Pugsley Munion began life under the name Mask in Fitchburg, Massachusetts . When the band recorded their first record for J & S Records in 1969 they found that the name Mask was already used so they had to come up with a new name for the band. So the story goes the bands road crew came up with the name
Pugsley from street sign in New York and the
Munion came from the name of a cop that had run into at a donut shop after a gig one night hence the name
Pugsley Munion. The band consisted of John Schuller keyboards, vocals and acoustic guitar, Thomas "Ducky" Belliveau, guitars bass & vocals, and Edward Kelly on drums and percussion. Schuller, the creative force behind the band wrote or co-wrote with Belliveau every track on their album. This very rare album was originally released in 1970 on J&S Records, a small R&B label and was recorded in New York at the Bell Sound Studios. The album contains some tasty guitar work on some of the tracks together with Schuller's thundering organ sound which makes this a totally unique hard rock album that will appeal to fans of many late sixties hard rock blues sounding bands. The band members are still involved in the music scene with Schuller recording in the mid 80's as part of Orion The Hunter with
Boston members and Belliveau being one of America's top session players touring and playing on albums with such notables as John Cafferty, Terrance Trent D'Arby Peter Wolfe and many more. Kelly is also a much in demand area session drummer. As a bonus to the original album this reissue contains two alternate demo versions of songs as well as a live song recorded in 1971. The CD booklet contains information on the band written by John Schuller and the songs have been taken from the master tapes for a crisp clean sound. ~ Keith Pettipas