*+*soul-junk*+*soul-junk began in 1993 while glen galaxy was touring around with his first band, trumans water. during a few days with all-day drives, glen started reading through big books of the bible like the gospels of luke & john & the book of acts. in the middle of this God let glen know it was time to start something new that was all about Jesus. so he quit playing and touring with trumans, got married, and started recording several solo releases under the name soul-junk. most of the songs were bible verses put to spastically atonal soul music, with occasional baritone sax rampages. it basically confused everybody - it was way too odd-ball for most Christians, and way too Jesus for odd-ball music fans. early releases (1950, 1950 free shrimp cassette, 1951 and the 1949 and 1947 7"s) were either self-released (holy kiss rex) or put out by shrimper or karate. glen decided to title all records after years, picking 1950 as the starting point. he started teaching high school, and slowly the first version of the band came together. by '95, glen was joined by high school friends ron easterbrooks on guitar, brian cantrell on drums, and his brother jon galaxy on bass. steven joerg, who had worked with glen while trumans was putting out records on homestead records, signed soul-junk to homestead. homestead released 1952 and 1953/1954 and also the 1945 7". sub pop included the 1946 7" in its singles club. these records went back and forth between strange-chord rock and freeform whatever, lyrics mostly still straight out of the bible. by the release of 1955 (on jackson rubio recordings), nathan poage started playing drums, and chuck p joined as the random noise generator. 1955 is 2 1/2 hours of both layered rock songs and feedback jams, many performed after-hours in a big rock radio station production room where microphones were placed in front of large speakers and everybody either turned knobs wildly or played an instrument.at this point (mid-'97) glen and jon started making weird drum-n-bass tracks that glen MC'd over (which also appeared on 1955). soul-junk bought an RV and went on tour with the danielson famile. the rest of the band couldn't tour, so glen and jon took abe and mia de leon, abe on drums and mia on guitar and vocals. it was a style war - acoustic march around the club sing-alongs, bass-wedge MC garbling, and effect pedal rockers. jon fell in love with rachel from danielson, and they got married in record time. after getting back, glen started working with production maven rafter roberts on 1956 (put out by 5-minute walk). 1956 is probably soul-junk's most pop release, jumping from garage-y rock to crusty hiphop to glitch-coated drum-n-bass warcries, recorded around the same time as the 1943 12" (on flapping jet) and the 1942 EP (recorded with daniel smith for sounds familyre). it was followed by 1957 and 1958, which were both completely lower-fi hip-hop laced with newcomer sloRo's sound collages and abstract rhymes from both glen and sloRo (and released on sounds are active).which brings us to 1959, the first soul-junk release in a fairly long while. somewhere around 2002, glen experienced a wake-up call (similar to the one starting the band), in which God had him put everything on hold and start recording the entire bible acapella on microcassette. many people have expressed interest in hearing this, but it's not very listenable. it is however most of what glen listens to now, and it's formed the basis of what soul-junk expects to be for the forseeable future. 1959 is the first 23 psalms verbatim. glen's made an effort to start playing almost exclusively in churches, from san diego to new jersey to norway to egypt. the music on 1959 is very different from most earlier soul-junk releases. it's got a similar naive production ear as heard on 1950 & 1951 (also solo releases), only with cut-up drum machine burps and strange hooky organs instead of tinny guitars and frantic drumbash. all the same it's made soaked in the Holy Ghost with the aim of soaking everyone who listens. it's fitting that it's being released on quiver society, with good friends who were singing 4-track soul-junk songs in their portland church 10 years ago.

Website: www.souljunk.com
Contact: glen@souljunk.com