For a guy who has dedicated himself to looking ahead, Jim Thomson is spending a lot of time living in the past these days. The drummer, promoter and Electric Cowbell label owner — a founding member of Bio Ritmo and the Alter Natives, best known to GWAR fans as skin-beater “Hans Orifice” — has a new project that celebrates the River City’s underground music roots.

On Jan. 30, Thomson’s newly established Richmond Relics imprint label will reissue (on streaming) “FA3574,” the rare debut release of one of River City’s true cult bands of the 1980s, Famous Actors From Out Of Town. The album will also be issued on limited edition vinyl on Feb. 13.

“It’s been a longtime dream of mine to do this,” he says.

Famous Actors — the band name was a nod to Richmond’s growing rep as a movie town — featured composer and keyboardist Marty McCavitt, percussionists Pippin Barnett and Johnny Hott, and multi-instrumentalist Paul Watson on trumpet, guitar and bass. “FA3574,” produced with engineer Bruce Olsen at Flood Zone studio in 1986, was originally available on a cassette distributed at the band’s rare gigs at places like Main Street Grill and Rockitz.

As Thomson writes about the band in his liner notes:

“All four were veterans of Richmond’s jazz, rock, and new-music communities, with deep connections to bands such as the Ululating Mummies, Orthotonics, Gongs Violence, House of Freaks, Idiot Savant, the Tom and Marty Band, and The Snakehandlers. Their creative pedigree extended well beyond the city, with members later contributing to influential projects including Sparklehorse, Cracker, Curlew and Gutterball.”

Thomson became a key member of the scene, and has worked to produce, promote and disseminate alternative music ever since — he’s also still making it, currently serving as drummer in the group Motherfuckers JMB & Co with Animal Collective’s Brian Weitz and Marc Minsker.

Over the past decade and a half, Thomson’s small-press Electric Cowbell label has been responsible for a slew of 45s and albums from the likes of Debo Band, Cheick Hamala Diabate, Orquesta el Macabeo, Tribu Baharú, Richmond heroes No BS! Brass Band and his old compadres, Bio Ritmo. The Village Voice proclaimed the label “the best spearheaders of the vinyl revival” in 2011.

In addition to the Famous Actors release, Thomson’s new Richmond Relics will also digitally reissue the albums that his seminal prog-punk instrumental band, Alter Natives, recorded for California-based punk label, SST Records, in the late ’80s.

Calling from his home in the Mt. Pleasant area of Washington D.C. — where his landlord is former Minor Threat and Fugazi vocalist Ian MacKaye —  Thomson talked with Style Weekly about his early days in the Richmond music scene, the sounds he’s helped to curate, and why it’s the perfect time to get nostalgic.

Style Weekly: You’ve run Electric Cowbell since 2010, and put out a lot of very eclectic material.

Jim Thomson: Electric Cowbell is a boutique label, it’s not a huge record label. I generally work on projects where I have some degree of association with the actual musicians or the music. I don’t have a process where I take demos from people and that kind of stuff.

You put out a lot of world music, right?

Yes and no. I’ve not stayed in that box. I’ve got a few rock records on there. My old punk band, Time is Fire, is on the label. There’s a band from D.C. called Heavy Breathing that I did a record with. But yeah, then there’s a Slavic brass band [Slavic Soul Party]. There’s Zedashe, the polyphonic Georgian group that has ties to Richmond through Manny Mendez [owner of Kuba Kuba]… so yeah, there is the kinda global music thing.

Why did you start this new [imprint], Richmond Relics?

I was originally going to put out the Famous Actors From Out Of Town reissue as an Electric Cowbell record. It took a few years for it to come together, finding the source tapes, talking to those guys. And then life happened. My mom died four years ago, so I put everything on pause. And then the Alter Natives thing came up, and the guys, my old bandmates, were like, ‘Yeah, put it all back out, that’d be great.’ So I started the process of getting everything remastered and I thought, ‘Well, this stuff’s a little different than Electric Cowbell, it’s kind of geographically specific.’ I felt it would be good to have a new imprint and I can put everything under that.

Why did you want to start with Famous Actors From Out of Town?

All my life, putting this back out has been something I’ve wanted to do. I felt like the band was criminally overlooked. They were really influential for me when I got to Richmond. This has been in the works for a few years. It took a little bit of research and I had to propose the idea to these guys. Paul Watson was still alive at that time [he died in 2024 after a battle with Parkinson’s disease].

What was it about them that so impressed you?

Their shows were like legendary local events. I loved that they had this wide appeal from metal heads to jazz fans to, you know, art students. And I really liked the two drummer approach, especially those particular two drummers. Plus the record is so good, you know? It’s very original sounding; it’s got some of that ‘less is more’ philosophy but it’s apparent that these guys are really badass musicians.

Going all the way back, what brought you to Richmond in the mid-’80s?

When I was 18, I knew I didn’t want to stay in Front Royal. But I had a perception of Richmond as a big, scary city. I went there on a field trip and didn’t have a high opinion of it. Then I met two girls from Richmond at the 9:30 Club [in Washington D.C.] at a 10,000 Maniacs show, in the summer of ’84. I didn’t know where I was gonna go to college. But they were super nice, really cool looking, and they were talking up Richmond. They said, ‘You should try to go to VCU, it’s not that hard to get into. It’s not very expensive.” It was like July, early July when I met them. And [laughs] I looked into it, and drove down there one day, put an application in, and drove back, got accepted, I think, that same week. But I really did come to Richmond because I’d met two really cool people. It’s that simple.

Was it initially as cool as they said?

When I got there, the first night I was in Richmond, I met some people on Shafer Court, some punkers, you know? And they told me about a show at Hard Times. So I just followed the group. I think Battalion of Saints was playing, and then I saw all these punks, you know? And there was something a little different about it.

I’d gone to shows in DC, and I had a perception of that being a little cliquish and … it could just feel insular. But Richmond felt really open. I met these people that became lifelong friends on that first day. And there were local groups I saw, like Honor Roll, Death Piggy, The Mystagogues,The Good Guys, The Orthotonics … and Famous Actors. And every time I’d see a show like that, I would think, ‘I’ve made the right decision. I’m in the right place.’

You came at a time when Richmond music was flourishing. 

Right. I was blown away by all the creative stuff happening in the city and meeting really interesting folks, sculptors, painters, and people like Dave Brockie. The music scene, the rags like “Throttle,” it just felt really vibrant and creative. Rebby [Sharp, of the Orthotonics], Danny Finney [Orthotonics], Dave Brockie [GWAR, Death Piggy] so many people were refugees from Northern Virginia and DC to Richmond, who came here to go to art school… there was a kind of migration.

What was the scene’s reputation to the outside world?

Maybe not so much now, but you were up against this perception of Richmond being kind of a backwoods, Southern capital of Confederacy town. Like, you know, nobody’s gonna expect there to be a salsa band there, like Bio Ritmo, or a band like the Orthotonics. When you’re there in it, it’s brilliant. You know, you’re bathing in the scene, it’s very supportive. But when you try to get out of town, and say you’re from Richmond, Virginia, it is hard to get people to take you seriously.

Your band Alter Natives eventually became one of the city’s key groups. Richmond Relics is also reissuing their catalog. Talk about that.

Yes, we did three albums for SST and we had one demo cassette we put out, the one that we gave to Black Flag that got us signed to SST. I have a quote from Randy Blythe [Lamb of God] about us. He talks about how, when he saw us it made him feel like he was in the right place, sort of like what I told you about my experience.

But for years, it’s been hard to find our music in any one place on the internet. There’s some YouTube stuff, but I just thought, well, ‘I’m gonna remaster all our albums and our first demo cassette, and just put it all out.’ Those will be available worldwide through all streaming platforms on Feb. 13. I’m not doing vinyl … it’s a big commitment and it’s expensive.

After the Famous Actors and Alter Natives reissues, what’s next for Richmond Relics?

There’s other stuff I’m interested in, like Burma Jam. I think reissuing King Sour would be cool. I’d love to talk to The Orthotonics. Maybe some folks will read this and I’ll get solicitations [laughs]. Let me get through these two and see what gets stirred up.

If you’d like to purchase a copy of Famous Actors from Out of Town’s vinyl reissue, you can purchase it at Electric Cowbell Records’ bandcamp. You can also purchase the record at Plan 9 Music in Carytown. The vinyl will be released on Feb. 13 and digital and streaming will be available on Jan. 30.