Town Page: What's Gnu

What's Gnu
Latest entries at top The Town Managers have actually gotten back together twice since my previous entry. Both times were for shows in the Pleasure Bungalow, in West Philly. On May 10 we played a bunch of old songs and debuted three new songs, one by Frick, one by Rick and one by me. After that show we did not play again until September 21 when we opened for the German heavy metal band Hangmen. We did not debut any new songs. Was a fun show but we only had one quick rehearsal that day. Hangmen were wicked awesome, though I did not hear them until the next day as I fell asleep during their set. I taped it. -- 10/3/02

Well it looks like Schuylkill Records is going to release the Low Budgets second 7 inch sometime in February. The title is Buy One Song, Get One Free and will feature studio versions of live-show favorites Oh Yeah and Cheap Date. The Low Budgets are playing live shows again after a couple months of writing and rehearsing some new material following a month of recovery for lead singer / guitar player Chris Peelout after breaking his hand. A show at the First Capitol Skate Park in York PA went well Jan. 18 and will be followed by a show at The Balcony in Philadelphia Jan. 26 and a show in Wilkes Barre PA with bombed metalheads Scumdrunk on Feb. 2. -- 1/19/02

The Low Budgets' first 7 inch vinyl release will be coming out in August 2001 on Nancy Boy Records out of Philadelphia PA. We are all very excited. Another Philadelphia record company offered to put out a single of ours and even though we already agreed to do one with Nancy Boy they said that's okay, they'd still like to do it. We checked with Nancy Boy and they said fine, so it looks like the second Low Budgets' 7 inch vinyl single will be released hot on the tails of the first (probably in September) on Schuylkill Records. The Low Budgets will be playing 3 shows in July: at the East End Cafe in Newark DE on the 6th opening for Atom and His Package, on the 14th at Fun-a-Rama in West Philly, and on the 15th at the First Capital Skate Park in York PA. -- 6/29/01

The Low Budgets tracks have been mixed down. We are currently investigating ways to release some of this material and get more recorded. A show is scheduled for March 9 at The East End Cafe in Newark DE. Also, The Big Mess Orchestra will be performing a Valentine's themed Cabaret at The Trocadero in Philadelphia Feb. 16h.

It's been a really long time since I've added to this page, so it stopped being very "gnu". Well -- it looks like The Town Managers are on sabbatical forever, which is sort of like breaking up I suppose. We did get together a couple times for some jam sessions in Chris's basement where The Low Budgets practice. But nothing serious resulted (such as getting back together to record, or play shows). Anyway, The Low Budgets are doing okay. We've been playing a bunch and we recorded 7 songs in a real studio at the end of last year. No word yet on what we'll do with those recordings, except that we are scheduled to mix the tracks on the 11th of this month (January).

New! Real Audio file of a song from THE LOW BUDGETS' Easter night live performance on WKDU - FM: Oh Yeah. You'll need the RealPlayer 7 or G2 to hear it. If you don't already have it installed on your computer, you can get it for free here.

The latest Town Mangers related news is that Rick Luau (a/k/a Chris Peelout) has a new band called THE LOW BUDGETS which includes a guy named Steve on drums, a guy named Dandrew on bass (who is also the bass player for the world renowned instrumental sci-fi surf trio, Farquar Muckenfuss) and Jonk Provoc (me) on organ. Our next show is MONDAY, April 17 at The East End Cafe in Newark, Delaware opening for Shoutwell. PLUS on Easter Sunday night (that's this coming Sunday, April 23) The Low Budgets will perform 4 songs LIVE on WKDU 91.7 FM. Tune it in if you live in Philly OR, if you don't live in Philly, get it on the Internet at www.wkdu.org. I think you need the RealPlayer to hear it. We will be playing sometime around 10 or 11 PM.

The Town Managers have called it quits, at least for the time being. No more shows or recordings.

Rick and I formed a duo called The Fresh Breaths. We played our third show, at the Khyber Wednesday October 6. Frick was there! but there was no TM reunion
(Update 12/21/99 -- The Fresh Breaths have broken up due to personal differences.)

The Low Budgets is Rick's latest project. For more information, check out The Low Budgets Page

A new link was added to the Favorite Sites page: Philly Fringe — an e-zine devoted to things punk, ska, emo, Philly!

I will continue to post updates about Frick, and Rick and me up here. And below is an archive of What's Gnu articles of the past.

Last update: April 16, 2000 -- Jonk