOUR ART SPLIT CASSETTE/9"/10"
Cassette version. 120 pro dubbed and printed tapes. Mostly sold on first Towers tour in summer of 2005. Released by Engine for a Revolution, Somberlain, and Waving Wheat. Out of print.

10" version. 100 finished copies mostly sold on a Towers tour in 2006. Red vinyl, screen printed covers, and photocopied inserts. Supposedly, 400 coverless copies of this record have been sitting in Benn Roe's (of Take Down Your Art) room for almost three years.

20 to 25 tour edition copies. Sold on Towers tour of the Midwest in the Spring of 2009. Opaque orange vinyl housed in an LP sleeve with handmade artwork by John Lertch. Photo above by Andrew Damaske.

As of early 2010, the official version of the Towers/Take Down Your Art split 10" is officially available for sale. Less than 300 copies on opaque orange vinyl with photocopied inserts and covers. Available here.

Test press on 10". 5 to 10 copies?

This record was a complete and utter disaster. Nearly four years later and this thing has still not been officially released. This was intended to be a 9" release but almost all of the records were warped. There are a few copies of this record on 9" floating around and I will try to get a picture of one to post.
All of the 9"es were sent back and then Erika Records informed us that their 9" machine was broken. All the labels involved settled for a 10" version with an inch of blank space (as seen in the test press photo). The 10"es were delivered to Benn Roe (Engine For A Revolution/Take Down Your Art) and Towers took about 50 copies on tour. Some were sold via mailorder by Benn Roe and who the fuck knows where the rest of the copies are....I have heard they are in his room.

On this recording: Brett Green, Matt Gibbs, John Lertch, Ben Schorr and Craig Woods. Recored by Steve Roche at Permanent Hearing Damage in West Philadelphia in April 2005. Pressed at Erika. Tracklisting:
1. The Exploding Circus
2. Timeclock Therapy
3. Training to be a Cagefighter
4. Jupiter Jazz
5. Words From the Doctor

US FUNK TEAM SPLIT 7"
600 total copies pressed. 500 on black and 100 on a green/white mix. A few hundred had the awful screen printed covers pictured above. Very few of those contained the photocopied booklet also pictured above. Covers designed and printed by Jeremy Gecker. A few of these are still available here.

These covers were specifically made the Towers European tour in 2007. There were 100 copies. All contained a small photocopied insert. Artwork by John Lertch. Sold out.


About 50 or copies have this spray painted cover with an unreadable information sheet pasted on the backside. Temporarily sold out?


66 test presses. Sold exclusively on a Towers tour of the east coast in Spring of 2006. "Circle Y" drawing by Peter Helmis. Designed and printed by Ben Schorr. Sold out.

To this day, there is no official cover for this record. The screen printed "ferris wheel" covers shown above were intended to be the uniform cover but they were never finished. Then the Funk Team broke up, and perhaps parties involved just lost interest. There is a still a remaining box of these records left. Covers will be made once there is a demand for said records. In the mean time, one can purchase a copy here.
On this recording: Greg Fowler, Brett Green, John Lertch, Ben Schorr, and Craig Woods. Recorded by Steve Roche at Permanent Hearing Damage in West Philadelphia in March 2006. This session is our first with Greg. The sample on the record is a police officer stopping a Towers show in New Jersey sometime in late 2005/early 2006.
Tracklisting:
1. Song of the Dead pts. I & II

THEY AND THE CHILDREN SPLIT 7"
1200 pressed? Intended to be a press of 600 but the originals were pressed with errors. The incorrect records included a Towers song and a They and the Children song on one side while the opposite side contained one Towers song. Pirates Press fixed this problem by pressing 500 or 600 correct records for free. A bunch of the error-press records were sold on tour in Europe. Pressed on numerous unnecessary and ridiculous color variations. Released by Shock Value Records and is still available from various distributors. Try here.

On this recording: Greg Fowler, Brett Green, John Lertch, Ben Schorr, and Craig Woods. Recorded by Steve Roche at Permanent Hearing Damage in West Philadelphia in March 2006. This session is our first with Greg. Tracklisting:
1. Man on Rocking Horse
2. Man With Balloon

THE EXELAR SPLIT 12"
600 pressed? Clear vinyl, with thick clear sleeves, with a clear sticker.
"Early Demonstrations" This record contains the Towers demo as well The Exelar demo remixed and remastered by Jamal Ruhe. When remixing the demo, it was discovered that the original demo CDRs were somehow printed at the wrong sample rate. In other words, all 500 of the Towers demo CDRs contained music that was slowed down. The Towers recording on this record was corrected and sounds infinitely better. It's was like listening to a 45 rpm record at 33 rpm but not quite so drastic. Tracklisting for both the Towers and Exelar demos are different on this record. They are all mixed up as if both bands demos were on shuffle. Released by Shock Value records and it still available from various distributors. Try here.

EMO APOCALYPSE COMPILATION 12"
This compilation, released by React With Protest from Germany, features 42 bands crammed onto one side of a 12". Each band plays a song of about 30 seconds. Intended to be a one sided screen printed record but the idea was ditched and the record became a one sided picture disc. 1070 copies. Out of print but can be downloaded from various blogs.

On this recording: Greg Fowler, Brett Green, John Lertch, Ben Schorr, and Craig Woods. Recorded by Steve Roche at Permanent Hearing Damage in West Philadelphia in March 2006. This session is the first with Greg. The Towers song is called "Lend me a good song title, I'm writing a bad one."

s/t LP
700 pressed. 600 on green vinyl and 100 on white. All the covers were screen printed by Christopher Smith. 200 copies came with "recycled" covers. These covers were older record albums turned inside out and then printed on. 100 of these contained the white vinyl copies (pictured above on the right) and were only sold on the Towers European tour of March 2007. The other 100 "recycled" covers were sold through mailorder by the Electric Human Project. This was a split release between Electric Human Project, React With Protest, and Turnstile. Turnstile alone handled the CD release and some time later, Protagonist released this as a cassette in an edition of 200. The CD version of this album may still be available.

On this recording: Greg Fowler, Brett Green, John Lertch, Ben Schorr, and Craig Woods. Recorded by Steve Roche at Permanent Hearing Damage in West Philadelphia in early 2007. Tracklisting:
1. Arkansas
2. I'm Just So Tired Of All These Star Wars
3. He Lied and Called it Art
4. Nude Plastic Jesus
5. Mutagen
6. Song Of the Dead
7. Moleculeman Blues
8. Stop Talking
9. The Last Hundred Miles
10. Cat In the Furnace
11. Is This a God Damn

Full Circle LP/CD
500 copies pressed. 100 on orange vinyl and 400 on black. The vinyl was a split release between Init Records and Towering Sound. CD version released solely by Init Records. Orange vinyl is now sold out but black copies are available here as well as here. The second link has CD copies for sale as well.

On this recording: Greg Fowler, John Lertch, Ben Schorr, and Craig Woods. Recorded by Steve Roche at Permanent Hearing Damage in Port Richmound in early 2009. Tracklisting:
1. Let Them Eat Cake
2. 235 Ways To Suck Seed
3. Swells
4. Con
5. We Fake Smiles
6. Beta
7. Awful Grey
8. Hope

75:24 Compilation CS
500 copies professionally pressed and printed at National Audio Company. Includes full color booklet and comes housed in a soft poly case. Features a plethora of bands from Philadelphia and bands/artists with close ties to Philadelphia. Released by Tickle Butt/Soft City Records. This is now sold out from the labels but available from Towers at live performances.

On this recording: Greg Fowler, John Lertch, Ben Schorr, and Craig Woods. Recorded on the outskirts of San Diego by someone named Andy during the Summer tour of 2007. The first Towers recording as a four piece. The Towers song is called "Priest With Laser Eyes."

TOWERS/AMFDM - COLLABORATIVE DISCHARGE NO. 1 CS
Edition of 50. Professionally printed clear cassettes with full color covers. Live collaboration between Towers and AMFDM. The first in a series on collaborative projects. Available for sale here.

On this recording: Greg Fowler, John Lertch, Armando Morales, E. Colin Ruggero, Ben Schorr, Carlos Walkup, and Craig Woods. Recorded with one microphone live to a four track machine in February of 2010 at the Trinity House. Tracklisting:
Side A: Untitled
Side B: Untitled


that's all for now...








(soon)