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ABOVE: the free poster, showing some record covers for the band since 1986, given away with the new 2008 "Light Show" CD.

THE MARSHMALLOW OVERCOAT has blasted the fuzz since 1986, with countless records, tours & videos that spread the garage-psych mayhem. They have just celebrated their 23rd anniversary as a band with a new CD titled "goodnight.goodbye."

Here's a brief bio, from the 2005 "best of" CD/DVD set:

The infection blossomed in the spring of 1986, when Gassen pushed four other kindred cavemen into a Tucson, Arizona living room to cut their first demo. They didn't know it at the time, but they were triggering a chain reaction leading to international tours, MTV video airplay, college radio chart-toppers, and a tireless schedule of recording.

That lovably crude demo turned into their debut "Groovy Little Trip" 45 for Los Angeles' Dionysus Records, and suddenly there was no turning back. The records started pouring out, and by 2005 more than 35 CD, LP, 45 and compilation appearances had seen release.

Critics were confused, dumbfounded, or happily startled at the band's approach and delivery. "The best material here is capable of peeling the fluorescent paint off one's walls," wrote the Arizona Daily Star inresponse to their first LP, "The Inner Groove."

Recorded for $250 in a friend's living room studio, "The Inner Groove" featured fuzzed Rickenbacker 12-string guitars, a vintage Sears toy organ, and vocals suitably delivered from the bathroom via a long microphone cable. Like most of their later records, it was also drenched in tremolo, reverb, Vox, Farfisa, and the wheezings of a broken old "Kustom Kraft" guitar amplifier.

Bigger budgets and more elaborate studios ensued, with the resulting albums bringing more to cheer about. "The Overcoat has the roller coaster lilt of sheer pop and the feel of magic," exclaimed England's Unhinged Magazine, while back in the U.S., Buzz Magazine observed that The Marshmallow Overcoat "is the cerebral nugget that blows the lid off the underground!"

The UK psychedelic bible Freakbeat Magazine contended their second album "Try On The Marshmallow Overcoat should be listened to 1000 times. This LP holds its own with the most revered of classics."

And as the recording studio became a second home, so did the tour van. The Marshmallow Overcoat wore out countless tires on American and Canadian roads, blasting the fuzz and Farfisa throughout the hemisphere.

A two month 1992 European tour prompted wild shows from Holland all the way to Greece as the band's sweaty stage show scorched the Continent. France's Kinetic Vibes Magazine wrote that the band "creates an apocalyptic universe of shapes and colours ... an alchemy of sounds that subliminally invade the depths of our minds and spin in the unexplored zones of our psyche."

Italy's Davy Magazine also reacted strongly to the European invasion. "Like a piece of wood left too long in the rain, The Overcoat has assumed weird and twisted forms. Music from the last outpost of the world could hardly be more mysterious."

The band wore their influences on their sleeves — literally. Paisley shirts (long sleeve and buttoned at the top, of course), shaggy hair, Beatle boots and pegged-leg pants were the normal attire, on stage or off.

Musically, they gladly credited the cream of the original 1960s garage/psych crop as their fathers. The Marshmallow Overcoat's records are jammed with loving nods to The Electric Prunes, Chocolate Watch Band, Blues Magoos, Strawberry Alarm Clock and Music Machine, among countless others.

The 26 lava-lamp anthems in this "best-of" might be heard as only musical graffiti to the uninformed. Perhaps only true believers can understand these sounds as the indelible benchmarks of a paisley-punk mission.

But The Marshmallow Overcoat won't be forgotten — there's a band in a garage down the street right now trying hard to learn their songs.

THE PURPLE MERKINS are a beer-soaked side-band of The Overcoat, releasing 45s in the 1990s that have been collected into the "Merkinmania!" LP & CD. THEE HANDS OF TYME are another fun side-project, mining the psych side of the garage sound.

All have records available at www.purple-cactus.tv in the Garage Nation section. FUZZ ON, bruthas and sistas!

Check out the FREE Purple Merkins CD offer with the KNIGHTS OF FUZZ DVD !