Felix Culpa
Thirtieth anniversary edition of the “Poem Rocket starter kit”
Available soon for the first time on vinyl!
Coming soon from Silver Girl Records: Limited edition 12" gatefold with 180-gram double vinyl. And on streaming services everywhere.
The 30th Anniversary Reissue Edition of Poem Rocket’s Felix Culpa
- An underground classic, Poem Rocket’s Felix Culpa, will soon—for the very first time—be remastered and reissued on digital streaming platforms and limited-edition, 180-gram vinyl!
- This inaugural release marks the beginning of Silver Girl’s plan to remaster and reissue all of Poem Rocket’s major releases for streaming platforms & limited-edition vinyl reissues!
THE POEM ROCKET REMASTER-REISSUE PROJECT
EPISODE ONE:
Felix Culpa 1995/2026
NEW YORK CITY, 1994–1995 — The Age of the Compact Disc was in full swing as the “Roaring 20s” of alternative/indie rock simultaneously continued its steep ascent toward its apex in the weft of popular culture. Deep within that weft, Poem Rocket was gathering acclaim in fanzines and some of the bigger indie music mags of the day. First, two vinyl 7-inches on two NYC labels: Bear Records in late 1994 and PCP Entertainment in early 1995. Then two more songs appeared on compilations released by Silver Girl and Ba Da Boom Records in mid 1995. Finally, Bear Records—along with Carcrashh—co-released Poem Rocket’s Into the Aether 10" EP, which received “Single of the Week” in the famed Brit music mag Melody Maker. The buzz was on! The flurry of releases and press coverage—along with the intensity of their live shows—put “Poem Rocket” into the ears, into the eyes, and on to the lips of those in-the-know. And all of it congealed into the “Poem Rocket Starter Kit”: A collection of early releases amassed on a CD under the title Felix Culpa. O happy error!
More than just a glimpse of the NYC music underground c.1994 to 1995, this underground classic is a panoramic view of the wilder, deeper—more timeless, more literary—dimensions of a unique band emerging from the East Village/Brooklyn L-Train axis to gather critical acclaim as well as admiration in the subterranean realms of 90s indie rock. Note: In the decades following the 90s, however, Poem Rocket’s early releases had all but slipped quietly beneath the sound waves of contemporary underground music save for the wild sanctuaries of Last.fm’s streaming service or the random obscurities uploaded to the YouTubs [sic.] or music blogs posted by underground music vigilantes. But the oracles of this kind of oblivion cannot keep all of their secrets!
Now—in 2026—Silver Girl Records re-presents Felix Culpa, a full 30 years after its initial release. Expertly remastered by Kris Poulin for the old and the new ages, this collection of early recordings offers testament to Poem Rocket’s early exploits. For many listeners, this will be the first chance to appreciate Felix Culpa, which is available for the first time on all the major digital streaming platforms. Another happy error! And though the original 1995 recording was released as a digipak CD because, as the logic goes, the cardboard case made it feel more like a vinyl album cover, Felix Culpa will—for the very first time!—be available on limited-edition, 180-gram vinyl with a beautiful gatefold sleeve. Yet again, a happy error.
Felix Culpa—or the “happy error”—is an apt title for a collection of recordings by a band coming of age in the real NYC underground of the 90s, while at the same time, exploring the real periphery beyond the quagmire of the 90s, market-flooding slop. By happy error, Poem Rocket found itself on a wildly hip NYC record label boasting not only Matador distribution and Atlantic manufacturing, but perhaps the coolest indie logo ever: A memorable black and white logo of an explosive blast coming off the right hemisphere of a human brain!
Run by the mysterious Peter Kenis, PCP Entertainment was home to some of the darker elements of the NYC underground (i.e., Unsane, Motherhead Bug, Speedball Baby, The Spitters, and the Chrome Cranks, let alone L.A.’s Slug). Seemingly, the timing couldn’t have been better. Put bluntly, it was the kind of narrative stuff that culminating musical dreams in NYC are made on. And with closer inspection, a fabled story emerges with this remastered Felix Culpa reissue: A narrative that not only reveals some of the secret passageways in the cavernous architecture of the 90s musical underground, but an extensive historical garland of “happy errors” that brought Felix Culpa into being.
By happy error, Michael Peters had left the music scene in Ohio and found himself—somehow—in Richmond, Virginia. By happy error, he befriended and encouraged the soundscapes of Dennis Bass. By the happiest of errors, he met Sandra Gardner, and on their first date, encouraged her interest in playing bass guitar. United by musical aspirations, all three answered the call and artistic promise of New York City. And once in NYC, Peters—by happy error—reconnected with fellow-Ohioan Peter Aaron of the Chrome Cranks. Through Peter Aaron, Poem Rocket found drummer and experimental percussionist Andrew Nelson (Azalia Snail), who solidified the early Poem Rocket sound. It was also through Aaron that the band was offered a deal too amazing to refuse: Five dollars a song for the first recording session at Funhouse, the Chrome Cranks practice space and newly-christened studio. Poem Rocket became the first non-Crank band to record at Funhouse, and it follows that Felix Culpa is comprised almost entirely of tracks recorded and mixed at Funhouse.
Out in Alphabet City—on East Fourth Street at 235a between Avenues A and B—the first Poem Rocket session at Funhouse featured the engineering and production feats of two other Chrome Cranks: William Gilmore Weber (like Peters and Aaron, another Ohioan) and Jerry Teel (of Honeymoon Killers fame). All subsequent Funhouse sessions for what would become Felix Culpa were engineered and mixed by Weber, including home recordings on four-track cassette, with only one exception: “Animal Planter,” recorded by William Wells and Gary Olson (Ladybug Transistor) at Marlborough Farms studio in Brooklyn. Almost as soon as they were completed, these songs—soon to be staples of Poem Rocket’s early live shows—were picked up by the indie labels described above. To this day, “Small White Animal,” “Contrail de l’Avion,” and “Animal Planter” remain pillars of Poem Rocket’s live set. And in 2026, it still seems to be nothing less than a “happy error” that Poem Rocket might defy obscurity unlike a multitude of fated bands from that era. Maybe that’s because Poem Rocket obeyed the intense gravitational pull of the underground while adhering to a timeless sense of creativity? Maybe it’s because the underground, try as it might, doesn’t really know how to sell itself? Or maybe it’s because Poem Rocket was just too far out and extraterrestrial for their time? Whatever the case, this subjective fact exists: Silver Girl’s archival efforts have remade Poem Rocket’s legacy as much as its future.