Good Horsey - All their 7"s, I think






Thanks to Martijn's supersale, I doubled my collection of Good Horsey 7" singles today, and just in a nick of alphabetical time. Vancouver's Good Horsey was Mark Szabo, Max Lee, and Justice Schanfarber (until Justice left to form Pork Queen). Three of the four 7"s I'm sharing with you today were released on Vancouver's Trackshun Industries label (run by Justice), including 1994's Go Light EP, a 6-song Trackshun compilation from 1994 (Bugskull, Noggin, Pork Queen, Paste, Good Horsey, and Roughage...all in the archive) called "Optional Ingredients From A Vile Recipe", and 1996's Emperor Nick/Pink Pages. The fourth, The Last Customer EP, was co-released by Shrimper, 18 Wheeler, and Baby Huey in 1995. I've sung the praises of Good Horsey on YSKOD before. "Go Light" is one of the best indie rock songs I've ever heard, and though their discography is uneven, it's been a joy to discover. Hearing three Good Horsey songs I'd never heard before certainly made my day today. As exciting as when I plopped the Go Light single on my turntable (golly) 14 years ago.

Because even Google has a hard time crawling its way to info about Mark and Good Horsey, I'll let you know that what's in the zip file here, plus the Kazue CD below, represents a good chunk of (Good) Horsey's releases, but there's still lots more out there...somewhere. For example, the Trackshun Industries catalog mentions a 7-song self-titled cassette as "Horsey" (TR03). And I also found reference to a 1994 cassette compilation on Chocolate Monk called "The International Audio Journal Of Green Tea Consumption" (Choc.63) that apparently contains a Good Horsey song. As a solo artist (with Max Lee) Mark Szabo released (as the search-engine unfriendly "Mark") a full-length CD (Chocolate Covered Bad Things, still available on Catsup Plate here, though there are only 1,000 copies), at least two tapes (1994's Regressing, on Union Pole, is the second one, the liner notes of which make reference to an earlier unidentified "Mark" tape), and he has contributed songs to a number of compilations (tune in later...). Then there's the impossible-to-find Capozzi Park album "The Record Of Capozzi Park" from 2001, and the 1992 double-7" side-project Thee Crusaders, with AC Newman and others. In 2007, Heartbreak Scene released a terrific CD on Fayettenam Records called "The Szabo Songbook" featuring Mark's songs, which you can buy here. The only interview with Mark I found on the web was with Discorder, after he sorta dropped off the fringes of the music scene...but if you can believe it, the page no longer loads. Despite being heralded by the likes of Dan Bejar, Franklin Bruno, John Darnielle, and now me (haw), it seems Mark Szabo is destined to remain obscure. Probably for the best eh.

Sample mp3: Good Horsey - Pink Pages
Download: http://www.zshare.net/download/107657848c3b629f/

4 comments:

Jonathan said...

Thanks for throwing these singles up! I only had Kazue, which is a great record, so these are a treat to hear.

Also just wanted to say you run a fantastic blog, thanks for the all the great music!

Bowties said...

Thanks very much for these. I'm the guy who put out the Heartbreak Scene album, and even I'd only heard one of these singles...

Crumple Morris said...

I'm so glad someone has upped these...!! I felt very alone in my love of Good Horsey/Mark Szabo.The only thing I didn't have was the 7" comp - I was lucky to twig to GH when I read about em on Chugchanga-L. I've got a Mark solo cassette if yr interested. I'm pretty sure from memory it's the unidentified Mark cassette - orange paper sleeve. I also think there was some other project on Shrimper?
Let me know if yr interested.

G said...

Hi Paul,

I am interested! I just posted the Regressing tape, so if you have the other one and can convert it to mp3s and post a link here or there, please do. If you're able to make a dub of the cassette even, let me know.

Cheers,
G