by Tim Stegall
From
the moment Sam Phillips determined that what his bank account could stand would be the
discovery of a Caucasian capable of the musical fire of an Afri-
can-American, the small, independent record company has been the backbone of
rock & roll. Sure, majors had more resources and could more efficiently
disseminate the teenage news (as Phillips discovered when he couldn’t keep
stores stocked with Jerry Lee’s “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”), but what they
couldn’t provide was a nurturing environment in which an artist could grow and
develop a version of that news. And no matter how picked-over indie label
rosters become in the majors’ vulture-like feeding frenzies, the indie remains
rock’s spine.
As a music community, Austin’s housed its share of small labels. During the
Eighties, Rabid Cat gained a reputation for sharing thrash demons the Offenders
as well as the angular arthouse aggression of Scratch Acid with the punk
universe. Meanwhile, Jungle issued some fine, off-center roots howlings from
the likes of Evan Johns & the H-Bombs, amongst others.
There was a label drought in Austin as the Eighties dissolved into
the Nineties. King Coffey’s decision to parlay some of his Butthole Surfers
money into giving art-grind bands like Crust and Ed Hall a home via his Trance
Syndicate label seemed to catalyze a number of similar-minded decisions amongst
some enterprising souls with a love of music and some surplus cash. The stories
of thriving local indies like Rise or Unclean hardly need reiterating (see
accompanying story for update). But what about even smaller labels?
For instance, Bob Coleman’s Over and Out is almost as old as Trance, and has
released a handful of interesting records, including stuff by ST-37 and what is
possibly the last great record the Pocket FishRmen made, the “I Don’t Wanna Be
Crazy” 7-inch. Turkey Baster Records and Little Deputy Records are responsible
for a clutch of fine punk releases, including (in the latter’s case) Gomez’s
great, Danzig-baiting debut LP. Existential Vacuum has been filling a number of
long-unnecessary gaps in Texas pogo punk collections, seeking out, finding, and
making available archival material from the Hugh Beaumont Experience, the
Nervebreakers, and the Huns. Local poster artist Lindsay Kuhn’s been
rechanneling some of his profits into his No Lie operation, with flagship
releases including the latest Fuck Emos LP plus the upcoming second LP from
Jesus Christ Superfly. Jeff Smith’s Only Boy Records straddles the same punk
and roots-trash fences as his bands (The Hickoids, Wounded Turkey), offering
his own Gay Sportscasters, an Evan Johns live album, Big Drag’s debut CD, and
Smith’s cockeyed small-town rocktrash tribute to David Bowie, the Only
Bowie compilation.
So, what possesses someone to start a record company? It varies from case to
case. Usually, a friend of a band sees his pals struggling unsuccessfully to
scratch the itch to make a record, and finds himself volunteering to issue the
slab himself. Undone’s Christian Caperton was a Sound Exchange employee caught
up in the excitement of co-workers Craig Koon and Roger Morgan launching their
respective Rise and Unclean imprints, and inaugurated Undone with johnboy’s
initial 45, “Calyx.” The Continental Club’s Steve Wertheimer used the Naughty
Ones as an excuse to initiate Continental Records. Jeff Cole and his Doolittle
Records are the exception to this template: although his label would eventually
make available the first Prescott Curlywolf album as well as Hamell on Trial’s
excellent debut CD, he began the label as an excuse to exercise production and
engineering skills for which he could not find a demand.
“Nobody knew the bands I’d worked with or played in back in Boston,” says the
cropped, bespectacled New Mexico native Cole of his early days in Austin, which
came right after his getting a degree in Music Production and Engineering at
Boston’s Berklee College of Music in 1989. “At that point, I just wanted to be
an engineer, basically. I came down and tried to do demos for bands, and they
didn’t really have the money or the time to do it right. If they’re putting up
the money, it’s hard for me to look at ’em and say, `Trust me. I know what I’m
doing. Do it my way.’ So, I just decided to start the label on a whim. I put an
ad in the Chronicle in ’91 that just said, `Bands, singer-songwriters
worth recording, let me hear you.'” Meredith Louise Miller was among the
respondents, leading to her debut CD, Bob, also Doolittle’s first
release.
Usually, much like Sam Phillips and Sun, small labels are
reflective of their owner and his tastes. Jeff Cole jokes that Doolittle is his
“record collection, the most expensive one in the world.” This hasn’t resulted
in a cohesive Doolittle aesthetic as with the other labels here – not much
shared ground between Miller or Ed Hamell or recent signing Slobberbone and
their Denton-based rural version off the Replacements, is there? Wertheimer
sees Continental Records as an extension of the club, to the point of the
label’s installing an ADAT recording set-up at the Continental Club for an
upcoming series of quarterly live compilations showcasing its favored genres
(i.e., rockabilly, lounge, country, etc.). Undone’s noteworthy for the arthouse
clang of Glorium, Swine King’s disturbo punkisms, and Jack O’Fire’s skewed
garage muscle-flexing, acts cohesive only in their non-standard nature even for
their chosen styles.
“I’m finding out,” muses Undone’s Caperton, “that you can’t put out purely
what your taste is, especially when your tastes are as eclectic as mine. You’d
probably lose money. I’m finding out that the garage rock-rooted music will
sell a little bit better than the other stuff, mainly because the people who
buy it are more inclined to go out and get their hands dirty in looking for
releases and writing mail-order places or whatever.” Which means there’ll
surely be a rush on record stores the moment the next Undone release – a
10-inch with ex-Jack O’Fire harmonica abuser Walter Daniels collaborating with
Memphis junk rockers the Oblivians and Jeff Evans (of ’68 Comback/Gibson
Brothers fame) – is unleashed.
Finances are always precarious in the world of small labels. Jeff Cole was
waiting tables on weekends to fund Doolittle before finding some investors.
Wertheimer has a partner in Continental Records named Jack Hazzard, and has
kept the label a separate financial entity from the Continental Club. Caperton
was socking much of his Sound Exchange paycheck initially into Undone before
Jack O’Fire’s strong sales helped make the label somewhat self-sufficient. This
means there’s not much in the way of amenities: Promotion is minimal, and
things like tour support are practically non-existent. Which is why low
overhead is a necessity.
“We did give the Naughty Ones some tour support,” says Wertheimer. “But
basically, Continental is me and Jack and an assistant who runs the office. We
can’t afford hiring someone to work radio or the press or anything.” This is
the main reason for the decision to keep Continental’s roster (basically, the
Naughty Ones and 8 1/2 Souvenirs) small, to concentrate on
those two artists and the compilation series, knowing the club and its
reputation will sell records as much as anything.
Cole, however, keeps Doolittle small precisely so that some of those
amenities can be provided. He talks of one music biz pro chastising him,
insisting he needed to sign 10 bands, throw them against the wall, and see
which ones stick. He’d rather allow a small roster breathing room, and have
money available for tour support and the like. “It’s like a dad situation,” he
smiles. “`You need money? Here.’ That was one of the cool things about
Slobberbone. They weren’t so much concerned about the royalty rate. They wanted
to know, `What can you do to get us on the road?’ Great. They’re willing to
work.”
While both Wertheimer and Cole feel whatever mystique Austin holds has been a
selling point with their labels, Caperton thinks Undone’s locale can be as much
a hindrance as a help, simply because of the distance from distributors.
“There’s many cases where labels have to show up at distributors’ offices after
the 60- or 90-day terms have passed and they don’t get paid. They want to know
where the money is, and they end up walking away with armloads of product as
compensation. It’s just not as easy to sit on the distributors when you work
out of Austin.”
Caperton, for one, plans a relocation once he finishes his computer science
degree at UT. Although he once considered Undone a local label, as Caperton
puts it, “Undone goes wherever I go.” Already, with Walter Daniels working with
Memphis-based collaborators, he’s seeing Undone’s Austin identity blurring.
Jeff Cole is comfortable remaining in Austin, but he does have a vision for
Doolittle that extends beyond the city limits. (“I’m already looking at acts in
Chicago and other towns, and Slobberbone’s from Denton.”) Wertheimer feels
Continental’s reliance on the club’s talent will keep the label a local one,
“even though touring acts do come through.” However, Continental Records very
nearly worked with non-locals Useless Playboys before their recent demise, and
some Useless Playboys material is in the can, ready to be issued posthumously.
But as Wertheimer jokes, “Hard as it is to sell a band that doesn’t tour, how
do you sell a band that doesn’t exist?!”
And so it goes. Before there were small labels, there were small labels. And
somewhere before that, there were probably small labels. And if this clutch of
small labels passes on, whether through death or relocation, other small labels
will likely open in their stead. As long as rock & roll bands form and rock
& roll songs are written and sung, there’ll be a need to record ’em, and a
need for a means to get ’em recorded and distributed. As long as those needs
exist, small labels will exist to fill those needs. Amen. n
This article appears in September 15 • 1995 and September 15 • 1995 (Cover).