Velveeta Heartbreak artwork on Robin O'Brien CD
Details from my painting "Free Yourself From The Chains of Irony" were used to illustrate the new Robin O'brien CD --- on the cover, the inside gatefold and the disc. The CD is available from Luxotone Records.
The Moth of Sisyphus
The Moth of Sisyphus, aka Icarus' Soul Ascending, aka Post-Rapture Vision No.4
54"x72" on paper
The skeleton of the Icarus/Sisyphus hybrid lies in the weeds, abandoned to the ravages of time, a new exercise in the annals of futility--- and eternity, as he continues to spin the wheel, his nemesis, the sun/stone hybrid. Study the sun/stone hybrid disc and one finds a mermaid with the head of Picasso's crying woman, tugging on the black shroud of Icarus/Sisyphus' heart, the child version of himself. Daedalus, in the form of Basquiat's skull, looks on in disapproval, as if to say "how will my son escape the eternal labyrinth?" Elsewhere in the wheel we see Icarus/Sisyphus' doomed to travel the ether, his forlorn gaze via the foggy porthole of a spaceship. His attempts to see and be seen, the peacock's feather, on closer inspection, reveal a fakery, his attempts at love but a feather in the crown of a suicide king. At the center of it all lies the endless promise of resurrection and redemption. The sun/stone hybrid defies gravity--- and yet, ironically, possesses a black-hole suction all its own. Anything that tries to escape, such as the very soul of Icarus/Sisyphus himself, in the form of a moth, will be pursued and eaten, as his soul becomes a ghost in a game of existential Pacman.
Buy this artwork now
VELVEETA HEARTBREAK - recent artwork in private collections
Over 25+ years of making and selling art to collectors worldwide. Here are some of the most recent sales:
"Afterlife"
48" x 54" on paper - SOLD
"My Totem Unfurls"
48" x 57" on paper - SOLD
"Grail Argument"
57" x 60" on paper - SOLD
"Art and the Geometry of Depression"
17" x 23" on paper - SOLD
"Rider (aka Happy Horseshit)"
60" x 74" on paper - SOLD
"Sunday"
21" x 27" on paper - SOLD
"Spectre"
52" x 54" on paper - SOLD
"Scorpio Rex"
17" x 24" on paper - SOLD
"Psych Ops"
12" x 16" on wood panel - SOLD
"Heavy Meditation"
18" x 24" on plastic board - SOLD
"State of the Union"
17" x 23" on paper - SOLD
"Holy Shit"
60" x 80" on paper - SOLD
"Free Yourself from the Chains of Irony"
108" x 98" on paper - SOLD
"In The Garden At Night"
42" x 52" on paper - SOLD
"Prairie"
60" x 92" on paper - SOLD
"Miasma"
60" x 64" on paper - SOLD
"Peak"
56" x 60" on paper - SOLD
"Fallen Angel"
17" x 23" on paper - SOLD
"Post-Rapture Vision No.1"
17" x 23" on paper - SOLD
"How To Draw God"
11" x 15" on paper - SOLD
"Psychopoop and Shittystance"
16" x 20" on wood panel - SOLD
"No Ironic Wit"
32" x 60" on paper - SOLD
"Chaos and Darkness"
22" x 28" on paper - SOLD
"Trippy Geometric Green Man"
12" x 12" on wood panel - SOLD
"What if every Soul of every Person who ever lived was floating in Outer Space?"
16" x 20" on wood panel - SOLD
"The Year of Incredibly Lame Bullshit"
82" x 106" on paper - SOLD
Eucharist
12" x 16" on wood panel - SOLD
weird, strange, wonderful, cute brut, fantasy, acid, trippy, psychedelic, urban, cosmic, abstract, eclectic, eccentric, experimental, graffiti, tattoo, art of the insane, rock album cover art, madison avenue, hollywood, wall street, surreal, dada, punk, diy, outsider, raw, vision, artist
PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS BY VELVEETA HEARTBREAK
"a riotous multimedia pop inflected explosion of unlikely juxtapositions..."
Caviglia's Cabinet of Curiosities
Click here to see over one hundred Drawings and Paintings by Michael James Bowman
Click here to buy paintings and drawings
"large drawings littered with psychedelic shapes and subversive punk slogans"
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS FEBRUARY 2005
"bowman's approach to large scale drawing draws inspiration from the automatic drawing processes of the surrealists, street art, graffiti, outsider art, psychedelic art, and the art of the insane."
L MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY 2005
Psych Ops, Freak Flags, Breakdowns and Revelations. Esoteric, Eclectic, Eccentric, Experimental, Expressionist, Psycho-delic, Psychedelic, Primitive, Surreal, Lowbrow, Fantasy, Cute Brut, Post-Modern, Abstract, Naive, Trippy, Psycho, Obsessive, Visionary, Intuitive, Graffiti, Tattoo, Art of the Insane, Sci-Fi, Comix, Madison Avenue, Wall Street and Hollywood, Cosmic Urban, Punk, DIY, Lo-Fi, Tribal, Acid, Decorative, Demented, Contemporary Visual Vomit
Psych Ops, Freak Flags, Breakdowns and Revelations. Esoteric, Eclectic, Eccentric, Experimental, Expressionist, Psychedelic, Primitive, Surreal, Lowbrow, Fantasy, Cute Brut, Post-Modern, Abstract, Naive, Trippy, Psycho, Obsessive, Visionary, Intuitive, Graffiti, Tattoo, Art of the Insane, Sci-Fi, Comix, Madison Avenue, Wall Street and Hollywood, Cosmic Urban, Punk, DIY, Lo-Fi, Tribal, Acid, Decorative, Demented, Contemporary Visual Vomit
Nova Feedback, Volumes 1-10
Between 2004 and 2008 I published my drawings in a zine called "Nova Feedback".
In their "Bull Tongue" column for Arthur Magazine, Byron Coley and Thurston Moore said: "Nova Feedback is also easy on the eyes. The first five issues collect a hot bouquet of drawings and collages that range from extremely casual to speed-freak-detailed. Some of them have a very ‘50s animation feel to them (although the subject matter has a tendency to be bit perverse) and it would be mighty interesting to meet a woman who was covered with his designs as tats."
and Rick Bradford of Poopsheet said:
"Michael Bowman publishes Nova Feedback, nice collections of his drawings and doodles. Very much on the abstract, surreal, art brut side of things and maybe even cute brut. I love this kind of stuff."
the complete issues are now posted online at picasaweb:
http://picasaweb.google.com/semperlofi/NOVAFEEDBACKVOLUMES110#
I also did a one-off zine called "You're Not The Boss Of Me" in 2006. Wonkavision said:
"Magazine collages and pen and ink drawings converge on the page to ask the eternal question—who's the boss? Featuring cryptic phrases, an excerpt about God poking around people's brains, and drawings of monsters and skull-faced people, this is friendly weirdness of the garden variety. An entertaining, short read."
The Future's So Bright... aka Starving Artist Self-Portrait Post-Rapture Fallen Angel Vision No.3
The Future's So Bright (aka Post-Rapture Fallen Angel Vision No.3)- 48" x 64" on paper
6 months in the making. Large-scale pencil drawing. Created from thousands of individual pencil strokes. This is not a blow-up photograph or print-out, this is a massive pencil drawing.
Looking across the East River at the Manhattan skyline, we see walking toward us (we are in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on the newly gentrified, unaffordable waterfront) walking toward us on the water, a winged skeleton, a "fallen angel", a nuclear cloud billowing up between his legs, dragging the fractured souls of lost lives in his wake. Between his legs the false face of his humanoid longings. On his head the false crown of knowledge, overseen by the true eyes of the true watcher. From the bushes framing this spectacle, a snake offers his condolences, Eve (NYC) offers her sustenance (don't mind the maggot) - yet our hero smiles on. The future's so bright he's got to wear rose colored glasses... above it all the hands of the true creator continue to weave the fabric of the universe.
SOLD
Rider (aka Happy Horseshit)
60" x 74" on paper
Months in the making. Large-scale pencil drawing. This is not a blow-up photograph or print-out, this is a massive graphite drawing made up of thousands of individual pencil strokes.
"The Rider" ("Reuter" in German) is a Northern Renaissance engraving by Albrecht Durer, created in 1513. Durer's "Rider" depicts a knight upon his trusted horse, fearlessly facing death and the devil, driven onward by his faith in God's unwavering path.
Fast-forward 500 years. Our knight is but a ghostly wisp of his former self, and his trusty steed is no better for the treatment he's received as mankind's 'beast of burden'. On his back sits a drunken monkey grabbing a free ride. On his spear rests the skull of a former companion. Hovering overhead the ghost of a jezebel he cannot save, infinitely falling to her death. Our knight now sports state-of-the-art "x-ray laser vision", despite his being completely blind in both eyes and unable to see either past or future. His horse plods through the empty praise shat out by those who trod before him, as he shits out a pile of his own. His tail grows into a beautiful rose bush, deceiving all those who follow. The horse is toothless as well, his rotting dentures flung towards the viewer's face. From his mouth he pumps out the very clouds of darkness he has sworn to defeat. This futile procession is led by some type of grotesque primate, the knight's offspring perhaps, dancing and laughing as he tugs the reins with whim and caprice. Following behind and beneath is a strange beast that is half elephant, half donkey. Finally, we see that our rider is caught in his own wheel of time, forever stuck in the mud of his own bullshit.
The original Williamsburg art scene
This article at Hyperallergic about the original Williamsburg art scene features my poster art from 1990.
Don Campau's LIVING ARCHIVE
Who were the "hometapers"? Why did they release their albums on cassettes only? And what was the "tape trading network"?
If you've ever wondered about these things, or are curious now, check out Don Campau's LIVING ARCHIVE, a website devoted to the underground audio cassette scene of the '80s and early '90s.
Don is a radio DJ from the San Francisco bay area who has been on the air since 1971, broadcasting underground music at stations like KTAO, KUSP and KKUP. Don also was part of the avant garde experimental noise outfit The Roots Of Madness, whose 1971 LP "The Girl In The Chair" now fetches vast sums of money on eBay.
Don's LIVING ARCHIVE website is a treasure trove of information. The artists, the homemade tape albums and the pre-Internet networking are all covered in his archive, with lots of cool scans, pictures, interviews and links to other sites and downloads.
Who is Michael James Bowman, and what is Velveeta Heartbreak?
Velveeta Heartbreak (ne Michael J. Bowman) is an artist and self-taught musician who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA with his wife and daughter.
Mr. Bowman was born in Elk Grove Village, IL in 1962 and attended art school in Syracuse NY in the early 1980's. In the mid-to-late 1980s Mr. Bowman played drums for a variety of New York City punk and rock bands. In 1987, one of these bands, "The Hungry Dutchmen", won MTV's Basement Tapes Award. In 1989 Mr. Bowman quit drumming for other bands in order to write and record his own music, singing and playing all the instruments in his lo-fi basement studio. Between 1989 and 2009, Mr. Bowman wrote, recorded and released 20 full-length cassette and CDR albums of experimental pop-rock on his homemade Semper Lofi label, garnering dozens of rave reviews from the underground press. In 1990 the NYC magazine Musician's Exchange voted Mr. Bowman one of the year's "Best Unsigned Artists". A profile in the March 1996 issue of Alternative Press called Mr. Bowman's music "an acid-dosed cube of unrefined sugar". In the Summer of 2001, Mr. Bowman's recording "Joe" reached #2 on MP3.COM's IndiePop/LoFi chart.
In tandem with his audio projects, Mr. Bowman creates drawings and paintings. He is of the first artists to hang a painting in the now legendary Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, in 1990 creating paintings, posters and installations for the Lizard's Tail performance space and "Cat's Head" warehouse art events on the then un-developed Williamsburg waterfront. More recently, Mr. Bowman's large-scale drawings have been exhibited in several Brooklyn art galleries, including a 2005 solo show in the Williamsburg neighborhood, of which the New York Daily News wrote "large drawings littered with psychedelic shapes and subversive punk slogans". Mr. Bowman has also published collections of his drawings as the "Nova Feedback" zine series, of which Arthur magazine said "a hot bouquet of drawings and collages that range from extremely casual to speed-freak-detailed...some of them have a very ‘50s animation feel to them".
Mr. Bowman continues to make and show his artwork, while recording and releasing obscure albums of experimental pop-rock music.
Download CV
Reviews of Velveeta Heartbreak's music
MICHAEL J. BOWMAN - CASSETTE CULTURE CASUALTY 1989-2009
"Deliciously off-kilter goof troop sound"
Indieville
One drop of the needle on the title track and I went searching for the best place to stitch my Velveeta Heartbreak Army patch... a wonderful slice of low budget bubblegum pop... I'm getting the Robert Pollard/Paul Caporino overlooked pop genius feeling again." Razorcake
"It's the token adorable pop song of this playlist with massive Kboard appeal"
DJ Rick, Art For Spastics
"I Shot the Invisible Man is a pretty glorious little brace of power-pop, all angelic boy vocals and piano pound surrounding a catchy, substantial riff. Belongs on a Powerpearls somewhere down the line, I'd say."
Dusted
"Velveeta Heartbreak (or Michael Bowman to be more precise) makes short, concise, pop songs that shimmy out of your speakers like sonic smiles. Of the two tracks it was the b side that made the bigger impression as it's the slightly stranger and looser of the two... Summer music on a sunny spring day, life should always be this good."
Wonderful Wooden Reasons
"Jonathan Richman meets Neil Young at They Might Be Giants' house to trade a copy of Syd Barrett's "Opel" for a box of Good N' Fruity... 15 years of often brilliant lofi output... Mike is well on his way to becoming a legend in hometaping circles... This is the sound of a talented, confident songwriter who loves his 4-track and who would make this music even if nobody listened... if you're smart you'll be one of them" Demouniverse
"There are great songs, catchy hooks, funny lyrics, strange sounds, a wonderful lofi buzz... MJB gets a lot of things right, including the really cute handmade packaging, clever song titles, and some nice sample manipulation. These are pretty impressive recordings given their lofi one-man-band origins... Music like this is indie pop at its best" Splendid
"Mostly acoustic guitar driven catchy songs. Its amazing how catchy some of them are... MJB has a voice that is not really something I can listen to all of the time, but it goes with the quirkyness of the music quite well. Very hip indie rockers would be all about this record, as it does not compromise its independence in any way. Quite creative and quirky, this CDR is not something for the average music listener, but for someone who can appreciate a slightly different take on music" 1340 Mag
"A glorious, clamorous, ingenious, incongruous mess of 4-tracked, grot-shop beats, home-made guitar and outer-space samples" Electronic Robots and Brains
"Michael J. Bowman is good at taking pop music and turning it on its head" Aural Innovations
"Probably one of the most satisfying and strangest releases I've had the pleasure of listening to in recent weeks has been the self-produced and self-marketed CDR from MJB. Bowman has been putting out these obscurist gems since 1989. A self taught musician who delights in constructing strange and deeply memorable snippets from the pop spectrum" Losing Today
"It isn't anywhere near as bad as I expected it to be when I first saw the CDR coated in permanent marker drawings and wrapped in a little plastic baggie with photocopied inserts and art drawn with crayons. The songs range from lovely little guitar and piano melodies to bizarre atmospheric electronica... First we have the fun, slightly off-center guitar driven rocker. Tracks like "I Shot The Invisible Man" and the ominously pounding, unfortunately titled instrumental "Smurf Nazi" are built upon solid hooks and up-front melodic pay-offs... If anything, MJB can kick out a mean groove" Delusions of Adequacy
"Mostly sunny one-man pop circus. Songs that build on the handmade strengths of live drumming, layered guitars and harmonized vocals... Its awesome. A couple of the songs are like 'Medeski Martin and Wood' jamming with 'Ray Davies' in the land of basement pop-rock. The songwriting is very good, as usual, with MJB playing and singing and recording everything himself. Acoustic guitars strum happily in time with some damn fine drumming and an occasional Casio. Pop songs with swearing always works for me. MJB=DIY POP, simple" Autoreverse
"There is a charm and inventiveness that lifts this above the DIY norm. For as time I played this tape in my car over and over everytime I took a drive. There are some pretty good tunes here. This tape is chock full of pop, instrumental noodlings, short experimental dementia, pop, and oh yeah, more pop" Pallid Pilgrim
"Michael J. Bowman is one of the kings of lofi indie pop. His drumming is filled with energy, his pop songwriting skills immensely talented, his guitar and bass work tight and melodic, and his vocals like a hyped-up Neil Young" Turk's Head Review
"Gimme a balloon and some confetti, because I'm having fun. It's cool, poppy pink skies and homemade stuff... A kind of whimsical wimpyness, a bliss of emptyheadedness, coming through skillful but simple tunes. Call it psychedelic, artsy, lively" Neo Barbaric
"One-man hometaper MJB crafts such delightful songs that blend all types of styles and noises and singing and experimentation, melody, rock and more. It's exciting" Scorpion
"The sound quality is self-consciously lo-grade... The songs are too good to be buried under tape hiss and audio hum. Luckily, the material transcends the production values. At the moment, I don't feel like listening to anything else" Gloomytunes
"New York's pope of homemade pop raises the flag yet again" Taped Crusaders
"A single person band, MJB is in the vein of great mix n' match artists like Beck and has the essence of Pavement's unusually wired tunes. If you like music that's got a "homemade" feel to it, but also has good production values to it, then look no further" hEARd
"He uses the word Rocktober in a song, he's a one-man band and he has a song called 'Smurf Nazi'" Roctober
"I was quite impressed with this very DIY cassette of casually tossed-off pop brilliance. Really some amazing, edgy tunesmithery by Michael J. Bowman that fans of Mr. Chilton, Elephant 6, Bee Thousand and those Beatle fellas would certainly dig" Intergalactic Dossier
"Recorded in a basement by one-man-band Michael J. Bowman, "C'mon Slacker" contains several pieces of very tasty power pop" Tape Op
"Sheer genius!" Shouting At The Postman
"I don't know what I can really compare this to, maybe Blind Melon meets Guided By Voices? Something kind of hippy, but something more interesting and good than that. I like it" QRD
"This is the sort of music that my life so much more bearable during my adolescent years!" Original Sin
"It's quite an interesting mix of guitars, keyboards and other electronic doo-dads" Backwash
"More inspired, fun, melodic, original unforgettable songs from the one and only Michael J. Bowman. This cassette is full of the infectious melodies I've come to expect from this obscure, underground hero. Fifteen tunes of pure bliss... This is certainly one of the best releases of 1996! One of the best hometapers of this decade... Michael's peculiar pop with those strangely sincere vocals sounds like no-one else... Michael J. Bowman stands out in a world where too many people are trying way, WAY too hard" Babysue
"An acid-dosed cube of unrefined sugar" Alternative Press
"A little diamond in the rough on the tape trading scene by one Michael J. Bowman. Lotsa different styles here, from Dinosaur drench rock to acousticky goodies and guitar instrumentos... this is dizzy pop spun around a few times on its macrocephalic head" Factsheet Five
"He whips out some great drum fills on nearly every track. The laid-back, homemade jamming feel reminds me of the first McCartney solo album... he's one of the best in the underground... Every song here is a gem... for some reason reminds me of a light-hearted Lou Reed" Ray Carmen
"There's a kind of reckless abandon fused with hook-driven guitar pop going on here that's very hard to resist. And the drumming just kicks all" Orange Street Press
"Oh the glories of 4-track lofi hometaping! Michael J. Bowman's cassette has 20 songs that bristle with post-pop exuberance. Live drumming, catchy riffs and witty lyrics" Sparks
"Hopelessly obscure and equally as brilliant, MJB is excellent power pop with an ironic twist of dissent" Jelly Slide
"Michael J. Bowman is MJB, writing the songs, playing all the instruments and singing. He's been putting out tapes for years, prolific, experimental, wildly eclectic. The crucial thing that makes everything work here is that his first instrument is the drums- no drum-machine sameyness here... every track is pop, every track an experiment" Unhinged
"Having established himself consistently as one of the favorite hometapers amongst those who appreciate a gifted songwriting sense along with a healthy attitude of making fun of music for the fun of it. MJB's tape shows off his seemingly effortless gift of creating compelling songs... progressive pop rock with a heavy psychedelic bent..." Gajoob
"This tape is full of catchy psychedelic rock that possesses a ceratin skewered pop sensibility" New Music Informer
"Its rock and it may even be pop, but it ain't bland or ready for radio music... there are rock instrumentals and even a touch of silliness. It works. The singing is raw and loose... and he comes up with some cool melodies" Sound Choice
"Lightweight rock with cheesy synths and geeky vocals-- all mixed outfront... but once again Mr. Bowman wins me over with his songwriting skills... These tunes have breezy guitar, nimble basslines, decent drumming and hooks galore" File 13
"Wonderfully crafted melodic pop that marries professionalism with homespun charm" Pop Cult
"Mike Bowman has done it again... This stuff sounds like it was produced by entire orchestras, when in fact, one guy does it all. The music ranges from pure pop to some sort of deranged garage punk to experimental stuff" Jersey Beat
"Some songs, some noise, some existential sense from all of this? What DIY is all about" Under The Volcano
"Though music is only a hobby for MJB, he does it well. Better than many who do it for a living, in fact. His recordings are all of low sonic quality, featuring lots of tape fuzz and background noise, but that's all part of the allure. His pleasant pop tunes offer the listener a great musical experience, packed with lovely melodies and pleasant atmospheres. How can you not enjoy this?" Indieville
"Mike Bowman rips into some gleeful, ragged pop-rock on this 4-track solo outing" Musician's Exchange
"Why the hell did I bother saving any of your crappy cassettes?" Mike Jourgensen
cassette-culture links:
Cassette Culture by Richie Unterberger
Cassette Culture wikipedia article
Cassette Mythos by Robin James
Bill Berger and the original lofi cassette radio show
Cassette Culture article 1987
CDs I played drums on for bands I was in and/or other people's solo projects:
-Jason Trachtenberg: Together (drums)
-Exeter Popes: debut ep (drums, bass, production)
-The Brian Wilson Shock Treatment: Saviours Of Rock (drums)
-John T. Baker: Rough Skeleton (drums)
-The JFK Jr. Royal Airforce: Androids (drums, guitar, production)
-Mummies Of The Insane (drums, guitar, bass, keyboards, songwriting, production) - this is an album that Billy Syndome and I made and released together, as a group, in 2005 called "Mummies of the Insane" - then Billy went and made a deal behind my back with some douchebag named Albert Garzon and released the album under the name "Billy Syndrome" - what an asshole! Fuck you too Billy!
See also droneforest
Bands I played drums for include:
Synaesthetics, Serious Journalism, Throbbing Pubus, The Sprockets, The Astorians, The Hungry Dutchmen, Bob Reuter, Sickdog, Junkbunny, Bite The Wax Godhead, The Brian Wilson Shock Treatment, Jason Trachtenberg, Billy Syndrome, Exeter Popes, The JFK Jr. Royal Airforce, Stars & Butter
"Deliciously off-kilter goof troop sound"
Indieville
One drop of the needle on the title track and I went searching for the best place to stitch my Velveeta Heartbreak Army patch... a wonderful slice of low budget bubblegum pop... I'm getting the Robert Pollard/Paul Caporino overlooked pop genius feeling again." Razorcake
"It's the token adorable pop song of this playlist with massive Kboard appeal"
DJ Rick, Art For Spastics
"I Shot the Invisible Man is a pretty glorious little brace of power-pop, all angelic boy vocals and piano pound surrounding a catchy, substantial riff. Belongs on a Powerpearls somewhere down the line, I'd say."
Dusted
"Velveeta Heartbreak (or Michael Bowman to be more precise) makes short, concise, pop songs that shimmy out of your speakers like sonic smiles. Of the two tracks it was the b side that made the bigger impression as it's the slightly stranger and looser of the two... Summer music on a sunny spring day, life should always be this good."
Wonderful Wooden Reasons
"Jonathan Richman meets Neil Young at They Might Be Giants' house to trade a copy of Syd Barrett's "Opel" for a box of Good N' Fruity... 15 years of often brilliant lofi output... Mike is well on his way to becoming a legend in hometaping circles... This is the sound of a talented, confident songwriter who loves his 4-track and who would make this music even if nobody listened... if you're smart you'll be one of them" Demouniverse
"There are great songs, catchy hooks, funny lyrics, strange sounds, a wonderful lofi buzz... MJB gets a lot of things right, including the really cute handmade packaging, clever song titles, and some nice sample manipulation. These are pretty impressive recordings given their lofi one-man-band origins... Music like this is indie pop at its best" Splendid
"Mostly acoustic guitar driven catchy songs. Its amazing how catchy some of them are... MJB has a voice that is not really something I can listen to all of the time, but it goes with the quirkyness of the music quite well. Very hip indie rockers would be all about this record, as it does not compromise its independence in any way. Quite creative and quirky, this CDR is not something for the average music listener, but for someone who can appreciate a slightly different take on music" 1340 Mag
"A glorious, clamorous, ingenious, incongruous mess of 4-tracked, grot-shop beats, home-made guitar and outer-space samples" Electronic Robots and Brains
"Michael J. Bowman is good at taking pop music and turning it on its head" Aural Innovations
"Probably one of the most satisfying and strangest releases I've had the pleasure of listening to in recent weeks has been the self-produced and self-marketed CDR from MJB. Bowman has been putting out these obscurist gems since 1989. A self taught musician who delights in constructing strange and deeply memorable snippets from the pop spectrum" Losing Today
"It isn't anywhere near as bad as I expected it to be when I first saw the CDR coated in permanent marker drawings and wrapped in a little plastic baggie with photocopied inserts and art drawn with crayons. The songs range from lovely little guitar and piano melodies to bizarre atmospheric electronica... First we have the fun, slightly off-center guitar driven rocker. Tracks like "I Shot The Invisible Man" and the ominously pounding, unfortunately titled instrumental "Smurf Nazi" are built upon solid hooks and up-front melodic pay-offs... If anything, MJB can kick out a mean groove" Delusions of Adequacy
"Mostly sunny one-man pop circus. Songs that build on the handmade strengths of live drumming, layered guitars and harmonized vocals... Its awesome. A couple of the songs are like 'Medeski Martin and Wood' jamming with 'Ray Davies' in the land of basement pop-rock. The songwriting is very good, as usual, with MJB playing and singing and recording everything himself. Acoustic guitars strum happily in time with some damn fine drumming and an occasional Casio. Pop songs with swearing always works for me. MJB=DIY POP, simple" Autoreverse
"There is a charm and inventiveness that lifts this above the DIY norm. For as time I played this tape in my car over and over everytime I took a drive. There are some pretty good tunes here. This tape is chock full of pop, instrumental noodlings, short experimental dementia, pop, and oh yeah, more pop" Pallid Pilgrim
"Michael J. Bowman is one of the kings of lofi indie pop. His drumming is filled with energy, his pop songwriting skills immensely talented, his guitar and bass work tight and melodic, and his vocals like a hyped-up Neil Young" Turk's Head Review
"Gimme a balloon and some confetti, because I'm having fun. It's cool, poppy pink skies and homemade stuff... A kind of whimsical wimpyness, a bliss of emptyheadedness, coming through skillful but simple tunes. Call it psychedelic, artsy, lively" Neo Barbaric
"One-man hometaper MJB crafts such delightful songs that blend all types of styles and noises and singing and experimentation, melody, rock and more. It's exciting" Scorpion
"The sound quality is self-consciously lo-grade... The songs are too good to be buried under tape hiss and audio hum. Luckily, the material transcends the production values. At the moment, I don't feel like listening to anything else" Gloomytunes
"New York's pope of homemade pop raises the flag yet again" Taped Crusaders
"A single person band, MJB is in the vein of great mix n' match artists like Beck and has the essence of Pavement's unusually wired tunes. If you like music that's got a "homemade" feel to it, but also has good production values to it, then look no further" hEARd
"He uses the word Rocktober in a song, he's a one-man band and he has a song called 'Smurf Nazi'" Roctober
"I was quite impressed with this very DIY cassette of casually tossed-off pop brilliance. Really some amazing, edgy tunesmithery by Michael J. Bowman that fans of Mr. Chilton, Elephant 6, Bee Thousand and those Beatle fellas would certainly dig" Intergalactic Dossier
"Recorded in a basement by one-man-band Michael J. Bowman, "C'mon Slacker" contains several pieces of very tasty power pop" Tape Op
"Sheer genius!" Shouting At The Postman
"I don't know what I can really compare this to, maybe Blind Melon meets Guided By Voices? Something kind of hippy, but something more interesting and good than that. I like it" QRD
"This is the sort of music that my life so much more bearable during my adolescent years!" Original Sin
"It's quite an interesting mix of guitars, keyboards and other electronic doo-dads" Backwash
"More inspired, fun, melodic, original unforgettable songs from the one and only Michael J. Bowman. This cassette is full of the infectious melodies I've come to expect from this obscure, underground hero. Fifteen tunes of pure bliss... This is certainly one of the best releases of 1996! One of the best hometapers of this decade... Michael's peculiar pop with those strangely sincere vocals sounds like no-one else... Michael J. Bowman stands out in a world where too many people are trying way, WAY too hard" Babysue
"An acid-dosed cube of unrefined sugar" Alternative Press
"A little diamond in the rough on the tape trading scene by one Michael J. Bowman. Lotsa different styles here, from Dinosaur drench rock to acousticky goodies and guitar instrumentos... this is dizzy pop spun around a few times on its macrocephalic head" Factsheet Five
"He whips out some great drum fills on nearly every track. The laid-back, homemade jamming feel reminds me of the first McCartney solo album... he's one of the best in the underground... Every song here is a gem... for some reason reminds me of a light-hearted Lou Reed" Ray Carmen
"There's a kind of reckless abandon fused with hook-driven guitar pop going on here that's very hard to resist. And the drumming just kicks all" Orange Street Press
"Oh the glories of 4-track lofi hometaping! Michael J. Bowman's cassette has 20 songs that bristle with post-pop exuberance. Live drumming, catchy riffs and witty lyrics" Sparks
"Hopelessly obscure and equally as brilliant, MJB is excellent power pop with an ironic twist of dissent" Jelly Slide
"Michael J. Bowman is MJB, writing the songs, playing all the instruments and singing. He's been putting out tapes for years, prolific, experimental, wildly eclectic. The crucial thing that makes everything work here is that his first instrument is the drums- no drum-machine sameyness here... every track is pop, every track an experiment" Unhinged
"Having established himself consistently as one of the favorite hometapers amongst those who appreciate a gifted songwriting sense along with a healthy attitude of making fun of music for the fun of it. MJB's tape shows off his seemingly effortless gift of creating compelling songs... progressive pop rock with a heavy psychedelic bent..." Gajoob
"This tape is full of catchy psychedelic rock that possesses a ceratin skewered pop sensibility" New Music Informer
"Its rock and it may even be pop, but it ain't bland or ready for radio music... there are rock instrumentals and even a touch of silliness. It works. The singing is raw and loose... and he comes up with some cool melodies" Sound Choice
"Lightweight rock with cheesy synths and geeky vocals-- all mixed outfront... but once again Mr. Bowman wins me over with his songwriting skills... These tunes have breezy guitar, nimble basslines, decent drumming and hooks galore" File 13
"Wonderfully crafted melodic pop that marries professionalism with homespun charm" Pop Cult
"Mike Bowman has done it again... This stuff sounds like it was produced by entire orchestras, when in fact, one guy does it all. The music ranges from pure pop to some sort of deranged garage punk to experimental stuff" Jersey Beat
"Some songs, some noise, some existential sense from all of this? What DIY is all about" Under The Volcano
"Though music is only a hobby for MJB, he does it well. Better than many who do it for a living, in fact. His recordings are all of low sonic quality, featuring lots of tape fuzz and background noise, but that's all part of the allure. His pleasant pop tunes offer the listener a great musical experience, packed with lovely melodies and pleasant atmospheres. How can you not enjoy this?" Indieville
"Mike Bowman rips into some gleeful, ragged pop-rock on this 4-track solo outing" Musician's Exchange
"Why the hell did I bother saving any of your crappy cassettes?" Mike Jourgensen
cassette-culture links:
Cassette Culture by Richie Unterberger
Cassette Culture wikipedia article
Cassette Mythos by Robin James
Bill Berger and the original lofi cassette radio show
Cassette Culture article 1987
CDs I played drums on for bands I was in and/or other people's solo projects:
-Jason Trachtenberg: Together (drums)
-Exeter Popes: debut ep (drums, bass, production)
-The Brian Wilson Shock Treatment: Saviours Of Rock (drums)
-John T. Baker: Rough Skeleton (drums)
-The JFK Jr. Royal Airforce: Androids (drums, guitar, production)
-Mummies Of The Insane (drums, guitar, bass, keyboards, songwriting, production) - this is an album that Billy Syndome and I made and released together, as a group, in 2005 called "Mummies of the Insane" - then Billy went and made a deal behind my back with some douchebag named Albert Garzon and released the album under the name "Billy Syndrome" - what an asshole! Fuck you too Billy!
See also droneforest
Bands I played drums for include:
Synaesthetics, Serious Journalism, Throbbing Pubus, The Sprockets, The Astorians, The Hungry Dutchmen, Bob Reuter, Sickdog, Junkbunny, Bite The Wax Godhead, The Brian Wilson Shock Treatment, Jason Trachtenberg, Billy Syndrome, Exeter Popes, The JFK Jr. Royal Airforce, Stars & Butter
Lo-Fi Indie Power-Pop
Velveeta Heartbreak 7" Single - cut at 33-1/3 RPM
"I Shot The Invisible Man" b/w "Secret Beach Boys Fans"
plus rare full-color 17" x 23" protest poster
hand-painted color sleeve signed by the artist
mint condition straight from the factory
recorded on 4-track in 1996, released on vinyl 2006
Send $10US via Paypal to michaeljamesbowman@gmail.com (ppd)
I Shot The Invisible Man by Velveeta Heartbreak
lo-fi, lofi, lo fi, powerpop, power pop, weird bubblegum punk, acid fried bubblegum, goofy, punk, pop, indie rock, indie, 45, 7-inch, rare, vinyl, 4-track, four track, outsider music, collector vinyl, vinyl records, hand painted sleeve, semper lofi recordings, mjb-90, mjb, michael j bowman, bubblegum, fuzz, hometaper, cassette, tape trading, r. stevie moore, ariel pink, mountain goats, ray carmen, dino dimuro, don campau, dead milkmen, monkees, banana splits, ohio express, 1910 fruitgum company, beatles, Wallmen, needles in the camels eye, modern lovers, velvets beginning to see the light, The Vapors New Clear Days, Big Star, Flaming Lips, LMNOP, Pavement, top 100 power pop singles, popllama, garage rock, quirky indie pop, sub-pop, K records, pallid pilgrim, tom robinson man you never saw, bowie queen bitch, ramones, dave edmunds girls talk, clash i'm so bored with the usa, slade mama weer all crazee now, kiss rock and roll all night, bay city rollers saturday night, undertones, pop-punk, husker du makes no sense at all, shonen knife, dickies, the queers, yellow pills, power pearls, buzzcocks, gang of four entertainment, guided by voices, shoes, cloud nothings, replacements, not lame, Big Black Bugs Bleed Blue Blood, material issue, superchunk's ten thousand fireflies, the records starry eyes, freak scene, love calvin, helen love, m.o.t.o.
"I Shot The Invisible Man" b/w "Secret Beach Boys Fans"
plus rare full-color 17" x 23" protest poster
hand-painted color sleeve signed by the artist
mint condition straight from the factory
recorded on 4-track in 1996, released on vinyl 2006
Send $10US via Paypal to michaeljamesbowman@gmail.com (ppd)
I Shot The Invisible Man by Velveeta Heartbreak
lo-fi, lofi, lo fi, powerpop, power pop, weird bubblegum punk, acid fried bubblegum, goofy, punk, pop, indie rock, indie, 45, 7-inch, rare, vinyl, 4-track, four track, outsider music, collector vinyl, vinyl records, hand painted sleeve, semper lofi recordings, mjb-90, mjb, michael j bowman, bubblegum, fuzz, hometaper, cassette, tape trading, r. stevie moore, ariel pink, mountain goats, ray carmen, dino dimuro, don campau, dead milkmen, monkees, banana splits, ohio express, 1910 fruitgum company, beatles, Wallmen, needles in the camels eye, modern lovers, velvets beginning to see the light, The Vapors New Clear Days, Big Star, Flaming Lips, LMNOP, Pavement, top 100 power pop singles, popllama, garage rock, quirky indie pop, sub-pop, K records, pallid pilgrim, tom robinson man you never saw, bowie queen bitch, ramones, dave edmunds girls talk, clash i'm so bored with the usa, slade mama weer all crazee now, kiss rock and roll all night, bay city rollers saturday night, undertones, pop-punk, husker du makes no sense at all, shonen knife, dickies, the queers, yellow pills, power pearls, buzzcocks, gang of four entertainment, guided by voices, shoes, cloud nothings, replacements, not lame, Big Black Bugs Bleed Blue Blood, material issue, superchunk's ten thousand fireflies, the records starry eyes, freak scene, love calvin, helen love, m.o.t.o.
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