OLR-001 * January 2000 * Edition of 25

25 copies- pro printed CDRs with custom hand made covers, individually numbered.

The Mistreater “Hell’s*Fire” release was where it all started many moons ago. I had heard about this album for years, and yet nobody I knew had it! Even my friends in Ohio (where the band is from) had never managed to find a copy. In the fall of 1999 a copy surfaced on Ebay, and I was determined to get this thing once and for all. So on the closing night I prepared for a bidding battle and dropped a last minute bid on it which won! It was right around $100, and when the dust settled and I called Jamie (bassist of BOULDER from Ohio) to tell him I finally got one- we realized that I’d outbid him and another friend of ours who were trying for it~!

When I got the album and heard if finally, it was worth the hunt and every penny! This baby was a screamer, totally devastating lead guitar work, soaring vocals, it just ruled! So I wanted to share it with everyone- and yet I didn’t want to sit there dubbing tapes and with a tape you don’t get to see the art either. I had decided to do a label at this point, and I really wanted to find this band and make this a reissue on the label. But none of my Ohio crew knew anything about this band or how to find them, so I figured I’d just in the form a micro run on CDR complete with artwork and all.

I found out that a friend of mine had bought the album on a CDR from a mail order place in Texas for like $30 or $40, so we already had the tunes on that format, and it was just a matter of doing the art. With the help of Jennifer and the use of the fiery printer at the record company she worked at, we managed to put it all together and make a set of 25 numbered CDs. I had the CDRs printed by this guy up in Connecticut I think… and sat around hand cutting covers and assembling the copies which took a while to say the least.

In the end, the purpose was served though, 25 of my friends and acquaintances got to hear this album, and most agreed with the raving that had been done on my part about it! Then, right as I finished this project, Jamie found the singer, Kurt Leudy, and put me in touch with him. I called him and told him what a fan I was and how I had put together 25 CDs, and sent him a couple I had left. He was flattered, yet confused by why we were so into these tunes from so long ago, and even though I asked 58 times politely declined my offers for a full scale reissue. When he got the CDs he said he was really impressed on how professional it looked, and he also gave one to Larry Nottingham (the guitarist).

I’ve kept in touch with Kurt, and when I went to Ohio in the fall of 2002 Jamie and I even went out to visit him. It was great to meet him and his family, we hung out and listened to tunes, checked out his killer cars, and he told us the Mistreater story. I really hope to work with the band one day to do a full scale reissue of this so that more people can hear this amazing LP that a band in Ohio put out over 20 years ago.