On Friday night I was handed a compilation tape for Wonderpus Records – a label I’d never heard of nor can dig up much info online about. The tape has a myriad of familiar names – Spanish Candles, Ranch Ghost, Useless Eaters, New Pleasure, Cy Barkley, Natural Child, The Greater Good, Turbo Fruits and Evan P Donohue to name a few. I have no idea where this came from or where you’d obtain your own – aside from the Turbo Fruits merch table or maybe from this guy who designed the logo?

What I do know is that there was a postponed launch party back in June and that they’ve also released music from Justin Stewart and Ben Spinks Supermelt. If anyone has some additional insight on these guys I’d love to hear it.

Update:
Here’s what I learned today. The official Wonderpus Facebook page is here. Their first release (intended to be their third) is the Last Summer tape compilation mentioned above; available at The Groove or Grimeys. In the future there will be full physical releases (read: vinyl) from Justin Stewart and Ben Spinks but these things take time and they’re still off on the horizon.

Tony Youngblood does a lot of things for Nashville and they almost all fall under the label of the Avant Garde, Experimental or Heavily Artistic. This is a phenomenal thing for Nashville but can often also be hard to understand. For instance, he’s put together the 2012 Circuit Bender’s Ball – a one-day festival at The Brick Factory that will showcase various workshops on electronic tinkering, making musical devices and performances from a number of experimental artists. They are raising Kickstarter money to make the non-profit festival a success. They’re only looking for $1,000 – a pricetag that seems incredibly achievable, particularly if people donate a little bit for the pure sake of continuing to push Nashville past the tired label of Country Music HQ. Go watch the video and toss them a few shekels, I think you’ll feel good about it.