'You Win The Bride' - Hightone Records
Full Length Compact Disc #HCD8076

astroPuppees are about as close to a homemade, basement band as you can get. Recording songs in my little room downstairs, I'd bash away on my guitar. I wrote songs with my friends and about my friends. With a little reverb pedal here, and a wah-wah box there, my small studio was humming.

A songwriting buddy of mine, Steve Toland, and I wrote "It's Not Christmas" and send it to the legendary power pop band, Shoes, and their indie label, Black Vinyl Records. They included the song on a Christmas compilation CD that featured, Matthew Sweet, Butch Vig's Spooner, Don Dixon & Marti Jones, Material Issue, and Shoes themselves. Producer Matt Wallace (Paul Westerberg/The Replacements and Faith No More) mixed the song and added the inspirataion of being involved with such well-respected musicians. Enough inspiration to send me back downstairs to write some more. As I put together batches of songs, sending them around to friends, it started sounding a bit more edgy and band-like. My friend Maureen Serrao started adding her voice & song ideas to the mix and my sister Teri would stop and sing on a track here and there (in between bites of Taco Bell). Mo picked up the bass, played on a few and never put it down. We were astroPuppees, and a nice little collection of music emerged. Another friend, Dan McCarroll (The Grays, Michael Penn), came by and added drums to six of the songs. We played one, awesome Christmas gig in 1994. Dan hit the road with a band. Mo felt unworthy of the bass and, becoming disillusioned with the music business, headed for San Francisco and Culinary School. Teri's acting career suddenly got rolling again. I headed back downstairs, a bit bummed, and wrote "Underdog". Frustrated with just about everything, seeing no way to get my music out, I did the logical thing and moved to Ireland and went to Cooking School. I took my guitar and played in pubs, on cliffs, and in hotel bars, anywhere but L.A. Shaking a few things loose, I came back home on a mission. I called my friend Don Dixon, an incredible producer and artist, and he told me to finish up a couple of songs I had started and get on a plane to Ohio, where he'd mix my astroPuppees. He is the definitive astroPuppees mentor. I dropped a copy to Mo who by now was wrapping up Culinary School and inspired by Dixon's mix of the stuff, was looking forward to coming back to L.A. and writing some more. Maybe even get a drummer and put together a band and play out. I sent out some copies of this Dixon mixed collection and really got inspired. Friends offered to pass the tapes on to their friends, who passed the tape onto their friends. I was jazzed. Mo was ready. Very quickly it seemed, Hightone Records was interested in putting it out. The music seemed to develop a little life all it's own which seems like a natural for Hightone.

Like Dr. Frankenstein said, "It's Alive!" Like Sally Field's said, "You like me! You really like me!!" Like Kelley and Mo say, "You wanna be in a rock band? Then go to Cooking School!!"

-- Kelley Ryan, September 1996

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