I-Rails

Formed in the late 1980s, the I-Rails were an alternative independent rock band based in Oxnard, California. Consisting of three members; bassist/singer Chris O’Connor, guitarist Jeff Sparks (a childhood friend of O’Connor), and drummer Tim Lauterio; the I-Rails released a total of four albums, none of which received much public attention. After the fourth album, Panharmonium, was released in 1990 and similarly ignored, the band decided to separate. While Sparks and Lauterio went on to pursue other potential careers, O’Connor continued to work with material originally intended for a fifth I-Rails album. Inspired by bands such as Public Enemy, O’Connor recorded additional material and ultimately mixed a total of ten tracks on a broken-down 1969 Ampex 16-track tape deck on a budget of $1,000. After mastering, O’Connor released the demo to public music stations under the (misspelled) moniker “Primative Radio Gods”, a song on the I-Rails album Nine Songs from Nowhere. Like his former band’s works, O’Connor’s Rocket, as the album came to be called, was widely disregarded by both radio and the general public. Defeated, O’Connor retired from the music business and utilized his Navy training to pursue a job as an air traffic controller at Los Angeles International Airport. The remaining copies of Rocket were put into storage, where they would remain for several years. In 1996 they reforme to the Primitive Radio Gods.

Discography As I-Rails
Valentino Says (1987)
Unfocused (1988)
Nine Songs from Nowhere (1989)
Panharmonium (1990)
“Same Old Me” (1988) (Single)