Description RARE...This is 1 of only 200 original copies from 1978 These were given to friends & family Or sold at Discount Records 39 years ago Plus I will include a bonus record by Ray Sunshine as listed ! One record not as nice as this sold for $2,000.00. Tapeworm (stylized as TAPEWOЯM) is an American hardcore punk band formed in 1978 in Stamford, Connecticut. The band was established by guitarist Tom Flynn, bassist Brian Beattie, Jason Weinberg (drums) and Wayne Zito (guitar). Despite only being active for one year, their sole 7" release, "Break My Face" has gone on to be influential and a prized collector's itemTapeworm was formed in 1978 by Tom Flynn, Brian Beattie, Jason Weinberg, and Wayne Zito; all classmates at Rippowam High School. After practicing as a band, the name was chosen after they saw a bassist in a cover band with a Tapeworm sticker on his bass. Flynn, Beattie, and Weinberg were all previously in a jazz standard band in 1977. Tapeworm combined the diverse genres of each member; Flynn favored hard rock bands, such as Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith, Beattie and Weinberg preferred jazz, while Zito was a fan of metal. Zito wrote one of their first songs, "The Spider of the City", while they also added various Ramones songs to their set list.The band's most notable performance came on March 31, 1978 at the Rippowam Talent Show. The band performed Flynn's explosive original song, "Break My Face", along with the Ramones' "Cretin Hop" and "Rockaway Beach" before a raving audience. Zito bought a cheap guitar for the event, and smashed it during the first song. The band eventually lost to performers singing "Don't Know Much About History". A video of break my face live at the talent show can be seen on YouTube.The band started to dissolve after the members graduated from high school. First, drummer Jason Weinberg left for college in the fall. He was replaced by Doug Karger, while Scott Fletcher took over vocal duties. This new lineup was now billed as Safety Patrol (another drummer, Scott Marcus, joined later on). They achieved local success, and played shows at CBGB's before folding.LegacyIn the years following, the band members remained in touch. In college, Weinberg played in a few various, short-lived bands including "Alpo" and "MX and the Cruise Missiles". The other members moved to the Bay Area to continue their musical endeavors. Fletcher started a band called "Sinequan", while Flynn and Beattie both started the band called "Fang" in 1980. Breaking up after touring the country, Beattie moved to Texas and founded Glass Eye, while Flynn stayed with Fang until the band turned into hardcore legends. Afterwards, Flynn started the band "Star Pimp".Break My Face"Break My Face"Single by TapewormReleasedMay 20, 1978Format7"RecordedMay 6–8, 1978GenreHardcore PunkLength1:23LabelHermaphrodite RecordsWriter(s)Tom Flynn, Brian BeattieProducer(s)Ray Sunshine Following the band's talent show performance, they went on to put out a single. They chose Ray Cipri (whom goes by the stage name Ray Sunshine) for the task, as he had previously put out his own single, "Country Fine Sally" on Touch Records the previous year and the only person in town with recording equipment. The band went in to record four tracks in Sunshine's residence from May 7 to May 8. Three tracks were put on the single including an intro to "Blues For An Insurance Salesman", which involves the band playing instruments they don't know how to play in an ode to Charles Ives. The recording session also has something on it called "Fuzz Bassolo" which has never been released. In all, 200 copies were put out, mainly given to friends and family, or sold at Discount Records. After years of obscurity, the single finally became known to a wider audience after the tracks "Break My Face" and "Blues For An Insurance Salesman" were featured on Killed By Death Volume #9 in 1995. In 2001, the single was bootlegged and reissued on Kablooey Records, including the original intro to "Blues For An Insurance Salesman". Today, very few of the original records have turned up, and they remain highly valued. The single is going to be re-issued on Death Vault Records. The original master tapes from 1978 were baked and dubbed allowing it to be re-engineered to prepare it for this vinyl re-issue.Track listing All lyrics written by Tom Flynn and Brian Beattie; all music composed by Tapeworm.Side 1No.TitleLength1."Break My Face" 1:232."I Wanna Die" 1:32Side ANo.TitleLength3."Blues For An Insurance Salesman" 2:14PersonnelTom Flynn (as Fuzzbox Flynn) — guitar, vocals on "I Wanna Die"Brian Beattie (as Macho Lead Vocal Beady) — lead vocals, bassJason Weinberg — drumsWayne Zito (as Spider Zito) — guitarProduction and RecordingRay Cipri (as Ray Sunshine)As an added bonus you will get the rare and original Ray Cipri (aka Ray Sunshine) "Country Fine Sally" 45 recorded by Touch Records in 1977. This record is in near mint condition and has the song "Summer Love" on side 2. March 34... further proof they were ahead of their time. Rough footage of the talent show exists.TAPEWORMTHE INIMITABLE RAY SUNSHINEThe story begins with Tapeworm, a punk rock outfit formed when three Connecticut high school students got together in 1978. The band released a three-song EP on their own Hermaphrodite label. Two hundred copies were pressed and given away to talent show attendees and to party-going friends or the handful of people who noticed them playing in the window of Discount Records for the release party. The boys could not have imagined that one day a group of collectors would consider their EP the be-all-end-all of early American punk obscurities. Only in the mid-1990's did any details of Tapeworm or any trace of their record emerge. More accurately, it was only then that people other the band members, their friends, and their relatives had ever set ears on the band. It was a review in OP Magazine (noticed fifteen years after its original publication) that would rejuvenate interest in these parasitic punk rockers. The review not only listed the titillating song titles ("Break My Face" + "I Wanna Die" + "Blues For An Insurance Salesman") but also a contact name and address. With a little detective work and a few phone calls, band members were contacted and few copies of the EP were salvaged from the closet and retrieved from ingrate relatives. It had been worth the wait... all three songs proved to be full-on punk rock madness. And recorded in 1978 by high school students? Get out the Pabst Blue Ribbon, folks... we've got a winner. What truly distinguishes the record — aside from the great guitar and über-punk vocals — is the mixing madness on the songs. Side-to-side, back-and-forth... I'm sure more than one listener checked the stylus and stereo connections halfway through the first song. When asked about this, the band members had a simple two-word explanation for the stereophonic effects and defects: Ray Sunshine. According to Tapeworm members, Ray was a local hippie burnout reputed for his ability to play guitar while doing acrobatic tuck-and-rolls and was seen, on occasion, sporting sandwich boards protesting the plight of musicians in their small Connecticut hometown of Stamford. Ray was also the only person in town who had recording equipment. He'd put out a single and an LP. The Tapeworm entourage eventually headed over to Ray's apartment studio where they recorded the EP. As band members watched incredulously, the maniacal engineer twiddled the knobs and assured the teens that everything he did was essential to the songs. The Tapeworm took his word, and I'm sure glad. In the summer of 1996, when it seemed most all sources for original Tapeworm EP's had dried up, I decided to track down Ray. My first phone calls were laughably unsuccessful. I reached a woman who insisted that Ray did not have a phone (though it was listed in his name); however, she saw him regularly and could give him a message. With the phone route being a dead end, I dropped a letter to his address. A few weeks pass... no answer. Summer had rolled around, and I was heading out on a road trip through Chicago and onto the Northeast which would eventually take me through Connecticut, so I figured what the hell, I'll stop by Ray's place. I hit the road having heard nothing from Ray. When I arrived in Chicago, I called my house to check up on things, and Ray had called the day after I left. My befuddled housemate yelled at me... "who the fuck IS that guy?!" Ray had her on the phone for half an hour demanding to know if she was my secretary or perhaps some kind of "smoke screen for the recording industry". When told I wasn't there, he insisted "Tell me where he is! I can call anywhere in the world! Do you know who I am? This is RAY SUNSHINE!" My housemate hung up on Ray three separate times, thinking I'd put somebody up to crank calling her. The Tapeworm guys were right: Ray had gone off the deep end long, long ago, and, well, I couldn't wait to get to Connecticut. A few thousand miles later, the day had come... my trusty friend Boris and I set out for a date with Ray Sunshine. We pulled up to the address around 1pm and knocked on the door. A teenage girl (Ray's half-sister, it turns out) appeared in the doorway, and I explained myself and asked if Ray was around. She remembered talking to me on the phone."You drove all the way from Texas to see Ray?!" "No", I explained, "we were in the area and thought we'd stop by." "Oh... well, he doesn't live here. He lives next door — in the basement."So, off we go next door... there are some boarded-up windows leading to the basement. We knock for a couple minutes and walk around the house. No answer. Some neighbors across the road, who had been watching us the whole time, eventually holler: "Who're you looking for?" We tell them, and they laugh..."Do you know what kind of a guy you're dealing with?" "I, uh, guess not?" I answer, wondering what I'd gotten into. "He'll probably think you're space aliens comin' to get him. You ain't ever gonna get him up at this hour. He usually comes out around five." Doh! Apparently one collector found this copy a bit too "tasty" At this point, Boris and I consider calling the whole thing off but figure we won't be back in this neck of the woods too often, so we hit some stores and return a couple hours later. My sick sense of curiosity was eating me alive... the Twilight Zone seemed just around the corner. We killed some time at the public library checking out yearbook photos of the band (no mohawks here, folks) and eventually returned to Ray's place. I knocked and knocked and knocked. Five minutes, no answer. Tired and a bit frustrated, we say fuck it, let's go. As we turn to leave, out of thin air comes a hushed, Casablanca-style voice: "Who're looking for?" We turn to find a short, slightly pudgy fellow with long, curly hair and, yes, a beret standing in the driveway. This had to be our man."I'm looking for Ray Sunshine. He recorded a record with a band called Tapeworm in the late Seventies." "Come this way," he said without looking at us. We follow him next door where we'd begun our day talking to Ray's half-sister, but this time we take a seat on the patio set."First I need to tell you that I'm not Ray Sunshine. I'm his lawyer. Ray's very sick. He lives on the third floor here. I'm representing him, so whatever you got to say to him, you can say to me."Boris and I glance at each other, and I try to hold back a giggle. I ask about Tapeworm again which, at least for Ray, provides the perfect segue into Freemasonry. Ray requests a one-dollar bill and asks if we are familiar with the Masonic imagery on it. Boris seems to know every detail (working at the state hospital DOES have its benefits), and this endears us to Ray, er, Ray's lawyer. Suddenly he confesses: "Well, actually I'm Ray Sunshine. You can never be too careful." This admission would prove to be the first and last... from this point forward, Ray would once again speak of himself in the third person. The main problem for Ray was that people were trying to steal his identity, and frankly I could see why... he is, after all, a LEGEND. Our conversation with our schizophrenic friend took many strange turns. I'll give you the Readers Digest condensed version... a "best of" if you will.1) The movie Remo Williams was loosely based on Ray's life ("Remo" is Ray's given first name). His identity, like Remo's, was being changed, nay stolen, by forces beyond his control. It was during this portion of Ray's soliloquy that we discovered that Ray was not, in fact, slightly overweight; rather, his jacket was stuffed full of papers of all sorts including a photocopied Remo Williams movie poster, various land deeds, handwritten affidavits, memos, an American flag, and a Freemason medallion. 2) The music industry has been taken over by rap music which is all written with a beat that is reminiscent of slaves being beaten. Quality music is no longer being distributed because all of the good Italians and Jews have been kicked out of the industry. Two guesses on Ray's ethnicity... 3) Ray has a radio transmitter on the third floor. He can send transmissions for a fifty-mile radius, playing and saying whatever he wants. He has "the key", and, to make the point perfectly clear, Ray produces the front of a safety deposit box from his back pocket and unlocks it with a key — THE key.After a good half hour of listening to Ray and suppressing the urge to leave, I again attempt to steer the conversation toward Tapeworm and the possibility that some records might be lurking in the basement."Yeah, I remember them. They had a suicidal song, right?" Ray asks. "Yes, I guess 'I Wanna Die' counts as suicidal." "You see," he insists "that's not what Ray Sunshine is about. He's about being positive. Like he's got a song called "Wake Up America" [reaches into jacket and produces an actual record label from his Blue Skies Forever LP]."The Tapeworm cause is essentially lost as Ray continues with a series of rhetorical questions:"Has anyone ever tried to steal your identity?"At one point a woman (apparently Ray's mom) walks through the yard. Ray immediately speaks up."Yes, yes, I was just telling these gentlemen that MY CLIENT Ray was not feeling well and was unable to come down from the third floor."Ignoring Ray, she addresses us: "Are you the boys from Texas?" Yes, we answer. She looks at Ray, shakes her head, and heads into the house. The collector in me says "time to go, no records for you today," but Ray just won't stop talking. We eventually defy years of Miss Manners training and stand up to leave as Ray jabbers on. As we walk to my car, the shadow of Ray keeps pace on the other side of the fence requesting that we send an experienced lawyer, a private detective, or at the very least, any prescription medication (offer: $2 a pill). I, in turn, propose that he find some Tapeworm singles, and I'd be happy to oblige. A trade has yet to be worked out. — Ryan Richardson Sorry, the Discount days for this record are long gone