The RadioBall series originated way way back in 2000 when writer-songsinger Chandler Travis got the grand idea to release a home-burned CDR every two weeks that year – and, with the help of cohorts P.J. O’Connell and Rikki Bates (they had the only CD burners), he almost made it through the entire year, ending with a grand total of 22 CDs when the big RadioBall dropped over Times Square. Since then there have been a few more releases added to the mix over the years, as well as a few that are no longer available for various reasons. We’ve also included the very first Iddy Biddy release, Raw Blarney,” to this list, as it’s really the prototype for the RadioBall series, leaving us with a grand total of 23 albums at this time.
RadioBalls were frequently composed of highlights from then-recent Chandler Travis Philharmonic performances, sometimes recorded in our patented Horrend-o-Phonic sound process, but there was lots of other stuff, too – like home tapes, studio outtakes, more cool live stuff from the archives, guest star appearances (both Travis & Shook and the Incredible Casuals have their very own RadioBalls!), and other stuff we just couldn’t figure how else to get rid of!
To add to the RadioBall mystique, the hi-falutin’ publication Stereophile published a review of the initial 22 CDs in The RadioBall Series in spite of the Horrend-o-Phonic-ness of many of the releases – you can read the Stereophile review here.
Now, with the exception of a handful of hand-burned CDRs that we still have in the merchandise box and which are only sold at gigs (or out of the back of The Valet’s car), RadioBalls are only available via digital download. We highly recommend that you give a few tracks a listen before buying any of them, to get a good idea just how gloriously lo-fi our patented Horrend-o-Phonic process truly is.
