The Trash Company - Earle Hotel Tapes 1979 - 1993 flac album

Here's the full bio:"The Earle Hotel was located in downtown Richmond, Virginia, at the corner of West Main and North Adams. It was a massive yet fairly nondescript 1920's era building that took up over half the block, but by the end of the 70's, years of mismanagement and neglect had turned it into a shell of its former self. Even The Earle's distinguished neighbor, The Jefferson, was not immune to downtown's decline. The once grand 19th century hotel had turned shabby and was months away from permanently closing. Its days of hosting US Presidents, movie stars and Elvis Presley were ancient history. In its shadow, the low-rent, low-profile Earle struggled to hang on.If The Earle had any reputation left it was as a place to be avoided,
a flophouse, where the down and out and desperate could find a room
for the night, cheap, no questions asked. It was also home to nearly a
hundred month to month residents ranging from drunks and prostitutes
to street preachers, abandoned senior citizens, struggling artists and
scores of working poor. One occupant, Max Monroe, was a writer and
musician who had been staying at The Earle since he was a teenager in
the early 70's. Back then it wasn't such a bad place. There were hotel
maids, even a restaurant downstairs, Fodool's, with room service, but
things had gotten out of hand fairly quickly. Despite the rapidly
deteriorating conditions, Max would continue to rent Room 111 for the
foreseeable future.About a mile and a half from The Earle at 2049 West Broad Street was
Alpha Audio. In the Spring of 1979 Max Monroe entered the state of the
art studio to cut a record with his band The Trash Company. The
session lasted about six hours and yielded three finished tracks. Only
one of these recordings would see the light of day. "Come To Me
Softly" served as both sides of a 45, the lone release on Monroe's
label Kinky Blu, and the only thing the band would ever put out.The Trash Company was formed back in February of 1975 in the lobby of
the Earle Hotel. Three brothers, the Cheathams, had come to recruit
Max for a new band they were trying to assemble. Watusi, Bee and Pop
were familiar with Max from the Jackson Ward neighborhood they all
grew up in. The brothers had already been in some bands together. As
The Naturals, they once played the legendary Sahara Club on the city's
Northside. That group eventually mutated into something called Rich
Gypsy & The Wax Dollar Bills. It didn't take much to convince Max to
join the Cheathams in their latest brainchild. "They had a band. I
wanted to be in a band." Simple as that. Max was in. The new group could have passed for Funkadelic's kid brothers as they
took it to the stage the following week for a Valentine's Day talent
show at their old stomping ground, Maggie L. Walker High School. The
six piece line up included Max (vocals and guitar), Watusi (Linwood
Cheatham- guitar), Bee (Victor Cheatham- drums), Pop (Gregory
Cheatham- percussion), Fisto (Tyrone Claude- keyboards), and Wounded
Knee (guitar). Rounding out this ragtag crew was the band's friend
Wolf, a dread-locked karate black belt, whose nomadic lifestyle
included sleeping on park benches and under city bridges. It seemed
only fitting that for The Trash Company's introduction Wolf would
empty a garbage can full of paper into the audience. As the band's
first few notes rang out in the stunned auditorium, the school
principal ordered the curtains dropped and it was over. This inauspicious debut would set the tone for the handful of years
that followed. The Trash Company gigged sporadically, mostly Jackson
Ward bars, rarely or barely getting paid, seldom venturing outside of
their downtown neighborhood. Max, who had become the leader by
default, grew increasingly frustrated with the band's inactivity and
the prevailing lackadaisical attitude. He had been writing a lot of
new material that seemed to be going to waste. His decision to book
studio time and make a record was essentially a last ditch effort to
get something going.For the session that produced "Come To Me Softly" Max sang, played the
guitars and bass, while Bee played drums. Watusi and Pop contributed
the eerie "chimes", which were actually the sound of a toy xylophone
being run through a ring modulator by Alpha Audio engineer Carlos
Chafin. The backing vocals were supplied by Bee's wife Florence
Cheatham and Robinette Gravely, niece of U.S. Navy pioneer Admiral
Samuel L. Gravely. The 8-track reels were left at Alpha, and a couple months later Max
received 500 newly pressed copies of the single from Cincinnati's QCA.
The eye-catching 45 with its swirling blue label, was sent out to a
number of record companies as well as an array of influential
producers and artists. Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire sent back a
nice hand-written note of encouragement. Frank Sinatra even replied
with a signed letter of thanks. Country star Jerry Reed was not so
kind. He took the time to mail the 45 back to Max... shattered into
pieces.The new record showed quite a bit of growth since The Trash Company's
wild beginnings, but it did little to change the group's fortunes.
"Come To Me Softly" possessed an offbeat beauty, but only a few heard
it, and most who did weren't sure what to make of it. The song was
difficult to classify, hard to promote and sell, and the band itself
didn't really fit into any scene. They seemed snake bitten, or at
least unable to get out of their own way. More often than not Max
found himself at odds with his bandmates, and as the decade of the
80's rolled in, the only thing left to do was part ways. He quit the
band, never to join another.Max continued to write songs on his own, capturing them on his Bell &
Howell cassette recorder. The music was taking on the harder edge he
had originally envisioned for The Trash Company. Watusi would drop by
The Earle every now and then, sometimes bringing his guitar, which now
had a couple of strings removed in tribute to one of his favorite
bands, The B-52's. He and Max would hang out, reminisce and
occasionally collaborate on new tracks. The two had been like
brothers, practically inseparable. They had their differences, they
fought, but years of shared experiences, good and bad, forged a
connection between them that seemed unbreakable.Ever since Max knew him, Watusi had a thyroid condition which produced
a goiter on his neck. He would cover it with scarves or buttoned up
shirt collars, but a decade plus of not taking care of himself led to
Watusi's situation worsening to the point that it could no longer be
ignored. Max recalls walking into the emergency room of MCV Hospital
with Watusi and seeing the horrified expressions on the nurses' faces.
The size of the goiter was the type of extreme case you'd see
documented in a medical publication. The nurses made him sit in a
wheelchair and immediately whisked him away to see a doctor. Watusi,
as usual, was very nonchalant about the whole thing, amused by all the
fuss, cracking jokes as he was pushed down the corridor.Watusi received treatment, and his condition seemed to be under
control, but gradually Max saw a change. He attributes most of it to
the toll disease had taken on his friend physically and emotionally.
His mood and psyche were altered by illness. After years of health
struggles, Linwood "Watusi" Cheatham left this world at the age of
47, September 3, 1996. Max remembers his charismatic "brother", as
looking like a cross between Jimi Hendrix and Bootsy Collins back in
the day, with a larger than life personality. "The guy was magic...I
saw him perform hypnotism on people just by walking into a room." Through the first half of the 1980's, Max Monroe spent most of his
time holed up in Room 111 creating new material through the chaos and
squalor of his surroundings. He'd encountered some characters during
his stay at The Earle. There was the guy who claimed to once be part
of Elvis's Memphis Mafia, the two retired circus clowns, one of whom
had appeared on the cover of Life Magazine in the 30's, the reputed
rich eccentric, Dick Griffith, who happened to be President of The
Richmond Rose Society and Secretary of the local chapter of the
Archeological Society of Virginia. He'd lived at the Earle since
moving to Richmond in the late 50's. By far the longest resident, Dick
inexplicably was still there. "Look around.", Max philosophizes,
"There is something you are to learn, someone you are to meet or a
gift could be hiding in the clutter of dismay." He quickly adds, "Of
course, sometimes this idea is pure bullshit and you need to get the
hell out of there." He finally made his exit in 1985, but the darkness
and grit of The Earle remained present in the music he was creating.In May of 1986 the remaining residents of The Earle were handed
eviction notices. Just a few weeks earlier, The Jefferson had reopened
under new ownership. As The Jefferson Sheraton, it had undergone three
years and 30 million dollars worth of renovations and was on its way
to becoming a five star hotel. Its latest acquisition, The Earle, sat
boarded-up, a haven to homeless squatters who routinely broke in and
set it ablaze. Public outcry led to the bombed-out, blighted property
finally being demolished in the Winter of 1989. Today the ground where
The Earle Hotel once stood is a parking lot for The Jefferson.Max Monroe has spent the last three decades making music. This
collection focuses on a specific period from his prolific and widely
varied output, a time when Monroe was diligently mailing demo
cassettes to record labels in the hopes of making it as a songwriter. 
One such tape, sent to Capitol Records in the early 90's, garnered
this curt response from then President of the R&B Division, Joy
Bailey: "Some music was never meant to be heard." In hind sight, the
odds were more than stacked against Max and his songs, but there is
something undeniable about these recordings, starkly honest, deeply
personal, yet demanding attention. The story behind these tapes is one
of conviction and persistence in the face of rejection and
indifference. It is time for this music to be heard.

Hi, interesting story. I lived in Richmond in mid seventies grew up in Middlesex, we used to play soccer against Maggie Walker. Was the guy ,Wolf, really religious? Remember talking to a guy with dreadlocks one time around VCU who had a guitar and asked him if he wanted to get high(weed) and he said hr got high on Jesus. I believe this kid was in a band that played between sets for a band called AwarenessArt Ensemble at ,of all places: Hard TimesMoe Haun-- Providence, RI