Caulfield Records

A fun piece of Sideshow history popped up during today’s morning scroll…

posted about ‘The List’ , the indispensable Bay Area concert calendar (in paper form ‘back in the day, and still today on the web). Anyway, they posted a copy of the a list which included an evening which became part of Sideshow legend.

We played to a sparse crowd on Friday, July 24 1992. At the end of the night, the folks at Gilman apologized profusely. There wasn’t enough money to pay bands anything that night. But then, a punk holding a garbage bag stepped up and said, “but we dumpster dived these bagels!”, and handed them to us.

We thanked them. We were totally broke. We gnawed on those bagels for a few days until they became teeth shatteringly hard, and ditched them in the Tower Records on Sunset where we were selling a box of CDs donated to us by the Dirt magazine gents.

When we returned to Gilman exactly one year later, our fortunes changed. We shared the bill with Rancid. The show was sold out. I remember Tim Armstrong was rightfully giddy about selling out Gilman for the first time. I was hoping to have left with an extra $20, but was grateful to have played to anyone at all.

New website. Old Blabber.

As the kids say, ‘link in bio’.

I heard that cassettes are making a comeback. Found a few of these in a box. (Which reminds me, need to get this release on streaming services.).

thinks that the Christie Front Drive release known as ‘Stereo’ was one of the best from 1996, and they are not wrong. Never forget that the original working title of the release was called ‘Christie Front Drive 2 Electric Boogaloo’. (Swipe for proof).

’s final performance was a stunner.

❤️

1998

A spiffed up The Truth About Love is on the way!

Track Premiere: Broken Hearts Are Blue - 'Because I Am' – New Noise Magazine Broken Hearts Are Blue debut their latest single called "Because I Am" from the reissue of the album 'The Truth About Love.'

Giants Chair. Blue 88’s/ Mother Brother Sister Lover, Cassette Single. 1995.

Who here remembers the great cassette single revival of 1995? Me either, but we can be grateful that Giants Chair and Hammer Press took the opportunity to collaborate on this design for a cassette previewing a few songs of their first full length, Red and Clear.

I may be biased, but these songs still sound incredibly fresh and original. Pounding, driving, and urgent, this record slapped the listener repeatedly with precise timing and brute force. Giants Chair thankfully avoided any ‘look what we did there’ cleverness in their songs. They simply delivered.

Word has it, that they will deliver again this year on . Can’t fu***ng wait.

Caulfield Records: finally on Instagram. Join us, won’t you?

https://www.instagram.com/p/C0QVlYALUdh/

Caulfield Records was a record label based out of Lincoln NE, releasing nearly 50 records between 1988-2002. — Nostalgia for independent music made in the late 80’s and 90s is in overdrive these days. Nostalgia and me don’t get along well, for whatever reason, but I don’t want that to get in the way of celebrating the people, bands and music that were a huge part of my world during this time period. Caulfield Records was started initially to release one 7” EP by my band Sideshow, but eventually became the home of dozens of bands, and around 50 different releases. Regardless of my love/hate relationship with nostalgia, I wanted to give a little space here to share a few this and that’s about the amazing music and friendships that came from this little record label. Truth be told, I am still a massive fan of all of these bands and am tremendously proud to have had a chance to contribute. Thanks for following along. It’ll be fun to share.

Signal boost!

In December, the recording of the first LP will be a spry 30 years old. To commemorate the milestone, Dark Operative has issued the latest run on hot pink vinyl, made at Third Man Pressing in Detroit.

You can pick up a copy in record stores, online, and via our Bandcamp page:

https://christiefrontdrive.bandcamp.com/