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I am always urged to focus, define, and categorize my actions, projects, and intentions by others, and it is usually implied that if I don’t do so my legitimacy, appeal, and business opportunities shall suffer. It is a constant theme in my life.

Many years I’ve tried to conform in these ways. I’ve always been very open to suggestions and willing to try out any path enthusiastically presented to me by an interesting person.

However, I consistently find that the most meaningful, cathartic, and lasting experiences, relationships, and creative work come from the least amount of obsessive itinerary and logical procedure.

Public School Records is always something different, and can always change. Right now it is this website. This website is the product of two friends: Jason and Zach. The front page contains our creative journals. Our friend Chuck also helps with the site and you can find his music on here as well.

Then there is the Artists page. Public School Records is not a record label. These are bands and recording projects that we enjoy and/or participate in and have had the time to make pages for, simple and plain.

This site is fun for us. The projects you will find are a good sampling of our life’s work so far. You will find now inactive bands that will always be in our hall of fame like Spitball, Swim Team, and Petit Mal. You will also find important bands currently active that we think you should check out, like Lipstick Homicide, Coolzey, and Utopia Park.

We are the type of people to be recording, making a video, working on a house, gardening, hugging a damn tree, riding a bike, driving across the country, playing a show, writing a screenplay, or watching a movie and don’t have a lot of time for the computer, but I personally feel it is important to share, and I like the little thing we have going here. Even if the front page news/blogs aren’t updated daily, there is usually Artist page content added on a weekly basis. I’m trying to make it a labyrinth of quality art and fun.

I’ve also been working closely with the Free Music Archive (dot org) and you will find many of their players embedded in the site. They are super easy to use and fast, the best way to get free music by PSR friends currently.

We are always open to ideas and pretty nice. Also, none of the bands on PSR are signed. We have helped a few bands get record deals, and it makes us happy (Liberty Leg’s new album was partially orchestrated by our forces). If you’d like to talk to any of the bands about any sort of work or album release, please email me at coolzey2010 A T gmail D O T com and I will happily get you in touch with them. We are constantly liscencing music for films, independent products, videos, and all sorts of art projects as well, so don’t be afraid to ask.

Normally, I like to let the pictures, music, videos, film, writings, and art speak for itself. I just felt motivated to share some thoughts about it all today.

I’ll see you around,

Zach

Hey!

Lipstick Homicide and Zach decided to go on tour in July 2010!

2 and a half weeks! In the South! In the Summer! Mostly DIY venues and friends houses!

And I only rapped when they made me. Mostly I got to play bass in Lipstick and we worked up 8 or 9 Grism tunes.

Which means no money, small turnouts, and as hot and humid as you can imagine!

But guess what, we had tons of fun, met lots of cool people, and had great shows!

And if we hadn’t been towed in Austin, we would have made some money.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from tour:

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Meera.

Charcoal on paper.

The first live one I’ve done in a while.

Done the night before we left for Philadelphia about a week ago.

Now I’m back in Iowa.

I miss her terribly.

Week 12 and that’s it. We went out in style w/ a live mix featuring a beat by Dr. Don and a special freestyle by Jarrett Mitchell.

Here’s the completed album:

Our friends at Sweat Power just made this great video. Created by Geoff Boothby. Song by Utopia Park.

So Long Silly Rabbit – Utopia Park from Geoff Boothby on Vimeo.

This weeks song (10 of 12) was musically composed by Soce the Elemental Wizard and lyrically composed by yours truly.

The video was made by Jason Hennesy and Grace Locke-Ward, starring her cats Iris, Andy, Evie, and Franklin.

I was really depressed when we made the video, some sort of solar rays or weird weather. I spent 3 hours moaning on the couch before the shoot.

Luke Tweedy saved the song from becoming a disaster once again at Flat Black Studios with his magic computers.

Here’s the video and a link to download the song at Free Music Archive.

This week’s song features a beat by The Rhombus. Coolzey, once again, espouses his philosophy and I throws a wacky video together with public domain footage found on the internet.

This one was fun for me cuz I decided to just do whatever I wanted for the video – I like how it all turned out. I’m starting to think that we need to do this every week for about a year before we really start getting weird, though.

Week #8 video:

Last week Luke and I had a date at Flat Black to work on the mixes for Jason’s new project “Tough Jerks”, which I’m really excited about finishing, but we ran into some complications and were forced to redirect our efforts. The result was that we ended up mixing the 8 tracks from the 2nd Astrodome album Hot Chocolate never released yet recorded over a decade ago. If you don’t know about Astrodome then click on that link I just made back there when I said Astrodome <- And so without further ado, Public School Records presents: Astrodome: The Hot Chocolate sessions.