Posting about the photograph on Tom’s LP cover the other day got me to asking his son Travis more about the history of the custom made guitar pictured (he’s promised to get me some better shots, which I’ll post as they come in). Here’s what Travis had to say about the instrument:

“Hmmmm. Well it was made for him by Dobro* in ‘74, prior to the [Dopyera] brothers selling out to Gibson.

“It’s the first electrified Dobro every made. They implanted a Gibson Firebird pickup under the bridge. It was originally a sunburst finish** that I used to Pledge before his gigs as part of my chores. He later had it redone in jet black after he and my mother split in ‘79. You know Tom. I’m sure there is over romanticized symbolism there.

“It was hand engraved by the eldest [Dopyera] brother.

“Mandolin Brothers is on Staten Island; that’s where Tom found a tech who know resonator guitars, mandolins, and banjos. At the time they were the only alternative to Sam Ash, and where a “folkie” mecca.  But most importantly, the tech took payment in vinyl (like my dentist).

“It currently resides in my home studio where it is pledged and played 2 times a year Jan 25th and July 17th***.”

…..

* Even though it looks black, the guitar has its original sunburst finish (like this) in this photo.

** In the original post I mistakenly identified the builders as Mandolin Brothers of Staten Island, whose shop, in fact, did Tom’s repairs on the guitar.

*** The anniversaries of Tom’s birth and death. 

It all started…

Tom Pomposello’s 1971 campaign poster to be the Huntington, New York Receiver of Taxes

The roots of Oblivion (and Tom Pomposello’s musical moniker) were planted in the Huntington, New York, hippie record store Tom started in 1970 with his partner Rob Witter. Kropotkin was set up as an antidote to the suburban appliance stores that sold music to go along with their record players, department stores, and the Sam Goody’s of the world. Oh, and to go with the ethos of the time, it was named after the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin. Rob and Tom wanted to offer a selection that was reflective of the expansive musical thinking taking hold in coastal youth and offered everything from the obscure to the freeform FM rock. Rob was my age (born 1951), Tom was two years older. Both of them were free spirits, Tom slightly less so only in that he was already married with a six month old baby (Travis, often in a playpen at the back of the store).

Searching for like minded community, kids from 14 to 45 would gather at Kropotkin regularly for musical conversation (de rigueur in those times) or just general BS that often degenerated into a real time Howard Stern like round of phony phone calls and rank outs.

After I’d invited the guys for an interview on my college radio show (I was completely taken by the spirit of the store) Tom and I would spend more and more time discussing the possibilities of making and recording music on our own.

One day in 1971 I walked into Kropotkin and found this poster. Tom was taking his anarchy seriously (it was some time before I found out about Tom’s years in the seminary and his lifetime adherence to rigorous philosophical thought) and decided to throw his hat in the political ring. I had a good laugh at my role in his qualitifications for office.
…..
HONEST TOM POMPOSELLO
YOUR CANDIDATE FOR RECEIVER OF TAXES

Hi there! My name is Thomas (Honest Tom) Pomposello. I’d like to cordially inform all my friends that I am the Huntington Tea Party’s candidate for Receiver of Taxes in the 1971 local elections. If things are as they seem, this year promises to be one that will be full of surprises in Our Town. So may the best man lose (why should this year be any different?), and I’ll see you all at the polls.

Yours intact,
Honest Tom Pomposello

P.S.: Here are a few of my numerous qualifications - -

• I AM INDISPUTABLY THE LARGEST PERSON TO RUN FOR THE OFFICE OF RECEIVER OF TAXES IN THE LAST 40 YEARS. At 6’0” even in boots with one-half inch heels and 267½ lbs. without those same boots, it would seem that this be more than an unfounded claim. However, in the interest of fairness, upon request I can present factual data. (Actually the closest contender I suppose would be Mrs. Rosemary Bacon who held the office from 1936 - 1938; but even though she did tend a bit toward the chub, in reality she is little competition for me.)

• I AM THE ONLY CANDIDATE WHO HAS THE UNCONDITIONAL SUPPORT OF MISSISSIPPI FRED McDOWELL. I’m not sure what actual value this has since Fred can’t even vote for me (being an out of state resident and all that) but you’ve got to admit, it certainly does look impressive.

• I AM THE ONLY CANDIDATE WHO FRED SEIBERT WOULD EVEN CONSIDER PUTTING ON HIS RADIO SHOW. I’ve been of Fred’s show three times now, twice by proxy.

• I AM THE ONLY CANDIDATE WHO IS REALLY CLEAN-CUT. My mother says so.

• I AM THE ONLY CANDIDATE MATURE ENOUGH TO REMEMBER BOTH THE “RUDY KAZODEE” AND “CRUSADER RABBIT” TV SHOWS. In fact, in college I did my Honors Thesis on this very subject.

• I AM THE ONLY CANDIDATE WHO IS NOT ASHAMED TO ADMIT THAT WHEN I TAKE SHOWERS, I DRAW CLOSED THE BATH CURTAINS. Perfunctory.

• I AM THE ONLY CANDIDATE WHO REALLY TAKES THIS ELECTION SERIOUSLY. I need not prove this to you further - - simply re-read my above qualifications.

• I AM THE ONLY CANDIDATE WHO WOULD DELIBERATELY PUBLISH A FACT SHEET THAT IS IN ACTUALITY HALF LIES. Perhaps I should re-phrase that. I am the only candidate in this election who would ADMIT to deliberately publishing a fact sheet that is in actuality half lies.

Get “The Complete Oblivion Records.” Free.

Get “The Complete Oblivion Records 1971-1975” for free. by just shifting your mouse to the right hand column of this blog and clicking on the record covers.

“Free?! 55 tracks —plus outtakes— worth more than $75 for nothing? Really?! How come?”

Well, there are a few reasons, some will make some sense to you, some not:

1. We like our catalog, and some 30 years after recording them, we’d still like people to hear it.
2. The people buying CDs are mostly over 30 years old, and it’s usually young people who like to discover music.
3. A physical release would probably lose money, so why not easily share the music with the entire world?

In 2004, five years after my Oblivion partner Tom Pomposello passed away, his son Travis and I talked about re-releasing the complete catalog, maybe as a box set. All the music was special, each was important in its own way in both blues and jazz genres, and though it hadn’t all been successful it seemed like it all had a place in the 21st century.

Sample covers for “The Complete Oblivion Records on MP3”

A box set seemed like it would never sell since the audience for each record was often different. I thought we could create a “revoltutionary” format and put all six album on one reasonably priced CD in an all MP3 format (MP3s were at their peak of making record companies crazy). Since the most active audience for music, people under 30, weren’t buying too many CDs anyway, why not go all the way and speak in a contemporary language? I even comped up a few covers and a poster. Then my day job got way busy and the whole idea was dropped.

As the music business the way we knew it continued to implode over the next few years it looked like MySpace was introducing more music to people and I set up an Oblivion site, but I wasn’t the right guy to work it. Eventually, it occurred to be that the costs of finally putting out the CDs, and tallying up the work it would take to get them distributed, would probably wouldn’t do anything but lose me money, and besides, not that many CDs would actually sell. So, in the end, there wouldn’t actually be too many people listening to the music anyway.

But by starting this blog to chronicle my recollections of the history of the label, encoding the music as MP3s, and posting all six records on my music blog, the audience for the Oblivion catalog would be the largest it could possibly be.

So, take the music for free. Enjoy it, play it for your friends, expose it on your radio shows. It’s yours.

Tom’s photo studio.

Tom’s photography studio for the Johnny Woods single was at least as sophisticated as his recording studio. When it came time to get some shots Tom posed Johnny in front of Fred’s prized Pontiac, snapped a couple with his Kodak Flashcube Instamatic (with 126 cartridge film) and called it a day. We took the film to the drugstore for processing, cropped it, and made the original cover.

When Travis Pomposello and I started thinking about reissuing the Oblivion catalog in 2005 I went to the files stored in my parents’ basement for the last 30 years and the only photo artifact that turned up for the o#2 single was this negative strip:

A quick, cheap scan, and a Photoshop conversion showed this result:

Not good.

I immediately reached out to the best black & white master photography printer I knew, New York’s Chuck Kelton, proprietor of Kelton Labs, and begged for saving. He took the beat up, scratch, heat challenged negative and performed transformative surgery. Tom original amateur photography now preserved Johnny Woods for the ages. Amazing!





(Give a click on each of the images to see just what kind of shape they’re really in.)

Honest Tom Pomposello.

Flyer art by Travis Pomposello

Tom Pomposello was not only my best friend and partner in Oblivion Records, he was the whole reason we started Oblivion to begin with.

In 1970, Tom and Rob Witter opened Kropotkin Records in Huntington, New York, my hometown. It was the first hippie record store on Long Island, the beginning of a trend that was spreading around America and the world. What made it “hippie” wasn’t that they sold drug parephenalia like some of the others, but that the owners were hippies and they had the hippest records for sale within 100 miles. None of the other retailers had really grokked the fact that the customers were changing; we weren’t buying Top 40 singles much anymore, we’d grown up along with the artists, and we were looking for more “sophisticated” fare (you know, like Grand Funk).

I heard about the store after I’d read about the phenomenon in the then new Rolling Stone Magazine (the patron saint of rock) and I walked in, introduced myself, and boldly asked them to appear for an interview on my college radio show (I’d never done an interview, but that’s another story for another time). Rob and Tom made the drive into New York and we had a great time and became fast friends.

Over time I found out Rob was my age, Tom a couple years older. Rob was single, Tom married (with a baby!) and a musician. Months later, maybe a year, after I’d recorded Tom and Mississippi Fred McDowell (a true star!) for my show, Tom asked whether I thought he could get a record contract. With a startling and undeserved confidence (based on another article from Rolling Stone) I boldly suggested he should just release a record on his own. That arrogance changed both our lives forever.

(Much more to come.)

The beginning and the end.

In 1971, my friend Tom Pomposello and I were talking in his record store about the best way for him to get a solo album. I suggested he start his own label, indies being the rage of the early 70s.

Tom had played bass with Mississippi Fred McDowell at the Village Gaslight in New York, and I had recorded it for my radio show on WKCR-FM at Columbia University, and those tapes became our first Oblivion Records release in 1972.

Over the next 4 years we produced and released six blues and jazz records. We had a local hit on NY radio, had a hoot, and lost a lot of money and sleep. The company sputtered out of business in 1976.

Now, Tom’s son Travis Pomposello and I are re-releasing the entire catalog after 30 years of prophetic out-of-print oblivion.

—Fred Seibert