Bobb in a cartoon...??? Why yes, an animated Bobb appears at the 1:00 mark in this new (2008) Prefab Messiahs video by Xeth Feinberg. It's set in 1982, and Bobb's 70s Buick (with "art car" paintjob by the Prefabs!) appears throughout. Watch also for "Slobb Dribble & the Pimpled Dog Band" in the club listings shown in "Wurmtown Magazine"!
Aug-04-2008: Bobb's 50th birthday coincided with a set from his new band The Flying Spiders at the Somerville MA stop of the No More Bush Tour, organized by Byron Coley and presented by Arthur Magazine and Ecstatic Peace
Influences
in light of his strangely haunting folk-psychedelia, most of Bobb's favorite music will surprise many folks:
Beatles, Ramones, Cheap Trick, Monkees, Bowie, Lennon, Devo, B52s, Nirvana, X, Badfinger...
true, he likes him some early Pink Floyd (incl. Ummagumma), but usually it's classic rock, power pop and punk in his CD player and cassette decks.
oh, and also figuring prominently in his psyche: Little Rascals, Marx Bros., Three Stooges.
"Maybe you don't know it yet, but (IF you buy these Bobb Trimble albums) you have just been handed the key to a secret realm, an alternate rock n' roll universe of dark despair, fragile hope, and gossamer beauty, a haunting personal soundworld that will always stay with you, within you... "
- Aquarius Records catalog description
"There is no album I own that has as much emotional complexity and depth as Harvest of Dreams."
- Aaron Milenski,
The Lama Reviews
"It really has to be heard to be explained. It doesn't come much 'realer' than this."
- Thurston Moore,
Arthur Magazine
"Incredible, multi-layered late night listening of the highest order...
Without its few contemporary style-nods, you would never guess the album was originally released in 1982. One of the decade's best albums, filled with a mysterious charm that grows with each listen."
- Byron Coley, on Harvest of Dreams
"[Harvest of Dreams is] rated by most as the best psych LP of the 1980s. One of those obscurities (like D.R. Hooker) that blows even non-collectors away... The total impact is like walking around in one of Bobb's dreams. Melancholic, moving but also hopeful - an essential experience."
- Patrick the Lama,
The Acid Archives of Underground Sounds 1965-1982
"We're the Crippled Pink Band...we're from Wormtown!"
- Ariel Pink (Boston, Feb-22-2006), referring to Bobb's 1980s group The Crippled Dog Band
"A delicate, unsettling dip into a boiling pool of subconscious imagery and otherworldly pixie vocalism. The best tracks cause ripples in the space/time continuum. Bobb Trimble's first album appeared like a ghost that had slipped through reality's curtain. Impossible to place inside any rational context, the music and voices seem to have been created in your head and, indeed, maybe they were."
- Byron Coley, on Iron Curtain Innocence
"He reaches the kind of intensity and solitude that only the likes of Syd Barrett and Nick Drake have reached in popular music. He is a talent of amazing proportions who operates in his own world, one I am glad to have visited but worry for its creator."
- Mark Coyle,
The Unbroken Circle (UK)
"Multilayered voices unlike any you have ever heard... brooding and dark head music flowing into shimmering beautiful fragile glimpses from real life. The feeling is overpowering & the music is ageless. Otherworldly yet breathing with life."
- Forced Exposure Mailorder Catalog
[comparisons have been made to: Linda Perhacs; Simon Finn; The United States of America; Comus; Gary Higgins; Robert Wyatt; Tim Buckley; Perry Leopold; Jackson C. Frank, Supertramp; Pearls Before Swine; Satwa; Skip Spence; D.R. Hooker; Geddy Lee; Merrell Fankhauser; Michael Yonkers; Glenn Faria; Syd Barrett; Nick Gilder; Damin Eih, ALK & Brother Clark]
[Intro note: Bobb approved the creation of this site, but doesn't deal with any of the maintenance of it. Also, since he doesn't own a computer, he can't read any mail sent here. He sincerely thanks his fans for their appreciation, though.]
Born ten years too late to attract the attention he deserved, Bobb Trimble created an utterly unique body of work that merged psychedelia, folk-rock, space music and sound effects into rock's most convincing depiction of a disturbed mind. As with most tortured artistic souls, Bobb's distinct vision is filled with much more than just fear and self-loathing. It drips with beauty and heartbreak, and his high, fragile voice bleeds with passion. The music evokes the sixties yet sounded contemporary when released in the eighties and again when re-released in the nineties. Bobb's two impossibly rare albums change hands for ungodly sums of money, and for years his reputation grew among collectors as his music was heard via tape trades (often on unlabeled tapes, which led to one male collector falling in love with the beautiful voice only to be informed that the singer was actually a man). In the mid-90s, Bobb's music was finally made widely available when the bulk of the two albums were released on CD as Jupiter Transmission. Die-hard fans of psychedelia rate Bobb's music as the finest in the genre from the 80s.
Most of Bobb's public performances came in the very early 80s, around the time his two albums were released. Though his musical style differed from the punk rock bands in the "Wormtown" (Worcester, MA) scene, his oddball loner status made him fit in quite well with his musical peers. Wormtown is credited with inspiring him to release his first album, Iron Curtain Innocence, in 1981. Soon after, Bobb, a man of many phases, decided that "the children are the future" and formed the punky garage band Bobb & The Kidds with a group of pre-teens. Doomed to failure due to protective and suspicious parents, the Kidds recorded only one brief song, "Oh Baby," which appeared on Bobb's second album, Harvest of Dreams. Compromising his vision slightly, Bobb recruited a 15-year-old rhythm section and formed the short-lived Crippled Dog Band. A Crippled Dog Band concert appears on side two of the compilation Life Beyond The Doghouse (side one of which documents Bobb's even briefer Jesus-freak phase). The Crippled Dog Band's shining public moment came at a 1983 Worcester rock festival, when Bobb came on stage decked out in a top hat, green satin coat, bunny ears and bunny tail.
Now available from Anthology Recordings, the all-digital reissues label!
Also on Anthology: The Monks, Simply Saucer, R. Stevie Moore, The Red Crayola, Half Japanese, D.R. Hooker, Destroy All Monsters, Young Marble Giants, Fifty Foot Hose, Merrell Fankhauser, The Factory, Faine Jade, and Ya Ho Wha 13, lots more!
Hey Kris...Baby, I got the T-shirts and they're the bomb!! I've been so fuckin lazy. Sorry I didn't write to tell you. Thanx a million. You rock and Bobb! Kisses and much love to you both... Janett
hey i like the pic very smooth i believe you can reach the massive tidal wave singing in vermouth a sigh of relief as the wave washes in leaving a resonate vibe of peace the waves of sound
Thank you so much for the add. I recently discovered Bobb's music and its truly magical. Its truly amazing. Wish I would've known about Bobb sooner, I was definitely missing out. Thanx again. Have a beautiful day, Love, Janett
I've loved Bobb since my hubby who writes reviews for Decibel gave me a CD for my birthday last year. Johnny come lately. I often play Bobb Trimble songs on my radio show "Psychedelarrhythmia" on wvvy. org FM 93. 7 Martha's Vineyard Community Radio
Hi Bobb- I'm so glad Kris pointed me in your direction- You are a fine musician indeed and an asset to the world of music too often overlooked! (Or at least I wish I'd heard you sooner!) Alison
