online music magazine and proponent of proper booth plurality
Who started the label and why?
My friends and I (Neeel Young) started the label in high school, basically to put a unifying name around all the crap we were doing - recording tapes and "putting them out" as legitimate, mass-products on Yeay! 'Records', when, in fact they were made in such small runs, and distributed so poorly, that they rarely made it out of our circle friends, much less the confines of our public school - not to mention the fact that we never once had put out a record, they were exclusively tapes - but kept "records" in the name, because that's what a legit label makes.
What's the story behind the name?
Yeay! (pronounced, "Yay!" in exclamation) was just a stupid sarcastic thing we'd squawk when overcome with boredom but mask it with a cheer of enthusiasm - just sounded good, I guess.
What keeps you inspired to continue doing the label?
Makin’ music that nobody's interested in. Hearing music that nobody's interested in and putting it out and finding out that somebody actually listened and responded/connected with it somehow. Also, just knowing that it's part of a continuum of what I have always been making and exploring most of my creative life. Pretty simple stuff, I guess.
What's the hardest thing about running an independent label these days?
Distribution is always an issue and never having enough time to really focus on making the label pay for itself or make it a truly wonderfully consuming aspect of my life. It's like some weird sharing-habit where I’m always wasting time and losing money, but conversely hearing/seeing great art and making new friends.
If you could work with any one artist, who would it be and why?
Tough question - mmm . I’d have to say it'd be somebody I do not know yet - somebody that makes wild, inescapably brilliant sounds, but is not caught up in any particular scene - or if so, one that I have no connection to or little understanding of - someone who does amazing studio work - I’m definitely interested in studio-concoctions. Maybe real-alien jams made inside volcanoes made new interdimensional synthetics. Grace Jones? Tod Dockstader? Konono No.1? DJ Rupture?
What's your demo policy?
I try to listen to everything we get - try to respond, but sometimes there's stuff that I have no idea what to do with, don't like, or worse - lose, find later, and like…. But usually, we don't get all that much mail - it's such a small operation and only in the past two years, have I released material from folks outside western Massachusetts. So I guess, I’d say, we don't have a policy - just make sure you write me something, don't just send a tape in the mail w/out any info - like those poorly-marked tapes from SF I got last week!
What do you have planned for the future?
More releases: Trebville Exchange (improvised recordings from a duo of myself on tapes, percussion and Sharon Cheslow on guitar, electronics, voice), a tape by this wonderful dork from Worcester, Jacob Berendes, who for this tape will play sax into a PD/MSP patch program along with a stupid chattering casion drum-machine…. A buncha other stuff, but I’m waiting to hear back from folks.
What's the best record you've heard in the past year?
I’ve been really diggin' this totally un-noise reissue record "Calling Out of Context" by the late great disco producer Arthur Russell. . . was that 2004?
Any closing advice?
Please beware of labels - both kinds - they're pretty stupid. Oh, and dork out. Thanks.
|