Optical Atlas

Still Flyin’s “Good Thing It’s a Ghost Town Around Here,” from their album Never Gonna Touch the Ground, was recently featured on HBO’s Entourage.  Thanks to David Hugh for the tip.

Little Fyodor, one of the first artists to be released on the Elephant 6 Recording Company label, has a new album out, Peace is Boring.  You can order the CD here, or download it here.  He’s also featured, for the second time, in his own comic strip.

Umbrella Weather, the debut album from Laminated Cat, is out today from Garden Gate Records.  The cover art is by Will Cullen Hart (cat drawing) and Bill Doss (lettering), and the album was engineered by Craig Morris (Thee American Revolution).  Ordering info should be up shortly at the Garden Gate website.  My review is here.

Last month we reported it was the 20th anniversary of Little Fyodor, Denver’s most unusual rock act, and one of the first musicians to be released on the fledgling label called Elephant 6.  In fact, Fyodor informs Optical Atlas, The Apples performed their first real live show as an opening band for Little Fyodor back in the early 90’s: “Oh, I suppose I didn’t accelerate their career by more than a week, still, it’s true!”

In celebration of his anniversary, Little Fyodor will be releasing a new album, Peace is Boring, and sponsoring a music video contest, the details of which are in the video below.  Which you should watch.  Because it will make your day.  But the gist of it is: download their new song “That Was a Mistake” (available here), make a video, and post it on the Little Fyodor YouTube contest page with the tag words “little fyodor and babushka music video contest.”  What do you win?  Let the video explain.

The band will be performing a sneak preview of Peace is Boring on Denver’s KGNU on Monday, April 27th, at 7pm MST. Tune in at 88.5FM in Boulder, 1390AM in Denver, and at KGNU.org for everywhere else.

This month marks the 20th anniversary of Denver, Colorado’s unclassifiable Little Fyodor & Babushka.  Unclassifiable?  No.  “Insane” classifies them quite well.  This year also, oddly, marks the 25th anniversary of Little Fyodor’s career as a DJ at Boulder’s KGNU.  The Little Fyodor album Dance of the Salted Slug was one of the very first releases on the Elephant 6 Recording Company label; and, as Little Fyodor tells it, he’s responsible for naming Jim McIntyre’s recording project Von Hemmling.  Optical Atlas extends its congratulations and admiration to the most proudly bizarre act to have ever emerged from Colorado, which hopefully will continue to perplex listeners for another 20 years…beginning with a new album that’s due out this year.  Check out Little Fyodor at his MySpace.