Attendees at the 149th Annual, Lehigh vs. LaFayette game, Bethlehem, PA 2013

Crafting Original Music, Spanning Three Decades.

Founding Members of The Progressive Shamanists on break in the Poconos.

The New Shrooms Volume III Collection, March 18, 1988

Author
Gregory Pichler
Date
Feb 23, 2022




The Progressive Shamanists, including Keith Swanson and Rob Kowtko and Greg Pichler met at the Tanglewood studio in Greentown, Pennsylvania on the weekend, starting Friday, March 17, 1988 or thereabouts. During that weekend the group recorded the ten songs on a cassette tape deck.

Bass guitarist, Tim Boyland, of the True Rumor also attended the session in the Poconos.

Tim Boyland and Keith Swanson co-wrote a number of the instrumental songs, including Valdez, Pop Tune, Toothpaste, and Pop Tart Dilemma.

Rob Kowtko and Keith Swanson co-wrote the instrumental song, Dawn.

Rob Kowtko composed the instrumental song, The Friendly Skunk.

At this point in time Greg Pichler had immigrated to Canada and no longer attended the rehearsals.

The collection includes a number of bonus tracks that were recorded at a separate music session, including Synchrospation, Zanzibar, Waiting For The Sun and Who Said The Word Tonight.


from left to right: Rob Prigge, Rob Kowtko, Keith Swanson

Music Contributions

The following contributions were applied to the music video:

  • Keith Swanson: bass guitar
  • Rob Kowtko: keyboards
  • David Kowtko: guitar
  • Tim Boyland: bass guitar, vocals

Credits

The video includes still photo images taken in July, 1990 in order of their appearance (Track 01) the Berlin Zoological Garden, (Track 02) the platz adjacent to the Church of the Teutonic Order, (in German: Deutschordenskirche), (Track 03) the Wien Hauptbahnhof, Vienna Central Station or Vienna Main Station, Vienna, Austria, (Track 04) a small village in the Bavarian Countryside, West Germany, (Track 05) the Roman-Germanic Museum, (RGM, in German: Römisch-Germanisches Museum), Cologne, West Germany, (Track 06) communist government administration building adjacent to the Spree River in East Berlin, East Germany, (Track 07) the Berlin Zoological Garden, Berlin, West Germany, (Track 08) Allied Checkpoint Charlie, 43-45 Friedrichstraße, West Berlin, West Germany, (Track 09) East Berlin, East Germany (Track 10) Bronze statues, Cologne, West Germany.



List of Tracks

The list of tracks from the albumthat resulted from the work over the three weekend sessions includes:

  1. 00:00:02 (Track 01) Valdez (Boyland, Swanson)
  2. 00:03:27 (Track 02) Pop Tune (Boyland, Swanson)
  3. 00:06:52 (Track 03) Toothpaste (Boyland, Swanson)
  4. 00:09:06 (Track 04) Pop Tart Dilemma (Boyland, Swanson)
  5. 00:12:46 (Track 05) Dawn (Kowtko, Swanson)
  6. 00:19:08 (Track 06) Synchrospation (Kowtko, Swanson)
  7. 00:23:20 (Track 07) The Friendly Skunk (Kowtko)
  8. 00:29:04 (Track 08) Zanzibar (Swanson)
  9. 00:35:26 (Track 09) Waiting For The Sun (The Doors)
  10. 00:38:59 (Track 10) Who Said The Word Tonight (Kowtko)

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