Those '70s records in plain white covers stamped "Advance Reviewer Copy Confidential" are likely all by Wisconsin artists, and many of them are still performing today. Here's a followup to the first half of the story.
Tyler Famularo is less of a mystery than some of the other performers on the records I have found in this series. Famularo has been playing in Milwaukee since the late 1960s or early '70s, initially with a former Skunks member in the Larry Lynne Group (which put out 45s on Water Street). A series of other bands are also listed in his biography on the website of one current group he is a member of: Rebecca & the Grey Notes, led by Famularo's daughter. He is also listed as a member of '60s-'70s cover band The Differentials, and even shows up in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story about the 50th anniversary of Summerfest. The seven-song Down Deep is perhaps my favorite of all the records from this series. (I first heard this when a friend discovered a copy, and the fact that it had the same "promo" cover as the Matrix album made me curious to figure out if there were more like them.) It's somewhere between power pop and Midwest mid-'70s AOR, with a catchy set of songs. If you see one, snag it. (Audifex AX 7081, 1975)
Discogs reveals there are a number of variations of (presumably) the only album by Stuffy and His Frozen Parachute Band. The "Advance Reviewer Copy" version I have is on Water Street, and dated 1974 on the label. There is also a commercially released Water Street version with cover art, and a 1972 copyright on the back cover. The notes on this version also disclose that Brewtown legend Sigmund Snopek III plays on the record. (Side note: Snopek's 1975 Nobody to Dream album, which officially was released on his own label, also is listed on Discogs with an "advance" version on Water Street.) The Stuffy album was released nationally on Paramount with different cover art; Billboard featured it in the new release list on Nov. 24, 1973. Even more curious, the ARC version pictured on Discogs has a 1976 date on the label! What is going on here? In any event, this is an interesting early '70s singer-songwriter styled album, but with a lot more personality than many such obscure discs along those lines.
"Stuffy" is Stephen Schmitt, per the songwriting credit on the label of the ARC album. Digging deeper into aliases with the Discogs listing provides some intriguing snippets that at first glance would seem to be disconnected. S. Shmitt (note the different spelling) shows up as co-writer on some other national albums from the '70s, including Dean Friedman's self-titled album. And there is a Stuffy Shmitt performing a song on the soundtrack to the recent David Duchovny series Californication. What? Turns out he's now in Nashville, with a number of recent solo albums to his credit. (Water Street WST 1002, 1974)
Perhaps the most mysterious of the Advance Reviewer Copy albums I have is by one of many, many bands called Silver. Somewhat surprisingly, this album has also been bootlegged, as documented at the Discogs listing. Children of the Lord certainly has the heaviest moments of the ARC albums I have found, with hard rock guitar, swirling organ and a throat-shredding singer. At times it's like a more biker rock Styx. At least, on side one. Side two bounces around a bit but mostly takes a gentler approach, and the last song sounds almost like it could even be by a different band. As far as who is in the band or where they are from, I'm stumped. The generic name and album title don't help, and there are no songwriting credits to fall back on. There is a publisher listed ("Fond Pub."), but that must be related to Tom Gress as it leads back to some Pro-Gress releases on Discogs. (Grammi Fonics GPS 8322, 1975)
I’m most familiar with former Madisonian Tony Brown from the Tony Brown Band's 1981 album Prisoner in Paradise, a reggae album. But Jersey, a solo release dated 1975, is just Brown, a guitar, and 12 soulful original songs. Around the time this was released, he was working in the Milwaukee area with a band called Preferred Stock, so I wonder if this was recorded as demos and snuck out as an LP. Surprisingly, Brown has a second release in the Advance Reviewer Copy series listed on Discogs: a self-titled LP by the Tony Brown Band, dated 1976. Brown, currently based in New Mexico, has been very active posting songs on his Facebook page during our current quarantine times; check 'em out. (Grammi Fonics GPS 8320)
So after an afternoon of listening and research, I've put together a few more connections: I learned that many of the players on the "Advance Review Copy" records I have are still playing all these years later, which is very cool. But how and why these albums exist is still a bit opaque. I did find a few more references online to them being sold via ads in Rolling Stone, but since it’s the internet, it's possible all those references originate from the original one (and I could just be repeating false information). To solve that mystery, I will need to find a 1975 issue of Rolling Stone.
I think it's likely there are more of these albums to be discovered. In addition to the albums referenced previously that I don't have, I found one more in this series: Sure I Will by longtime Wisconsin-area performer Robin Lee, on yet another label, Sound 1.
It's odd that while many of the artists are still active and several even have their own websites, the only person who acknowledges the existence of one of these records is Jack Grassel, who has the CD version of the Matrix album on his website. However they came to be, I'm glad they are around all these years later to document a segment of 1970s Wisconsin musical history.
