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

Jaxon Crow: Nextworld

Jaxon Crow - Nextworld (1987)

Hi-Resolution Gallery

The inaugural entry of Tape Escape! is appropriately enough one of my favorite tapes in possession: a new age gem by the late Jaxon Crow (aka James R. McLaughlin, Jr.) who resided in Dallas, Texas. Being a fan of all types of ambient music, past and present, it is easily the tape I've been most eager to share. Just finding it alone was quite a blessing in retrospect, this was sitting in a pile of second-hand tapes at an Austin area Goodwill a year or so ago. I bought it based off curiosity and a overall good vibe, much of which was given off by j-card artwork, which is uniquely colored in with bright marker colors.

The music itself is best described as "new age," but I must stress that this is hardly a stereotypical late 80s new age album. The common tropes of the era - pan flutes, ethnic percussion, crisp digital quality synth pads - are, if present, buried deep in the mix: the overall tone Nextworld is a lot closer to 70s and 80s era ambient and kosmische. It wouldn't sound remotely out of place next to any recent lo-fi synth project either, something like 1991 for instance.

Jaxon Crow in undated photo. (courtesy of JD Emmanuel)

I had to dig quite a bit to find what little about Jaxon Crow was available online. Luckily I was able to find a link to renowned Texan electronic musician James Daniel Emmanuel, better known as JD Emmanuel. Through correspondence with him I found out a bit more about Jaxon, who sadly passed away in 2005. I will continue with more details about Jaxon Crow and the musical content of Nextworld in a later post, but in the meantime, give it a listen below. If it weren't for seemingly cosmic fate this lovely music could of easily been lost, so I look forward to others enjoying his music.

Update: Biography and updated discography @ Ultravillage - big thanks to Mark Griffey for his extensive research.

Technical info

Country: U.S.
Label: Neon-Tetra (self-release imprint of Jaxon Crow), tape #1037
Case: Norelco
J-card: cardstock, single fold
C-45 Type I; unknown manufacturer
Actual run-time: approx. 22:40 per side
Editing notes: clicks at beginning and ending trimmed off, normalized from original levels of -20 to -30 db, no noise removal used.