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.

A very brief history of Oblivon Records.

In late 1971 my new friend Tom Pomposello and I decided to start a record company to record his music, and so I could become a record producer. He was 21, married with a small child, and owned a local hippie record store in Huntington, New York. I was 19, single, a college student in New York City.

Tom loved the blues. I loved jazz, especially the avant garde variety. We both wanted to do more to promote artists we believed in.

And it was the early 70s, the height of don’t trust anyone over 30 and the man can’t bust our music, and indie record culture was starting to flourish again.

It seemed like a smart move not to start with the unknown Tom’s record —especially since we hadn’t figured out exactly what it would be yet— but we had a viable commercial tape we’d recorded of college concert star Mississippi Fred McDowell (with Tom on bass guitar) at the Village Gaslight in Greenwich Village. With the sales of this sure fire hit, we’d be on our way to the big time of indie labels. Our agreement was to make blues records for Tom and jazz records for me. We had a passion for underexposed American music and we were certain we’d be the two to bring unknown artists to prominence.

The only question that lingered was where we would get the outrageous sum of $1800 to press the first 2000 copies? Tom came to rescue by bringing in our third partner Richard (Dick) Pennington, a friend of his from, uh, somewhere (I never actually found out). Dick stepped right up with enthusiasm and verve and stayed until our fourth album when he and Tom fell explosively out over something neither of them ever revealed.

Tom chose the name “Oblivion” off of the back of a Leo Kottke LP and we released Obivion OD-1 —Mississippi Fred McDowell: Live in New York— in 1972; altogether we put out six records in four years (it still feels like 100 records in 1000 years) before we flamed out with musical dignity intact. Tom’s album was our last, so we had fulfilled our mission.

You can listen to the complete Oblivion Records library (and bonus tracks) by clicking the on the album covers in the right hand column of this blog»»»

A very brief history of ‘Mississippi Fred McDowell > Live in New York’

Oblivion Records #OD-1

In late 1971, Tom Pomposello, co-proprietor of Kropotkin Records, asked me to record a gig he had playing bass with the country blues Mississippi Fred McDowell at the Village Gaslight in New York City. (Tom, a young bluesman in training, had ventured into New York to introduce himself to Fred, and ask for lessons. One thing led to another, and before you know it, Tom was playing bass for Fred when he was playing Manhattan concerts.) I didn’t really have any idea who Fred was, but I believed my friend when he assured me the recording would be of an authentic bluesman (a rare commodity in the existence of suburbanites) and great for my college radio show.

We did the gig and I played the tape on my show. Months later we decided we needed to start a record label to release Tom’s solo recordings (which hadn’t even been recorded yet) and that Fred’s tape would be the perfect maiden voyage to introduce it. Little did we know that Fred was months away from dying of cancer and that “Live in New York” would be his final recording.

But first.

We had to:

• find a partner who could finance the pressing and jackets for 2000 albums;
• locate a pressing plant;
• learn about how to do graphics for the cover. And write the liner notes;
• figure out what independent record distributors were. And convince them to take our record; and
• learn everything else about the record business we didn’t know.

36 years later, ‘Live in New York’ is probably the only record we released that still has active interest.

Click here to listen to the entire album (and bonus tracks), and read the liner notes. and credits.

A very brief history of ‘Johnny Woods > Mississippi Harmonica’

Oblivion Records O#2

After my partner Tom Pomposello had been bitten by the Mississippi Fred McDowell bug, he took a vacation to study with Fred in Como, Mississippi between April 17 and 30, 1972.

During the trip, Tom asked to meet Fred’s friend and collaborator, harpist Johnny Woods, who was working as a farmer/sharecropper. Johnny didn’t even own a harp and hadn’t played in quite a while, so Tom gave him a harmonica, whipped out a Panasonic cassette recorder and recorded two songs right there on Johnny’s porch. A couple of Instamatic photos later, Oblivion had the makings of its first (and only) 45rpm, a real country blues classic.

Click here to listen to the record, and read the liner notes and credits.

A very brief history of ‘Friends’

Oblivion Records #OD-3 

I was the go-to guy for engineering live music sessions at Columbia University’s WKCR between 1970 and 1973. So when David Reitman made the call for a May 1972 trio session featuring Chico Hamilton sideman (and Columbia graduate) Marc Cohen (with Glenn Moore on bass and Jeff Williams on drums) I was there. The shocker is that Marc had electricfied his saxophone and the result sounded less like Paul Desmond and more like Eric Clapton. In the aftermath of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew and The Tony Williams Lifetime the fusion (no one was calling it that yet, thank goodness) of rock and jazz was being invented in front of our ears.

I was immediately enthralled and approached Marc to allow us to release the results on Oblivion Records. Intrigued, Marc asked to come back with another group for a session he could think about a little more; the trio was more of an experiment and he was dissatisfied with his playing. When he came back in December it was with a quartet, with John Abercrombie on guitar (not yet a star, his first solo album would come out in 1974) and Clint Houston on bass. The sessions didn’t have the manic energy I so enjoyed with the trio, but it had richness, harmony and structure lacking in the original date.

Marc was uncomfortable being named the leader given the collective nature of the improvisations even though he composed three quarters of the date and put the group together. He named the record and the group “Friends.”

The reviews were ecstatic: “A promising indication of things to come [in] New Electronic Music,” said Crawdaddy! Magazine.

Click here to listen to the entire album in CD quality MP3s, and read the liner notes and credits.

A very brief history of ‘Charles Walker & The New York City Blues Band > Blues from the Apple’

Oblivion Records #OD-4

When I look back on the 13 months of recording sessions (it seemed like five years) and 10 musicians (they seemed like 100) I realize that no “brief history” would ever do this record justice, but here goes.

Charles Walker was part of the New York City blues scene that was encouraged and nurtured by pioneering Harlem record entrepreneur Bobby Robinson, and he’d scuffled around (like the few other bluesman in New York blues) without much going on for years when we met him in 1974. Oblivion co-founder Tom Pomposello sensed an opportunity to record one of the few underexposed authentic scenes in America and insisted we jump on it (famous last words: “Fred, in our business you can never move to quickly!”). Every week Charles would show up (at our makeshift studio, WKCR Radio at Columbia University) with another group of folks in tow, some who could play, some not, and insist we record him “Right now!” Of course, he never had a guitar (once I loaned him a friend’s, which I eventually got out of a South Bronx pawn shop with my last $50) and the sessions were often a complete mess due to lack of preparation and sidemen’s inebration. But there was always something there, a sound that could only come from the hearts of men (and women) who were living the life.

It took Tom and I months of all night editing sessions on our home tape decks to make some of the takes work (and to satisfy Tom’s insistence we put the musicians’ best feet forward) and we released the record with all the fanfare we could muster (a press announcement to the blues specialty magazines, and copies to a few radio stations). But Blues from the Apple suffered the neglect of not too many people caring about New York blues or liking the album all that much. It was the worst selling Oblivion record. We didn’t care though, we loved it. In the end, Tom was right; we documented a dying scene of America’s authentic folk music. (And, in fact, it has my favorite track in the whole Oblivion discography.)

Click here to listen to the entire record, and read the liner notes and credits.

A very brief history of ‘Joe Lee Wilson > Livin’ High Off Nickels and Dimes’

Oblivion Records #OD-5 

I wasn’t at WCKR too much during the summer of 1972, so even though I’d recorded almost every jazz performance of signifigance there for the past three years. I had no idea why everyone was so excited by a session for Sharif Abdul Salaam (then known as Ed Michael) one hot July night that my friend Don Zimmerman had engineered. Weeks of “Wow!” finally became clear when someone racked up the tape and I knew vocalist Joe Lee Wilson needed to be the second jazz musician on Oblivion Records. Tom Pomposello agreed since we were dedicated to great musicians who hadn’t grabbed a break. Joe certainly fit the bill. 

He was a great guy who immediately agreed to be an Oblivion Records artist. Things went pretty smoothly from there with editing, photography, graphics and manufacturing. Until I made the fatal error of the independent record business. 

My excitement for this album couldn’t be contained and on the sweltering August 1974 night the test pressing came in I rushed over to leave it for the influential midnight DJ at New York’s WRVR. It was the dead of night and the door was locked so it was slipped in the mail slot. The next morning I was woken up by phone calls telling me the station had played “Jazz Ain’t Nothin’ But Soul” all night and we had a hit. Great! Wrong! Because we had no actual records pressed, and frankly, we didn’t really have the money to get them manufactured. I quickly persuaded my best friend to “loan” me the money (I still haven’t paid him back; no worries though, he became my creative and business partner for 20 years) and we phoned in the order to the pressing plant in Arizona. The station kept playing the track while we patiently waited. And waited. They kept spinning the disc. We finally got the platters, sent them out to our distributors, and… The momentum was dead.

In many ways, we fell into the indie record trap. Our hit was the beginning of the end.

Click here to listen to the entire album, and read the liner notes and credits.

A very brief history of ‘Honest Tom Pomposello’

Oblivion Records #OD-6 

Tom Pomposello and I started Oblivion Records because of his ambitions as a modern bluesman and we started making his album almost right away.

Finally, it was four years from first track to last, recording sessions in at least seven locations, from a two track in a living room on Long Island, to a professional eight track studio in New York’s Soho, and sidemen ranging from Mississippi Fred McDowell to our hometown, world class, musician friends. The album had a lot of blues, but folk, gospel, and rock too. Tom was an authentic American roots musician, and his first album showed off all his good sides.

We released the album in 1975 (the legend on the back said File under: Suburban Blues) and it was our last record. The air had leaked out of the tire. Tom and I went on to a relationship of the greatest friends and colleagues for the rest of his life.

Click here to listen to the entire album, and read the liner notes and credits.