IF YOU'VE COME HERE BECAUSE YOU ARE SOME KIND OF DISCOGS PARASITE, FUCK OFF. DO NOT UPLOAD MY CREATIONS ANYWHERE. DO NOT COPY, SHARE, UPLOAD OR MENTION ANY OF MY CREATIONS ANYWHERE, FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER. THIS INCLUDES TAPES, CDRs, VINYL, TAPE COVERS, CDR COVERS, VINYL SLEEVES, ZINES, PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS, COLLAGES, AND/OR PHOTOGRAPHS AND/OR IMAGES OF ME AND/OR MY CREATIONS. EVERYTHING I EVER MADE IS ©MICHAEL J BOWMAN - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
The obsessive-compulsive need to record rock songs, arises from the anxiety the individual feels when he realizes he is not a member of The Beatles. This anxiety can only be alleviated by recording rock songs, publishing them, sending them to others, and reading what the others have said about them.
Between 1984 and 2009, Michael J. Bowman created over 10 hours of experimental rock recordings. These recordings were hand copied onto cassettes, and later cdrs, and shared with Michael's friends, other cassette artists, zinesters, and independent radio DJs.
"My father played jazz piano… he didn't read sheet music, he would just sit down and play. As a child, thats how I thought all music was made. People just "played it", the way one walks or talks. If I listened to my sister's Beatles record, I assumed they just grabbed the instruments and played, and out came "Hey Jude". It didn't occur to me that someone had to write it, show it to the others so they could learn it, then play it a hundred times to get it right, then edit it with a hundred overdubs in something called a recording studio, to make the sound I was hearing on the Beatles LP. Imagine my dismay when I learnt it was all fakery. Trickery. From the sentiment of the lyrics, to the names of the so-called musicians, why, the very notes themselves were a fraud… It had been CONSTRUCTED. Like a car. In a factory. A factory of sound. I was hooked. I was determined to learn this craft, and foist my trickery upon the world."
Michael J. Bowman always experimented with recording onto primitive cassette machines, but never shared these results. It was in 1984 that he borrowed a 4-track cassette machine and made his first proper multi-track "song". Again these early recordings were never properly released. In 1989 Michael was fortunate enough to be involved in Paul Rose's basement "Gutter Gardens" studio and there made a complete album on 4-track, which is Michael's first proper cassette release. Michael's recordings were copied by hand onto cassettes, and later CDrs, to his friends and to those active in the cassette underground of the early 1990s. In 2006 Michael pressed up a 7" vinyl record, and later put his music briefly on iTunes, MySpace, MP3.com, and YouTube. Except for a handful of collaborative works, the majority of what exists is Michael's solo work. Michael worked in primitive, ad-hoc "studios", either squatting in band rehearsal rooms or in his basement, or the corner of his flat. With a rudimentary rock drum kit, some second-hand cheap guitars, a low-budget casio keyboard, a couple low grade shure microphones, and consumer level 4-track recording gear. The project names "MJB-90", "MJB", "Cloud", "Magik Plastique" and "Velveeta Heartbreak", along with label names like "Black Tulip", "Bowman" and Semper Lofi Recordings, all appear on Michael's solo work. These were not proper bands or record labels, this was a one-man-band diy project. The music Michael attempted to make veers from simple acoustic guitar folk songs to indie-rock, twee-pop, experimental psych-rock and noise/collage.
In 2006, it was evident that a body of work published on homemade cassettes in limited quantities during the 1990s was not going to stand the test of time (until shit-heads like Karsten Rodemann and Joshua C. Davis uploaded, WITHOUT MY CONSENT, some of my tapes to Discogs, where they are trapped in a corporate shit hole forever. FUCK YOU Karsten, you bloody little piece of shit). A body of such work also suffers under the project name "MJB-90" due to the immense popularity of another similarly named, but completely different, music brand. Therefor, in 2006, it was decided that the entire "MJB-90" music tapes be re-published under a new name, and in new mediums, such as vinyl, CDR and MP3.
In searching the internet for a new name, there appeared a music artist calling himself "The Velvet Heartbreak". The immediate reaction was, "wow, that's the cheesiest band name ever!" ... "no, wait a minute... The VELVEETA Heartbreak, THAT IS the cheesiest band name (ha ha ha)" etc...
VELVEETA =
1.Bright orange (color of art school Michael attended)
2.Fake cheese
3.20th Century, laboratory-made, the new natural
4.Comes in a special foil and cardboard package
5.consumable, disposable, ephemeral
6.perfect for creating the high-satisfaction, low-quality junk food you crave
HEARTBREAK =
1.disappointment, betrayal, loss, despair
2.a disease people get from eating too much junk food
And so, in 2006, the track "I Shot The Invisible Man" was pressed onto 7" vinyl and Velveeta Heartbreak entered the world. The track had been recorded ten years earlier, and was chosen from hundreds of Michael's old recordings because of its title. An invisible man can't be "shot", he doesn't show up on film. So we captured him on vinyl. "MJB-90" was the "invisible man". He was shot, killed off, and replaced with Velveeta Heartbreak.
It also helps, in this era of google text searches and instagram hashtags, to have a unique name. It may also be true that people who like home-made psych-rock probably like to eat macaroni and cheese after they realize the person they are in love with doesn't love them back.
Because Michael makes drawings, paintings, zines and recordings, it was decided in 2006 that ALL creative output would now be marketed under the "Velveeta Heartbreak" brand name, and published, exhibited and sold by "Gallerymjb". To date, Gallerymjb has existed only as private art spaces and virtual storefronts and blogs.
DO NOT UPLOAD MY STUFF ANYWHERE, IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. DO NOT ADD TITLES TO THE DISCOGS OR ANY OTHER DATABASE
Phase One: Cassette Only 1989-1997
label names include Black Tulip Records and Bowman
as MJB-89
1989 CHARM
as MJB-90
1990 FUZZY LOGIC
1990 DEAD BRAINCELLS SOCIETY
1991 WONDERBRED WORLD
1991 PRIMITIVISM AND PROGRESS
1991 PLEASE FILTH
as Michael J. Bowman
1992 DIAMOND MIND HERO
1995 LOFI SUPERHIGHWAY
in 1996 I started using the label name Semper Lofi Recordings
1996 SLOPPYQUIRKYWUSSYPOP
1997 C'MON SLACKER
199? previously released tracks compiled into PLASTIC MEMORIES for Ray Carmen's label Pop! Productions
199? previously released tracks compiled into WHAT MODERN WAS for Michael Gonzales' label Ooh Ooh Music
Phase Two: Cassette and CDR
1998 BUFFALO GEEGAW
199? SemperLoFi various artists compilation CHOP SUEY
the following releases are the "Cloud" project
1998 CLOUD THE STONES
Phase Three: CDR only
1999 BLUNT SHADE ARTCORE
1999 FEED
2000 INSECT DARTS (w Mark Garro)
2000 WANKER
end of "Cloud". Return to Michael J. Bowman
2001 compilation of older, unreleased tracks DIGLAYER
2002 JUNKBUNNY: BUMP (with Alec Cumming and Joel Bachrach)
2002 BAD FAITH
200? SemperLoFi various artists sampler HELLO
200? previously released tracks compiled into DON'T FORGET THE CHEESE for Ray Carmen's label Pop! Productions
200? previously released tracks compiled into NOWHERE, MAN
200? SINECURE (with Don Campau)
200? EGGOMATIC (with Scott Carr)
200? F13 (with KD Schmitz)
Phase Four: Vinyl, CDRs, Cassettes and Internet platforms
200? previously released tracks compiled into cdr THE MJB ALBUM containing 73 mp3 files
2005 previously released tracks compiled into cdr NOWHERE EVERYWHERE
2005 cdr JOY ROCKET TERMINAL
the following releases as "Velveeta Heartbreak"
2006 7" Vinyl "I Shot The Invisible Man" b/w "Secret Beach Boys Fans Parts 1 & 2"
2006 cdr FIX FOR 2006
the following releases are the "Magik Plastique" project
2006 cassette THE MARS VACCINE
2006 cdr WE SEE YOU
200? mp3 LOST SOUL PICNIC Myspace-only
end of "Magik Plastique". Return to MJB and/or Michael J. Bowman
???? previously released tracks compiled into "Battery Powered Pop" MP3.COM release
???? previously released tracks compiled into "S'Up Foo?" MP3.COM release
2007 cassette FIRST STEPS (as "Stars and Butter" w Orietta Chiusamonti)
2009 cdr "PSYCHIC BORDERLAND"
Psychic Borderland was the last original release I ever made. Everything after 2009 is previously released, re-compiled, re-edited material, sometimes under the Michael J. Bowman name, sometimes as Velveeta Heartbreak
2009 previously released tracks compiled into cdr END OF THE RAINBOW
200? previously released tracks compiled into iTunes and Amazon only album THE INNER SUN
200? previously released tracks uploaded to SoundCloud
200? previously released material re-edited as FUTURE GROT mp3 for Homemade Lofi Psych label
2011 previously released material uploaded to LastFM (SlackDragon, etc) and Bandcamp (the "Schegitt" album)
2015 unreleased material re-edited and uploaded to YouTube as HYPER-PSYCH SOUND VOL.1
2015 previously released material from 1984-2009 re-edited and uploaded to YouTube as
"The Secret Life of Instantaneous Machines"
"Recombinant Excursion"
"Nine Life Policy"
"Littergod"
"Fuzzy Wonderbread"
"Keep The Fake Rock Sleeper"
"Sweet Potato"
2020 previously released material uploaded to YouTube
2022 previously released material uploaded to Bandcamp
2023 all material removed from YouTube, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, etc..., and remastered into The Velveeta Heartbreak Sound Archive on Internet Archive as 18 mp3 "mixtapes". Removed in 2024.
There may be one-off tapes, cdrs and vhs projects not listed here. Michael's recordings were also included on compilation cassettes and cdr's made by other people. which may or may not be on this list. For example, but not limited to; Hypertonia World Enterprises, Gajoob Magazine, Ooh Ooh Music, Haltapes, Best Kept Secret, and more. The majority of the activity involved Michael's personal music and art studio, and the creations made there were distributed in a handmade, homemade, limited-edition fashion. The only authorized, official release of my music is the 275 mp3s available here on Gallerymjb.
Complete list of rock music and audio-art collaborations:
1980 un-named High School rock band ( Kevin Holm-Hudson, Rich Della Fera, Phil Cirrincione) - Wilmington, DE
1980-1981 Serious Journalism - Syracuse, NY ( Bob Reuter, Paul Rose, George Mijac)
1984 "Breakspeare" by Julie Covello, winner of the Best Experimental Film in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Student Film Awards (drummer)
1982-1984 Choosy Mothers and Throbbing Pubus - Syracuse, NY (Paul Rose, Mark Garro, Joe Stento)
1985 The Sprockets - NYC - live performances
1985 The Astorians - NYC ( Andy Scheinman, Chris Laine, Fred Wilhelm)
1986-1989 The Hungry Dutchmen - NYC (Tony Faske, Paul Rose, Alec Cumming)
1987 Sickdog (Alec Cumming, Evil Jim Friendly)- NYC
1989-2009 MJB-90, Cloud, Velveeta Heartbreak, Magik Plastique
1998-2009:
Chop Suey (various artists cassette) artist collaborations on this tape include Lawrence Salvatore, KD Schmitz, Ken B. Miller, Ray Carmen, Dan Susnara and Hal McGee
OTHER COLLABORATIONS INCLUDE:
"Pillows of Ear" with Zan Hoffman
"Egg-o-matic" with Scott Carr
"Insect Darts" with Mark Garro
"F13" with KD Schmitz
Junkbunny (Alec Cumming, Joel and Alex Bachrach)
"Sinecure" with Don Campau
"Mr. Mystery" with Ray Carmen, Don Campau, Ken Clinger
Droneforest (Ian Stewart, C Reider, David Stafford)
John T. Baker (recordings)
Paul Braus (recordings and live performances)
Dave Stafford (recordings)
Jason Trachtenburg (recordings and live performances)
Billy Syndrome (recordings and live performances)
Joel Bachrach (recordings)
The Brian Wilson Shock Treatment (recordings and live performances)
The JFK Jr. Royal Airforce (recordings and live performances)
"Stars and Butter" with Orietta Chiusamonti
Exeter Popes (recordings and live performances)
The Tapegerm collective (various artists, recordings)
Ken Clinger (recordings)
Various ad-hoc recording set ups and home studios;
1. a share house in Syracuse, NY 1983-84
2. Michael's parent's home in Wilmington, DE ... Summer 1984
3. two apartments in Astoria, Queens ... 1984-1988
4. a share house in Nutley, NJ ... 1988-1990
5. Paul Rose's parent's house in NJ, and a public access cable studio in NJ ... 1985-1990
6. two apartments in Manhattan, E. 12th St and W. 13th St ... 1990-1992
7. a band rehearsal room on E.14th Street, NYC ... 1992
8. a house on Orchard Street in Cold Spring ... 1993-1999
9. two houses in the Rhinebeck, Hudson Valley area, Kalina Dr. and Whalesback Road ... 2000-2003
10. an apartment on Bedford Avenue, a band rehearsal room on N. 8th Street, and an art room on S. 5th Street, in Brooklyn ... 2004-2006
11. an apartment on Nassau Avenue, Brooklyn ... 2009
these ad-hoc "studios" ranged from singing, clapping and playing a guitar into a boombox while another boombox played the underlying "track".... to more elaborate set-ups that involved multiple microphones, a variety of instruments, a mixing board with numerous efx pedals, and the ability to "bounce" or sub-mix tracks to relatively lossless devices, such as open-reel stereo or vhs hi-fi... a note to keen listeners; the strange sounds you may hear could range from the roar of the oil furnace in the basement at Orchard Street, or the fine crackle that would often unfortunately occur when trying to bounce to and from the vhs hi-fi deck... if the studio was a long-term set-up in Michael's home, such as the Cold Spring space, more time could be taken in creating tracks... but if the opportunity to record involved gaining access to a borrowed set-up for a few hours, the recording represents spontaneous, one-take performances, and possibly "songs" that were "written" on the spot... it is worth noting that somewhere around 1998 the desktop computer made its appearance in these set-ups, and by 2009 had replaced almost all the gear from the late 90s, so that "Psychic Borderland" was recorded almost entirely in a closet sized room with one mic, an acoustic guitar, and a casio... the small amount of live drums on that recording are from the N. 8th Street music room circa 2005... which brings up another final, and very imortant aspect of the entire body of work; it's all one big collage... that is to say, for example, a single guitar track that was recorded in Paul Rose's basement in 1987 and preserved to cassette, would then become the bedrock track of a more fully formed, layered recording from the basement studio in Cold Spring in 1998... the cassettes, open reels, microcassettes, DATs and VHS tapes, and later the .wavs, that held all the source material, were used the same way the mics and instruments were used... likewise with lyrics; a notebook of doggerel scratched out on the N train in Astoria in 1985 could easily be the source for the lyrics of a song completed in the Whalesback Road set-up in 2002... and finally, certain tape and cdr albums are actually compilations from various time periods, whilst others were recorded and released in one shot... refer to the following list;
1. personal cassettes 1984-1989
during this period there was much recording onto boomboxes, microcassettes and cassette 4-track machines, but never with proper microphones, efx or mixing boards... the recordings from these "sessions" would be compiled onto tapes and given to friends, but the tapes were not proper tape "albums" per se, but more like individual mix-tapes, depending on who was receiving it... sometimes the j-card would be elaborately decorated, sometimes simply a handwritten list of tracks. The genesis of this activity began in the basement of a share house on Bristol Place in Syracuse in the summer of 1983. Michael recalls, "The band rehearsal room had a Wollensak open-reel tape recorder (which we lovingly referred to as the 'swollen sack') and a boombox, a crap shure sm-57 microphone, a bass amp and a guitar amp. If I got lucky, the bandmates would leave their guitars there. Most of what transpired was 3-chord noise rock jams, but attempts were made at tape-on-tape "rock songs" as well. I remember taking all the beer cans from the floor, placing them in a bucket of water, and recording the sound of me stirring it with a drum stick, whilst changing the tape speed on the Wollensack." Sadly, the tape experiments from this period did not survive. The earliest surviving cassette 4-tracks are from the Summer of 1984, created in the basement of Michael's parents' house in Delaware. In August of that year Michael moved to NYC (without the 4-track), and between 1984-89, many apartment boombox and dictaphone "tape-on-tape" recordings were made, some of which were compiled onto cassettes and handed out to friends and bandmates, and which survive today.
2. "Charm", "Fuzzy Logic" - 1989-1990
recorded entirely in the basement of the Nutley, NJ share house, originally a rehearsal space with a cassette 4-track, which Paul Rose later expanded into an amazing studio around the half-inch 8-track open reel deck Michael had purchased...as home studios go, this was an elaborate set-up, fully stocked..."Charm" was the four track sessions, "Fuzzy" was the 8-track
3. "Wonder Bred World" - 1991
at this point the Nutley share house had been vacated, and the studio no longer existed... Michael had moved to small apartment in Manhattan, and retained a small pile of gear with which to elaborate on the leftover, unused tracks from Nutley... also, trips were made to Paul's in NJ where the other half of the gear was, and via this method, another tape album was created
4. "Dead Braincell Society", "Primitivism & Progress" and "Please Filth" - 1991
since there was no proper studio anymore, and an abundance of unreleased material dating back to 1984, these two tape compilation albums were made during 1991, a time when Michael was also plying his solo acoustic "singer-songwriter" routine all over Manhattan and north Jersey, and so there was an opportunity to hand out a quantity of tapes... the Primitivism tape contained much more of the straight-to-cassette folky stuff mixed with experimental found-sound collage, and "Please Filth" was noise and loop experiments on tapes that were hand-painted one-offs. The open mic scene of 1991 in NYC later became known as "anti-folk", and whilst Michael was certainly a participant, we do not categorize his body of work as such
5. "Diamond Mind Hero" - 1992
in 1992 Michael gained access to a full-fledged studio/rehearsal room on East 14th Street in Manhattan, courtesy of an ex-bandmate... therein was an open-reel four track, drum kit, numerous microphones, instruments, the lot... the entire tape album was recorded there, and released immediately after, the first one to be bounced/mixed down to DAT... in situations like this, nobody is helping Michael, he's been given access in the down time, the hours nobody else wants to be using the place, and must whip out these tracks in a very limited time frame, by himself...
6. "Lo-Fi Superhighway" , "Sloppy Quirky Wussy Pop" , "C'mon Slacker" and "Buffalo Geegaw" - 1995-1998
in 1992, after the "Diamond" tape, and after a year or so of playing acoustic gigs all over the city, Michael abandoned music to attend Pratt Institute, whilst working full-time, and in 2 years earned a certificate degree in computers. During this time Michael also moved "upstate", from Manhattan to Cold Spring, a tiny town in the Hudson Valley. In the house there, Michael was able to create a primitive recording studio in the basement. With a couple SM-57 mics, a Mackie mixing board, an open reel 4-track, and a VHS deck, a pile of old guitars, a cheap casio, and a beat-up cheap as they come Tama drum kit, Michael started recording again. By the end of 1995 an entire VHS master tape was filled, and this was dubbed off onto C90s and given away to friends, sent to zine publishers, and traded with other "home tapers". This continued through 1998.The Cold Spring era also includes "the tape that never was". I had conceived of a "concept" tape about aliens visiting earth, with the central character being some pot-head loser who ends up with his own "my favorite martian" as it were. The tape never was, but the few tracks that got completed to make up the "rock opera" are scattered around on various tapes, CDrs and internet compilations. "Star/UFO", "Little Grey's Song", "Little Green Man", and "Alien Abduction Suite".
7. "Blunt Shade Artcore", "Feed", "Wanker" and collaborative projects 1999-2001
In 1998 Michael purchased a Gateway desktop computer running Windows. This represents a quantum leap of sorts for Michael's home recording set-up. First and foremost, it meant bouncing to .wav files, a completely lossless tactic. It also meant that editing, previously done via pains-taking methods such as the pause button or by actually hand-splicing tape, could now be done in the computer, with much more ease, higher accuracy, and no loss of sound quality. Mixing up found sound collages with more traditional rock tracks was now way easier than before. Looping is so easy it becomes commonplace, almost overused. And the barriers of working with long-distance collaborators was erased, since any tape format you received could be put into a .wav file, and some would send you such files... the recordings from this period are characterized by higher sound quality, instrumental-only, more experimental tracks, as opposed to song-based material of the previous period. The other paradigm shift is that the final "albums" are no longer cassette tapes, but CDRs.
8. "Bad Faith" and "Diglayer", 2001-2003
in 2000 Michael moved from the Cold Spring house to a house further upstate. Partly due to the loss of gear during the move, and also from a desire to return to tape-based recording, Michael acquired a Fostex R8, which is an extremely lo-fi open reel 8-track. Recordings made at Kalina Drive and Whalesback Road were more song-based, and were often recorded with a cheap computer microphone. The results are a throw back to the types of experimental folk-rock stuff Michael was doing in the 80s. "Diglayer" is a compilation CDR of tracks, some as old as 1985.
9. "Joy Rocket Terminal", "Fix for 2006", "Magik Plastique: We See You", "The Mars Vaccine" and collaborative projects 2004-2006
in 2004 Michael moved back into NYC, to a small apartment in Brooklyn. This meant no studio space. However, joining a bunch of local bands gave Michael access to two different music rooms with drum kits, microphones and recording gear. This was a time of Michael being a drummer-for-hire playing live gigs for other bands all over NYC, whilst using the music room down-time to record his own stuff. The recordings from this period feature another quantum leap... the introduction of the Apple Powerbook with Garageband as the main recording device. Bringing live drum recordings home to the apartment on the laptop meant the limited studio access was no longer a constraint, since the multi-tracker, all the efx, and the editing and mastering deck were all residing in a software package on a laptop. What used to take up half the basement with a rats nest of wires was now contained in a little box Michael could carry around in his backpack. The other paradigm shift was that the recordings were now able to be shared on this new thing called the Internet. The CDRs that had replaced the tape albums were now replaced with mp3 files. Despite this, Michael pressed a 7-inch vinyl record, distributed numerous CDR packages, and even released two different tape cassette albums.
10. "Psychic Borderland" 2009
in 2007 Michael's daughter was born, and he abandoned music and got rid of most of his gear. Two years later, when he realized he needed to sell the remainder of the gear, and give up music forever, Michael decided to make one last "swan song" album. The idea was to make a more cohesive, "real" album, as opposed to a collection of tracks. Michael was now living in an apartment above a Polish restaurant, and the only gear remaining in the flat was half a drum kit, an old acoustic guitar, the casio, a cheap tambourine and a microphone. On two small sections of the album, full-on drum tracks leftover from the 2004-2006 period are used. The rest was done in Garageband. After the CDR packages were hand-made and sent out, the remaining gear was sold off, and Michael never touched a musical instrument again.
During the period 1984-2009 as documented above, and in the time since 2009, Michael has created dozens of repackaged and re-release compilations, remixes, re-edits, tracks/albums have been given new and different titles, most of which is not listed above. The output of published recordings between 1984 and the present could categorized as;
1. One-off mix tape or mix CDR given to an individual
2. Proper cassette or CDR "album" where all copies have the same track listing, sometimes all copies have the same package art, sometimes the packages are all one-off art creations... and the distribution exceeds 50 copies, and some copies reach magazines and receive published reviews, and some copies reach indy radio stations and receive airplay
3. Compilation cassette or CDR where all copies have the same j-card art, same track listing, but the tracks are from various time periods and may have been previously released. Copies exceed 50, and some go to magazines and indy radio where they receive exposure.
4. Collaborative projects the results of which could be single tracks published in a compilation, or entire collaborative tape/CDR "albums", or collaborative collectives, where recorded sounds are shared on the internet and remixed in a constant flux of creativity
5. Internet re-issues, re-edits, remixes, mix collages. This is everything from complete mp3.com compilation "albums", to creating SoundCloud playlists, making youTube "albums", licensing tracks to iTunes and Amazon, re-issuing tracks to Bandcamp and Last.FM, and making mp3s available on Michael's personal blogs and websites.
6. Vinyl three tracks from the mid-1990s were pressed up as a 7-inch single in 2006
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