Man... or Astro-Man? Ray Gun

One of the pieces of early Astro-Man memorabilia that has long eluded me (and continues to do so) was the fabled MOAM? Ray Gun. I had heard of these being produced and sold, but was never able to find anyone who had one. In fact, the only thing that made me think it was more than just a rumor was a single sentence in an old newsletter from around '93:

Well, wonder no more.

In September of 2015 an eBay auction popped up from a seller in Bellingham, Washington unloading a fruitcake/meteor. Given the address of the seller and the rarity of the item (and the fact that the "to:" field on the fruitcake was made out to 'Estrus'), I had a pretty good idea that the seller was Dave Crider.

As I rushed to explain the pending expense to my wife, the auction ended early. My suspicions about the seller were confirmed in the months prior as I was contacted by another active MOAM? collector -- a guy known to me only as Jarrid Clinkinbeard. As it turns out, Clinkinbeard had bought the fruitcake in the eBay auction and asked Crider if he had anything else he wanted to unload. He ended up buying the fruitcake, the ray-gun, a survival kit, a yo-yo, some Space Dust and toothpaste in a single lot. This is the kind of Astro score that many of us dream about.

Clinkinbeard was gracious enough to snap a few pictures for me. As such, we have a better idea of what was being sold. Here's a photo of the back of the Ray Gun:

We see that it's a Chinese-made noise maker called the Shark Gun, distributed in the US by a company in Delaware called Midwestern Home Products INC. We also know that it makes eight different "space sounds" that promise to reveal the enemy, and that the volume is described as "Extremely Large." I'm not entirely sure what sharks and outer space have in common, but maybe this is something that's lost in the translation.

That other big reveal is how small it is. Here's a photo of the packaged Ray Gun next to a standard 7" single:

It looks to be slightly larger that key chain sized, and a bubble in the packaging looks like the guns are sometimes packaged with a key ring. The standard packaging is augmented by a slipped in, black and white variation of the cover art for the Supersonic Toothbrush Helmet 7" single. The artwork for the single was created by Rowan Moore, and the record came out on the Canadian label Lance Rock Records in 1993 (catalog number LRR 008).

And with that, we get a better understanding of the marketing juggernaut behind the Man... or Astro-Man? merch table in the early 1990s.

Many thanks to Jarrid Clinkinbeard for contacting me about this, and for being willing to snap a few photos for the blog.

Intergalactic Fruit Meteor

Picture saved from an eBay listing

It's no secret that the early 1990s were an prolific time for the guys in Man... or Astro-Man?. It seemed like every time I went to a record store there was another 7" single in the "New Releases" section. As bountiful as their recorded output was, their early focus on merchandising was equally prolific. I'd heard of, and had been able to track down, custom packaged drinking straws, lava rocks, dryer lint, and even light switch plates. I'd also heard rumors of MOAM?-branded hatchets customized and then returned to an area Walmart to be sold to unsuspecting rural folks. My knowledge and understanding of early collectibles and ephemera was written up a number of years ago and posted HERE. I had not, however, heard that the band also spent at least one winter schlepping holiday fruit cake. That was until one came up for sale on eBay in March of 2013. I didn't win the auction. It ended up selling for the paltry sum of $45.44 -- which was more than I was comfortable spending on a twenty year-old tin of Christmas fruitcake. I did learn later, though, that several of the people who contribute to this site also bid on it. All of us lost. If we had had the sense to coordinate our efforts we could currently be taking turns displaying the damn thing in our respective dens. 

The artwork looks to have been taken from a late-1950s novelty 7" attributed to the Hal Bradley Orchestra. Here's a picture of the record cover:

The internet being what it is, of course the song has made its way to YouTube.

Here are a few more pictures of the meteor that I saved from the eBay listing. The thing was still (mostly) sealed:

The first I heard of the fruit cake was through long-time astro-pundit Henry Owings. He mentioned the fruitcake in a set of liner notes that he wrote for the reissue of the Your Weight on the Moon 10" record. The label ended up going a different direction with the reissue, scrapping much of what the band wanted to do with it. Owings posted his would-be liner notes HERE. In speaking specifically about late 1993, he had this to say about astro-swag:

" . . .fall of 1993. Birdstuff and I had become quick pen pals in those halcyon pre-internet days where stamps on postcards announcing tour dates were king and our early hang times were spent hovering over the merch table after their sets. Birdstuff would routinely push Astroman?’s newest sellable gimmick on me. Whether it was Astro-Teethpaste (read: a push-tube of Crest), Galactic Fruit Meteors (read: a standard issue fruit cake) or Space Dust (read: dryer lint) they all had an ersatz Man…or Astroman? sticker slapped on it and made their own….and available for only five bucks!"

An old, 4-page Astro-office newsletter set the price a little higher, and confirmed the timeline that Owings set out. We can date the newsletter partly because it used the old Moores Mill Road address, and partly because of its content. Here's a picture of the heading from the front of the newsletter:

 The next page is significant because it lists descriptions and prices of Astro merch available at the time -- stickers for 50 cents, customized toothpaste for $3, and dryer lint for those willing to send the band a SASE.

The more informative part, though, is the "Near Future" section. We know that this dates to mid-1993 because it lists the Kill Geeksville split 7" (called Kill Squaresville here) as coming out soon. It lists, among other things, an aborted 10" release through Sympathy Records and a $4 MOAM? Ray Gun set to come out in January of 1994. This is the first I've heard about a ray gun -- I would be interested to know if they ever made/sold them.

As the "Near Future" section spilled on to the next page, there are two things that stand out to me. The first is the description of the Intergalactic Fruit Meteor that is the subject of this post. It looks like it sold originally for $15. The second is the planned split 7" with the Woggles that was slated to be released by Homo Habilis Records but that never ended up coming out. Here's a cropped image of what I'm describing:

The fruitcake that came up for auction on eBay listed the Woggles as the intended recipients. From what I can tell, the cakes were customized by the band at the time of purchase -- which leads me to believe that the one pictured above was gifted at one point to a member of the Woggles. The only person I know that owned one was Henry Owings. He remembers his own reading "To: Henry" on the front, so this seems to be the way it was done. He also remembers his eventually smelling so bad that he saw no other option than to throw it away.

Still, as this one was labeled "to: the Woggles / from: Man... or Astro-Man?" this represents the closest that the two bands ever came to putting out a split single. Something to think about.

NOTE: All of these pictures came from internet sources. The fruitcake pictures themselves came from an eBay auction. The newsletter pictures came from Facebook photos wherein the band was tagged. I didn't take the pictures, and I don't have any of this stuff in my personal collection.

If you have clearer photos of any of this, or would be willing to scan copies from your collection of old newsletters/mail order catalogs/ etc., please get into contact with me through the sidebar. I would love to clear up any hearsay and share what you have with those who would love to see it.

Thanks --James 

Estrus Promo Astro-Vision Glasses

The Estrus Astro-Vision glasses were an early promotional item that date back to the astro blur of the mid 1990s. The glasses were made in the standard 3-D glasses style using folded and die-cut printed card stock paper. Plastic green and reddish-purple inserts were added for each lens of the completed glasses. These were distributed at the time that Estrus released the second full-length LP Project Infinity in 1995. They were used by the band and the label as a promotional item and were available briefly through the Estrus mail order catalog. Art Chantry was the lead designer of this (and of most Estrus swag back in the day) and he had some help from Lance Thingmaker (who was also involved with the production of the much loved UFO's and the Men Who Fly Them 7" single). Here are a few more pictures of the glasses:

The above photos were lovingly saved from the eBay listing. Thanks Gearhead Records!

When I first created this post, I wrongly assumed that this piece was earlier -- that it had been made in 1993 as the band first signed to Estrus Records. Many people immediately called me out on my assumption. One of these, frequent contributor Benjamin Brinkman, was able to articulate why exactly my guess was so far off. He wrote to me: 

"A better dating of these glasses places them to the summer of '95. The Man or Astro-man? and Estrus logos as seen on the glasses are identical to those on the Word Out of Mind 7" (also a collaboration between Art Chantry and Lance Thingmaker). Per the sleeve details, the WOoM EP was recorded in February 1995 and, as indicated by the price tag date on one of my copies, was in stores by May of that same year.

Digging into my back stock of Estrus mail order catalogs, I noticed the same MoA? logo makes it's first appearance in Sir Estrus Quarterly Vol. 6 No. 2 (May 1995) In this issue is this 4 3/8" x 5 1/2" ad:" 

Brinkman also pointed out that Estrus had a bit of a 3-D obsession in 1995, with 3-D movies playing a part in that year's Garageshock festivities -- with the May 27th show being described in this same edition of Sir Estrus Quarterly as a "3-D EstroPhonic shitfest!". 1995 was also the year that Brinkman scored his own pair of Astro-Vision glasses, from the band themselves after an in-store performance at Ozone Records on August 4, 1995. Interestingly enough, his glasses have the colored lenses reversed from how mine are.

Along the same lines, Chunklet's Henry Owings remembers getting several pair at around this time, and contributor Brandonio Granger got a pair when he ordered a 3-D Project Infinity poster through the Estrus mail order.The glasses were sold separately as well, as evidenced from this ad in Sir Estrus Quarterly Vol. 7 No. 1 (January through April, 1996):

cell phone pic courtesy of Benjamin Brinkman

As far as the process for design and building, here's what Art Chantry posted. This came from Facebook a few years ago:

"One of the fun things we always did at estrus was make crazy promo swag. We had no money, so we had to figure out ideas to pull of and THEN figure out how to get them done with no money. To this day, I'm not sure how we managed to produced so much quality product and generally great stuff with the zero budget world we worked in. A LOT of the big secret was simply doing it by hand. it's amazing what you can get done with a couple of friends, a case of beer, pizza and a bad movie to watch while you work.

For example, these are astro-vision glasses we made as a promo item for one of the Man…or Astro-man? records (I forget with one--maybe Destroy All Astro-Men, maybe Project Infinity). The design is essentially based on those crummy 'x-ray specs' glasses you used to buy out of the back pages of comic books. These things were die-cut and assembled by our good pal Lance Thingmaker. He was a saving grace for us. Lance could do ANYTHING (with enough lead time) and he would do it for us at an affordable price.

I designed the cutting ring and the graphics. Lance added those amazing "split-cellophane" lenses (two-colors side by side in each peep hole). If you wore them, the result was a massive headache. But, they were really cool things we used to promote the record. people ate them up like candy."

I picked up my own pair of these promo glasses last year through eBay. They came to me from the collection of Gearhead Records, as the label was thinning out some of its own promo collection. You'll remember that Gearhead also put out an Astro-Man single, the split 7" with the band Chrome that came with Gearhead #5. 

This was the second time that something cool had come to me from the offices of Gearhead. Many years back I had won a Gearhead contest by completing a word puzzle and sending it in faster than anyone else. The prize was a lone, personalized Gearhead "Kendall Oil" sticker and a blurb about me in the next issue of the magazine. I present my evidence: 

Here's a bonus pic of my boy wearing the glasses:

Test Specimen Identification & Missed Shows . . .

Sometimes I forget that I spent much of my early life in the Phoenix metro area. We were by no means a big tour stop for anyone, but we often benefited from being on the way to somewhere else. Still, there was a fiercely loyal Man… or Astro-Man? following in Arizona, and this was mostly because of a record shop called Eastside Records. In addition to carrying everything MOAM? and helping to drum up support for their live shows, Eastside went on to put out the Haystack/Needles in the Cosmic Haystack 7-inch and also released the Servotron single Celebration Of Annihilation. The store went through several changes over the years, expanding and contracting in size, widening and then narrowing their sales focus. It recently closed its doors permanently—effectively bringing to a close an awesome chapter in Tempe, Arizona music history. This post cuts across Eastside Records in a couple of different ways. Let me explain.

Eastside was where I first met Ryan O’Sullivan. We met in 1997, the week after I had returned home from serving an LDS church mission to France. This was also just a few days before I saw MOAM? play for the first time. At this point I had already started to stockpile Astroman records and I was coming in to the shop to see exactly how far behind I’d fallen by cutting myself off from society for two years. It took me a decade to track down everything that came out while I gone. Ryan’s band the Stamens was set to open for MOAM? on that tour stop. Even though he was a younger guy, Ryan had already gained some local notoriety by playing with Greg Sage in a rebooted version of the Wipers. After a few years playing surf rock with the Stamens he would start a garage-y, almost Gang of Four-like band with fellow Eastside employee John Minardi and former Stamens drummer Zeke Howard (of Love As Laughter fame). That band was called the Thundercats (later the Tri-City Thundercats). He would also start a small record label called I Don't Feel a Thing that would put out music by the Lottie Collins, the Sun City Girls and Digital Leather, among others.

It came as a bit of a surprise this past week when, after searching non-stop for my old Astroman Test Specimen ID card (pictured above), I would receive it in the mail. It was sent to me along with a letter from Ryan detailing how he had ended up with it and kept it for more than a decade. Apparently I had lent it to him to take along to an Astroman show I had to miss and then I'd never bothered to get it back. When he stumbled upon it recently while cleaning his garage, he immediately made sure to send it back my way.

The Test Specimen Identification card was proof that you were a member of the MOAM? fan club. When you signed up you got one in the mail with your name on the back, a listing of the city where you lived and the date when your member in good standing status would expire. You had to re-enroll every year. Doing so got you a limited edition t-shirt, a handful of stickers and notification in your mailbox whenever the boys were on tour or were dropping a new record. So why had I lent mine to someone else? Because if you flashed a card at the merch table when they were playing your town you got 10% off whatever you were buying. On the front side of the card, among the field of green atoms, you can clearly see a small red graphic promising the percentage off.

Also with this letter, Ryan enclosed a flyer from an earlier show that I had missed while overseas. Here’s a scan:


Man… or Astro-Man? had played that time with the Hi-Fives and the Fells. The Fells were a Tucson, AZ-based garage band that signed to Estrus Records in the mid-1990s. Their one consistent member, a guy named Heath Heemsbergen, worked at a southern Arizona record store called Toxic Ranch. He would also go on to play in Tyvek. And, of course, the Hi-Five had their own previous Astro-connection. They had also recorded a surf record as thee Shatners, and MOAM? had covered their tune “Green-Blooded Love” on the single The Sounds of Tomorrow.

What stands out to me even more than the bands, though, is the flyer itself. The flyer was done by a Tempe-based artist named Brian Marsland. Brian did a lot of show flyers in the ’90s for events in and around Phoenix. His free-hand illustrator style of graphic design was incredibly effective and did much to help get the public out to see bands. I remember on more than one occasion going to see a band I’d never heard of just because Brian had made the flyer. That was usually a sign that the show was going to be good.

Brian had also designed the flyer for the very first show MOAM? ever played in Arizona – a 1993 (?) gig at a fly-by-night Phoenix club called El Rancho De Los Muertos. Here is that flyer:


I did not make it to this first show either – if I remember right I had just gotten back from Lake Powell with the worst sunburn I’d ever had. I heard about the show from everyone in the days that followed. It was because of this performance that I bought my first MOAM? records. The splash made from this show continues to cause ripples in my life today. You’ll notice that the Fells also played this first show, and that Eastside Records helped to put it on.

Brian Marsland was more than just a black and white flyer designer, though. It was also Brian who designed the cover for the MOAM? Haystack single shown below:


That single had been produced by Eastside Records. Around the same time he designed the cover for the Polvo / New Radiant Storm King split single put out by local label Penny Farthing, as seen here:


And to bring this rambling Ryan O’Sullivan / Eastside Records / Brian Marsland post to a close, here’s a shot of the cover Brian designed for the Wipers' 1993 release Silver Sail, followed by a YouTube video of Ryan playing bass with the Wipers in Arizona in late 1996:

Cliffs Notes on Man or Astroman?

The original intention of this site was to catalog Man... or Astro-Man? singles. The thought was that if I put everything I knew about each release online, then people would respond by telling me what they knew. As a project I think that it's been wildly successful. As information has come in I've posted it. At some point I think this could become the spot people turn to for all of their astro-facts (at least until astroman.com relaunches). An unintended benefit, though, has been how much else has been sent my way.

Case in point: a Cliffs Notes-themed band biography

Fellow collector Mike Noon told me about this booklet at the same time he sent me the sell-sheet for the Amazing Thrills in 3-D promo single. I know very little about this booklet. The one long essay, credited to the Quiz Master, is the exact same piece that ran in the Call of the Wild fanzine. If you remember, there was a four-band compilation flexi that came with that publication. If the essay appeared here first, then that would go far to explain why Birdstuff was wearing a sport coat made of Cliffs Notes books in the band photo. The only other bit of astro-trivia that this brings to mind is that I always heard that in an early version of the band's mythology, every member had a snack cake name (only Starcrunch decided to keep his). From this we see that there was also a Nutty Bar, a Zebra Cake and a Fudge Round at some point.

Noon was kind enough to scan the entire thing for me to share. If you're ready to see what late 1992 looked like in one rather cosmic corner of the American south, well, look no further than the following scans:









a big thanks to Mike Noon for holding on to this for so many years and for taking the time to share it.

Big Edit: Another version of the Astro-Man Cliffs Notes recently came to my attention. It was published to a MOAM? Facebook fan page by FB user Jett Strand. It came into her possession when she OUTBID ME on eBay. Here is that version:

Recent Astro-Man Collectibles

Ever since Man... or Astro-Man? started playing shows again in September of 2006, there have been things for astro-collectors to get their hands on. Here's what I've been able to stockpile:

Cryonic Waste Samples
Thrown from the stage at the Touch and Go 25 show. Mini glow sticks that have long since lost their shine. One for each of the original four that played the show. Of course the ultimate take home item from that night was Birdstuff's drum set, that he handed to the audience piece by piece.





Whirlyball Air Fresheners
Made for their March 5, 2010 show at the Whirlyball court in Roswell, Georgia. Made by Henry Owings of Chunklet magazine. I believe that it is "spice" scented, because there wasn't enough time for the factory to mix a custom "space B.O." scent. I currently have one hanging in my car and four in a box in my closet.





The remaining items were purchased/pilfered from the Los Angeles show that took place this past Presidents' Day weekend. There were a lot of things to be had and I got just about all of them. Here they are:

Meteor Mitt
A repackaged dollar store oven mitt.





Space Straws
Silly straws with an astro-man endorsement.





Astro Bag
A black cloth bag emblazoned with the "critical space item" graphic.





Light Switch Plates
Hand-painted light switch plates. No two are exactly alike.







Cosmic Teeth Paste
Creepy glittery blue tooth paste. Was almost taken from me by the TSA.





Set List
Stage man Scotty Lee's list, used to anticipate when to switch out guitars. Autographed by the whole band.