The Past.

 


Buffalo, NY was then a pretty dull place, sometimes beauty springs from where you least expect it to.  It’s 1991, and a decision to walk into the Cabaret on Franklin St., just looking for an adventure, yields – Squid.  Can this really be a local act?  Really?  Not since the days of the Pipe Dragon and the acts that came through it had there been something this compelling.  The impulse had to be acted upon.  It was decided that AmRep & Touch and Go were suitable role-models to emulate, and the beginnings of what would become Cash Cow Recording Company were cobbled together  There was rapidly becoming a story worth telling in Buffalo.  Great bands with something to say, but in need of a medium to say it.  Ah, the seven inch.  Glorious plastic and paper, some on colored vinyl, some classic black.  All worth it.

February 1993.  COW 001 Squid.  New Waffen Jive/Bitchmagnet.  Noisy, powerful and odd.  Blue vinyl.  Word is born.  June 1993.  COW 002 Tugboat Annie/Milf split. 2 songs each - Tugboat Annie – Nine More/Try, & Milf – Ceases to Beav/In The Behind.  Great lo-fi power pop.  Green vinyl.  September 1993.  COW 003 Milf “Feasting on Fried Dough” EP.  300 copies on red vinyl stuffed into a paper bag.  November 1993.  COW 004 Spavid.  Itchy/Jarneck Chump, Slept.   300 on pink vinyl, the rest on black. March 1994.  Our first sampler.  COW 005 The More You Eat, The Better You Are, vol 1.  Featuring Beatrice Blinded, Egghead, Milf and The Tortillas You Wanted.  Breezy lo-fi college pop from Ithaca, NY.  July 1994.  COW 006  Snufflufugus Santa Cruz/Petro 7″ recorded by Will Lee – bass player for David Letterman’s Most Dangerous Band in The World.   July 1994. COW 007  Rainbow Girls.  Brainbomb/Call Away/Wet 7 inch.  And in the fall of 1995 our last record was COW 008 Beef - Towncar/Spavid Story/Nicole Kidman.  Poetic troublemakers (just ask Nicole Kidman’s legal team).

So what happened?  Squid fell apart on the eve on the second single.  Milf and Tugboat Annie signed to bigger indies and released several accliamed records respectively.  Spavid recorded an amazing LP (twice) that was to come out on Humble, as well as another single for Simple Machines - but they imploded in Portland, Oregon after opening for Pitchblende and subsequently neither of those records have seen the light of day.  Perhaps one day… Spavid’s ryhthm section, bassist Bruce Reckhan and drummer Jason Kourkounis joined Delta 72.  Kourkounis has since gone on to further acclaim as the drummer for Bardo Pond, Hot Snakes, Night Marchers, Burning Brides, Joe Lally and Scout Niblett.  Snufflufugus, Rainbow Girls and Beef all carried on long after Cash Cow came to a halt.  24 months of promise, then silence…13 years of inactivity, and now what?  Cash Cow Recording Company was been reborn in 2009 as Cash Cow Production.  Denver, Colorado based record label, booking, film production, artist management, marketing, whatever inspires, whenever the inspiration hits.