Russell Wodehouse was truly inspired. After reading Ray Troll and Brad Matsen's book "Planet Ocean" Russell got together a group of nationally unknown musicians and put together this GREAT, hmmmm... spacey but not too spacey, rocking but not too rocky, jazzy but not too jazzy, sexy, yep even sexy CD. I'm a long time fan of Big Name rock & roll and yet even after 15 years I still reach for "Dancing to the Fossil Record." My favorite cut is "Seconds In A Lifetime," which ends with some crankin’ guitar but "Gondwana Dreamland" with it's sweetness, "Swingin' In The Family Tree" with that fine sax and trumpet duet, "Life's Rich Pageant" taking you back to the first circus you ever saw and "Niobrara Jive (Dig This)" well, that's 5 and there's MORE. Fun, Kicking, Groove all on one fine CD. Buy it, you'll like it!

Chip Porter

 When the California Academy of Sciences decided to host and travel my ‘Dancing to the Fossil Record’ exhibit in 1995 it quickly became obvious that with a name like that we’d need a cool soundtrack. I turned to my “Ratfish Brother” Russell Wodehouse for help and he delivered in a big, big way. We needed cool science-themed music that could be played in the hallways of giant natural history museums without causing a major distraction. At the same time it had to “rock”. Background… but not background. Quite a challenge! It had to be fun to listen to if you noticed it as you wandered through the exhibit.

 What Russ ended up creating is a sprawling masterpiece of an album, unlike anything you may have ever heard before. Russ did the keyboard and drum parts, wrote and sang lyrics, all inspired from the Planet Ocean, Dancing to the Fossil Record book.

 I recorded several interviews with scientist friends of mine and Russ went through the hours of tape and found the fun, noteworthy parts and set them to music. You can hear great nuggets of scientific wisdom from my dear friend Dr. Rainer Zangerl on a tune called ‘Extinction’s Drums’, Dr. John McCosker on shark attacks on ‘The One You Can’t See’, Dr. Jacques Gauthier on evolution on ‘Seconds in a Lifetime’ and ‘Chain of Being’ and fossil hunter/artist Chuck Bonner on ‘Planet Ocean’.

 Several Ketchikan musicians helped out including Dave Rubin, Dale Curtis, Shauna Lee and Claire Patton, my very own webmaster/designer Craig Koch on a  soulful didgeridoo along with some truly outstanding guitar work by Zeke Kelly.

 Believe me, this is one extraordinary CD! We’re the only place on the planet to carry it.

 RT

 It’s available only from our webstore at

 Here are a couple of the cuts referred to above: “Seconds in a Lifetime” featuring Dr. Jacques Gauthier now at Yale University, and one of my favorites the kick-ass title cut ‘Dancing to the Fossil Record’!