Tetsuo’s Atomic Lounge

I had mentioned in a recent post, about a music group I was once part of forming. Actually there have been a few others. So anyways I dug around and found the only set of photo’s from what was the era of “Tetsuo’s Atomic Lounge”.

Sigh.. look how sexy we were……… from l to r : Miss Diva Mary (Mariko), Dj Brat (Everet), Miss Julie, and Dj SunKing (me).

I’d say, this would be around Aug of 1997. Yeah I’m a bit older then y’all think I am. Everet and I had already form a deejay squad called the “Acid Babies”. I was neighbors with Julie who had introduced me to a lot of indi post rock music like Stereolab, Pizzicato Five and the like. Mariko, was foregn University student, I knew who had also introduced me to a lot of the same kind of music and was a rave dancer. There was a lot of experimentation going on during those wild time, creatively, musicly, sexually, …drug-ly…

As far as I know, if we did record anything with this line up, it’s gone.. or to be more specific I don’t have it. What I do have are these pics that you see some of here. The ideas behind flood back when I see these. We had all sorts of borrowed equipment.. sound boards hooked into dat machines, digital samplers, cd player, turntables, moog organ, one of those yellow issued for the blind , cassette players, which allowed you to alter the speed of a tape, reverse it etc. I would record samples of many different source material and edit onto a tape. It was a proto-mash-up sort of music really. Yeah, we were crazy at the time.. Our own little punk rock dyi, trippy art music crew.

This was the days before laptops and iPods and all that that makes such things more of the norm now. I still remember this early set up, we had taken over my sisters kids room, (note the rocket ship bunk beds), that they were not using at the time.

These studio pictures are from a “Acid Babies” recording series where we were live mixing out into speakers that we had wired out into the rest of the big house that we were in on Radio Rd, in Jackson, TN. I still miss those queish dinners Felicia!So basicly what happened was Mariko had to go back to Japan, her strict parents didn’t like what was going on in the US.. so there went that. We contributed as the “Acid Babies” for a few more years with rotating members Addis Taylor joined, along with others like Alan Wilson, when we were a house party outfit, at an old farm house that our friend Felicia had, somewhere outside of Brownsville. If you were one of the lucky few to attend those, then you know all about that!!!

So more then 10 years later did we influience the kids around here that you see and hear today? I’d like to think so.. who knows.? I think Julie went and pursuied a carrier in music jounalism, not sure where she moved off to, but was active with CMJ and SxSW for a while.

(I’m on the look out for more acid baby party pictures, videos and stuff.. so if anybody out there has or knows, let me see!)

Tags: 1997, Acid Babies, Tetsuo's Atomic Lounge