In the mid-70s, three Midwesterners—John K. Schwab, Larry Dotson, and Carl “Mad Anthony” Richards—sat around a single microphone in an old barn in Santa Barbara, California and recorded ten songs that sat unreleased for decades. The trio worked under Richards’s nickname Mad Anthony, making a name for themselves on the Cincinnati club scene before moving west looking for a big break that never quite arrived. But over forty years later, Schwab’s son Ben (a musician in his own right with Drugdealer and Sylvie) heard the recordings and felt compelled to share them, initially with his friends, and now with the world as The Lost Tapes, a 12” and digital album release via Earth Libraries.
Expect lots of sunny acoustic guitar and three-way vocal harmonies, something on full display on the two initial singles—piano-led opener ‘Rina’ and pastoral folk song ‘Babe’. Latest single ‘Harriet Ann’ follows suit, built from Dotson’s fingerpicked acoustic guitar, Schwab’s subtle slide guitar and vocals, led by Richards, that ache despite the song’s sweet nature. It sounds as good now as the day it was recorded, a testament to the band’s skill as songwriters and musicians. “I used to tell my son, ‘You can play all the hot licks, be the Eddie Van Halen of your neighborhood, but nothing will last as long as a good song,” the elder Schwab says, reflecting on the songs’ enduring nature. “We didn’t have the ability to properly record in 1975, but Ben reminded me that it’s the quality of the songs that matters, not the recording.”
The Lost Tapes will be released by Earth Libraries on 30th June. Pre-order it now via Bandcamp.
