In addition to running the finest psych specialty record shop on the Eastern seaboard, Wayne and Kate Village also own and operate Twisted Village Records. Home to Wayne's solo works, their band Magic Hour and the original home of their now-legendary Drag City housed rock megalith Major Stars, Twisted Village also houses releases from the Boston avant-garde such as Nmperign, Donna Parker and Heathen Shame. As a house-proud label and a homespun industry, Twisted Village is a joy to have around. As a home to some of the best true psych in America, it's nearly essential.
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TW 1068LP
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Wayne Rogers (b. 1965) formed Crystalized Movements in September of 1979, Magic Hour in May of 1993, and Major Stars in January of 1996. He's also recorded eight solo albums 1992-2007. 11 years later in 2018, he recorded his ninth, titled The Air Below, beginning in October of 2018 in a shed in his backyard. File under: downer rock, psychedelia (of a sort), private press, Eastern Massachusetts, albums recorded in a backyard shed.
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TW 1034LP
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1990, Storrs, CT. Twisted Village heads Wayne and Kate are DJs at the local college station with Tom Leonard, guitarist in a local up-and-coming outfit called St Johnny. One day Tom slips Kate a cassette curiously titled Luxurious Bags Of Vomit, containing the first recordings of his basement one-man band. The tape turned out to be a glorious noise and scuzz rock racket falling somewhere between Chrome and early Pussy Galore. The TV heads flipped over it, and immediately offered to put out an LP. Tom thinks they are joking. Eventually he is convinced they are serious, and that cassette forms the basis of the 1991 debut LP from Luxurious Bags, From Heaven To My Head. This was followed by 1992's Voluntary Lifelong Quarantine as well as a CD combining both LPs. All sold briskly, as Tom's one-man act gained momentum. Also gaining momentum was his other outlet St Johnny. After a couple of singles and a UK album on Rough Trade, they were signed by Thurston Moore to DGC in the post-Nirvana rush. Tom stayed for the recording of their 1994 DGC debut Speed Is Dreaming, but soon found the band's new life as a major label act not to his liking. Tom was gone by the time the album hit the racks, and retreated to the basement to work full-time on Luxurious Bags' magnum opus. Recordings already started on 4-track cassette were transferred to 8-track reel-to-reel, and reworked endlessly. In early 1995, Tom declared the record finished, and delivered Frayed Knots as the third (and, as it turned out, final) album. While retaining much of the lo-fi noisiness of his earlier work, Frayed Knots had a wider range of influences shining through. Much of Frayed Knots had a strong melodic basis, showing echoes of Dinosaur Jr and My Bloody Valentine, while the final 10+ minute cut dissolves into Terry Riley-esque soundscapes. So satisfied was Tom with Frayed Knots that he called time on Luxurious Bags upon the album's release in 1995, becoming perhaps the only one-man band to ever break up with itself. He then joined Major Stars, where he remains to this day. Frayed Knots earned glowing reviews in the 'zines of the day, and legions of fans have long waited in vain for a follow-up. Many have also waited for a vinyl issue of the album (this being the mid-90s, Frayed Knots had come out only on CD). Twisted Village therefore present the first vinyl version of Frayed Knots, a mere 23 years after its first release. Housed in a full-size version of the original artwork is a glorious black vinyl slab, from which these timeless melodies will ooze out of your speakers with more mystery than ever. Right freaking on.
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TW 1066LP
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Limited vinyl version of the eighth full-length studio album by this long-running Massachusetts ensemble; CD version is on Important Records. What to say about a band who continuously claims Otis Rush and Buddy Guy as its primary influences, but usually finds their records filed in the "noise/experimental" bin? Any mention of Major Stars tends to send some scurrying for the most obscure psychedelic references, but one need look no further than The Who or Cream to find the primary ingredients of melodic songwriting combined with an over-the-top instrumental assault. As a few noticed, the title of their last album Return to Form wasn't entirely intended to be tongue-in-cheek. Their music seems to be more "psychedelic era" than "psychedelic," and they themselves like to just be thought of as a Rock group (early '70s capitalization intact). But there has always been something different about their arrangement of common influences compared to their contemporaries, and over the past 15 years they have developed a loyal base of followers who seem to quite like the way they put things together. So Major Stars continue to put it together, like on this one: Decibels of Gratitude, from them, to you.
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TW 1062EP
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The story from where we left off: Major Stars play their most recent tour of the USA in May of 2003, return in June to make their definitive studio record (Major Stars 4), and then head to NYC a week later to record the Live In Europa split LP with Comets On Fire. All good so far. They unexpectedly lay low for for the next eighteen months, losing longtime drummer Dave Lynch along the way and ending up with an empty bassman spot when Tom Leonard joins Kate Village and Wayne Rogers in the guitar frontline. But then Major Stars mark two starts to come together. Casey Keenan (drummer-turned-guitarist of local pop heros Carlisle Sound) is roped into resuming his place behind the drumkit. Dave Dougan, already a veteran of the band as bass understudy (he was the unfamiliar figure on stage at their Terrastock '02 performance), returns to claim the position permanently. The new sextet is completed by the arrival of lead singer Sandra Barrett, formerly of local art-punk legends LA Drugs. By the time Major Stars 4 finally appears to universal acclaim in April 2005, the new band is awake and pummeling the locals with renewed fervor. The future: a new LP is due to appear in the fall 2005, and Major Stars will be playing select east coast dates with Japanese psych titans Miminokoto and Uptight this October 2005. But why wait the summer in silence? Here's a two-track taster of heavy things to come.
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TW 1060CD
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The second album from Cambridge, MA-based Heathen Shame. The trio of Greg Kelley, Wayne Rogers, and Kate Village formed under the banner Heathen Shame in the fall of 1999. After a handful of one-off shows they recorded their self-titled debut LP in May of 2002, which caught them just as their sound was starting to gel. They then embarked on a three week tour of America's heartland with Double Leopards (including at least one outdoor show that could be termed a "gathering") in an attempt to share their unique brand of high decibel improvisation. Although they drove away as many people as they converted (OK, maybe a lot more than they converted), the steady gigging continued upon their return and soon the Heathen Shame were playing as one mind rather than three. Speed The Parting Guest is a carefully paced but blazing affair that shows how seamless a unit they've become. In contrast to the abstract feel of their debut, Speed The Parting Guest finds them swinging large blocks of sound around their heads for hours before launching them at you. Their wall of sound is now a sonic universe that they can manipulate with slow malice or lightning precision. Heathen Shame are destined to be THE most talked about two-guitar-and-trumpet combo of 2005 and beyond.
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TW 1059CD
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4 is the fourth full length release from Cambridge, MA-based Major Stars.This release was recorded in summer '03, after an intense period of touring (which also resulted in the Major Stars/Comets On Fire live split LP) and just before an intense period of reflection (read: inactivity). Somewhere during the latter they realized they had made a record, and finally we bring it to you. Calls for increased fidelity have not fallen on deaf ears: 4 brings them to the world of 24-track recording for the first time, finally getting their studio sound close to their live onslaught. Musically they continue to hit all points a little harder each time,
with open-stringed folk melodies getting pummeled on the Who/Cream/Hendrix anvil 'til you think modal and heavy have always coexisted. Their best yet? You bet. Should they go deaf, it was all for you.
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TW 1056LP
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"Mystically tinged, high-energy alto sax/drums blowout (plus some added cello scrapings on Side A) for those who like their jazz a little bit primitive and a whole lot free. It's uncertain as to whether or not the 3 in 'Lloyd Arthur 3' refers to a trio of unspecified members or just 3 times Lloyd Arthur. What *is* certain is that Spheres of Nothing is an unrelenting tribute to the spirit of purification through fire, occupying the spaces between classic ESP free jazz, Japanese live-fast-die-young iconoclast Kaoru Abe and a touch of [Lloyd's pick] Swedish scuzz rockers Brainbombs."
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TW 1057CD
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"There are some stories where every girl has a movie star face and a dirty book body. There are some stories where every guy can be God if he has the balls to stand there with 30 friends and strut around. The lives of the Life Partners are as lurid and unwitting as their music is gaudy and crude. Two boys, one blond and one brunette, went on a road trip to Texas with 250 dollars all in ones. They listened to the same Marty Robbins record over and over all the way across the state. They saw a pig get shot. They visited a hall covered in mirrors and commemorating the fame of Oral Roberts. By the time they came home they knew their American experience had made them partners for life, so they called themselves the Life Partners. The first thing they decided to do was start a fake band that would pass its recordings off as improvisations by 1970s Jamaican teen punks whose Dads. All worked at an army base. They recruited a girl who was obsessed with classical pianist Glenn Gould and wanted the brunette to marry her. Then they met a fantastic Canadian metal guitarist who was also the champ of his roller-hockey team, even though his dream was to play ice-hockey. The boys asked him to play drums, and the band was complete. An instant hit among the happening music scenesters around town, they play in the basements, the record stores, the abandoned warehouses, and the dive bars all over Boston. Their fans include dope-fiends who sell stolen VCRs out of the backs of cars, record collectors with restraining orders against them, art-school dropouts with misgivings about hygiene, and more. The Life Partners now have a record which conjures the ghosts of James Chance, the Collins Kids, and the Electric Eels, but ultimately sounds not quite like anyone else."
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TW 1051LP
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"Astounding new 24-minute 12" from one of America's longest-running free rock outfits. New York City's Tono Bungay features ace string picker Bob Bannister, who has lent his guitar talents to projects as diverse as Cat Power and Glenn Branca's recent100-guitar orchestra as well as releasing two solo LP's on Twisted Village. One could nary guess he was weaned on Finnish prog in Finland, no less! Drummer Tony Cenicola is content to lay down a solid backbeat for a few seconds before erupting into pure freedom, then throwing drumsticks at the kit (and audience), then whipping his drums with chains and whatever else is handy. Dada master Robert Dennis manipulates his masterfully planned Auto-Destruct labyrinth of bass, tape machines, and electronics, which is so beautifully planned by it's creator that it often self-destructs long before Robert pushes that big red button. Kluge is sonically closer to the two-track squall of their 1993 debut LP Rough Music than the careful ambiance of Wunderkammer with their focus sharpened by nearly a decade of dedicated work on their unique approach to sound."
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TW 1050CD
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"Dives And Lazarus is Bob's long-awaited second solo album (the first, an LP of beautifully abstract guitar instrumentals titled Eight Day Clock, appeared on this label in 1991). This time out he's applied his craft to a set of British and American folk songs, each of which he carefully dissects and then reassembles. Every song gets a unique treatment, from the violin drone of 'The Murder Of Maria Marten' to the fuzz organ & guitar stomp of 'I Am A Pilgrim' to the two versions of 'In Christ There Is No East Or West' (one forwards, one backwards!). In most cases, the versions here are the first radical departures for these standards since 'folkrock' first reared it's quickly-severed head in the '60's. As we've always known but so seldom get proof of: For those willing to dive deep into the muddy waters of the folk songs of the 20th century, these songs continue to offer an infinite realm of possibility."
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TW 1048CD
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"Space/Time is the Major Stars second full length attempt to explode the boundaries of Rock-with-a-capital-R. Side one features two songs with pickin' and singin': 'Apples To Grapes' is a moody folk rock number that gets blown apart in a hurry & subjected to several improvisational deconstructions in the course of it's 14+ minutes, and 'Runout' is done up short 'n' pretty to set you up for the all-instrumental Side Two. 'Getting Air From A Stone' is a riff heavy cruncher, while 'Dream Of The Accidental Bird' follows it's brief opening revolving door with a massive & exhilarating one chord jam that'll twist your insides just right. The CD adds one track from their now out-of-print debut 12" Rock Sounds Of People -- the pounding 'It's A Blessing, Brother, I Cannot Lie', a song so relentlessly single minded that the band was asked daily who the hell it was a cover of (Wayne, in fact, wrote it...in far less time than it took to play it). Major Stars aim to take higher-key improvisational wizardry and clobber you on the head with it while simultaneously caressing your mind. Space/Time does just that."
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TW 1047LP
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Fifth solo album, featuring 9 tracks recorded at Twisted Village, 12/95 to 6/97. Written and played by Wayne Rogers, except "Something In The Air" written by Speedy Keane. Limited vinyl version in hand-printed sleeve; (CD version on Drag City). Descriptive information about this one took it's time forthcoming, but here it is: "The album in the words of it's creator: 'It's rather like minimalism, except within one tone there is a thousand, and then several layers of a thousand, piled high like blankets of snow on a volcano. Actually, I didn't mean to say minimalist, I meant to say obnoxious. It's rather like obnoxiousism.' Constant Displacement began as a series of experiments in song form, mainly to satisfy the whims of the artist himself, who never intended it to be issued. How else to explain the wispy balladry, the balls-to-the-wall rock 'n' roll, or the six-minute version of a lousy Thunderclap Newman song? Constant Displacement is his fifth solo album, a tribute to Rock formalism based on traditions no loftier than Danish and South Asian renditions of 'Stepping Stone,' though he is apparently hearing something in them that no one else is."
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TW 1045LP
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Limited 3-sided LP version.
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TW 1045CD
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"When most labels clear their vaults, one is usually reminded of old Roger Corman horror movies. The detritus of the shambling dead stagger forth beneath an unfortunate sun, groping blindly for the unwary listener, as a cultured English narrator sepulchrally utters that there are 'things Humanity was not meant to know.' Here's ours. Marvelous Sound Forms is a collection of stray tracks from the TV elite, all once shelved for various reasons but now forming a special picture of that time we call the "early '90's" when bands like the Crystallized Movements, Magic Hour, and B.O.R.B. roamed the galaxy. The Crystallized Movements were Connecticut's long lived last hope. At the point at which these tracks were recorded, the Crystallized Movements were Wayne Rogers ('good evening' guitar), Kate Biggar ('piss off' guitar), Scott McLeod (whose holy bass playing shook Lucifer in the very Pit itself), and Teri Morris (fearless pounder of every inanimate object within reach). Marvelous Sound Forms features four crystallizations from their peak era. BORB is one of the label's eternally cryptic projects. Three extraterrestrial visitors periodically touch down in a field in southern Vermont where they are met by label staff. A zorbnoid-to-analog converter is hastily assembled, and the BORBans interstellar ramblings are downloaded to tape by these intrepid TV staff for Earthly distribution. Two tracks are here, one Blast Off-era track (originally considered 'too ridiculous' even by the band) and one meditative post-In Orbit excursion (once slated for a never finished fourth LP). Magic Hour melded the powerhouse guitar overload of Wayne Rogers and Kate Biggar with the melancholy flow and throb of bassist Naomi Yang and drummer Damon Krukowski. The results balanced acoustic poise with electric roar, psychedelic rush and funereal stateliness. A band that was truly dark, as opposed to just being poorly-lit. The tracks featured here include their last studio moment together-- an 'Untitled' improvisation from 12/95. A Wayne Rogers solo cut rounds out the set. We hope you enjoy this collection of juvenilia and dying breaths."
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TW 1044CD
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"Major Stars, men (and woman) who have made many records, up the pile one more with The Rock Revival. Guitarists Wayne & Kate come to Major Stars straight from Magic Hour, whose quick ascent from snarly West Coast-influenced rock band to all instrumental thugs brought many a tear To helpless Galaxie 500 fans. Bassist Tom Leonard has been at one time or another a member of every non-Magic Twisted Village ensemble, and Dave laid down the big beat in Vermonster. Now that these four have reconvened, they are taking their LOUD polystructural ROCK to the people. The Rock Revival consists of four songs. The first, 'Rock Revival Theme,' is a purely free bit of tape captured at one of their bi-weekly recording sessions. 'On' follows, a lovely little tune that then gets masterfully deconstructed for 13+ minutes. 'Strange Reaction' is the token short song that sets up the epic 'Deep End,' their live instrumental tour-de-force. Throughout the disc they jump in and out of structure and freedom like no other post-Isle Of Wight rock ensemble can. And they're that loud. Really. Go see them fuck up the upcoming Terrastock in SF."
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TW 1043CD
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"Tono Bungay, the name appropriated from a title of an H.G. Wells novel, have been being densely realized in New York City for five years now. Their first LP was released by Twisted Village in 1993 setting off a reverberation that continues to effect many of the newer rock bands leaning towards more improvisation. During the past year, the band has been in full swing, touring the Northeast and releasing two ten inchers, one a split with Tower Recordings. Tono Bungay is composed of Bob Bannister on guitar and Robert Dennis on guitar and electronics and kept in constant forward motion by drummer Tony Cenicola. Wunderkammer opens with their first ever 'song' (with vocals even!), and then careens through 7 purely improvised pieces of brooding psychedelic ecstasy. There's no passage unfilled here; Bannister's guitar navigates the often hazardous free rock river with a confidence of a captain that's got something to say. The CD, (no vinyl this time), and booklet are accompanied by Tony's lovely, surreal photographs, each signifying a song title."
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TW 1001CD
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"At long, long last, we are happy to announce the reissue of our very first record, Mind Disaster. The Crystalized Movements were formed in 1980 by Wayne Rogers and Ed Boyden, two Tolland High School freshmen brought together by a mutual love of No Wave & 60's psychedelia. After 3 years of experimenting (and countless versions of 'Gloria'), they decided in early 1983 that it was time to make an LP. They recorded loose duo versions of some of Wayne's songs, and then promptly split up after graduating from high school in June of 1983. Wayne, under the spell of the Plastic Cloud and Randy Holden, then spent the summer piling on mounds of guitar overdubs. The results were issued as Mind Disaster at the end of that year in a bank-breaking edition of 130 (as Twisted Village #1001). After a minor stir in collectors' circles, it was reissued on the UK Psycho label with a new cover in 1984. It was received by the 'psychedelic revival' community with universal horror and quickly went out of print. Wayne, meanwhile, added new members to the band and it treaded on as a little-known Connecticut institution until 1992....The years have been kind to Mind Disaster, and it's wah-wah and fuzz overload have made it a much sought after LP. After uncountable requests from our adoring public, we are finally reissuing Mind Disaster, with it's original cover. It is perhaps the last teenage garage-psych LP to be made in our time. Hope you like it."
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TW 1040EP
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"Wrapped inside a lovely parchment sleeve lies this documentation of 8 holy minutes during a rare live performance of Twisted Village's Christian Rock band. This line up includes Wayne Rogers, Kate Biggar, Tom Leonard and Jesus Malinowski. Preachy, heavy, devout." One track divided into 2 sides, recorded in Amherst, July, 1996.
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TW 1041CD
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"Written, played and produced by Wayne Rogers,December '95 -- July '96. Wayne's fourth solo work finds him deep in the basement at Twisted Village, moving on after his last band, Magic Hour, parted ways. Infraction is forty minutes and forty seconds of instrumental bliss. Within the forty-forty dwells eleven distinct movements, strung taut with guitar heaviness and organ overdrive. As the liner notes say, 'Surprise dumping in the lake for next year...Four strong winds from the balcony...'"
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CD
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TW 1033CD
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70 minute CD which collects the first 2 vinyl-only albums released under Wayne's solo aegis: 1992's Ego River and 1994's The Seven Arms of the Sun. The songs here (which roughly can be observed as his complete finished songwork between the Crystalized Movements' slow dissolve and the quick ascent of Magic Hour) are fully realized works of dark psychedelic intensity, with a full gtr/bs/drums vocal band sound that is very non bed-roomy.
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TW 1036CD
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B.O.R.B. is an ingenious acronym for Bongloads of Righteous Boo. It represents the commune-esque collective of Twisted Village lifers (Wayne Rogers & Kate Biggar from Magic Hour; Tom Leonard from Luxurious Bags) and their "after-hours" recording activity. A couple of excessively limited vinyl-only LPs were issued in the early '90s, but this recording finds them in a comparative free fall toward the masses. Largely instrumental, this consists of layers of riveting late-night cosmic gush, simply titled "Phase One" through "Phase Five"; guitars feeding back and droning on, analog keyboard destruction and an all out general pursuit of electronic sound/body/mind fuelled ecstasy are the primary elements.
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7"
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TW 1023EP
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1992 single from Michael Morley of the Dead C.
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CD
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TW 1034CD
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3rd album streamlined massivity by this Boston one-man band.
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TW 1026CD
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Luxurious Bags is a one man basement project with St. Johnny & Vermonster connections. This CD stacks his two previous limited LPs from the past coupla years (From Heaven To My Head + Voluntary Lifelong Quarantine) one after the other. Churning guitar-noise density and indie splatter consciousness.
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TW 1039CD
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"After touring Europe and America extensively, Magic Hour capture the feel of their live extravagances on this, their third length release. This instrumental CD features two electric songs, 13 and 22 minutes long, pummelled by America's only truly progressive folk-psych quartet. Propelled by Naomi Yang's unique bass lines and Damon Krukowksi's cymbal shattering small kit mastery, Wayne Rogers and Kate Biggar lead shuddering guitars through the early morning haze. In two shorter acoustic improvisations, inspired by a visit to Ali Akbar Khan's home, Naomi trades her bass for an Indian harmonium and Kate introduces the world to the dulci-guitar. Undoubtedly their masterwork."
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