Life got in the way of playing music after 1983. Twelve years later, with me married and two elementary school aged daughters in tow, Tombstone Valentine was born, following a few jam sessions with other friends that didn’t take hold.
The members of Tombstone Valentine clicked right out of the chute. With my then wife Diane Hancock (classically piano trained) on synth, Farfisa organ and vocals, we were joined by our dear friends Greg and Richelle Toombs. Richelle was an accomplished singer and keyboard player, but we didn’t have any idea how much so until she started singing. She had a beautiful and pliable voice, and the gift of inspired improvisation both lyrically and melodically. Greg was a rookie on guitar but there was no evidence of that. As Richelle stated at the time, Greg had been playing guitar in his head most of his life. Finally he had an opportunity to connect to an instrument and he acquitted himself with aplomb. I took up the bass with scant experience and focused on trancy, repetitive riffing while playing guitar and synth on occasion. My lifelong friend Randy Schwartz rounded out the band, on electric violin and a hand-built kit theremin, adding another whacked dimension. We adopted the name Tombstone Valentine due to Greg and Richelle’s last name and in tribute to the Finnish band Wigwam’s obscure 2970 classic LP Tombstone Valentine. Not many had heard of it then, but if you had, it provided a reference point.
I set up a little studio/practice space in our attic and attempted to record every practice session, many of which were unstructured jam sessions. During our second (!) session in 1995, the adventure we called “Elastic Reality” was recorded. At the end of that 18 minute jam we all looked at each other in shock and then laughter, knowing that we had found something that would at least entertain everyone involved. Later, as became protocol, I would mix the best jams down from the original Tascam 238 8 channel cassette master down to an analog cassette. “Elastic Reality” was so special for us that it ended up on both our LP and then CD, “Hidden World” on Aether Records, the contemporary psych label that I co-owned. Even though we had the run of a fancy 24 track digital studio for mixing, we ended up using the original analog cassette mix because the digital equipment wouldn’t allow us to find the magic we’d located in the cassette mix.
Early on, we began to work up structured songs. We lacked confidence in our ability to jam in listenable fashion consistently, and we wanted to play out live. So the structured songs gave us something reliable to work with. Diane’s sarcastic “Solvent City” became one of our best pieces, while Greg’s swamp blues psych “Mississippi” provided grounding to our otherworldly explorations. “Green Sky Night” told the true story of 3 year old daughter Christie’s uncannily accurate prediction that a giant ash tree would be falling down soon. “Hidden World” pays tribute to the beauty of the rural Minnesota countryside. Rarely did we attempt to recreate jams like “Elastic Reality”.
Our initial recordings were released via cassette. Two demos, the “purple tape” and the “green tape” named for the color of the insert were hand produced, probably only 20 copies were ever made. We wanted to have something at shows and this was long before Aether decided to release anything.
Early on we got some pretty cool underground gigs. Our first was at my record store, Missing Link Records in Broad Ripple/Indianapolis. After that, we played at one of the Stutz Artists open houses at the old Stutz Bearcat auto factory in Indianapolis, and at the annual Installation Fest art opening at City Market downtown. For the latter performance we played behind a giant plastic tarp at night, our bodies obscured by the semi opaque plastic. Following the release of our record, we were invited to play a space rock festival, Quarkstock in Columbus, Ohio, along with Quarkspace, French TV, Architectural Metaphor, Born To Go and Alien Planetscapes. This was by far our best set; unfortunately, as seemed to always happen, we didn’t get a recording due to technical failure. Following that, we climbed the festival later to play at Strange Daze 1999, the annual Hawkwind themed festival at a remote rural campground in Eastern Ohio. Nik Turner was the headliner, and we played alongside some amazing acts that year–we closed the festival on Sunday afternoon. The amazing Doug Walker of Alien Planetscapes joined us onstage and became one of our biggest supporters thereafter. Sadly, Doug departed this world unexpectedly in 2006, leaving behind dozens of excellent cassette albums.
We were approached by a student filmmaker from Ball State who was looking for some soundtrack material to a thriller he was making. We played along with a VHS copy of the trial edit and ended up with a set of instrumentals that we called “Chex Mix”, compiled and produced by Greg. In the end, not much of our music was used in the film, but we benefited greatly from the adventure.
The vinyl version of “Hidden World” was released first, in an edition of 300 copies, in 1998. A small number, maybe 25, were on purple and white swirled vinyl. We are sold out of the black vinyl, but used copies are generally available online. Purple copies are so rare that they still don’t have a listing on Discogs. The vinyl LP also appeared in a limited 200 copy box set along with LP’s by label mates Vas Deferens Organisation and Mazinga Phaser. Those too can be found occasionally online. In 1999 “Hidden World” was released on CD with an expanded track selection that does not include all of the tracks from the vinyl. “Triple O Shuffle” did not make the CD and there is a different recording of our signature tune, “Green Sky Night” on each format. While Aether was a small label, we did get a fair amount of favorable press in the psychedelic/space rock vertical magazines. We had a standing invitation to tour Italy but never could figure out how to pull it off. Day jobs.
Life, again, reared its ugly head. Richelle and Greg separated and eventually divorced, ending the combo’s original lineup. Unsure what to do, we experimented with lineups, eventually settling on a new singer, Katrina Jahn, a remarkable lady who, like Richelle, could generate spontaneous lyrics and vocals to match up with our jams. A fair amount with Katrina was recorded, and this included Greg on guitar, but without Richelle, who had moved to Minnesota. We never played out again, nor released any recordings. In the basement is a giant box of raw master cassettes and mixes. Someday I hope to compile a “best of Katrina years” and if I do, will write about it on this site.
The final blow to Tombstone Valentine was when Diane and I separated in 2003 and eventually divorced in 2006. While we remain friends still, we have never been able to pull together a reunion. With my relocation to northwest Indiana this seems even less likely now.
Since Tombstone Valentine I have rarely played or recorded. In October 2016 I played a short set at a synth night at State Street Pub along with Rick Crossland which was fun but not intended to continue in any fashion. We were billed as “The Ricks”.