Vintage Vinyl Tucson Holy Grail Alert! After decades of collecting records, and especially hunting down 45s from Tucson, I've only ever seen one of these, and that's the one I'm looking at on my desk. The first of two Frozen Sun releases was slyly recorded in the lobby of KTKT on a Sunday after midnight. Per CJ Brown's interview with KTKT DJ and producer Frank Casanova, "We set the band up, brought all the microphones out of the production studio, and recorded to the production room's big Ampex tape machines. By 2 a.m. we had our two cuts."
The A side, "Got to Get Away," is a searing lo-fi, three-minute, post-psych, hard-rock vocal jam blast based around one chord while the B side, "Jamm Part 1" is an instrumental jam, both featuring bluesy distorted Hendrix inspired guitar peppered with wah-wah. The band consisted of Sid Dawson on vocals and rhythm guitar, Ron Ryan on lead guitar, Hector Carillo on bass and Lee Balin on drums. The record was released on Frank›s Capt. Zoomar Records label and, as stated, is super rare. When Frank decided to leave Tucson for San Francisco, Frozen Sun followed him there, but went their own ways shortly after their arrival. Frank produced a total of three 45s on his Capt. Zoomar label. These days, Frank owns a large production studio in Sacramento.
Lee Joseph grew up in Tucson. He's a DJ (Luxuriamusic.com), marketer of cool shit (Reverberations Media) and founder/CEO of internationally respected Dionysus Records, an indie that has long specialized in releasing super-rare music, and more. He came of age in the first wave of Tucson punk rock and is an expert on Tucson music. He now lives in California. Vintage Vinyl is a new, recurring addition to the Tucson Weekly.
