LP Edition of 200

$20

This is the second volume of our series collecting the odds & sods of the immortal Nudge Squidfish. Nudge is one of the singular figures to emerge from the Columbus sub-underground rock scene of the 1970s. He was a member of The True Believers (along with Mike Rep & Tommy Jay). He cut a single for the New Age label in ’82, and couple of odd solo LPs while he was living in Nashville later in the ’80s. He was a member of V-3 (along with Jim Shepard) after that. He also released a bonkers full-length cassette on Old Age that was subsequently vinylized by Columbus Discount. More recently, he has become a highly regarded disseminator of UFO videos (Google it). 

The first volume of this series, You Can’t Have Aliens without the Squid (FTR 321), was met with gasps of amazement and other tomfoolery. Robot Wars, featuring material recorded between 1974 and 2017, covers even wider stylistic ground than Aliens, and is certain to provoke as many questions as there are answers. 

The material here is performed by Nudge solo, Root Cellar (a band with Charles Cicirella on smutty vocals), Jayfish (Nudge + Tommy Jay) and V-3. And while Nudge (left to his own devices) has shown signs of being a pop artist, the music here does not hew to that notion. From fine, straight bar blues readymades to spaced-up electro doo-dads to neo-Nig Heistian raunch polemicism, to guitar bursts worthy of Crazy Horse, Robot Wars presents many the faces of the Squid. And yeah, it includes his pop side, but the breadth and balance are kinda staggering. 

Roll on, Big N!

t-Byron Coley, 2020