THE CAPTAIN WOODYCRAFTER, Fantastic Planet (cassette, 199?)

Once again we have a little real world business to take care of before diving into Dayton's musical past. As you certainly know, today is primary day! That is, one of two days that come only once every four years during which anyone in either of the two major parties gives a shit about Ohio. And I, for one, think that's already two days too fucking many!

(ADDENDUM: Vote for Jane Mitakides for the Ohio-3 in November. Just thought I'd mention that).

Anyway, I'm a Hillary man myself, but if you want to get out there and vote for Mr. Obama, you should do it. And now that that's out of the way, let's get to something of far greater import:

Another curiosity today -- found this one in the dark recesses of a box of tapes Grog lent me. There are no song titles. The cassette insert is photocopied and hand cut (nice art, by the way). The cassette is a JVC GI-90 with a label stuck on one side bearing the legend "CAPTAIN WOODY CRAFTER" in dot matrix printing. The dot matrix and my vague recollection of when I heard this band's name around town lead me to place it some time around 1993-1995, but I've no way to know for sure.

For some reason, I find myself associating Chris Wright with this band somehow.

The artwork on the insert gives a fair indication of the musical direction within: half psychedelic, half grunge, half proto-metal... so that's 150% RAWK for those keeping score at home.

About the band's name, the label prints it as three separate words, but the flap on the insert prints "WOODYCRAFTER" as one word. I've found various entries on the web that add the definite article "THE" to the band name. Sometimes "CAPTAIN" is abbreviated as "CAP'T." (which is odd considering there are no letters between the "p" and the "t" in "captain") or just "CAPT." but it's spelled out on the label and insert here. Because the web sources adding "THE" seem to pop up among listings of people who used to be in this band, I'll go ahead and add it here even though it's not on the cassette material. So we'll tentatively give the band the official title of "THE CAPTAIN WOODYCRAFTER."

Researching obscure local bands on the web is a little easier where the artists were good enough to choose a name comprised of a unique string of characters like "Woodycrafter" (try typing "MOM" or "KEY-NOTE SPEAKER" into Google some time and see the shit that turns up). Still, I've been able to uncover only a few fragments of information:

• Singer Kevion Kelley "unexpectedly passed away" at some point, but it's hard to tell exactly when or how. It seems his death came some time between the MYSTERY ADDICTS last show at the 1999 Monster Hop and their reformation in 2000 or 2001. Here's the source excerpt from the article in the May 24, 2001 edition of the Impact Weekly (click on the link and then do a search on "woodycrafter" to find the relevant portion). You figure it out.
• THE CAPTAIN WOODYCRAFTER seems to have put out a self-titled CD at some point (unless there was another CAPTAIN WOODYCRAFTER I don't know about). It has turned up on various 1-cent listings around the web.
• Some former members of this band were later in the now semi-defunct Dayton experimental combo YARDBOY.
• The bass player now does a solo industrial thing called HarSH.
• One or more members were later in ALL ELECTRIC KITCHEN CARNIVAL.
• The band appears among a list of bands that MY LATEX BRAIN has played with over at their site.
• This half-complete band page for ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE lists the bass player of that band as having played in THE CAPTAIN WOODYCRAFTER.

This bizarre YouTube video has the tag "WoodyCrafter" appearing among the label list. It was reportedly filmed in Dayton and has sort of a ROB ZOMBIE/DOCTOR CREEP aesthetic going (face paint, macabre imagery in domestic circumstances, characters in a trance like state -- you get the picture). It uses one of the songs presented for download here in the soundtrack (it's about 4 minutes in), but I don't know how else it might be related to the band (maybe some of the band members are in it? You tell me). The main character is called "Wil" at the beginning but "Woody" later on in the film. A "Kevin Kelly" is listed among the creators, but I don't know whether that's the same person as the "Kevion Kelley" referenced in the source I mentioned above.

The opening text places the events portrayed in 1990 and it's copyrighted in that year. Since it uses a song on this tape, that might place the recording somewhere in 1990 or earlier. But I don't recollect hearing anything about THE CAPTAIN WOODY CRAFTER before the mid-'90s, and the video could've been cut and edited much later. So who knows for sure? (If you know, correct me in the comments section).


That's all the information I've been able to gather. If you know more, let's hear it. In the meantime, enjoy the two songs presented here. Good rawk!

Track List:

1. Hollywood
2. The Pain

Download It! (12 MB) (link re-upped on 2-1-2013)


As I mentioned above, the insert shows no song titles, so I just broke up the title given on the cassette insert.

UPDATE 2-6-2013: Helpful commenters have provided the correct song titles.  This has been corrected in the download.

So once again I Remember Dayton... serves up another recording that presents more questions than answers. But what would Dayton (or life itself) be without a little twisted mystery?

take care

---Jones()