Audioblogging: Arizona Teen Beat, 1982!

Recently I've posted most of my collection of advertisements (here and here) for Tucson's early punk/new wave/whatever scene. Now, thanks to Pony Pal™ Nixie Bunny, you can listen to many of those bands! Go here and download away.

Valley Fever was a cassette compilation made in 1982 by Lee Joseph featuring a great musical snapshot of what was going on at the time. Lee ran a wonderful, tiny record store, Roads to Moscow, where I spent the majority of my allowance money. His Iconoclast Cassettes label provided select local bands with a way to get their music heard outside Tumbleweeds, The Night Train, and (urgh) Stumble Inn. Lee eventually left Tucson for Los Angeles where he started a proper record label.

Sound quality is really low... nobody in the music scene had any money for anything back then. Most of these bands were composed of teenagers, and most of it is pretty awful. But, hey, it was ours.


Newsreal Magazine was a different story: a local music rag run by a megalomaniacal local DJ (who shall remain nameless) who actually believed he held the local music scene in the palm of his hands... and in many ways, he eventually did. I've got a bunch of copies of it, and maybe I'll scan some selections later.

Enjoy!