Welcome to my Astro-Man archive

This site is meant to be a visual archive of every variation of every Man... or Astro-Man? 7" single ever released. Most of what you'll see here comes from my personal collection. As information pours in I will post it, so please comment if you think you have something to add. I have no intention of posting MP3s here. I'm sure you can find the music elsewhere. This is just an attempt to collect information about the band's prolific creation of singles into one spot. If you can get past the fact that I rarely clean my scanner, I think you'll enjoy what you find here.

Use the Table of Contents on the sidebar if you are looking for details on a specific 7".


Sunday, March 20, 2011

Electrostatic Sensitive Device


Electrostatic Sensitive Device was a 7” EP released on November 5, 2010. It was put out by Henry Owings at Chunklet Magazine and the people at Soundscreen Design. Soundscreen Design had just released the Touchable Sound book, a graphics-heavy tome that celebrated the labor intensive 7” record packaging and design that permeated the 1990s.

Paying tribute to ridiculous, completely cost inefficient packaging, the record came in a plain white sleeve with plain white center labels that were hand stamped in black ink. The records were then placed inside a static shield bag with a square of circuit board that acted as a stiffener. The circuit boards were donated for the project by Diego Kirsch of Athens, GA. Star Crunch personally hand cut each of them. When assembled, sometimes the record ended up on the front side of the circuit board, sometimes it was on the back. The bag was sealed at the top with a dated sticker. Here is a picture of an unwrapped record posted by Flickr user Maxonemillion:


Notice how the stamped center label on the record itself is off-centered. The rest of the graphic was over-stamped onto the paper inner sleeve, a simple fact that makes each of these records one of a kind.

Here is a candid shot (lovingly borrowed from Henry Owings’ Facebook page) showing the records being assembled. Note the black ink on the center labels:



The single was limited to 300 black vinyl copies. Many were sold at the MOAM? concert at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia on November 5, 2010 (this was the source of the date on the sticker seal). The rest were bundled with the copies of the Touchable Sound book that were sold through Criminal Records in Atlanta. Here is a shot of the flyer from the show at the 40 Watt, the record release party, if you will:



These two songs were not newly recorded. They had both been released before. “Earth Station Radio” had previously appeared on the Jabberjaw No. 6 compilation box-set. “Updated Theme To Supercar” had appeared on 1998’s All Punk Rods compilation from Gearhead/Lookout! Records.

There were six test press copies of this single. The only visible difference between these and the records that ended up in the static shield bags is that the test press copies were stamped with red ink instead of black ink. Here is my copy:

4 comments:

  1. Please note that Star Crunch personally hand cut each of those circuit boards that were donated by Diego Kirsch of Athens. And you wouldn't think it, but 300 of those boards weigh a FREAKIN TON!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have read that The Updated Theme to Supercar is a remix unlike the version that originally appeared on the "All Punk Rods" compilation. Can anyone verify this?

    ReplyDelete
  3. FYI, this show was recorded (and they mention something about "those records we have for sale in the back" during the show). You can find it online easily by Googling "Man Or Astroman 40 Watt Club".

    ReplyDelete
  4. i am for the first time here. I found this board and I in finding It truly helpful & it helped me out a lot. I hope to present something back and help others such as you helped me.
    Box Athens

    ReplyDelete