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:

Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks

Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks (PR 6632-7) was a promotional 7” EP released in 1996. It was put out by Lava Records, a subsidiary of Atlantic. It was a split single between Man or Astro-Man? and Pavement. The single was never for sale, but was sent out to promote an album’s worth of late-1970s children’s songs re-imagined by artists that grew up with the animated television show.

Schoolhouse Rock ran from 1973-85. The short, music-heavy clips ran between episodes of Saturday morning cartoons. The aim was to use cartoons to teach kids about history, science and language. The Astro-Man track came from an episode written to help children remember facts about the solar system.

The picture sleeve was made from very stiff cardstock that was printed in full-color. It was machine folded and glued together. It is unique as an Astro-Man release in that it only features the three core members of the band—there was no rhythm guitarist credited. This copy, like many others floating around, was autographed by Coco, Starcruch and Birdstuff. For a long time every copy that came up for sale had been autographed. This makes me wonder if there was some sort of signing event in this single’s history.

It was pressed on yellow-orange vinyl. Here is a scan:

Amazing Thrills! in 3-Dimension

Amazing Thrills! in 3-Dimension was a Man... or Astro-man? promo 7" EP. It was released on Estrus Records (as ESP7) in 1993. The cover was printed in black and white on a thin paper sleeve that was machine folded and glued together. It only featured art work on the front side. It was only available on translucent black vinyl.

The count on this one is a bit tricky. According to the Estrus website, 200 copies were given away with their debut album, Is It ... Man or Astroman?, when it was ordered directly from the record label. 200 additional copies were given to the band for distribution--putting the total count of the pressing at 400. Here's a cobbled together screencap, in case the link stops working:

Some discographies, including the one at the old MOAM? website, put the number at 1000. The picture becomes even less clear when you consider the numbers listed on this sell sheet:


The sheet above was sent to record stores in the US and Europe to drum up sales for the first LP. The idea was that stores could order a bunch of the promo singles to sell at record release parties for the full-length. The sheet puts the retail sales numbers at 400 and the total pressing at 800. Since this was a document that predated the manufacture of the promo single, it would have been possible for Estrus to go with a larger or smaller number, depending on what the actual pre-order totals ended up being. Whatever the case, this one is devilishly difficult to track down.

Side A featured “Out Of Limits” and “Radio Promo.” Side B featured “MST 3000 Love Theme” and “Reverb 1000 (Live).” This is the first time Man or Astro-man's cover of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 theme song was released. It was later re-released on Destroy All Astromen!.

Here is a scan of the vinyl record:



The picture sleeve cover was designed by Stuart Ellis (A.K.A. "The Lounge Lizard"). Inspiration for the cover art looks to be taken from the 1953 sci-fi film It Came From Outer Space. The film was based on a Ray Bradbury story that told of a bizarre and very advanced race of one-eyed, amorphous creatures who could assume the form of any human in order to facilitate the uninterrupted repair of their ship. The aliens were not here to seize the planet or to enslave the human race, nor to destroy earth in order to be the ultimate life form in the universe. They just wanted to fix their space ship and leave--not unlike the "actual" Man or Astro-Man? origin story. Here is an image of the movie poster:



As you can see the four people and the mysterious eye are both taken from the poster. The EP's title is also pulled from here, as is the hybrid road/space ship condensation trail. The film was directed by Jack Arnold and starred Richard Carlson. The pair would also collaborate on 1954's The Creature from the Black Lagoon.


Thanks to Benjamin Brinkman for pointing me to the art source, and to Mike Noon for sending in a scan of the Estrus sell sheet.