Ripple News - History Repeats Itself: Poobah and JPT Scare Band Together Again on the Same Record Label and on the Air at WFMU

In the early 1990’s a small record label broke out of San Antonio, Monster Records, specializing in limited release/collector’s vinyl from underground 1970’s hard rock bands.  For several years, Monster churned out an impressive array of steaming protometal, adding such bands as Poobah, JPT Scare Band, Truth and Janey, Hawkwind, and Manilla Road to their roster.  But as so often happens in the music business, time passed, tastes changed and Monster Records ceased to exist.

Fast forward 20 years, and the sands of the hourglass churn backwards in time.  Suddenly metal legends, Youngstown Ohio’s Poobah, and Kansas City’s JPT Scare Band, find themselves as popular as ever and stunningly, back on the same record label.  This time it’s Ripple Music filling the void, providing the world with the tasty underground protometal that they crave.

Within a span of two months, both JPT Scare Band and Poobah released classic works with Ripple Music, JPT Scare Band’s Acid Blues is the White Man’s Burden, and Poobah’s 1972 seminal debut, Let Me In.  Both releases hit the world in eye-opening, two-tone double LP packages with gatefold covers as well as CD formats.  Both packed with rare pictures, notes, and bonus tracks.

Jim Gustafson, the mastermind behind Poobah, sums it up. “It’s cool that Poobah ended up with JPT again on the same label, only better this time. I saved these tapes for decades, looking for the right time and place to do this, and now it has happened.”

And 40 years after originally forming, both bands find themselves cranking out their music to a legion of fans new and old.  WFMU in New York has both bands on frequent rotation, spreading the protometal, acid rock gospel to hungry, waiting ears.

“It’s a wonderful bit of synchronicity,” says JPT Scare Band drummer, Jeff Littrell, “that when we finally get back on a label again, the moguls at Ripple Music have also signed our old label mates, Poobah.  Déjà vu all over again!  JPT Scare Band and Poobah ripping faces off on the same label in the 21st Century.”

Ripple Music plans to keep bringing on the ballsy retro-metal with future releases by Scottish protometal icons, Iron Claw, as well as modern purveyors following the raw, sonic blueprint, Stone Axe, Mos Generator, Grifter, Mighty High, and Venomin James.

As Ripple founders Todd Severin and John Rancik say, “Ripple Music exists to bring the guts back to rock and roll!”

buy here:  Poobah   JPT Scare Band