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(Winchester, VA, November 30, 2007) -- Take songs on tapes that have outlasted earthquakes, hurricanes, and incarcerations. Add some digital salvation and out comes Grateful, a pastiche of new music with remixed or refurbished tracks that were almost lost in time.

Grateful is the new CD from Foldback Records recording artist Johnny J Blair. "I'm grateful people kept requesting these songs, even though I thought the master recordings were gone," Blair says. "I was told some tapes were destroyed in an earthquake, some were trashed by record companies, and one reel was taken to South America and lost. Last year, friends found pieces of these tapes 'marooned' on two continents. It's almost like rescuing marooned people from a desert island."

Download the Johnny J Blair Grateful publicity kit.

Thrashy pop, stacks of Beach Boys-like vocals, string quartets, and hard-rock improvisation feature prominently on Grateful. Selections include "Desert Ruby" (a surreal diary of a bus ride from Tampa to Los Angeles), "She's Not Some Animal #2," and other songs Blair often performs live.

Unearthed gems include a jet-propelled cover of "My Bonnie" dressed in riffs from David Bowie's glam era. The punk-psychedelia of "I'm So Glad (U Let Me In)" is Blair's love note to San Francisco, the town where much of Grateful was written and recorded. Other parts of Grateful take a whimsical look at the Keystone State ("I Wanna Be in Pennsylvania").

Guests include ex-Monkee Davy Jones, Michael Miller (Gilmore Girls), Michael Roe (The 77s), power-pop prince Chris von Sneidern, and members of the seminal jangle-guitar band Flying Color. Engineers include Grammy winner Rusty Richards (Julie Miller, Michelle Shocked, Brian Wilson) and the late Aaron Gregory (Chris Isaak, Toiling Midgets, Chuck Prophet), to whom Grateful is dedicated.

Blair's offbeat, sunny brand of pure pop is informed by urban irreverence, romantic abstraction, and a bittersweet spirituality.

Grateful joins a Wampus Multimedia roster that includes The May Bees, The Crowd Scene, Cafebar 401, tvfordogs, Casey Abrams, Arms of Kismet, Mick Reed, Alice Despard, and others, as well as the compilations Hurry Home Early: the Songs of Warren Zevon, After Hours: a Tribute to the Music of Lou Reed, and If I Were a Richman: a Tribute to the Music of Jonathan Richman.

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(Clifton, VA, May 23, 2006) -- Some labels reissue familiar albums that have fallen out of fashion. Others specialize in repackaging old hits for new markets. Foldback Records, the new reissue imprint of U.S. independent label Wampus Multimedia, focuses on lost treasures and offbeat delights, eclectic records you might have missed the first time around. Like Rhino Records and Rykodisc, Foldback envisions a niche market for unique, high-quality music, regardless of its perceived shelf life or commercial positioning.

"When you play a record for the first time," says Mark Doyon, president and creative director of Wampus Multimedia, "it's new to you regardless of when it was made, and all you care about is if it's good, if it's engaging you. When you like what you hear, you discover more albums by the artist, and you're surprised you didn't know them before. It's how casual listeners become fans."

Rolling out the new imprint with five discs from alternative singer-songwriters, Foldback showcases literate artists who operate from distinctive points of view. U.K. transplants The Crowd Scene return with their too-good-to-miss-in-conscience debut, Turn Left at Greenland, an urbane classic that includes a pair of tracks omitted from the original release. Alice Despard weighs in with Push Me Pull You and Samsara, ringing touchstones that influenced the burgeoning 1990s indie scene. Johnny J Blair checks in with the Brian-Wilson-on-neo-soul masterwork, Fire. The Simple Things unveil their irrepressible best-of, President Foushee, including new material.

Foldback artists benefit from Wampus Multimedia marketing, promotion, and distribution, and enjoy a partnership-based royalty structure that ignores industry norms.

The Foldback titles join a Wampus Multimedia roster that includes Cafebar 401, tvfordogs, Casey Abrams, Arms of Kismet, Johnny J Blair, Alice Despard, and others, as well as Hurry Home Early: the Songs of Warren Zevon, After Hours: a Tribute to the Music of Lou Reed, and If I Were a Richman: a Tribute to the Music of Jonathan Richman.

The promo compilation Foldback Records 2006 is available now to media.

Download the Foldback Records publicity kit.