This week on Throwback Thursday I found an old flyer for the band Taliesin. I started pulling out some memorabilia from the Crystaleyezed Fine Arts archives and found all sorts of stuff I’ve been saving up since 1989.
I made this flyer to promote the new cassette tape release from my friends’ band Taliesin. We had just gotten it into A-1 Records & Gifts and were really stoked!
When I released this album from my good friends in the band Taliesin. Infant Antiquity was the first release from Taliesin. I was just learning about releasing your own music the DIY way. Taliesin had just recorded a 5 song EP so I ordered some tapes, designed the cover. We worked together to package up the tapes and sell them to our friends in the Anderson, IN area.
Remember Record Stores?
Remember going to cool record stores with tons of magazines, toys and all kinds of other odd collections of fun stuff? A-1 Records & Gifts in downtown Anderson, IN was one of those kind of places for me when I was in high school. The guys there used to tell us all about the records we were checking out and give us great suggestions. You could always discover something new there and they would play it for you and help you find what you liked.
It was really great to get to have places like that before the days of the internet. That is where all the information got passed around with flyers on the wall and people just hanging out to talk about music, bands and the local scene.
There are a few mentions of A-1 Records & Gifts online at the links below. I used to go there in the late 80’s.
This link basically describes the whole record store scene in the area as I as growing up.
Here is a link to a local Indianapolis Music Magazine that mentions A-1.
Another mention of A-1 and more about the owner.
Taliesin
The guys in the band Taliesin are some high school friends of mine that I played in bands with including in Taliesin in a later format. At the time they had just finished recording an EP called Infant Antiquity. I was working more on art and learning how to record and release music. After learning about the DIY scene so we decided to put the EP our ourselves. I ordered some tapes and designed the cover. We worked together to package up the tapes and sell them to our friends in the Anderson, IN area. The cassette Infant Antiquity by Taliesin was released in 1989.
Hanging Up Flyers
It looks like this flyer was a pencil drawing I did when we got the cassette in A-1 Records & Gifts. The A-1 logo even looks a bit like the one on some pictures I saw online. I’m not sure exactly where we would have put up flyers back then.
Crystaleyezed Fine Arts Logo
Here you can see one of the versions of the Crystaleyezed Fine Arts logo, a little cut off at the top. I bet I cut that out and put it on there before making copies. Remember the fun days of doing graphics without computers? You can tell my style hasn’t changed much. I’m still doing swirly, spacey backgrounds. Maybe I need to start adding some castles and crystal balls back into my work?!
I hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane. There will be lots more from the archive. I will be contacting some of the people I worked with back then to catch up.
Have a great evening!
Mark Bray
Crystaleyezed Fine Arts
Since 1989