Longmont Potion Castle
Encyclopedia
Longmont Potion Castle is the pseudonym
of an anonymous
surrealist prank call
er who has been active in the
Colorado
and Los Angeles
areas since
1987. Details about
his personal life are scarce and his real name is unknown to the public. Over the years, his mostly self-released albums have gained a cult following
, notably amongst musicians.
and is actually closer to that of the alternative comedian
Neil Hamburger
. The magazine goes on to cite some of the topics discussed and parties dialed in the artist's calls: "peacock bowel, owl
bowel, peacock meat, squid
meat, gorilla
ointment, Nugent
, Orange Julius
, biblioduwangus, woven bread, moving rope and cords into another state, pleated clothing, the Epiphone Dolphin
, pumpkin brew
, GG Allin
, UPS
, and opportunities to engender a coalition
with the Vatican
." In a review from the Denver Westword, LPC's recordings are described as advancing "absurdity as an art form."
The anonymous artist has himself described the albums he's made as "phone work" or "absurdist" art rather than the less sophisticated label of "prank phone calls", and has also said, "They may be dumb, but they're not stupid
". Those on the receiving end of a Longmont Potion Castle call are often left confused and/or extremely angry, however his calls are rarely mean-spirited in nature. His recordings combine prank calls with sound collage
s and his own musical compositions, the majority of which are thrash metal
instrumentals. Occasionally, Longmont Potion Castle filters his voice through a Digitech RDS 8000 rack-mounted digital delay panel to produce odd sound effects, thus making whoever he has called even more confused.
In 2006, Longmont Potion Castle announced his retirement. In an interview with The Nerve Magazine, he explained that the box set Longbox Option Package
would be the final LPC release. However, in 2008 he released a new CD, Longmont Potion Castle Volume 6
. In 2009, he released Volume 7 (not to be confused with his 2005 album of the same name released as a part of the Longbox Option Package box set, a disc that contained only thrash metal music). The album featured several celebrity calls, including ones to singer Eddie Money
, Jeopardy!
host Alex Trebek
, and guitarist Rick Derringer
. January 2011 saw the release of LPC 8, in which the artist primarily used Skype
on a laptop computer to record the calls.
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
of an anonymous
Anonymity
Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
surrealist prank call
Prank call
A prank call is a form of practical joke committed over the telephone. Prank phone calls began to gain an America-wide following over a period of many years, as they gradually became a staple of the obscure and amusing cassette tapes traded amongst musicians, sound engineers, and media traders...
er who has been active in the
Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
areas since
1987. Details about
his personal life are scarce and his real name is unknown to the public. Over the years, his mostly self-released albums have gained a cult following
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
, notably amongst musicians.
Biography
The LA Record describes Longmont Potion Castle's albums as unlike those that most people associate with prank telephone calls, citing that his demeanor is nothing at all like that of The Jerky Boys and Crank YankersCrank Yankers
Crank Yankers is an American TV show produced by Adam Carolla, Jimmy Kimmel and Daniel Kellison that featured actual prank calls made by show regulars and celebrity guests, and re-enacted onscreen by puppets for a visual aid to show the viewer what is happening in the call...
and is actually closer to that of the alternative comedian
Alternative comedy
Alternative comedy is a term that originated in the 1980s for a style of comedy that makes a conscious break with the mainstream comedic style of an era, and typically avoids relying on a standardised structure of a sequence of jokes with punch lines. Patton Oswalt defines it as "comedy where the...
Neil Hamburger
Neil Hamburger
Neil Hamburger is a standup comedian character played by comedian and musician Gregg Turkington.-Style:Hamburger's live act, which is quite different from his many albums, features a barrage of question/answer jokes aimed often at celebrity targets, including Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, The Red...
. The magazine goes on to cite some of the topics discussed and parties dialed in the artist's calls: "peacock bowel, owl
Owl
Owls are a group of birds that belong to the order Strigiformes, constituting 200 bird of prey species. Most are solitary and nocturnal, with some exceptions . Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds, although a few species specialize in hunting fish...
bowel, peacock meat, squid
Squid
Squid are cephalopods of the order Teuthida, which comprises around 300 species. Like all other cephalopods, squid have a distinct head, bilateral symmetry, a mantle, and arms. Squid, like cuttlefish, have eight arms arranged in pairs and two, usually longer, tentacles...
meat, gorilla
Gorilla
Gorillas are the largest extant species of primates. They are ground-dwelling, predominantly herbivorous apes that inhabit the forests of central Africa. Gorillas are divided into two species and either four or five subspecies...
ointment, Nugent
Ted Nugent
Theodore Anthony "Ted" Nugent is an American guitarist, musician, singer, author, reserve police officer, and activist. From Detroit, Michigan, he originally gained fame as the lead guitarist of The Amboy Dukes, before embarking on a lengthy solo career...
, Orange Julius
Orange Julius
Orange Julius is a chain of fruit drink beverage stores. It has been in business since the late 1920s. The eponymous beverage is a mixture of orange juice, milk, sugar, ice and vanilla flavoring.- History :...
, biblioduwangus, woven bread, moving rope and cords into another state, pleated clothing, the Epiphone Dolphin
Epiphone
The Epiphone Company is a musical instrument manufacturer founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos. Epiphone was bought by Chicago Musical Instrument Company, which also owned Gibson Guitar Corporation, in 1957. Epiphone was Gibson's main rival in the archtop market...
, pumpkin brew
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
, GG Allin
GG Allin
Kevin Michael "GG" Allin was an American punk rock singer-songwriter, who performed and recorded with many groups during his career. GG Allin is perhaps best remembered for his notorious live performances, which often featured transgressive acts, including coprophagia, self-mutilation, and...
, UPS
United Parcel Service
United Parcel Service, Inc. , typically referred to by the acronym UPS, is a package delivery company. Headquartered in Sandy Springs, Georgia, United States, UPS delivers more than 15 million packages a day to 6.1 million customers in more than 220 countries and territories around the...
, and opportunities to engender a coalition
Coalition
A coalition is a pact or treaty among individuals or groups, during which they cooperate in joint action, each in their own self-interest, joining forces together for a common cause. This alliance may be temporary or a matter of convenience. A coalition thus differs from a more formal covenant...
with the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
." In a review from the Denver Westword, LPC's recordings are described as advancing "absurdity as an art form."
The anonymous artist has himself described the albums he's made as "phone work" or "absurdist" art rather than the less sophisticated label of "prank phone calls", and has also said, "They may be dumb, but they're not stupid
Stupidity
Stupidity is a lack of intelligence, understanding, reason, wit, or sense. It may be innate, assumed, or reactive - 'being "stupid with grief" as a defence against trauma', a state marked with 'grief and despair...making even simple daily tasks a hardship'....
". Those on the receiving end of a Longmont Potion Castle call are often left confused and/or extremely angry, however his calls are rarely mean-spirited in nature. His recordings combine prank calls with sound collage
Sound collage
In music, montage or sound collage is a technique where sound objects or compositions, including songs, are created from collage, also known as montage, the use of portions of previous recordings or scores...
s and his own musical compositions, the majority of which are thrash metal
Thrash metal
Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized usually by its fast tempo and aggression. Songs of the genre typically use fast percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work...
instrumentals. Occasionally, Longmont Potion Castle filters his voice through a Digitech RDS 8000 rack-mounted digital delay panel to produce odd sound effects, thus making whoever he has called even more confused.
In 2006, Longmont Potion Castle announced his retirement. In an interview with The Nerve Magazine, he explained that the box set Longbox Option Package
Longbox Option Package
Longbox Option Package is the name of a 2006 retrospective box set by the surreal prank call artist known only as Longmont Potion Castle. It was released in an extremely limited quantity by the independent label D.U. Records, and only occasionally appears for sale on eBay.The set contains seven...
would be the final LPC release. However, in 2008 he released a new CD, Longmont Potion Castle Volume 6
Longmont Potion Castle Volume 6
Longmont Potion Castle Volume 6 is the seventh album of prank phone calls by the anonymous artist known only as Longmont Potion Castle. It was released January 1, 2008 by DU Records....
. In 2009, he released Volume 7 (not to be confused with his 2005 album of the same name released as a part of the Longbox Option Package box set, a disc that contained only thrash metal music). The album featured several celebrity calls, including ones to singer Eddie Money
Eddie Money
Eddie Money is an American rock guitarist, saxophonist and singer-songwriter who found success in the 1970s and 1980s with a string of Top 40 hits and platinum albums...
, Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
host Alex Trebek
Alex Trebek
George Alexander "Alex" Trebek is a Canadian American game show host who has been the host of the game show Jeopardy! since 1984, and prior to that, he hosted game shows such as Pitfall and High Rollers. He has appeared in numerous television series, usually as himself...
, and guitarist Rick Derringer
Rick Derringer
Rick Derringer is an American guitarist, vocalist, and entertainer.-1960s:When he was seventeen years old, his band The McCoys recorded "Hang on Sloopy" in the summer of 1965, which became the number one song in America before "Yesterday" by The Beatles knocked it out of the top spot. The song was...
. January 2011 saw the release of LPC 8, in which the artist primarily used Skype
Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
on a laptop computer to record the calls.
Albums
- Longmont Potion Castle (1988)
- Longmont Potion Castle Volume 2 (1992)
- Longmont Potion Castle Volume 3 (1995)
- Longmont Potion Castle Volume 4Longmont Potion Castle Volume 4Longmont Potion Castle Volume 4 is the fourth album by the surreal prank call artist known only as Longmont Potion Castle. It was released in 2001 on cassette by DU Records. It was re-released later that year on CD by Post Replica records...
(2001) - Late-Eighties-VeinLate-Eighties-VeinLate-Eighties-Vein is the fifth album released by surrealist prank phone caller known only as Longmont Potion Castle. It was released on October 1, 2003 by Insides Music.- Reviews :...
(2003) - Longmont Potion Castle Volume 5Longmont Potion Castle Volume 5Longmont Potion Castle Volume 5 is the sixth, and, at the time it was released, supposedly final album of prank phone calls by the anonymous artist known only as Longmont Potion Castle...
(2005) - Longmont Potion Castle Volume 6Longmont Potion Castle Volume 6Longmont Potion Castle Volume 6 is the seventh album of prank phone calls by the anonymous artist known only as Longmont Potion Castle. It was released January 1, 2008 by DU Records....
(2008) - Longmont Potion Castle Volume 7 (2009)
- Longmont Potion Castle Volume 8 (2011)
Videos
- Live from Longmont Potion Castle (1998)
- Return to Longmont Potion Castle
- Longbox Option PackageLongbox Option PackageLongbox Option Package is the name of a 2006 retrospective box set by the surreal prank call artist known only as Longmont Potion Castle. It was released in an extremely limited quantity by the independent label D.U. Records, and only occasionally appears for sale on eBay.The set contains seven...
DVD (Includes Live from LPC and Return to LPC) (2006)
Compilations and singles
- Best of Vol. 1 (1996)
- Best of Vol. 2 (1998)
- LPC/HatebeakHatebeakHatebeak is a death metal band, formed by Blake Harrison, Mark Sloan and Waldo, a 19 year old Congo African Grey Parrot. The band members do not use their last names on their releases "for the mystery." Hatebeak is unique in that they are the only band to feature a parrot on vocals...
split 7" (2004) - Longbox Option PackageLongbox Option PackageLongbox Option Package is the name of a 2006 retrospective box set by the surreal prank call artist known only as Longmont Potion Castle. It was released in an extremely limited quantity by the independent label D.U. Records, and only occasionally appears for sale on eBay.The set contains seven...
7 CD/1 DVD box set (2006)
External links
- Official Longmont Potion Castle website
- [-search Longmont Potion Castle] at AllMusic
- Interview with Amazing Webzine
- Longmont Potion Castle at last.fmLast.fmLast.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m ....
- Denver Westword review of LPC 5
- LA Record LPC live show review
- LA Record interview with LPC
- Interview with The Nerve
- Longmont Potion Castle at Rate Your Music