There were all sorts of bands and albums from my old 90FM days that I returned to repeatedly because they carried with them some sort of added import and history, even it was something as simple of a strong memory of playing a track on the air and having my appreciation kick in sharply. But there were so many more than I had only the vaguest recollections of, even at the time. These were albums that I would stumble upon anew while browsing through the stacks, remember that I liked it when it moved through rotation, play it again, nod along in enjoyment and then refile it, probably to forget about it again by the time I left the studio at the end of my shift. Paw Paw Patch by Gunbunnies is one of those albums.

Some cursory online research indicates that Gunbunnies was one of those groups that picked up a “best unsigned band in America” designation at one point, leading to a bidding war as labels were sure that meant they’d be on the fast track to zillions of record sales once they had this outfit under their banner. They wound up on Virgin Records, which paired them with producer Jim Dickinson, a mini-legend who played on Sticky Fingers and been behind the boards on rightly revered Big Star albums. Around that time, he was regularly enlisted to preside over commercially doomed artists that everyone was certain were this close to a breakthrough, most notably the Replacements, who owe at least a portion of the appeal to their great album Pleased to Meet Me to Dickinson’s influence. He brought some of the same mix of muscularity, rawness and surprising refinement to Paw Paw Patch. It was a fine record. And almost no one paid it any attention whatsoever. As far as I can tell, the label gave up on the band almost immediately and there were no further releases.

Even now, my experience with the handful of Gunbunnies songs I have in my digital collection is familiar. I almost never think of them and then fate (or, more accurately, the shuffle feature) will bring a song around, like “Put a Tail on Your Kite” just the other day. And I’ll think again that it sounds pretty good (and it has a great opening line). Then it’ll get refiled to be forgotten about until another day.

Listen or download –> Gunbunnies, “Put a Tail on Your Kite”

(Disclaimer: As far as I can tell, Paw Paw Patch is entirely out of print. As I write this, a new copy can be purchased through Amazon, but it seems to be through some sort of third party vendor and I suspect “new” simply means “previously unopened” in this instance. I don’t think you can walk into your favorite local, independently-owned record store and ask the proprietor to order a new copy of the release in a manner that will duly compensate said proprietor, the artist and–least importantly, as far as I’m concerned–whatever label fat cats who might still be around. For our purposes, that’s what counts. It is in that spirit and with that understanding that the song is being shared here. And I supposed I should note that I snapped this up off the internet myself at some point in the past. If I remembered from where I’d credit the source. If someone with due authority to request the song’s removal contacts me with such a request, I’ll promptly and gladly comply.)