Specimen Box

Specimen Box

Remote Communion

Valley King

***Over the pandemic, bassist Larry Boothroyd collaborated with over 60 musicians in various states of lockdown from across the world to create the 23 song, double LP, Specimen Box II: Remote Communion. The project includes current and former members of Dead Kennedys, Victims Family, Built to Spill, Alice Donut, World/Inferno Friendship Society, and Nomeansno, among others. The project began when Larry Boothroyd sent Denver drummer Brian Polk the message: “Are you able to record your drums? Wanna start a track? I’ve been trading files with people during this lockdown.” At first, the pair didn’t have high expectations —certainly not that this one song would serve as a catalyst to releasing a double album. But after Boothroyd added a bass track to Polk’s drums, the former requested another song, which led to another, and then another... "The first Specimen Box album took 10 years to finish, and had just found a home on Valley King Records during the onset of the pandemic,” says Larry Boothroyd. “The last thing I was thinking about was starting another one, but the world suddenly found itself with an abundance of free time. When Denver drummer Brian Polk posted that he was going down to the studio to play his drums, I asked him to send me a short, structured drum track. I still didn't know where this was heading, but the last album was an 80 minute instrumental, so I wanted to try something with a more traditional song format. It all came together nicely,...

Specimen Box

Four Walls

Valley King

***"For the better part of the last four decades, San Francisco Bay Area musician Larry Boothroyd has been pushing the boundaries of punk and heavy music. Co-founding iconic North Bay avant-punk trio Victims Family with guitarist/singer Ralph Spight in 1984 when the bassist was still a gangly teenager, Boothroyd set a new bar for four-string virtuosity over the course of six albums of genre-busting jazz punk and countless tours with the band. In addition to other collaborations with Spight with affiliated groups Saturn’s Flea Collar, Hellworms and currently as members of Jello Biafra’s Guantanamo School of Medicine, the bassist also played a key part in both ferociously psychedelic experimental punk outfit Triclops! and NorCal hard-rock heavyweights Brubaker.  Boothroyd might be the main creative force behind his latest project Specimen Box, but the recording is about as far from a “solo” album as can be imagined. Inspired by his first experience in remote recording with Victims Family in 2012, the bassist put a call out to his legions of past and present band mates, weird punk contemporaries, fellow travelers and kindred spirits. He asked for one minute of music, from solo players and full bands, in any tempo, time signature or key.  Over the past eight years, Boothroyd has been collecting, collating and organizing those 60-second snippets, fleshing them out with his own contributions and those of other musicians to gradually build the four 20-minute suites of sublimely chaotic and endlessly engaging instrumentals that make up Four Walls. Featuring...