In-frequently Asked Questions as Asked and Answered by Mark Satlof

How did anyone ever hear the music of The Kinbotes in the first place? 

There are a few disparate but interconnected elements that have gotten us to where we are today. 

First, in 1986, Nat Hirsh and the crew sent a number of copies of The Kinbotes out to fanzines and journalists. If I had to guess it was between 20 and 30. We were all influenced by Bob Christgau and followed his writing for the Village Voice, so he got a copy (and a phone call!).  Richie Unterberger reviewed the album, (probably for Option magazine). That review has lived online in various forms for decades through Allmusic. It’s there today in a truncated form but for years was full length. That gave the Kinbotes a minimal online presence so people could find some basic information. Another review ran in Sick Teen in 1986. There might have been a couple of other reviews as well. I credit Richie as a key early vector. 

It was natural for music writers, even then underpaid and mostly limited in storage space, to sell their cast offs at the used record store. These journalist copies are the source of almost all of the copies that are in circulation. In the late 80s, a copy ended up at the well-loved Sounds on St. Marks Street in New York’s East Village, where collector and aficionado Mike Ascherman picked it up (there is a decent chance he has Christgau's copy in my estimation). Sounds was a notorious place for writers to dump unwanted vinyl. I believe Mike’s advocacy was a key, important early element in spreading the Kinbotes’ music. He told me he shared tapes with local friends the 90s and made a CD-r in the 2000s, which he duplicated for a few friends. Then, you know, friends of friends and on. 

Along the way, several DJs at WFMU began playing Kinbotes songs on occasion. These DJs include Douglas Wolk, Tony Coulter, and Irwin Chusid.   I would be very surprised if we didn’t send a copy to WFMU for their library in 1986. I also sent copies to WFMU in the 90s, at the least one to Irwin Chusid (who later sold his on eBay for 150 bucks, no hard feelings at all! He played them once or twice on WFMU) and to Douglas Wolk who recently told me he still has and treasures his copy. 

In late 2008 or early 2009, I got a call from a Kinbotes fan named Jack Fleischer. Jack was researching the Kinbotes story and called me out of the blue after seeing my name in the credits.  As I recall it, he told me he’d heard a song on an FMU show and that he and some of his private press-fan friends wanted to know more. I gave Jack a copy in return for a promise that he’d write a post about the Kinbotes. Jack came through in spades. You can see the story here (where, counter to my memory he credits Mike Ascherman for first turning him on to the Kinbotes). Jack’s story was instrumental in spreading the word in recent years. Now, anyone who’d had even a passing interest could find out all the details. A few years later, Jack helped arrange for The Kinbotes reissue on Slowboy Records in 2014. The reissue included an insert of Jack’s original story plus a few press releases that I found and had sent to Jack. 

In early 2021, I got a message from a professional colleague, the uber music head/ archivist/collector Andy Zax. He said  "I had somehow never realized, until I took it out and played it again last week, that you were responsible for the Kinbotes album. Bravo! [editor's note: I was not responsible for the Kinbotes album. I played a small role as a friend]." Andy explained that he found a cassette of it decades ago—"it was an unfindable record even then"— in an office at a record company and was thrilled when the reissue came out. He said, "I had probably read Pale Fire two dozen times by that point, so when I saw the tape I assumed that any band that would name themselves after its protagonist had to be worth hearing.” I offered Andy a pristine, unopened copy and in return, he offered to make a digital copy for me. A lightbulb went off in my head. It was finally time to get The Kinbotes out to a wider world, officially. Andy went through the files and removed any pops and extraneous noise. So here we are. 

Is this digital release authorized? 

Yes. I have permission from Dave Cateforis (the remaining Kinbote member) and the Hirsh family. They are in the loop on everything. Dave has helped fill in some blanks for me and provided some bits and pieces of ephemera.

What is Nix Records?

Nix Records was a phantom label, just a name to put on a 45 single* by the college band I was in at the time in 1986, The Bureaucrats. We had a logo and that was it. Nix’ address was that of our friend Denny. We called him our manager (he is a friend to this day). Nat called me one day and said he wanted to put his album out on Nix. I guess I said yes. Maybe I thought he was joking. I’m sure I said something like “sure Nat but you know there isn’t really a 'Nix Records.'  I can’t recall any of the details, but somehow I ended up with the entire or nearly entire stock of Kinbotes albums. I asked Denny recently if he remembered getting any mail orders. He didn't even know there was an album back then with his address on it. (So the answer is "no.") For several years they were stacked in boxes in the bedroom closet of the apartment I shared with two other friends in Manhattan. Eventually, when I moved out, to a tiny one bedroom, I let them go. I had no space. To the dumpster. I regret that, but even then I knew Nat’s music was special and that someday it would find an audience. Since then I’ve helped that along in any way I could.

*The Bureaucrats' 45 was produced by the MC5's Wayne Kramer. One song features a guitar solo by him, and a cover of "Shakin' Street" features Wayne on shakers. I think we thought that was clever. The drummer is John "Jo Jo" Hermann, who a few years later joined Widespread Panic on keyboards. 

Who are you? 

My name is Mark Satlof. I was friends with Nat from Hall High School in West Hartford, Conn., class of ’82. We became friendlier towards our junior and senior years and with a mutual friend, Steve Sherman, I used to listen to lots of music with Nat and make cassette tapes of his albums. Almost literally all I listened to was Yes (no regrets) but hanging with Nat and Steve opened the door to a whole new world of music for me  (Devo, Neil Young. Roxy Music and on). After high school, Steve and I went to Columbia University and remained friends (and bandmates and concert buddies, Steve was a Christgau acolyte and we would basically go to every “Voice Choice” he’d recommend starting in fall 1982). 

We kept in touch with Nat who would visit from time to time from Swarthmore College in Penn. Nat would talk about his music and one summer, 1985, he came to New York with his cassette tapes and a Tascam 4 track mixer and asked for Steve and me to help out on a few songs. I remember clearly sitting on a chair in an empty dorm room and trying to play a guitar part, somehow plugged into an amp and somehow into the mixer, picking along to a boombox playing the Kinbotes' song "Maybe She Thinks." Steve and I also “sing” backup on “Julie Don’t Care” and “Could You Tell Her For Me.”  Given that our main vocal influences were Lou Reed on “Femme Fatale” and Johnny Thunders on “Trash” you can guess how we sound (flat and tuneless). I don’t remember the sequence very well, but sometime after that Nat asked me if he could use “Nix Records” as his label, and then, that he’d taken the cassette to a vinyl pressing plant in New Jersey and put in an order. The entire (or the vast majority) of the pressing ended up in my possession. I don’t think Nat had much of a plan beyond printing the albums. 

I never saw the cover until the albums showed up at my door. I saw that Nat had taken an old polaroid of me, played around with it using a copier and whiteout, and put it in the back lower right corner.  I recall Steve and Nat working on writing a series of press releases, coming up with a list of journalists and fanzines, and sending them out. Nat placed a few ads as well. I had a very loose relationship with a distributor, Important I think, and it’s possible a box of Kinbotes albums got to them. 

I remember thinking even at the time 1986, wow this is a really amazing and special record. No one’s going to hear it now but someday people are going to find it and recognize how great songwriters Nat with Dave were. I became a music publicist and over the years have done a bit here and there to get the word out.

Contact Mark Satlof -- Msatlof at gmail dot com