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IT WAS 20 YEARS AGO TODAY...

Most of you don't know about this, and I thought it might be fun or at least interesting to share a little milestone in my personal history, and conversely that of sparkle*jets u.k. - OCT 1, 2006 was the 20th Anniversary of Crab Apple Records. For those of you who don't know about THAT...

20 years ago I was a wee lad putting together my "First Public Endeavor" as I called it. It was a really horrible cassette tape with a few comical parodies of Beatles songs on it called (naturally) "Beatle Parodies Volume 1". Since it's always bad luck to put Vol. 1 on anything if you don't already have a volume 2 ready to go, Thankfully there were no more volumes. There were, however many more equally horrible cassettes throughout the following years that over time developed into less horrible cassettes, and eventually presentable CD's, some of which I can assume you have heard and may possibly even enjoy from time to time.

What's the point? Well, as young me was lying there 20 years ago sprawled across my bed with paper, scissors, glue, and a rainbow of bad markers and Razor Point pens creating the packaging for aforementioned Beatles themed cassette, I realized that my product needed to have a record label. Naturally, no real company would have aligned themselves with such a horrendous mass of tape hiss and occasional notes played on bad equipment into boomboxes or 70's vintage $10 Radio Shack microphones onto K-Mart "concertape" media. At the time my life was all about the Beatles (still is for the most part) and as most of you know they started their own company "Apple Corps" in 1967 which led to their Apple Records label. The first Apple release was the 45 of "Hey Jude". The first song on "Beatle Parodies Vol. 1" was "Hey Dude". I lay on that bed, most of my artwork in place, and scoured my brain for a good label name to go with everything... the Beatles had Apple... hmmm... Crab Apple? I drew an apple, wrote the word CRAB inside, and satisfied, went to bed at 2:00 a.m. I sometimes wish I'd thought of "Apple Pie Records" or "Appley Records" or something. I didn't even know what a crabapple was. But the artwork was there, and I proceeded to make about 20 copies of the cassette in real-time (I didn't even have a high-speed dubber yet) while I hand-coloured 20 photocopies of my first J-card masterpiece. THEN (stupid me!) I actually made people listen to it, and even made some poor people BUY it! Suckers! I was quite proud. I've since come to my senses, and hopefully, improved.

Since then, just about every project I've ever been involved with has had 'Crab Apple' on it in some form or another... Crab Apple Video, Crab Apple Press, Crab Apple Custom Cards, Crab Apple Films, Crab Apple Studios, Crab Apple Events, Crab Apple Mortuary Services.

I have "released" well over 20 albums by now... each slightly more sophisticated than the last and in greater quantities. The reason most of you have only heard 2 or 3 is because they all have at least something about them that is just too horrible for me to forgive myself about. Lots of mistakes, laughable lyrics, etc. I'm not being modest, and I'm not being negative or even self-affacing, I'm just being honest. If any of it was good, I'd have rammed it down your throats already, trust me.

Other artists have been kind enough to request the Crab Apple Label at one time or another (or had it foisted on them) ... Triggerfinger, Stormy Pudding, and Cowboy Buddha come to mind (the latter being a record I had nothing to do with! I was honored!). There are others too, but let's err on the side of minimal embarrassment for everyone.

Then of course come SJUK... also celebrating 10 years of playing together... that started out as "Happy Birthday" in early 1996. The debut of the sparkle*jets name came a little later, so we'll celebrate that in the near future. The SJUK records, singles, and tribute CD have been the biggest releases by the label and even when we were signed by a bigger company, the big green Crab Apple logo could still be seen. Nowadays, everyone has their own studio gear or at least puts out their own cd's, so it doesn't seem all to special. Almost everybody that picks up an instrument has a record out with their boutique label name on it... yeah, you! But how many can say that they've been branding their stuff with the same silly name for 20 years?

I can.

So please join me and the other 'Jets in raising a glass... let's celebrate the spirit of rock & roll, creativity, personal expression, and blind raging EGO! May we all keep making more music for another 20 years, and let's hope as we do that more and more people get a chance to hear it. I know that SJUK have a few more 'Crab Apple Records' in the oven right now, just for you.

Thanks for being pals.

Mike Simmons
H.M.F.I.C.
crab apple records