1 - Tell us how
your project(s) were started.
I had worked previously
at 924 Gilman Street and before that College radio in Alabama, there's pluses
and minuses to working in a co-opt setting and my on-going frustration with
the minuses of it ( basically politics) led me to want to start "my own"project,
which was the label. Ironically a label isn't really your own project as unless
you're personally recording and performing the music, you're still dependent
on other people. I choose Local favorites DEAD AND GONE for the labels first
release and I think they set the tone for the dark edged type of sound it's
come to be associated with.
2 - What does music,
in it's entirety, mean to you?
An avenue for self indulgence. An entryway to dreams, a waste of time, a transmission of thoughts and ideas by sound. That all sounds very art school. Tthere's elements to good music that words don't precisely convey because you're abstracting it into words and the connotations become different. What does Miles Davis Mean to me? What does WARRANT me to me? What does John Phillips Sousa or the Wrigley's Gum commercial jingle mean to me? What does TERVEET KADET or the MC5 mean to me? The Simpsons theme song? Playing trumpet in the school band in 9th grade? Seeing Butthole Surfers on Another Man's Sac tour? Prince? Wagner? Lipcream? The guitar-playing Chicken Hawk in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons? That "LIKE A ROCK....OOOOOOOAAAAHHHH LIKE A ROCK" song that's always on truck commercials? The answers are all different and your answers are different than mine, and different from the next persons. Like anything else, music can be righteous and downright glorious in it's evocation of mood or feeling or just sadly shabby, disheartening and disappointing. Songs can evoke times spent listen to them, the intent of the musician, a feeling of empowerment, I dunno. That's too much like, "If you met an alien with no ears, how would explain music to him?" I can't explain that, though I can argue for hours why THE WIPERS, MISFITS or HUVUDTVATT are good bands. This would be totally lost in terms to someone deep in DJ culture. I once knew someone who had a neighbor who collected Polka LP's, not in some retro way, this was like a 40-50 year old man who was seriously diehard into Polka and had thousands of Polka records. It just seemed like Insanity to me, like How could you tell the difference? Accordions, some ompa, all that shits going to sound the same. Then Again I have thousands of punk rock records, that probably all would sound like loud guitars and guys screaming to this Polka man. how could you tell the diffference? The meaning is personal and subjective.
3 - What does art,
in it's entirety, mean to you?
Art means outwardly
manifesting inner emotions, ideas and feelings. I finally realized a few years
back that art and artistic ideas are much more important to me than the usual
benchmarks of "Success" society strives for. I , again , don't feel
that I or anyone can really equate Warhol, Dennis the Menace, Reubens, Mad Mark
Rude, Goya, Mr. Bubble and Frank Frazetta into one easy to contemplate
package. Duchamp raised the bar by giving free license to turn EVERYTHING into
Art, so it's kind of impossible to point at one meaning or idea. Plus for the
same reasons of abstraction of words, the meaning You will read this as will
come to imply a different visual image than what I'm precisely thinking of.
Maybe that's more what art is about, trying to pin down precisely what is in
your head to convey it more succinctly to another persons or people.
4 - Who is your favorite author, and why?
Probably whatever is next to the bed, which is right now Sarah Vowell Take the Cannoli, H.G. Wells Complete Works, and Mark Bowden Killing Pablo. I like comics a lot and my favorite stories there are generally superhero deconstruction from the 1980's - Alan Moore, Frank Miller, etc
5 - As your best friend, describe yourself.
Jovial, friendly,
Loyal, hard working, Creative
6 - As your worst enemy, describe yourself.
Disorganized, self-defeating,
insecure, delusional, ill tempered.
7 - If your persona were immortalized as a cartoon character, who would it be?
Either Ookla the
Mok from Thundarr the Barbarian or Lucky from the Lucky Charms Cereal
commercial, it's a tough call.
8 - Do you think there are conspiracies against the "everyday person"?
Conspiracies? No,
because that implies intent. I think there are real barriers to the "everyday
Person" and things that impede though and action and realization of one's
potential. These aren't planned, per say, but just marks of regressive thought
of what possibilities could be, usually handed down from people's folks or upbringing.
I'd like to think with each generation people would continue to evolve in thought,
but sadly racists really just make more baby racists, Or insecure people convey
that same insecurities or Phobias to their kids or what not. THere was a good
LP years back by the band Dead Silence called Unlearning and while I
don't remember the LP that much, the title is a good concept. Try to step up,
drop bad patterns and be more.
9 - What do you do with your spare or free time?
It's one of those
situations where I never consider time "spare" - and "free",
well it implies the other time ISN'T "free". Sadly I think running
a small to medium sized record label is the same as working a job, and there's
always stuff to be done and it becomes a ball and chain outside of the time
you have to work as it always isn;t stuff that can be done at your leisure.
When I'm not working or working on the label I draw, cook, read, collect stuff
and thrift, hang out with my girlfriend, ride my bicycle and occasionally collapse
from exhaustion and drink a beer while mindlessly flipping the channels looking
for horror movies to only find them on the Spanish language channel and Curse
myself for taking German in High School.
10 - Please give us your interpretation of "the meaning of life".
To try and realize one's potential in things that interest you and find contentment within it.
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