Click on a cover to get an archived GMR Album of the Month. If it's our stuff, you will probably be able to stream it still, not our stuff, probably not, but you can read all about it & maybe find a link to get it.

May 2013: The Colorplates - Agony and Ecstasy
The Green Monkey history squad is proud to present The Colorplates, starring in the very rocking Agony and Ecstasy. The Colorplates were a Seattle band circa 1979-82, loosely connected with the art/punk scene. We were equally (though not exclusively) inspired by Ornette Coleman and the Dave Clark Five. We started life briefly as an improvisation unit, The Pigments, spent a while as The Adults and switched over to The Colorplates midstream. Listen!

April 2013: dissonati - reducto ad absurdum
Another month, another pile of strikingly original music, this time from Mount Lake Terrace’s #1 Prog Rock Band – Dissonati! WHAT? How can that be? How the hell do we even know about it. Well it’s like this. Steve Turnidge. Steve masters lotsa folks at his Ars Divina studio. When I talked to John from Dissonati, he said they had recorded this stuff and were trying to figure out where to master is when somebody’s sister’s girlfriend’s cousin said they were related to some mastering guy named Steve, (who I used to sell records to at Everybody’s Record Company when he was but a lad) of course is a fast and furious Facebook poster.

March 2013: U-Men - Solid Action
This month we are going back and digging into a little NW history in the persons of The U-Men. Some of you will already know this notorious lot, while some of you are in for a first time treat. The U-men were pretty synchronous with Green Monkey Mach 1, operating as a unit from 1981-89. Oddly, I did not know them or see them play back then, despite it being a small town.

February 2013: aaiiee - See You In Seattle
These guys have been around forever, but I just met ‘em. I figured out they existed because they played up at Darrell’s at The Gum’s debut. Didn’t go, saw the Facebook invite, said wot is AAIIEE and ended up buying See You in Seattle within minutes. Even though it was late in the year, they still made my Top 10 for 2012. I think it is just great and if I had it more than two days before I made my list they would have been higher.

January 2013: Jim of Seattle - We Are All Famous
Jim of Seattle started writing songs at the piano in his unheated basement in 1980, secretly and alone. Several hundred songs were written in that basement. Jim has written a lot of music since then - for theatre, for the cult classic Disney video game "Nightmare Ned", for Star Trek comic book operas, for the hell of it. He studied composition in college. He taught classes. His biggest notoriety has come through the piano piece "Welcome to Windows", a duet with the sounds from Microsoft Windows XP. Jim refuses to define his music by a genre. He jumps around a lot. But through it all a singular voice emerges. Listen!

December 2012: Frothing the ‘Nog: Ye 4th Green Monkey Christmas
This is the 4th annual Green Monkey Records Xmas album. Using that inspiration we have titled it “Frothing the ‘Nog: Ye 4th Green Monkey Xmas.” I don’t know that when I started GMR back up 3 and a half years ago if I thought I would be do it this long. But here we are and I expect to do it again next year. As usual it was done with minimal planning...
Listen!

November 2012: Eric Lichter - ELKS in Paris
For this month’s AotM we are going to the well with our old pal, Eric Lichter. As you no doubt recall, Eric is a long time member of The Green Pajamas, was the drummer for The Life, whose 1987 album we re-released last January and was featured on our Xmas album last December. We also featured his band/project with Jimm McIver, Picture Day, as AotM in Feb 2011. Man, that is one lotta bona fides.

October 2012: Tom Dyer - I Ain't Blue Anymore
This month we present the all new album by Tom Dyer - I Ain’t Blue Anymore (hmmm, that name seems familiar). This is my first solo album of all new stuff since the resurrection of Green Monkey Records. I’m pretty happy with it. Beside the new disc we have a great video of my version of The Sonics’ “The Witch” directed by Mr. Jeff Kelly of Green Pajama fame.
Listen!

September 2012: Gumshen
Gumshen, your quintessential ProgPop band, draws upon an eclectic palate of musical styles dishing out a healthy dose of rock, pop, prog and funk\rap. Gumshen sounds like King Crimson and Weezer adopting Elton John, renaming him Prince, and celebrating with a sunbeam of absinthe. Now they can add Pink Floyd to their list as they have covered the Floyder’s Shine on You Crazy Diamond which we feature this month.

August 2012: The Intelligence - Everybody's Got It Easy But Me
...I think it is pretty fine. They seem to get the punk thing in reviews from places like Pitchfork, but I think this new record is pretty poppy along the lines of early XTC and stuff like that. And I don’t see that as a bad thing. They also have some pretty hip videos like this one.

July 2012: The Green Pajamas - Death by Misadventure
I know I am completely prejudiced but I think it very, very good. The album centers around the tawdry tale of the Fall of the Queen Bee and as Mr. Kelly says, any resemblance to real people living, dead or otherwise, is completely true. This is the 4th Green Pajamas/Goblin Market release in less than a year, so I hope you can handle the action. In an age where people release albums slowly, this is more like the Beatles putting out a pile in a year (oops - did I say Beatles?). So dig it.
Listen!

June 2012: History of Northwest Rock Vol.3 - Psychedelic Seattle
From last month's Summer of Lust to the "Summer of Love"...do we have a treat for you. On the 45th anniversary of the Summer of Love (1967) we have the Pacific Northwest musical equivalent from the vaults of Jerden Records. Most of the R&B flavored Northwest sound gave way to the happening that was that period: Light shows, Eagles Auditorium, underground FM radio, Helix magazine, protests, Viet Nam and the draft with patchouli and other new aromas filling the air. HAW
Listen!

May 2012: The The Green Pajamas - Summer of Lust
After being out of print for over 20 years, we give you the Green Pajamas debut, Summer of Lust (1984), available for the first time ever on CD. Remastered it myself with Joe Ross looking over my shoulder and it sounds remarkably fresh. If you’re one of the few that experienced Summer of Lust in one of its earlier iterations, you will welcome an old friend. If this is the first time you heard the Green Pajamas, well, just enjoy! Two young guys + one Teac 4-track = great fun. Yep.
Listen!

April 2012: The OF - Oh It's the OF
The OF are the perplexing brainchild of one John Carey, a once and former bass player for The Queen Annes (more about them in the coming months). If I was asked to describe The OF I would say crazy, eclectic and stimulating. At one point it’s all about a hermit crab and a French fry, there are piles of pointless Zappa-esque noodling, there is dumbo rock that is dumber than anything by ZZ Top, and the lovely You’re In Love With The OF. How could you not be? Listen!

March 2012: The Goblin Market - Beneath Far Gondal's Foreign Sky
The Goblin Market is a long-time side project of Green Pajamas members Laura Weller and Jeff Kelly. The music draws inspiration from both art and literature. The duo’s third and latest album, Beneath Far Gondal’s Foreign Sky, takes another foray into 19th century England with a focus on the work of the Bronte sisters, primarily on Emily, author of Wuthering Heights.
Listen!

February 2012: Variant Cause - Excavating 1980s Pacific Northwest
Variant Cause was one of the many variations of some guys who came over from Spokane and landed in a funky rat infested house on Roosevelt (Seattle) which they shared with last month’s AotM, The Life. They were originally Next Exit, they put out related projects like Koo Dot Tah In my press release I send out every month I have a little tag line about the AotM - Always 100% Northwest, always 100% cool. Or at least 100% weird. These guys qualified for the #3 descriptor for sure.
Listen!

January 2012: The Life - Alone deluxe edition
The Life were named best new Northwest band in 1987, when they released their debut album Alone. This was a great band. Definitely outside what would become the Seatown mainstream – grunge-o-rama - so quick to be written off by historical revisionists. What you have here is the entire 10 song Alone album remastered from the analog masters. plus an entire second bonus disc, Witness The Will, containing 17 songs recorded for their unreleased second album.
Listen!

December 2011: It Crawled Down The Chimney, It's Another Green Monkey Christmas
Holy Mo-ly. Another December, another X-mas album. Our best one ever! This year through the miracle of Facebook, we have reached our tentacles out around the world (sorta) to get Northwesters past and present to contribute to your holiday festiveness. It is a rather fun and entertaining notion to toss this idea out to the universe a couple three months before X-mas and see what you can pull together. Another happy result!

November 2011: Amy Denio - Tutto Bene
What you’ve got here is a CD Tutto Bene, Canzone Sulla Fisa(All’s Well, Songs for the Accordion - though if you throw it in a web translator it comes out “all buckets, songs on the accordion) Amy put out about a year ago. It is essentially a compilation of her tracks from various projects where she is the composer and accordion player.

October 2011: Empire of Sleep (Moving Parts)
For October 2011 we feature the brand spanking new album by Empire of Sleep. Who dat, you ask? Well, you knew them long ago and far away as Moving Parts. Since they tossed in the towel in ’88 (temporarily it turns out) a couple million new Moving Parts have appeared and they decided to do the new name thing. When you take a listen you won’t have any trouble figuring out who it is.

September 2011: Sigourney Reverb - Bees In Your Bed Bad
This is Sigourney Reverb’s first record. The Reverbs are Kings of the 65th Street Ballard Scene, a separatist community located in Seattle, WA, and home to hipsters, musicians, fisherman, and Scandinavians. They have been playing together for a year and change. They came to Green Monkey and said we want to make a record. Green Monkey said ok and this is your result. A damn fine result.
Listen!

August 2011: The Green Pajamas - Green Pajama Country!
Jeff Kelly and bass player Joe Ross have toyed with the idea of this album for ten years. It needed to age. In the last two it finally took shape. It was worth the wait. This is not a gimmick. It is not a marketing ploy. It is just plain good music played from the heart. From its sly opening tribute to the classic westerns to the mournful close, Green Pajama Country is a Classic.
Listen!

July 2011: Jim Basnight and the Moberlys
Jim Basnight’s got quite a rock & roll resume – his band Meyce played one of the first punk shows in Seattle in 1976 and in 1977 they opened for The Ramones. His next band The Moberlys recorded a great self-titled album that made Trouser Press’s “Underground Top 10” list in 1980.

I think Jim is the hardest working old-school Seattle rock dude going. I get his mailing list and he is playing all the time – 15-20 times a month. Admirable! I will probably drag my lazy rear out and see him one of these days – you should too. You can find out all about it at www.jimbasnight.com.

June 2011: The Heats - Have An Idea
You may recall me namechecking them in our March AotM with The Blackouts and you may even recall when they were considered the next big thing in Seattle, but it rather surprises me how little remembered these guys are considering how popular they were locally.

Thanks to Don Short, Steve Pearson, Keith Lilly and Ken Deans for agreeing to let you listen to and buy this previously unreleased live recording. The Heaters Live at the Showbox 1979. Get it while you can. Also thanks for about five years worth of rockin' Pacific Northwest clubs. Listen!

April-May 2011: The Icons - Appointment with Destiny!
An irreverant pile of noisy guitar songs filled with brain-sucking hooks in the ROCK tradition of the Pacific Northwest. As raw as The Clash, as stupid as The New York Dolls and as intelectually stimulating as Lou Reed on a very bad day.

"Their slam/bang guitar and pounding rhythms wake me up to why I loved The Wailers and The Sonics back in the day and why bands I never would have listened to in the Sixties (Iggy Pop, Dead Boys, Richard Hell & the Voidoids) later became solid favorites." Frank O. Gutch Jr. Rock and Reprise Listen!

March 2011: Blackouts - History in Reverse
What we’ve got for you is the Blackouts who were in my opinion the coolest thing in downtown Seattle music in the late 70’s early 80’s. When I say downtown, I really mean the punk/arty scene. Later on Seattle would be split between downtown arty stuff and eastside metal...courtesy of K Records in Olympia(where they are still exploding the teenage underground into passionate revolt against the corporate ogre) and Bill Rieflin of the long ago The Telepaths.

February 2011: Picture Day - Wild Aim
In January, we paid tribute to the sixties and Jerden Records. This month we go back to the halcyon days of 2010. Eric Lichter has been the new guy in The Green Pajamas for 10 years or so (okay, okay, Scott is newer – so what?) and has been a contributing songwriter as well as player. He writes more stuff than he can shoehorn onto a PJs album.

January 2011: Jerden Records History of Northwest Rock (the Sixties)
We here at Green Monkey Records thought a great way to ring in the new year would be to have a little look back at Northwest garage rock. Not of the 90's. No. Not of the 80's or 70's either. We are taking you way back to the 1960's for a listen into Jerden Records vaults. Jerden Records was an independent record label in Seattle which operated from May 1960 through April 1971. Thanks to Jerry Dennon and Bob Wikstrom! Listen!

December 2010: Hot Dog! It's Another Green Monkey Christmas
It is eggnog time again and once again we are giving you a slab o’ Christmas magic: Hot Dog!  It’s Another Green Monkey Christmas! There may be a few things that get added after we post as it is kind of a slacker operation, but we’ll keep you posted if that happens. I am particularly thrilled to have access to some of Etiquette Records fine stuff this year (thanks, Buck!).

November 2010: The Hitmen - Smashface
Twenty years ago I went into a small studio with Arnie, Joe, Bill and Dan. This is what we came out with. It combined their fine musicianship and general weirdness with what was probably the pinnacle of my eight-track recording/production skills. As songwriters go, Joe was pretty much a weirdo, but you can’t listen to The Stuff without thinking there is something wrong with Arnie as well. And no matter how weird they got, Arnie sang them with aplomb. Listen!

October 2010: Little Bears From Bangkok - Vic Morrow
I generally consider LBFB to be Beakers spawn and if you don’t know The Beakers, go right to K Records and buy their CD – I did! I did not see these guys back when more than once or twice, but as always, I faithfully bought their cassette at Cellophane Square (this was in my buy all local releases period) and thought it mighty fine. I still have it. Listen!

September 2010: Jeff Kelly - Ash Wednesday Rain
Another fine solo Jeff CD from 1995, when he was on Pajama sabbatical. "As soon as the record ends, we start it again, hunting for additional clues to hidden meanings missed the first go round, savoring each note as if it were his last, yet immediately yearning for more: another album, another song...." Jeff Penczak - Perfect Sound Forever Listen!

August 2010: The Young Fresh Fellows
Their first album actually came out in ’84 (Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest), at which point Green Monkey was in its second year. They got the front cover of NW rock-rag The Rocket, which I thought was pretty impressive for a band I had never heard of (it probably didn’t hurt that Scott McCaughey wrote for The Rocket and editor Charles Cross did their LP cover), but plain and simple it was a damn cool record and really like nothing else in town at the time.

July 2010: The Icons - Masters of Disater
It was a different world in Seattle in 1983. No Sub Pop. No grunge. No double lattes. It was in this setting The (Mighty) Icons were born. There was a definite desire to make some alcohol-fueled, brain-bashing, post-punk rock and roll. I decided to clean these tracks up, rather than just remastering, I decided there was nothing in the old mixes that I cared about. I remixed it all from scratch. So there you have it. Listen!

June 2010: Sue Ann Harkey - Listen, Little Man!
Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Sue Ann Harkey has been a part of Seattle and New York’s underground music and visual arts scenes for over two decades. Her work, which has been referred to as “futurist folk,” blends philosophical and political lyrics with improvised music inspired by free jazz, electronic, folk, and Middle Eastern and African elements.

May 2010: Pip McCaslin - Blue Snake Shoes
In 1984, he was ready to record his masterpiece Blue Snake Shoes. I didn’t hear it in 1984. Not ‘til ’85. When I put out the Bombardiers – Fight Back, I looked in The Rocket (defunct Seattle rock rag) and saw an ad for Realtime Duplication, home of many fine Nakamichi cassette decks. I dialed up and was Pip’s first customer. Along the way I figured out Pip made a pile of his own enjoyable racket.

April 2010: Green Pajamas - The Complete Book of Hours
We are absolutely delighted to announce the first-ever CD release of the Green Pajamas - Book of Hours. Originally released in 1987 on Green Monkey, with subsequent versions in Australia, Germany and Greece, this edition marks the first time all the tracks from the Book sessions have been released together. The album was remastered with love from the 1987 analog tapes by original producer Tom Dyer. It is now complete. Listen!

March 2010: Jimm McIver - Polaroid Angel
Let me say this first. I love this record. Loved it when Jimm put it out back when I was living in Providence, Rhode Island. How can you not love a record where a girl with three E’s in her name tragically dies after being hit in the noggin with a foul ball? If you want a copy, all you gotta do is write Jimm at http://www.jmciver.com/ and you can order one.

February 2010: Al Bloch - My Favorite Martian
Al is an expatriate Seattle lad.  He and brudda Kurt (of Fastbacks and Young Fresh Fellows fame)grew up on beautiful Sand Point Way. Al was in the Bombardiers and had some solo recordings with Al as the star, a couple of which were featured recently on It Crawled From the Basement: The Green Monkey Records Anthology. Al went on to play with Concrete Blonde and Wool and finally My Favorite Martian. Here's what you got this month – 100% Al Bloch singing and being THE DUDE. Pretty  sweet. If you want a copy, all you gotta do is write Al at almartian@cox.net and he’ll send ya one.

January 2010: Tom Dyer-Songs From Academia Vol.2 : Instrumental and Spoken Word, 1980-2008
"I have always had a fondness for creating instrumentals, essentially sculpting some sort of sonic structure out of out of varied elements. Even the two spoken word pieces on this collection are really more about the texture of sound than any great message.
Bands I’ve played in often have had an instrumental or two, but you won’t see much of that here. Except for Ornette, played by the Adults and Van Vliet Street with Al and Peter, this is pretty much one guy in the studio making it up as he goes. I would usually have figured out some starting part before I began recording and then embellish that," Dyer said. Listen!

December 2009: Santa's Not Dead: It's a Green Monkey Christmas!
This 14 song album was a rock and roll variety pack of NW Holiday festiveness, with 3 new songs recorded in the last two weeks just before the release. The delightful It’s Snowing in Seattle features a shovelful of aging GMR superstars (The GMR Christmas Chorale) in a weather-inspired performance. If former Seattle Mayor Nickels had this song available for his campaign, he may have been able to turn around Seattleite’s, umm, limited view of snow and plow on to victory! It starred: The Popllama AllStars, The Green Pajamas, Tom Dyer, Glamourpuss, the Rich Hinklin Guitar Orchestra, Luxury Audio, Johnny Grinch and other generally obscure individuals. !

November 2009: Red Dress Sings Pterodactyl Teenagers & Other Popular Favorites!!!
Red Dress first emerged in the same period (1980 or so) that saw Seattle singles from the Enemy, the Pudz and the Telepaths. Red Dress didn’t sound like a punk band.  Theirs was a more bent vision, most popularly reduced by the local press to Captain Beefheart meets James Brown.

October 2009: Tom Dyer – Songs From Academia Vol. 1: Songs with Singing, 1981 -2009!
The 15 song album is my first official release since 1984. The album cuts a wide swath stylistically, ranging from “mad-bull in a China shop” real-band-rock, to experimental studio pop where I play anything required, from saxophone to Theremin. Or to put it another way, it is eclectic, electric guitar/other stuff rock, ranging from scientific to specious, with other in-between philosophical notions. Listen!

September 2009: Steve Rabow's 1982 Best of the KZAM LOCAL TAPE EXTRAVAGANZA!!!
In case you forgot or never knew, KZAM was the first "Rock of the '80's" radio station in Seattle.The station would actually play actual local music on occasion (gasp!) and this is some of it.

August 2009: It Crawled From The Basement: The Green Monkey Records Anthology, 1983-91!
1983 to 1991 in Seattle, Washington. All things were possible in the post-punk world - the Nirvana grunge explosion had not yet subsumed the city. In this world, Green Monkey Records came and lived and went.
It was rock. It was art. It was beautiful. Listen!