Julian Silversuit Demo Tape

Julian Silversuit - Self-titled EP (1996)

Hi-Resolution Gallery

A striking black and white photograph of a man with long black hair stares at me. Who is this? A young Tommy Wiseau? A Norwegian black metal legend sans make-up? Did Brandon Lee put out an album I wasn't aware of?

No, it's a dude named Julian Silversuit who, at some point in the 1996, recorded this four song demo tape in Houston, TX. While made in the era of alternative rock and then emerging post-grunge, this demo encapsulates pop rock of the 80s, an era of trends like glam metal and hard rock, genres that are best known for their ironically "soft" power ballads.

Two original songs and two covers make up the EP, trading off from straight-forward rock that wouldn't sound out of place at the end of Top Gun and/or adapted to Street Fighter ("If I had A Girl..."/"Looking For Love") and between two slower ballads ("Tears of Joy"/"He Don't Know You"). The ballads feature sax and piano solos and place Julian's vocals at the forefront. He's a actually a decent singer, I can't help but compare him to Meatloaf, with whom he shares a unrestrained, quasi-operatic style. Similarly, the lyrics are anything but subtle, opening with "If I had a girl like you / I'd shoot myself, I'd shooot myself." Yep, no minced words here.

For a demo tape, this is well-recorded, duplicated onto a type II cassetted and recorded by engineer/mixer Rock Romano, the only person credited who I could track down online. Most would conclude this oozes of cheesiness, and I'd be hard-pressed to argue that point, but I think it's endearing too. I have no idea how many times I repeated the last few seconds of the tape, which concludes with this epic delivery of these lyrics: "-I swear he's never known the ways of luh-uuuve-ah" So wherever you are Julian Silversuit, a sincere thank you, I got a kick out of this tape.

Side A

[Side B is identical to Side A]

Technical info

Country: U.S.A.
Label: Self-released
Case: Norelco
J-card: Cardstock
C-30 Type II chrome
Editing notes: normalized to -0.3 db

Hung Ho (Làng Văn Sampler)

Various Artists - Hung Ho (1989)

Hi-Resolution Gallery

One of many Vietnamese pop cassettes I've found in North Austin and Round Rock is this compilation entitled Hung Ho, #111 in the Làng Văn catalog. I've gathered that few, if any, of these are from Vietnam directly, but instead produced by Vietnamese expatriates. Làng Văn is one such label, founded in 1985 in Orange County, California. The label is still very active, although I can't seem to track down any list of their older discography and this is most likely out-of-print. I picked this one first for digitizing because of it's eye-catching purple j-card and the convenient fact that much of it is written with western script. 

Hung Ho appears to be a sampler of then upcoming releases on the label, some of the more prominent Vietnamese-American pop singers are on here, including the late Ngọc Lan and Hương Lan. The former was "known for covering nostalgic French-language pop hits of the 1970s." Most of the tracks are ballads, poppy but not exactly upbeat; no bubblegum pop or dance singles on this tape. There's clear sense of sentimentalism in these songs, parallels to Enka music immediately come to mind. With the context of post-1975 Vietnamese diaspora considered, the source of the nostalgic, melancholy tones of these songs are quite obvious. Makes for odd juxtaposition to the valley girl-esque glamour shots on the cover, which clearly screams late 80s American pop culture.

Side A

Side B

Technical info

Country: Westminster, CA/Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Label: Làng Văn U.S.A.

Case: Norelco

J-card: professional cardstock, inside faded and needed adjustments to read

C-54 Type II chrome

Editing notes: normalized to -0.3 db