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about : Introduction

The Sheep Fiends compose music in an improvisational, impromptu and extemporaneous style. Lyrics are typically ad-libbed as the music is recorded, musicians find their way by ear and it is not uncommon for an instrument to change hands mid-song. If you are tired of music made by market analysis, if you have been listening to the same radio format for too long, then check out the Sheep Fiends.

The nucleus of Sheep Fiends formed around a number of DJ's who met in the early 1990's at WRDP: Radio DePaul (DePaul University's college radio station) in Chicago. At the time, Jim O'Rourke was the WRDP Radio DePaul station manager and we were all strongly influenced by him and his radio station's record collection. We have been inspired to record and release music ever since.

You can also check out The Sheep Fiends at these other places on the interweb:

Merchandise The Sheep Fiends merchandise available at Pale Black T-shirts
Bandcamp The Sheep Fiends on Bandcamp
Facebook The Sheep Fiends Unite! Public Group on Facebook
Reddit The Sheep Fiends subreddit

Most songs are available under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 license, so feel free to share songs marked as such with others in a non-commercial manner.

There are several ways to navigate the music of The Sheep Fiends on this website. Songs are rated with 1-5 stars (5 stars is best) to help guide you to songs we think you might like:

  • The Sheep Fiends main page provides a curated playlist of our favorite songs. This playlist is also provided as a ZIP file that is just under 700 MB and designed to fit on a single MP3 CD.
  • The recordings section allows you to navigate songs as they have been released on CD. You can click on the CD to listen to the songs. Some songs on older CD's are not available to listen to. Navigation options on the left include:
    • The Cassette Tape section provides information about cassette tapes released between 1992-1998. Some songs are not available to listen to.
    • Cover songs.
    • The ratings section highlights songs with higher ratings.
    • Videos.
  • The history section provides a timeline-based way to approach the material. Useful if you are wanting to listen to songs from a particular timeframe, like most recently recorded songs.
  • In the musicians section, you can click on a particular musician, then click on the "Songs" link on the left navigation to see songs associated with that musician. Note that some musicians may not be associated with any songs and will not have a "Songs" link.
  • You can also check out most recently released albums at The Sheep Fiends Bandcamp page.

Note that most material recorded before 2009 was recorded with lo-fi equipment, often nothing more than a stereo cassette tape deck connected to a soundboard. Music recorded before 1997 was recorded in mono. Some of these older lo-fi recordings can be a listening challenge. Music recorded since 2009 has made use of multi-track recording equipment and is better produced.

The material is slightly edited, but efforts are taken to retain the improv nature of the compositional and recording process. Typically, volume levels are adjusted, effects added and songs may be made shorter. It is rare that we do overdubs, but when we do they are typically done in an imrovisational 1-take manner.

Some quotes of inspiration...

Making music together is the best way for two people to become friends. There is none easier.

  • The Music Master, "The Glass Bead Game" by Hermann Hesse, in the chapter "The Call"

For art, the intervention of Capital always signals a further degree of mediation. To say that art is commodified is to say that a mediation, or standing-in-between, has occurred, & that this betweenness amounts to a split, & that this split amounts to "alienation." Improv music played by friends at home is less "alienated" than music played "live" at the Met, or music played through media (whether PBS or MTV or Walkman). In fact, an argument could be made that music distributed free or at cost on cassette via mail is LESS alienated than live music played at some huge We Are The World spectacle or Las Vegas niteclub, even though the latter is live music played to a live audience (or at least so it appears), while the former is recorded music consumed by distant & even anonymous listeners.

The Sheep Fiends Website

The Sheep Fiends have been organizing jams via email since 1994 and have had a web presence since 1995. An early version of The Sheep Fiends website from June 1996 can be viewed here. In 1996 the website adopted a black-background look-and-feel and started using CGI (Common Gateway Interface) technology written in Perl. An archived version of that site can be viewed on The Internet Archive Wayback Machine. CSS was introduced in 2003. The Perl scripts that make this website work are available under the GPL license and you can click on the link to download the sheepfiends-engine 1.10 tarball.