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The Beeshu Tapes 2020

by Astronaut Ice Cream Headache

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1.
2.
Battery 01:33
3.
4.
5.
6.
Dog Pianist 02:04
7.
Have Started 02:08
8.
Fucking Mike 00:25
9.
10.
11.
Boom 00:50
12.
Sports, Dude 01:51
13.
Drifting 02:23
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15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
Chemistry 01:32
22.
For Want Of 03:03
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24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
Astroutro 00:39

about

“So…uh…I heard you guys are getting the band back together…is that right?” No, not quite, my imaginary friend/voice in my head. But here, as Kaji-Pup Records’ fourth release, available for the first time ever for streaming and download over the internet, are Astronaut Ice Cream Headache’s classic analog four-track recordings from the late nineties. Dubbed The Beeshu Tapes 2020, this release is an update of the The Beeshu Tapes CD the duo released almost seventeen years ago, this time with all new tape-to-digital transfers, in 24-bits, and in some cases updated mixdowns of the original four-track sessions, with a batch of previously unreleased rarities to sweeten the pot—all finely mastered during quarantine for markedly better sound quality. Also included is a new 28-page PDF picture book with some AICH photos and ephemera from the late nineties and early aughts.

If you’ve never heard or even heard of Astronaut Ice Cream Headache, you might be asking, “Why should I care about this?” Well, the simple answer is that you probably shouldn’t, at least if this sort of thing—irreverent, humorous, keyboard-based music—isn’t your bag. Different strokes for different folks, as they say. Or to put it another way, one man’s treasure is another man’s trash. In the case of AICH, the band knowingly pursued an aesthetic that valued self-amusement and catchiness over musical ability and harmonic complexity. Inspired by the brotherly fauxmo-eroticism of The Frogs, the more keyboard-based sounds of eighties DEVO, and perhaps the stripped-down simplicity of bands like Beat Happening, AICH decided to “Choose Lunacy!” in an era when very serious, often math-y indie rock seemed to dominate many pockets of the Greater Milwaukee musical landscape. This wasn’t so much an act of rebellion or defiance than it was a simple creative pursuit between two lifelong friends, Mike and Dave, whose combined sense of humor brought a good amount of amusement to their social circle, as well as some people beyond it.

“It was a different time,” explains Dave. “Not the rosy ‘good old days’ people sometimes pine for, but for us personally our lives and overall state of mind were more uncomplicated. There wasn’t an overwhelming sense of political awareness. A lot of this music came out of us not doing drugs, basically. And we didn’t have Facebook or YouTube or the Criterion Channel or smartphones or whatever, so to amuse ourselves after school we started recording these silly little songs, some of them on the spot. Not all of them were “good”—The Beeshu Tapes 2020 omits some of our more half-assed material, and even much of what’s included here is an acquired taste—and sometimes our sense of humor was dark or strident, but there’s a free-spirited abandon here that a lot of more accomplished music can lack. Some of it is also rather colorful in a sonic sense. We weren’t really trying to troll anyone or dish out schadenfreude like many bands do today. Instead, at its best, AICH was like a series of inside jokes and running gags between a couple dozen or so people that occasionally spilled out into the larger world. People usually had a good time at our shows, if they got the joke and weren’t too uptight. There was kind of a “punk” energy behind it all, but what came out wasn’t really versus/chorus/verse rock music or as formally sophisticated as a lot of the music we were listening to. We were teenagers then. Little shits. Just as influenced by absurdist sketch comedy shows as music.”


The following review of the previous version of The Beeshu Tapes, from Rob Horning of Splendid E-Zine, also taps into the potential appeal of these recordings:

“This professes to be a collection of early home recordings, and they certainly sound that way: early, as in the musicians were most likely in high school, and home recording, as in they sound like they were recorded on a Walkman. All the songs are extremely simple, musically and lyrically. Often there's just muffled drums, maybe a minimalist keyboard line, and the two band members chanting the same refrain in a variety of funny voices, as on "Sports, Dude" and "Tornado Weather". But to say that anyone could have made this music would be to miss the point, which is that most people don't, even when fragments of melody or rhythm -- jingles, catch phrases, the clanging and bleating of alarms, motors, and machines -- stick in their heads and haunt them all day. These guys, even at the precocious age they must have been when they recorded this, already lack the filter that prevents most of us from making something out of these fragments, the filter that stops us from being creative by making us fear seeming stupid. Astronaut Ice Cream Headache is definitely stupid, and most of their gags will amuse you much less than they clearly amused the band, but their desire to entertain, even if it's only themselves, is much purer and uncorrupted than you'll hear on most albums. That alone makes The Beeshu Tapes a worthwhile listen.”

credits

released May 26, 2020

Mike - Vocals, Drums, Percussion, Keyboards
Dave - Vocals, Loops, Keyboards, Percussion

Brian (of The Gothsicles) - Guest Vocals and Accordion on "Let's Be Carnies"

All songs by AICH ('97-'98) except "Let's Be Carnies" which was by AICH and Brian, and "For Want Of" which was originally by Rites of Spring.


New mixdowns and tape transfers made by Dave in May of 2020.

Mastered by Chris Goosman at Baseline Audio Labs.

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Astronaut Ice Cream Headache

Astronaut Ice Cream Headache was a Milwaukee-area duo that began making humorous, demented, keyboard-based music in the autumn of 1997. They put out two full-length tapes (White Boy Keyboard Jazz and Nobody's Perfect, on Beeshu Records), made an aborted EP (Infinite Christmas Party), and played over a dozen shows in Wisconsin before fizzling out around 2003. ... more

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