The taxscam vinyl incident of Stonewall
The forgotten VINYl artefact...
Reminiscent of the Black Sabbath sound, a whole new genre had begun and spread its ways around. Circa 1976 a band by the name of Stonewall started to appear into the scene under the Tiger Lily label under a ‘Promotional – Not for Sale’ restriction use. Those who came across it would see the resemblances of the sound to those of Led Zeppelin, and previously mentioned Black Sabbath. Still going quite unnoticed, as rumored not many copies were pressed at the time. The band would go separate ways as Mr. Jimmy Goldstein (owner of the record studio, Manhattan N.Y.C.) would tell the band that no one was interested in their music. Sad, all members decide to call it an end and go on with their lives separately.
...The Revealing the truth of the album
A few years later, Anthony Assalti (drummer for Stonewall) would receive a few phone calls from both Switzerland (Raymond Dumont) and Germany (Miguel Rodriguez): one saying that he possessed a copy of Stonewall in his collection and the other asked if there were any other songs that were left out of the initial album, also asking to release another Stonewall album. Both phone calls left Mr. Assalti incredulous has he was sure the album wasn’t released nor the band was ever contacted to an eventual release of the record.
Here are some pictures of the supposedly original vinyl pressing from 1976 on Tiger Lily.
The aftermath...
The record was reissued many times after the incident, although still remaining bootlegs (released without the band’s permission) noticeably twice on Kismet in 2010 and 2012, twice by Akarma (on vinyl and CD) once in 1992 not on label. It was just recently that the album had a proper reissue on Permanent Records with the big help of Lance Barresi in which he re-contacted members of the band, this time getting paid for what they once created. The album was reissued twice in 2019 and 2022; many variants can be found nowadays: standard plain black, metallic gold, silver and in an exclusive “Outer-Spaced Colored” which is a red and white splattered color.
The nowadays taxscam album released on vinyl back in 1976, is a sought-after masterpiece praised by many in the vinyl community. Alongside many legendary tails of the vinyl underground world such as Leaf Hound’s “Growers of Mushrooms” released in 1971 under the Decca label in the U.K. and Can’s “Monster Movie” from 1969, under Music Factory in Germany. Both pinnacles of the main era of heavy underground psychedelia, can be sold on 4-digit numbers (the latter having achieved the 5th digit on Discogs recently, in 2022) when of course, original pressings.
Similar incidents: Orang-Utan, Randy Holden
Related acts: Leaf Hound, Speed, Glue & Shinki, Blue Cheer, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, T.2., Orang-Utan, Felt, Granicus, The Edgar Broughton Band, Bulbous Creation, Black Cat Bones, Big Brother Ernie Joseph, Bolder Damn, Dragonfly, Freedom, The Moving Sidewalks, Chico Magnetic Band, Jimmy Hendrix, Speed Glue & Shinki, Ellison, Fat, Mountain, Fraction