Wednesday, March 25, 2009

MORT:004 V/A - Where's Your Beard? - C-48 comp. 1999



My first attempts at doing label work were dubbing and distributing copies of Captain Three Leg demos. A couple of years later I decided to branch out and release compilation tapes with unreleased songs from bands I was in regular contact with. My second compilation tape sold over 400 copies and it was because of it's success that I made the leap to releasing my first record and officially give what I was doing a name - Mortville.

Returning to a format I was familiar with, I released my third and final compilation tape. At this point I couldn't dub tapes at home anymore. It took up too much time and I couldn't keep up with orders. I sent these out for duplication then assembled them at home once I got the bulk cassettes back from the plant.

The booklets I made for these tapes were always labor intensive. Most of the bands didn't send any artwork in with their masters, so I had to piece together artwork for a lot of the bands on this tape (and for the other 2 comps I did). Trying to figure out how all of it would fit on a page, then fighting with the copier at work in an attempt to get them to copy front and back without being so far off that bands images would get chopped off in the cutting process. Designing, copying, cutting, stapling, folding... it was a lot of work, but I hated tape comps that didn't come with any artwork, or even worse, ones that did come with booklets, but the booklets were so big that they had to be stored seperately from the tapes. I never understood why people people didn't just make booklets that fit INSIDE of the cassette case like I did. Seems like a "no-brainer" to me.
I ordered 300 copies of this tape and ended up with 305 from the factory. There were 4 different cover variations , all 4 included in the zipped file. The bearded baby picture was drawn by my friend Cole, but sadly, it doesn't look so great after being scanned. All 305 copies sold out in just over a year. I had planned on re-releasing this on CD along with the "... Attacked by Bees" C-35 comp., but I doubt it will ever happen. With the exception of the Senor Lululalo track (from their demo, less than 30 made), all of these were unreleased at the time.

Bad Acid Trip
Wadge
Captain Three Leg
Gore Beyond Necropsy
Pyuria
Parade of the Lifeless
Hated Principles
Machetazo
Grossmember
N.O.Y.F.B.
Violent Headache
Noisear
Pantalones Abajo Marinero
Krabathor
Autoritar
Humanextermination Project
Blood Suckers
Pissed Cunt
Drunken Orgy of Destruction
Carrion Crawler
Senor Lululalo
Ruido

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

please use a bigger font

gamma693 said...

Are your eyes seriously that bad that you can't read the font?

Font size stays the same. Sorry.

mark p. said...

I never got the chance to hear any of these tape comps, so cheers for this! That Violent Headache track is an absolute rager.

Anonymous said...

thanks for the effort mate!

Stiles said...

i play this in my van everyday whilst i deliver bread in the early hours around central london. i hope to wake cunts up i play it so loud. the wadge track gets repeated so many times.

i swear i'll put a big order in soon its just im always flat broke.

thanks so much!

Anonymous said...

this was the first thing i ever bought from you, way back in summer of 2000/2001 maybe.....met you in a yahoo chat room of all places .....fuckin' wow.... i still listen to this tape, but i did have to do some minor surgery due to a cheap tape deck eating it....

thanks for the memories, what little i have left