Total Energy Records

TOTAL ENERGY RECORDS

After a few false starts, the Poppees were signed by Greg Shaw as the first new band for Bomp! Records – Bomp is still going strong, issuing the Poppees anthology album this year among other great records, and has several allied labels, such as AIP, Alive, Total Energy, etc.

(December 2010)

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Between Captain Trip Records and the Bomp! Records label Total Energy, virtually the entire Deviants/Mick Farren catalogue is now happily back in print.

(August 2011)

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One name that has come up repeatedly in these 40-odd posts is Greg Shaw, a widely respected music historian and the founder of Bomp! Records – which also includes the labels AIP Records, Voxx Records, Total Energy Records, and Alive Naturalsound Records (usually just called Alive Records) – and their associated Bomp! mailorder music service. It would not surprise me at all if I haven’t mentioned Greg Shaw in a third of these UARB articles. In addition, more than a few of the Under-Appreciated Rock Bands have released albums or EP’s on one of the Bomp!-affiliated labels. If I also included the albums on non-Bomp labels that I ordered through the Bomp! mailorder service, close to half of the UARB’s and UARA’s would likely have a Bomp! connection.

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Many of the seminal bands in these rock movements released albums on the Bomp!, Voxx, Alive or Total Energy labels; most of them are not household names by any means, but they are recognized by those in the know as being important bands that shaped the history of rock and roll. Some of these better-known bands and artists are the Romantics, the Modern Lovers, the Dead Boys (and Stiv Bators individually), the Plimsouls (and Peter Case individually), the Beat (and Paul Collins individually), the Stooges (and Iggy Pop individually), Devo, Nikki Sudden, the Black Keys, and Soledad Brothers.

(May 2013)

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I have been collecting Pebbles albums for around 30 years and have also purchased many, many other albums that have come out on Greg Shaw’s record labels: Bomp, Voxx, AIP, Total Energy, and Alive. There have also been several compilation albums that have collected highlights from Bomp! Records releases over the previous several years, and I have most of those as well. One of the most comprehensive is Destination: Bomp!, a two-CD set that is subtitled “The Best of Bomp! Records’ First 20 Years”. Bomp celebrates its 40th anniversary next year.

(September 2013)

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The tape was thought to be lost for many years but later turned up in a box, marked “Dingwalls”; and several tracks from the show were released by Total Energy Records on a 2000 CD called Cocaine Blues 1974-1978 with an artist name of Wayne Kramer & the Pink Fairies.

(March 2014/1)

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Allmusic lists a total of 29 albums by Davie Allan and the Arrows, many being soundtrack albums. I have three of them myself, all on the Bomp!-affiliated Total Energy Records label: Fuzz Fest (1998), The Arrow Dynamic [Aerodynamic] Sounds of Davie Allan & the Arrows (1999), and a live album called Live Run (2000). The live album includes their hit “Blues’ Theme” as well as “Apache”.

The debut album by the Silencers, The Silencers came out on Total Energy Records at about the same time as several albums by their label-mates Davie Allan and the Arrows. For the most part, the songs are originals, with the one exception being “Journey to the Stars” that has five songwriters listed on Allmusic: Bob Bogle, Don Wilson, Nokie Edwards, and Mel Taylor of the Ventures, plus Sun Ra.

(December 2014)

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I first heard the classic track “I’m a Ramrod” by the Ramrods on the 1998 Total Energy Records compilation LP and CD, Motor City’s Burnin’, with the title adapted from the MC5 song “Motor City Is Burning”; I got it in a special package of 3 Detroit CD’s that also included Motor City’s Burnin’, Vol. 2 and Motor City Blues. The first two albums are stoked with killer tracks from many of the bands mentioned above and others. Among other things, Motor City Blues was my introduction to a simply amazing street musician named One String Sam who plays a handmade “unitar” and has a bluesman howl unlike any that I have ever heard.

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The 6-track EP CD that I have by the Lovemasters is called Hot Pants Zone and came out on Total Energy Records in 1995. As with “Pusherman of Love” (which is not on the EP), the Lovemasters manage to perform several songs with sexually charged music that is playful and tongue-in-cheek, without being smarmy or misogynist or sleazy or embarrassing – that is not unheard of, but it is a hard pose to pull off. The opening cut, “(Annie Got) Hot Pants Power” and their famous song “Genius from the Waist Down” fall squarely into that category.

(March 2016)