THE TRUE HISTORY OF GREY GHOST – PART ONE: ORIGINS

One of the best revivals this summer, and please oh please if you think the second half of this sentence is going to be about Hairspray, is the return of John Sears’ Grey Ghost series. Basically, every week, they’ll be a new CDr single at Domy featuring tracks from a local great of times past or times present (and maybe even times future). But if you pick up the latest installment (currently a two-track explosion by Punkin Pie), you may notice “wait – this number if far too high for it to be the beginning of the series!” Where did this come from? What are the earlier recordings? How did this happen? WELL, these were questions we too were dying to know, and rightly so since our memory in this town is certainly not the most sage. So we got in touch with Mr Robuck and Company himself to get the skinny. John was more than accommodating in our thirsty thirst for the Sparky knowledge, and so, we are pleased to present to you PART ONE of THE TRUE HISTORY OF GREY GOST – ORIGINS as told to us by John Sears:

somewhere around 1996, i decided it was time to go to college. i had spent the past five years playing in some very polvo/slint/sonic youth inspired bands (i used at least three different guitars at a show to accommodate all of the alternate tunings) and working cool kid jobs at brother's coffee (now diedrich's), amy's ice creams, and a really cool used guitar store that only scenesters knew about. something was missing, a true punk would try and make the world a better place, not just hang out at bars looking cool. so school it was.

anyway, i relocated to Trinity Texas (pop. about 2000) and went to school in Huntsville. It was a culture shock to move out there, so I came to Houston every weekend and worked shifts at Amy's. During the school week there was no night life, so I recorded on my 4-track a lot. Songs to try and pick up girls, songs about books I was reading, songs based on stories by Truman Capote and Flannery O'Conner, songs about getting your heart broke, songs about not taking your easy life for granted. I also visited my friend Dan Smith at his radio shift at KTRU. Dan had started his underground pop radio show with Will Adams (The Ka-Nives) and they called it "the Fantastic Cat Show" after a song of that title by Japanese songsters, Takako Minekawa.

One night at the radio show, Dan challenged me to make a cassingle a week of the 4 track music I was making in Trinity.

Two weeks later, I brought Dan my first cassingle. I called the "band" Sears, as I called all of my solo stuff that. I packaged it with a full color laser copy cover. I named my label "grey ghost" in honor of my dad. Back in the seventies we had a "Dove Grey" Ford Econoline van equipped with a CB radio. My dad liked to talk to the truckers when we were driving on road trips. You know, to look out for smokey and all that jazz. Rent the movie Convoy and it will all make sense. So every CB radio operator has a "handle". That's the name you go by when you are talking to everyone else. Our handle was the "Grey Ghost" because our van was grey and like a ghost we could spirit through smokey's radar detectors thus eluding a dreaded speeding ticket.

Dan played both sides of the cassingle on his radio show and I took 13 copies of the cassingle up to Sound Exchange. I only made 13 copies of each single because I was always depressed by the thought of seeing multiple copies of my local release sitting gathering dust at Sound Exchange. This was when Sound Exchange was in the strip center next to Empire Cafe on Westhiemer. Oh yeah, Sound Exchange and I decided that two dollars was an appropriate price for the cassingle.

I decided to make 13 Cassingles, one a week for the next 13 weeks. Every week, Dan would play the whole cassingle on his radio show (he had the 11PM to 1AM shift at KTRU). Every week I would take 13 copies up to Sound Exchange. When I was at Sound Exchange, I would take back all copies left of the previous week's cassingle. I think my worst week I only sold 8 copies, so I took 5 home. I sold all 13 copies maybe 3 times.

After releasing the first 13 copies, I decided to take a break from putting out my music. I don't remember what grey ghost #14 was, but I do know that grey ghost #15 was the first non-demo release of the Fatal Flying Guilloteens. i made 100 of the fatal flying tapes all on clear red cassettes. i am still very proud of the packaging for this release. The band lost over 50 of the tapes on a road trip to austin. good luck finding one of the remaining 50. Maybe Shawn Adolf has one still.

BUT WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? HOW DID IT ALL GET STARTED AGAIN? Check back tomorrow when we’ll bring you up to the present, with Sears’ retelling the tale of why he’s back in the CdrSingle business. Plus, we’ll give you the word up on some of the bands that are slated for release in the near future. In the meantime, head on over to Domy and pick up this week’s Grey Ghost installment, which still clocks in at a measly $2. Don’t blow it.