Sam Esh + The Hard Black Thing - Montezuma Baby Duck (1994)

Hard Black Thing was a Columbus, Ohio, quartet featuring Sam Esh (former Woodruff Ave. block captain, now mayor of a small unnamed hamlet near Savannah, Georgia), Mike Rep (Quotas, True Believers, etc.) Stu Sinn & Roger Time (both from the Harry Patt Band). Soundwise, HBTs side is a stumbling, white-knuckled barrel ride through myriad soundscapes as diverse as Amon Dl, Kalacakra, Portsmouth Sinfonia, Steve Marcus & Door & The Window, sometimes all at once! Side 2 begins w/ excerpts from the unreleased Sam Esh comedy LP. The sound is not unlike one might expect if one expects to find the likes of Tubby Boots channeling Jack Mudurian at a volunteer fire department turkey raffle. The laughs are on you, friend! Then its a down n dirty steel string strum & coarse vocal hum that is capable of reducing even the most erudite Alan Lomax sycophant to nothing more than a human tear box lost in Porch Swing, USA. Label art by Graham Lambkin. An LP that definitely needs to heard to be conquered.

-Press Release