Famous Actors From Out Of Town - FA3574 vinyl lp (due to size and weight, this price for the USA only. Outside of the USA, the price will be adjusted as needed)
SKU
ECR 52
Paul Watson : guitar, bass, trumpet
Marty McCavitt : keyboards
Pippin Barnett : drums
Johnny Hot : drums
VINYL ONLY RELEASE!
When I heard this demo cassette in the mid 80s, I desperately wanted to issue this band on Cuneiform and tried to entice these very unmotivated Richmond boys, but no dice! Anyway, this is a teriffic album and the group’s only recording, and sounds like no one else. It has some great tunes and features amazing dual drum parts, and I am glad that it has a chance to reach a new audience. Hugely recommended.
“Formed in Richmond, Virginia in the mid-1980s, Famous Actors From Out of Town created ambitiously composed instrumental music rooted in the city’s fertile underground scene. Built around the uncommon power of two drummers working intricately in tandem, the quartet blended jazz, rock, improvisation, and experimental music into a sound that was both cerebral and physical.
All four members were veterans of Richmond’s jazz, rock, and new-music communities. Their creative pedigree extended well beyond the city, with members later contributing to influential projects including Sparklehorse, Cracker, Curlew, and Gutterball.
Produced by the band alongside engineer Bruce Olsen, this, the band’s only recording featured ten original instrumentals—mostly composed by McCavitt, with contributions from all members—and captured the group’s kinetic chemistry and distinctly off-kilter blend of late-’70s/early-’80s art rock, jazz, noise, and improvisation. Forty years later, the recording remains strikingly vibrant.
Much of the band’s sound came from its unconventional instrumentation. Watson played pocket trumpet, short-scale bass, and occasionally prepared electric guitar. Barnett built and performed on homemade percussion, while Hott famously struck “found” objects—50-gallon oil drums flywheels, tin sheets—sometimes using sawed-off broom handles as drumsticks. McCavitt conceived the dual-percussion approach to create “a richness that was unusual,” allowing two improvising drummers to split parts and create space through simplicity. This philosophy of “less becomes more” shaped the band’s primitive yet deeply textured musical language.
The band’s name was a tongue-in-cheek response to Richmond’s growing role as a low-cost film location in the early 1980s. As Hollywood productions arrived, McCavitt noted the irony that the “famous actors” were always from out of town...”
- LabelElectric Cowbell
- UPC717931458915