My long search for Wayne & Liz began in January, 2006 when I was living in Tokyo. One morning over breakfast (black coffee, white Daily Yamazaki toast glazed with impossibly smooth Sunton peanut cream), I encountered a post by the poet and archivist Kenneth Goldsmith (radio alias Kenny G) on WFMU's essential Beware Of The Blog. It gushed thus:

"Middle American husband and wife team Wayne and Liz are the Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsome of lo-fi Christian rock. Just when the alt-Christian musical landscape looked bleak following in the wake of WFMU's beloved Danielson, here comes Wayne and Liz. Sounding like a mix between Daniel Johnston and Moe Tucker singing "Jesus" with the Velvet Underground, this is some of the most wonderful outsider lo-fi stuff we've come across. "9-11 Warning" is a 12-minute outsider conspiracy tour-de-force rant and the other tracks are pure, aching beauty. And best of all, they're most likely not even aware of their avant-status. They have released no CDs and there's virtually no information about them -- true outsiders. There's a huge whack of amazing MP3s here. Our advice: download them all!"

On playing just two songs, I went over to Wayne & Liz's website with its animated doves and played some more...and then some more...and later that evening, heeding sage Kenny's directive, I downloaded them all. Only three days later, the link was dead and the site was never resurrected. A frustrated poster (Mike) commented: "Can't get through to ampcast. You know that's annoying me no end right now. What these xians hiding from now?"

A week or so later having spent time listening to all of the recordings, I was moved to comment on the WFMU blog: "One hell of a find. And a fluttering dove on the website (170 hits and counting). This is up there on the highest marble ridges of the pantheon of untutored, unmediated masters. Daniel Johnston, Connie Cook, Fran Baskerville, Janeen Brady, Gen Orange, Wayne & Liz. Thank you, Jesus."

Years passed. In the eventless interim, I played some of Wayne & Liz's songs to like-minded friends in cars and small rooms. The newly-fangled wonder of social media meant some propagation of the Wayne & Liz songbook became easier than the Pritt and Xerox faff of a pamphlet or zine. On December 6th, 2009, I placed Wayne & Liz's 'Jesus Went To The River' at a giddy number 2 in my '21 Tunes From The 21st Century (Thus Far)' end-of-decade list between 'Noir Désir' by Vive la Fête at #1 and 'Clip' by Oval at 3. In August 2012, I made a short video for 'Jesus Went To The River' and posted it on YouTube. To this day, it is the only song of theirs to appear on the platform. The video has harvested 214 views in 10 years, a significant percentage of which could not watch to the end of its mammoth 1-minute 42-second runtime.

During the enforced pest rest of Covid-19, like many I realised the long months of nothing could be turned to self-improvement so I wrote and recorded a couple of gigantic albums, learnt to play the soprano saxophone, and decided to start a record label that would be an outlet for outsider music, a label for the awkward, unloved and lost. Wayne & Liz were, rightly, right at the top of my rescue mission. So, I began a slow and fairly fruitless effort to find the Laskowkis and started with some messages to the people who had brought them to my attention.
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This is a message I sent to Kenneth Goldsmith in July 2020:

Dear Kenneth,

Hope you are well. A thousand moons ago, you wrote about Wayne & Liz on the WFMU Beware Of The Blog (Jan 24th 2006...to refresh). I followed your advice and fell in love with their music...downloaded everything from their (now defunct) site and floored/amused/bored all and sundry on car journeys with my 'Best of Wayne & Liz' CD-R...I even made a YouTube video (two likes in ten years).

I tried to contact Wayne & Liz via their old site but had no reply and have at intervals tried to track them down (family name Laskowski)...a web search now only turns up your post and my video. Do you have any clue to their whereabouts? Do you remember how you heard about them? I am starting a record label in the autumn and would love to put out a disc featuring their music.

Many thanks

Anthony Dolphin
Dartmouth, England

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And his reply a few days later:

OMG I haven't thought about them in years. They were amazing. I haven't a clue. But keep hunting them down--a release would be incredible, particularly for WFMU. Keep them posted on yr progress. Best of luck!

Kenny G

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Thanks for getting back to me, Kenny. I knew you'd recall them.

I will carry on the pursuit. You refer to the midwest, but could you hazard a guess at which state they're from? I am English so lots of non-urban mid-western accents sound very similar to me....there are lots of spoken word pieces on the recordings...so perhaps I should outsource to some US linguist friends.

Love your work.....Ubuweb is one of the crown jewels of the internet along with Sir Shambling's Deep Soul Heaven.

Best wishes,

Anthony

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Hi Kenny.

No joy yet on the Wayne & Liz trail. A few false leads. They certainly removed all trace of themselves when they left the internet. Perhaps it was the WFMU BOTHB attention that drove them into the woods.

Anthony

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Kenny thanked Stark Effect in his original post. This turned out to be the sampler and collector, Dr David Dixon, who had sent him the Wayne & Liz links at the station.

Dear Dr Dixon,

In 2006, WFMU posted a number of MP3s on their blog by the duo Wayne & Liz Laskowski. The link is still there but sadly, Wayne and Liz's site has long since disappeared. Fortunately, I downloaded all of the available files from their site and even contacted them about the prospect of releasing their music. I got no reply.

In January, I started a label (Leapantique) with the express aim of making lost & obscure(d) music available. One of the top items on our wish list of releases was an album compiling our favourite songs by Wayne & Liz. After 6 months of enquiries and dead trails of correspondence with midwest church groups and people named Laskowski, we are very close to conceding we might never trace the duo. It was only only on revisiting the blog entry again this morning that I noticed it credits you (as Stark Effect) for the Wayne & Liz tip. And so, I wonder whether you can recall how you encountered their music and whether you may be able to orient me to their geographical whereabouts...even a state would help!

Sorry for the deeply obscure request and its sudden appearance. I hope you are well and still making and enjoying music yourself.

Many thanks for any help,

Anthony Dolphin
Leapantique / a label of love for the lost and obscured outsiders out there

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Hi Anthony,

I encountered Wayne & Liz through the mp3 dot com website in the early '00s and downloaded several of their tracks. I know that at the time they were living in Wisconsin, but I have no information beyond that sadly.

The only tracks I have are: It's Time, The Life, Praise Ye the Lord, The Lord is Calling, Strange Relationships, Grace and Mercy, Jesus Went to the River, The Ten Commandments, 9/11 Warning

Cheers,

David
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Hi David,

Impressed and happy that you remember them. Wisconsin is as good a lead as any. Tallies with Kenneth Goldsmith's (WFMU, ubuweb) recollection that they were from the midwest, too. There have been a few false trails (a Wayne & Elizabeth at a church group in Maryland for example) so hopefully this might get us somewhere.

Thanks for your help...your role is more than enough to earn an album credit.

Best wishes from Dartmouth, Devon.

Anthony
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I wrote to around 100 Laskowskis and a number of church groups in Wisconsin. Most ignored the message but there were twenty or more polite replies. None offered up a couple named Wayne & Liz apart from one, a churchgoing Wayne & Elizabeth Laskowski in Elkhorn. I found an address and wrote them a letter convinced the search was over. I received no reply.

So, should this tiny release shake some leaves from the tree and reveal Wayne & Liz to me, all the better. But I suspect they do not want or have no need to be found just as long as they're saved.


Read Kenneth Goldsmith's original blog entry:
blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/01/wayne_and_liz.html