The Drugboy Tapes

The original demos which led to their signing and classic self-titled debut. Professionally mastered for the first time with updated artwork.

In the spring of 1998, young rockers Jeff Whalen and Dan Kern recorded some lo-fi demos on a Tascam 338 ¼» reel-to-reel 8-track recorder in their apartment in the Los Feliz neighbourhood of Los Angeles, California. The demos would soon be shopped around Hollywood, a bidding war would follow, and just a few short months later, the tapes would serve as the basis for the debut album of their band, the rock group Tsar.  These are those demos. 

 According to band lore, the guys had been trying to put together a rock outfit for close to a year with no success. More than that, they didn’t have jobs or money, nor any prospects or desire for either, especially jobs. So they took Jeff’s stepdad’s credit card—to be used only in “emergencies”— and went to the Guitar Center on Sunset Blvd. and bought a bunch of cheap equipment, like effect pedals and a drum machine and a compressor called the Blue Max, with the idea that they had 30 days before returning the gear for a refund back to the credit card before it was noticed. They already had the 8-track, which Dan found at a thrift shop, and so with the plan in place, they quit their temp jobs and set the alarm clock