Charlotte's Bionic Blimp was a band created by Colette and Jason Savall in the late '90s. On a certain level the project also involved Jordan Tarlow, and it's worth mentioning that both Tarlow and Savall were ex-members of the mighty Garage-Rock band The Fuzztones.
Their first - and only - single was released in September 1998 by Sheep Records in Switzerland; this release has been the subject of a previous post here on Stereo Candies.
For some reason they shortened their name to Bionic Blimp and in 1999 they debuted on CD with "Exploring Automatic Rhythms", released on their own imprint TGTBT Music. This release seems to be quite rare and I wasn't able to find a single copy available for sale on the Internet.
It seems that the band lasted at least until 2001, and they often played live concerts in the Los Angeles area with an extended lineup that included a bassist and a drummer. During their short lifetime they were often compared to the B-52's, the Sparks, The Cars and Stereolab.
On offer in this post is a demotape recorded circa in 1997-98 which used to be available on ScrapeFlutter.com. Since the original files were deleted, I though about offering them here. Three of the four tracks included on the demo were later re-recorded and included on "Exploring Automatic Rhythms", I truly hope that someday I will be able to listen to them...
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Charlotte's Bionic Blimp at the Jack's Sugar Shack in Los Angeles in Los Angeles (December 18, 1998), picture by Steve Adam
Here's the track list for this release:
demo 97-98
01. Twice (1:48)
02. Here We Go Again (2:43)
03. More To Life Than Meets the Eye (3:04)
04. See Passed the Mountain (3:32)
extra tracks
05. 1999 (3:01)
06. Here We Go Again (2:41)
All tracks were remastered in November 2013, they are available in FLAC lossless format along with printable artwork. Please have a look at the comments for the download link.
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Charlotte's Bionic Blimp performing at the Jack's Sugar Shack in Los Angeles (December 18, 1998), picture by Steve Adam
More information about Charlotte's Bionic Blimp and The Fuzztones is available here:
http://www.allmusic.com/album/exploring-automatic-rhythms-mw0001143593
http://mrhollywood.0catch.com/baby/blimp.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fuzztones
http://www.fuzztones.net/
If you have any other useful information about Charlotte's Bionic Blimp - especially corrections and improvements to this post - or if you spot any dead links, please get in touch with me stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you!
Wonderful post! Back when, I was getting ahold of many of Sheep Records' releases, including their 45. I eventually put together my own custom CD comp, "ZURICH INVASION", which included songs by Lou Hoffner Trio Minus One, The Treble Spankers, Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited, The Men From S.P.E.C.T.R.E., Charlotte's Bionic Blimp, Los Banditos, and Spookysounds For Beige (the latter, I believe, was actually SSSU doing a special commercial to promote a fashion store).
ReplyDeleteUntil now, I never even knew what the band looked like! --or, that they had a full-length album out.
I remember a few of the Sheep singles I wound up buying by mail DIRECT from the label in Switzerland, because their website was IMPOSSIBLE to use. Also, I believe I remarked that they really owed it to their artists to at least TRY to get into Amazon's system, which I, operating entirely as a ONE-MAN company, HAD managed to do with my STORMBOY comic-book!! At the very least, it would have gotten their releases in front of a lot more people.
DOWNLOAD LINK
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mediafire.com/download.php?dit...
If you download this file please consider leaving a comment, your feedback is important!
Please let me know if the link is broken and I'll do my best to quickly fix it.
Wonderful! Thanks so much. The demo would have made a great 4-song EP. The single may come in handy, if I ever decide to redo my "Zurich Invasion" comp (since I hadn't quite figured out how to clean up vinyl surface noise at the time I put it together).
ReplyDeleteI just love the internet. Earlier this year, I was able to find some very rare tracks by "The Cybermen" (the Welsh "beat" group), and now this. My turntable may need replacing (it was so old it finally gave up and stopped working), but if I can record off the internet, I'll never run out of cool things to listen to.