armand schaubroeck: independent hitter

armand schaubroeck publicity shot, 1978. mirror records.



alternative cover to "ratf@cker", from publicity shot. ib design.

You may have already noticed the posting of "The Independent Hitter" by Armand Schaubroeck Steals from earlier today. For more background, photographs, video footage and information on a 1991 telephone interview with Schaubroeck - subsequently worked up into an erudite article by Dr. Elwood Mole in conjunction with one Julian Cope - see Jason Hall's web page on inmate #24145.

Armand Schaubroeck was a class act who began a checkered career in music in 1965 as leader of The Churchmice after a spell in prison for grand larceny.

"In 1962, after a series of 32 burglaries that included groceries, hardware stores, schools and a church, seventeen year old Armand Schaubroeck was sentenced to three years in jail. He was charged with safecracking and thrown in the Elmira State Reformatory, a maximum security prison in New York. He would get out a year and a half later on parole but the impression would remain vivid in his mind. Apparently his imprisonment acted as a catalyst to the birth of his very unique and somewhat deranged rock 'n roll persona- he named his band Armand Schaubroeck Steals and all his music seemed to be a cathartic exorcise to the obsessions that haunted him."

- Dr. Elwood Mole, "The Illustrated Armand Schaubroeck".

Despite a number of singles and LP's chronicling Schaubroeck's singular jaundiced vision, considerable financial success has been generated instead from the "well-known music store he owns and operates in upstate New York", seemingly initiated as a means of turning a dollar by selling guitars from his mother's basement in 1964. A rapidly expanding family business:

"... with a shop doing annual sales in excess of 7 million dollars he seems to have lost the craving to record his own brand of inspired bile."

More from Armand at a later date. Guaranteed. Q: Would you buy a guitar from this man ? A: Only if I got a motherf@cking discount, pal.

JASON HALL: INMATE #24145