The Lost Team Satan Album

From the Desks of PopSkoole, PR:

FILE UNDER
'FINALLY'

MADISON, WI, October 29, 2013—In the summer of 1995, Chicago was suffering through a heat wave that would claim 600 lives and leave entire neighborhoods grumpy and without electricity. In music that year, lo-fi ruled the underground while Gangster Rap and Hootie and the Blowfish ruled the rest, and somewhere in the basement of an Edgewater two flat, Team Satan assembled. It all began innocently enough, one hung over July 4th morning. That's when Mike Wing and Chris Auman, two line cooks at the Chicago Diner, formed the band as a two-piece guitar and drum whatever. The Team soon expanded to include a third cook, Todd "T-Bux" Uzel on second guitar. Their first show was a drunken mess, as were the next several. Virginian and fellow Diner worker, Lori Kölb, joined on bass soon after. After recording an extremely lo-fi single for the OFF-White Records label and putting out a home-dubbed cassette, The Junior Wing EP, T-Bux returned to Richmond, Virginia and fellow RVA transplant John Peters filled his boots. That's when the songs that the Team had been sloppily bashing out for the previous two years finally took shape. Team Satan standards, like the tongue-in-cheek, "C'mon Baby Let's Sin," got dropped in favor of no nonsense rockers like "Henchmen" and "Team Satan Lies." The band never lost their sense of humor completely, but they definitely found a way to tighten up.

Lucifer rising? Perhaps.

On Memorial Day 1998, Team Satan recorded their first (and only) full-length record at the Lab East Recording Scenario in Humboldt Park, Chicago. Eventually titled, A Little More Down, it would be engineer Kris Poulin's first recording project in his basement studio. Unfortunately, Team Satan disintegrated rapidly after the recording and the album was never officially released. John Peters sold his amp and left town in the middle of the night (much as he had arrived) and everything turned into bright shiny shit. The Team honored their scheduled commitments, lip-synching on the dance show Chic-a-go-go as a three piece and playing their last official gig at the Empty Bottle with T-Bux. A reunion show was performed with Bux at Lounge Ax close to the end of that venue's existence, but the contract had expired on the Team and that stinky, damp towel got thrown in for good.

Which brings us to today and the release of that lost Team Satan record on the digital only SFR label. Maybe this record and these songs should be crammed back down into the basements where they were written and recorded. Lord knows, but as the Team's own motto attests, "The devil made us do it and he made us do it well," so it's probably worth a quick listen. Even after  fifteen years, it's not too late to get A Little More Down.

POSTSCRIPT
Mike and Lori formed the instrumental country and surf western band, Booker Noe, got married and moved to Colorado. John Peters joined RVA's Alabama Thunder Pussy (a few times), Todd "T. Bux" Uzel, formed Decibators and played in Imperial Battlesnake before moving to London (the one in the UK). Chris Auman played in Reagan National Crash Diet, then Soft Targets, then escaped to Wisconsin.

DOWNLOAD LINKS
http://devilrock.bandcamp.com/album/a-little-more-down

TEAM STATS, ETC.
Team Satan Official Web Page


DISCOGRAPHY
"Devil Made Us Do It" b/w "1996" 7" (OFF-White) 1997
Jr. Wing EP 6 song cassette (RoosterCow) 1997
Team Satan 1996-1998 CD-R (RoosterCow) 1999
Farewell Reunion (Live at Lounge Ax) CD-R (RoosterCow) 1999
"Apocalyptic" 0 to 60 in 73 Bands CD compilation (No!No!) 2000
A Little More Down Digital LP (SFR) 2013