The Summer of 1990 was epic for BeebleBrox. Not only was there a stable lineup for the first time in years, a repertoire that was rehearsed and everybody was enthusiastic about, but they also managed to land a few shows around their (then) home turf of Central Alabama – especially Birmingham’s famous Grundy’s Music Room.

While they were working on new material, the largest portion of the live shows consisted of tunes from BeebleBrox’ first album, Entropy. Entropy had been recorded in 1989 in drummer Don Davis’ bedroom on a Yamaha four-track cassette recorder. The song selections were sprawling medleys of two or more tunes. The recording band consisted of Peter Kienle (guitar), Monika Herzig (keyboards), Robert Dickson (bass) and Don Davis (drums). That was the “2.1” version of BeebleBrox. Versions 1.x had been numerous incarnations in Germany, before Monika & Peter’s move to the US. Version “2.0” had been the first US version, which included Greg Riley (sax), Robert Dickson (bass) and Woody Williams (drums). That iteration didn’t last long enough for a recording.

With the addition of Greg Chambers on saxophones and EWI, the 2.1 version of BeebleBrox was complete in early 1990.

Most of the musical material on this release goes back to the band’s German roots. The oldest tune, “Beeblebrox Spectacular”, was written by Peter in the early 1980s for the original Beeblebrox Spectacular’s first gig. The last German iteration of BeebleBrox (v1.75?) was a solid group that tightly clung to its two main influences Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report. It never quite reached the group cohesion, joy for experimentation and “going for it” attitude, present in the 2.1 recordings. 

During their last year in Alabama the band had access to a DAT recorder and started recording many of their performances. The Summer of 1990 saw them perform at Grundy’s Music Room multiple times. All of these appearances were recorded. Due to the length of many of the tunes, tape changes sometimes had to be done in the middle of a long piece of music. This is the reason for a few spots where the music fades out and back in during a track.

Why is this released now, 34 years later?

After being dormant since 2001 BeebleBrox was asked to play a re-union show at the Indianapolis Zoo this month (July 25 2024).

By sheer coincidence tracks 5 and 6 on this release were recorded at the Grundy’s Music Room on July 25 1990. The other tracks represented here are from the June 12 1990 performance at the same venue.