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Mark Krischak – Tape Nos 21, 22, 30

Mark Krischak
Tape Nos 21, 22, 30
19?? Heath Dog Violet Records
Nagoya, Japan

Side 1:

Red Christmas – Live (tape #21)

  1. Heal the Girl
  2. My Rhapsody
  3. Close to Me
  4. Back in the Fight
  5. They’ll Never Know
  6. Thief in the Night
  7. Good Boy
  8. Everlasting Love

Red Christmas – Practice Volume 1 (tape #22)

  1. 10,00 Bands
  2. My Rhapsody
  3. Thief in the Night
  4. Special
  5. Forgive and Forget
  6. Tomorrow
  7. New Kid
  8. Dance With Me (cut in the middle)

Side 2:

  1. Dance With Me (second half)
  2. Christmas is Over
  3. It’s for You
  4. Simply
  5. Not Before
  6. When I’m With You
  7. Alien
  8. Back in the Fight
  9. They’ll Never Know

The Coolers – 14 Song Demo

  1. 7-11
  2. Can You Feel It Coming Down on You?
  3. Simply
  4. Susie Blue
  5. Dance With Me
  6. Cry Myself to Sleep
  7. Drink
  8. Tamecula
  9. 10,000 Bands
  10. Dead (beginning only)

Mark Krischak is most well-known as the leader of The Lifesavors before Michael Knott took over. However, he had a large number of other bands before and after The Lifesavors. He had well over 120 tapes of the various bands, from formal demos to bootleg live recordings to jam box recordings of practice sessions. He would list these 120+ for sale in large magazine ads. The process apparently was that people would order a few of the tapes by number, and then he would fit as many of those on to one long blank cassette (or more if needed) and send them to you often with minimal packaging. This was one such tape, where someone had ordered #21 (Red Christmas – Live), #22 (Red Christmas – Practice Volume 1), and #30 (The Coolers – 14 Song Demo). Both Red Christmas and The Coolers were power pop bands not too far removed from The Lifesavors. The quality of the tapes were not that bad, but obviously spliced together at the source and then dubbed quickly on this tape (one song carries over from side 1 to side 2, and The Coolers is missing the last 3-4 songs). The practice demo contains a lot of improvisation, starts and stops, working out the chords and parts, and so on. Also, The Coolers songs are the exact same versions as the ones on their 10,000 Bands demo, but that one only has 12 songs. So I am not sure what the two extra songs are, since they are cut off here. Just an interesting look into the way the tape trading underground was. I wonder if anyone ever got to hear all 120+ tapes? Jeani Bond maybe? Also note that this compilation was sent after Krischak moved to japan.

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Jeani Bond / Key Records

If there was an epicenter of the Christian Tape Underground, it would be Jeani Bond and Key Records. I wasn’t part of the actual scene back in the 80s and 90s, but from what I understand, she was one of the “key” people in promoting so many obscure tapes with her Regeneration Radio tape show and distribution efforts. She continues to promote this music to this day. If you are not familiar with her, you can get a good overview with this podcast interview she did recently with The Antidote:

http://www.theantidoteradio.com/interview/interview-with-jeani-bond-of-key-records

Then, of course, there is her website – which still has a lot of rare music for sale:

http://jeanibond.com

She also keeps a large archive of tape and zine and related miscellany on her Flicker account:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/keyrecordsarchive/albums

Last, but not least, there is her radio show archives (with tons of rare songs):

http://jeanibond.com/radioshows.html

and her current playlist on SoundCloud with even more music: