Home Again, Home Again, Jigity Jog

That's right. Anya and I made it back last night after our week-long vacation and a Sissy Hankshaw-inspired thumbing across Wisconsin. Although our puny opposable appendages were no match for the sausage-thumbs of Sissy, I think we did okay, and our technique only improved with time.

If you need to get in touch with me, drop by my folk's house or drop me a line. I got one helluva deal through my service provider and turned in my cell for a touch-tone phone tethered to the wall. It still has the same number, so everyone can get a hold of me, but it makes me immune to turning into a cell-phone wielding citizen-cop!

The polls have closed on the issue of "hand-made or not." Check out the results, though it must be noted that no further analysis can be made that hasn't already been stated, and that there just isn't enough statistical evidence to warrant any conclusive judgments.

So what's next? the ever-faithful blog reader might ask. Good question. For starters, there are tapes to transcribe and I'll pay anyone $10 a tape for the privilege, no, the honor, of reviewing these tapes. When some guy "accidentally" took my bag off the bus from Austin to San Antonio, I wasn't worried about my clothes, my toothbrush, books, or passport–just my precious tapes. I could live with fuzzy teeth for a few days, but not the interviews. Better hurry, because there's never been a better time to hear your's truly sounding like the panting dog of enthusiastic interviewers.

It might be a good idea to listen to all the records I collected, too. I had a brief meeting with my Archivist for the Homemade Album Art Historical Preservation Society last night and she received some, but not all, of the records I scattered to the far reaches of the country. I also plan to start browsing through academic journals and write a piece for them. Why not? There's plenty of other texts to read in preparation as well. Ultimately, a gallery needs to be set up to promote a book. Sean had a great idea to trace the background, influences and process of four specific records in the same way that Michael Pollan might write about potatoes, marijuana, tulips and apples in his book, the Botany of Desire. On the other hand, a 12" coffee table book might just make a quick buck. One thing is for certain though: I have to get a motorcycle. Too many veteran cyclists, coupled with my natural tendency to challenge the status quo that I cannot help , (in this case the saturation of "bikers" infatuated with their pedal-powered cycles) and a few good books made me fall in love with the idea of touring America on a road hog.

Ah, America! The land of opportunity, the land of endless possibilities and innovation; the land of those with vision, with warped perception, with blinders even; the land of The Land Before Time, the land of the landless, the land of the moon landing, the land that is your land, the land that is my land; the land of scenic byways and desert highways, of concrete freeways and fantastical threeways; the land that aches to be romantic and regrets being lustily screwed; the land of tasty dishes and tasteless wishes; the land that exists in Google Maps, in films and flicks and picture frames but mostly in your head; the land that never quits; the land that you keep on discovering in the same way that Chistopher Columbus "discovered" the New World; the land that if let alone may be allowed to thrive in imaginative ways. It's there–it's always been there, and it will always be whatever you want and perceive it to be. I set out to find an America of amazing homemade records and those folks who make, collect and adore them. And that's exactly what I found. Cool.

Signing off,
James

Whoo hoo! Kalamazoo!

Here I sit at the Kalamazoo Water Street Coffee Joint biding my time until the train leaves for Chicago while easing back into the wonder-filled world of wireless after escaping to rural America for a few days. Thanks for the comment by anonymous! Maybe it’s August, that month of moving and leaving, visiting and reconnecting, though hot as hell all the way around, that forces one to be vehemently self-critical to elicit any kind of blog response. Anon is has a good point, and to some folk I’ve used the following analogy to illustrate what “homemade” means in the context of record covers. I hope Anon doesn’t mind that I get philosophical as I think about what homemade means and take this analogy a little too far.

Pies, to an extent, are like record covers. And I’m not talking about pizza pies, though pizzas can be made in a factory by machines or entirely homemade. However, pies make a more apt metaphor for record covers because they are known for their artistry as well as content (deliciousness).

Pies can be commercially produced and they can be made from scratch. The interesting part is that just like record covers, there are a million steps between scratch and commercially produced in both instances. Homemade, in the world of pie-making, could mean anything from milking the cows for cream to turn into butter for the crust, milling the flour and picking the berries, etc. to buying ready-made Pillsbury crusts to house the canned cherries. In the same sense, homemade record covers can be made from bug juice drawn on paper made from your neighbor’s tree that you pulverized into pulp, or, from sharpie written on computer paper. The assemblage of commercially-produced materials is just as homemade as the stuff made “from scratch.” Hold on to your butts because I’m about to take this way too far and talk about punk pies.

I think a parallel can be made between the record cover and the pie in terms of the punk philosophy/aesthetic dichotomy as well. The most philosophically punk/DIY pie would be the one that is made from scratch: all ingredients were harvested, collected and processed by the baker, down to the lemons used to tart up those super sweet blueberries. Perhaps the most aesthetically punk pie would be the hobo pie: canned pie filling sandwiched by two pieces of buttered bread grilled between two iron plates baked in an open fire.

Anon also makes the distinction between “the way” things were made and “how [the artist] went about making them.” I hope I am correct in interpreting this as meaning that there is a difference between the method of assembling the pie and how the baker prepared the crust and filling. If not, please correct me. Is it about the process, then, as Anon writes, and not about the particular method or medium that makes something homemade? I'm glad that people are picking up on this distinction, however subtle it is. Keep the discourse coming! And vote! one day left!

Laters, gators,
James

Secret Project Robot, NYC, Princeton

Greetings from Eugene V. Deb's house, student co-operative in Ann Arbor, Michigan! For those of you who don't know Mr. Debs, he was the Socialist candidate around the turn of the century who ran for president from the can (not the shitter) four consecutive times. What did they pin him with? Being a Socialist, of course.

Thanks to those who yielded to my pleas to vote on whether specific mediums of record covers are handmade or not. Voting ends in 5 days! I know it seems common practice today, but don't rig the elections!

Thursday I met up with Erik and Rachel, the directors and founders of Secret Project Robot, a gallery space in Brooklyn. It was amazing to see these folk, because last summer they curated "Art of Music: a show of handmade record covers." Right up my alley, eh? Naturally, I've been entertaining the idea of throwing up records on walls to showcase this strange phenomenon. But how to organize them? Any which way would certainly be interesting: chronologically to show how they've changed through time, from shoddy xeroxes (out of necessity) to intensive embroidery (for fetish's sake); geographically to show how certain artists and musicians have direct influence on each other, cultivating a local flavor; by medium, grouping xeroxes with xeroxes and kits with kits; by label; by genre; by artist; and by type (i.e. CD, cassette, 7", 12" other odd sizes). Erik and Rachel, on the other hand, organized the records by collector. Genius!

Rather than soliciting bands, artists, collectors and designers for material, a process that would certainly be exhausting, they solicited their own collections and others'. As keen readers are certainly aware of, collectors can be fetishists as well as hubs for handmade covers. As a hub, they metaphysically represent certain social and artistic circles; as a fetishist they represent perhaps an affinity for a certain aesthetic. Layers, Dear God!

Here's another interesting thing these two pioneers touched on: the devaluing of art brought on by the existence of handmade records. Several people, including Rachel and Erik, mentioned that band members in Brooklyn frequently double as artists, writers, filmmakers and designers. Covers done by band members/artists whose prints sell for thousands of dollars in Chelsea sell for normal record prices. Whoa. Is their record cover not just another one of their prints? As soon as you put a piece of vinyl in it, the value plummets! The parasitic record sucks the value from the art within $10-15 of its life.

Are you with me? Good. The issue of value goes deeper. The two curators agreed with me that usually there isn't much money, if at all, for bands to make on their homemade covers. As mainstream record labels continually co-opt aesthetics and sounds from the folk, they will never release three million hand screen-printed Nickelback records because they wont be able to make any money off it. I'm certainly of the opinion that blogs are not the place to talk trash and knock people, but get real, Chad Kroeger. ooops. By gosh, my delete key ain't workin'–I'll be damned!

Good stuff, good stuff. As for the Princeton Record Exchange, the "largest record store in the East," it was a bust for homemade stuff. There were a few things there, like 2 Avant Garde Jazz records, one of which was part of an edition of record covers made in hotel rooms across the world by Steely Dan's trumpet player. See for yourself–I threw them up on the "more awesome records" link in the sidebar. Check out the Academy Records collection, as there were a few cool ones from the hip part of Brooklyn.

I'm off to my grandparents' house tomorrow for a few days, and I'll be lucky if I have a cell phone signal let alone inter-web. I still have a few things to blog about, so this is not the end, though I'll be home soon. I've been hoarding ideas for mass-produced homemade record covers, so I may post some freebies for those interested in making your own.

Glad to be back up North,
James

P.S. in the words of Diddy, (he's just Diddy now, right?) Vote or Die!

Homemade or Not?

So hold the phone for a second. What exactly does this "researcher" mean by homemade? How does he get to choose what's homemade and what's not? After all, he's taking the photos of records, and supposedly, only the records he photographs are homemade. What if he misses something, or he deliberately leaves something out? He's never really gone into the Latin or Traditional Eastern European Polka sections in every store. What if there's a whole subculture of Polka nerds who feel like a limited edition of 300 homemade album covers made out of their late grandma's skirts would serve as the perfect visual complement to the auditory waltz?

Perhaps his methodology is flawed. Maybe he's lazy. There are homemade Avant Garde jazz records out there in the Jazz sections of record stores, believe it or not, but he doesn't talk about those. Why doesn't he comb through those cases of records like he does with the experimental and punk sections? He's probably missing some crucial local free jazz scene that is on the brink of blowing everyone's mind.

And what's with being selective about what records he actually trades for or –God forbid– purchases, and sends to people for his Homemade Album Art Historical Preservation Society, a mouthful which he refuses to turn into a a bite-size acronym? Is he turning into a fetishist himself? Maybe he has a set of his own aesthetics that he loves to entertain with scantily clad record jackets.

But really, let's not forget about this first question: what does the researcher mean by homemade? It really seems as though the homemade has to be something that's mass-produced, according to his undefined definition. But what of those DJ "white labels" (that usually just consist of putting a label on the vinyl or writing on it in sharpie), bootlegs and inkjet printed covers? So many of those "Punk" records he describes embody the punk aesthetic, but isn't inkjet printer art, done by some dude who recorded onto his laptop, burned CDs and printed the covers done in Microsoft Paint on his Canon 5200, embodying the punk philosophy the most? Is THAT homemade? Why aren't those covers, deserving a medal signed by Iggy Pop, featured in the Record of the Day sidebar?

Here's what we'll do in light of the researcher's pathetic attempts to include his readers: scrap that Record of the Day crap for a day and take a poll. It's a little sketchy, (but not methodologically sketchy like political polls are) since the blog's "gadgets" don't allow true/false yes/no answers, so you'll have to answer to each of the four categories. He's good with math–he'll figure out what the stats mean later. For now, do the poll and we'll find out what the rest of us think.

NYC, Babies!

I've finally made it to the city of infinite loonihood. Here's where I'm supposed to say something like, "well, not all of New York is like Manhattan," but last summer I discovered the insanity of living in a place like this, and I continue to stand by my opinion: you have to be bat-shit-crazy to revel in this kind of cool and efficient environment. Don't get me wrong–I don't wish to fall into "the city is evil" trap nor consign "bat-shit-crazy" to the Nike Store of qualifiers–this place fills me with wonder and awe at its inhabitants.

With that said, I'm going to briefly summarize some finding from 6 record stores yesterday. Well, more like three, because one had disappeared off the face of the earth completely, and two were closed. So I went to three and found some awesome stuff. It's interesting that stores don't have a "punk/indie/hardcore" section like most Westcoast and Southern cities do–it's all "indy" or "70s/80s/90s Rock." Found some cool looking experimental/noise stuff and a hand-collaged album cover coated in Mod-Podge. Effing sweet.

But seriously: in the Village there are record stores every two blocks. I have at least a dozen to go to in Manhattan and another God-knows-how-many in Brooklyn. We'll see about those other boroughs.

On tap: talking with Secret Project Robot folks, a day trip to the Princeton Record Exchange (boasting 150,000 volumes), a collector, and more record stores. There's plenty more blog to suck down in the next week, so don't go filling up those heads of yours with other lite bloggical nonsense.

I posted some findings last night. They're under "more awesome record covers" in the Tasty Links sidebar, as always.

Stay cool, daddies
James

Atlanta

One of the reasons for going to Atlanta was to test one of my many hypotheses. Although I didn't get to test it fully as I had other business to attend to in this green Georgian city, (and by 'green' I don't mean the buzzword to get folks to become environmentally conscious or hybridize their cars and washing machines–on the contrary, I mean it has a lot of trees) I got a whiff of some stale creative air.

Here's my hypothesis: Speaking broadly, if DIY Punks, striving for an "underground" sound and scene make homemade covers that demonstrate a network of people involved in the process, would it follow that Hip Hop artists would produce a similar thing, i.e. homemade record covers? Since I'm not involved with that scene, I figured that Atlanta would be a good place to start, as it's known as a mecca for that kind of music.

Here's what a cursory investigation found out: (very cursory, mind you, but I thought I would share some observations anyway)
The major Atlanta Hip Hop record store, Ear Wax, shut down recently. A record store closing is never a good indicator of a lively scene to begin with. After going to a few stores, I found a some cool homemade covers; most of it found in the local, indie and punk sections and most of it from Athens, Georgia, I might add.

Then I went to Moods Music, specializing in Acid Jazz and Soul and asked the attendant, Dave (who has been a working DJ for the last 12 years) if the store had any homemade items. He pointed me to a cover of a local singer, Stacy Epps, who, for a promotional CD pasted a commercially printed cover on a brown card stock CD case. It was the closest thing to anything homemade, and Dave lamented the sorry state of music and creativity in the homemade realm of Soul and Hip Hop. He said that everyone was just trying to make a quick buck off their material and didn't have time to do anything super creative and involved. Rachel, my couchsurfing host and native Atlantan, commented on my findings and Dave's opinions, saying that many artists are trying really hard to "make it" in Atlanta, contrasting the "anti-marketing marketing" Mike Wisti spoke of last fall. Dave also commented on digital music on iPods and cell phones making it possible for people to listen to music and just go about their business. No longer is listening to music and reading the liner notes an activity by itself–something for your soul, he said.

Like I said, this was a cursory investigation, but a much needed one nevertheless. I may need some time to mull it over, but I feel some good follow-ups are necessary–just like how I felt after the first time I visited a record store with the intent to photograph records in Minneapolis last fall, which is to say a barrage of questions and curiosities have assaulted my brain! You know, its like when you go to Wikipedia for an informational interview on "UFOs" and you to leave its cyberspace office with a desire to track down and interview some folks who claim to have had extraterrestrial encounters.

Anyway, I uploaded some more photos from Atlanta and got into Baltimore this morning to witness the decked-out folk going to the Anime Convention. I would have attended the Masquerade Ball, but registration is at least $100, so "balls." There's always the Visionary Art Museum! I asked some costumed Anime-heads to pose for some photos, so check out the Picasa link!

Peaces,
James

9.0 or Higher On My Weird-Shit-O-Meter Summary

I apologize for no postings in the last week; it's been too hot to do a damn thing. My brief visit to New Orleans was met with pants that never quite dried out and wondering when I'll get to the next air-conditioned building like a Siberian wondering when the electricity will come on again. I visited a few record stores there–the first was a classic stoner shop that made me wonder, given the stacks of used Lindsey Lohan CDs (she made a record?), tattered posters and overpriced bongs, how they made rent. Maybe they sell a lot of proud "I got Bourbon-Faced on Shit Street!" shirts. Or weed. Whichever. I think there was one homemade jacket there. Evidently forgettable, though. The second was the Record Shack, and had a few cool items. Sorry to sound lackluster, but after seeing thousands of homemade covers, I don't really feel like talking about just the above average ones today–therefore, to break up the monotony, I will finally write the blog I've been dying to write–the exotic tales, the spectacular far-out ideas, the stuff that sort-of fits with what I'm doing, but kind of doesn't; the legendary weird shit of homemade covers. So here goes…

• Let's start with elaborating on that enigmatic band I foreshadowed in "record of the day," Caroliner Rainbow Bluembeigh Treason of the Abyss. Try finding anything about them online. The first link that Google gives is, "Help me understand Caroliner Rainbow." Don't click on it–it doesn't really help. Their MySpace page is nearly as incomprehensible, but I also hear their shows consist of sensory overload, like their album covers, a collage and barrage of every technique and material out there (hand coloring xerox, screenprinting) and every possible goodie they could stuff into a record sleeve (Thriller liner notes, leis, SF Metro passes, old newsprint). When I ask record store clerks if they have any handmade records, they always point me toward the new Caroliner Rainbow albums if they have them. They always seem to have "just got them in, and they sell like hotcakes." Lori says they're just a bunch of vegan folks in a commune in the Bay Area who grow their own veggies. Nat from Berkeley and Chris from Austin basically say their live shows rule.

Naturally, I emailed them to get in touch, and a got a half-cryptic response from the cryptically named "Grand Gripplea" simply telling me to check out Art Gnuvo and the Record Exchange. So I did. And tested it on my Weird Shit O-Meter– lo and behold, it checks out for today's post!

• The Amazing Kornyfone Record Label is one example of a bootlegger's label. These guys got a hold of the mother stampers and had a strong enough rapport with the ladies at the pressing plant that they could produce illegal bootlegs of The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa to name a few. I haven't been able to find out if the covers were homemade, but the network of people involved in the production seems to be a lot like the network I outlines a few weeks ago, so maybe the covers were done by hand as well.

So here's the story: Ken and Dub created the bootleg label, TMOQ, Trade Mark of Quality in the early 70s. Dub fired Ken a few years later, and in the plagiaristic tradition of bootleggers, Ken named his label, Trade Mark of Quality. Ken had to lay low while the FBI was after him, but then eventually started the Amazing Kornyfone Record Label.

• Speaking of bootlegs, whenever the old-timer guys at record stores show me their collection of homemade covers, they usually pull out some Doors bootleg with sharpie indicating the date and place of recording on it. These are quite possibly the most boring covers ever, but it would be interesting to find out how these guys got vinyl pressed. Darien says that sometimes he'll cut individual records for DJs, so maybe the bootleggers have a connection at a lathe/mastering facility.

• DJs used to use their vinyl as business cards, so to speak for clubs they wanted to spin at. I've seen a few of these, and they usually consist of a black or white commercially produced sleeve with a phone number glued to them. They end up in the used "Dance/Club/Electronic" section of record stores. Darien said DJs produced these with haste during the rave/warehouse party days, but now CDs are easier, faster and cheaper to produce.

• Mix tapes/CDs. Since these are generally not mass-produced, they aren't of much help to me, but they're cool, right? And fun to make for your significant other. If you really want to know more, go get a book on them. Thurston Moore edited "Mix Tape." It's pretty cool.

• I found a homemade cover last fall in Ann Arbor MI that struck me. It's called, "Lipa Kodi Ya City Council" on the Mississippi Records label out of Portland Oregon. The music on it was recorded in the early 70s and features stuff from all over Africa. I bet there's crazy story behind that one–and people on the web seem to really like it.

• Elizabeth in Austin showed me a record in which the band didn't include their own music in it! They just put random 45s in the sleeve. Funny.

• Someone told me about a record made in which the unpainted sleeves were placed on the floor of the venue and it was the audience's responsibility to make sure no cover left unpainted. What a lazy band.

• It is generally agreed upon that the "Most 'Metal' homemade cover ever would be made with human flesh." No one has made one yet, so the throne for the most 'Metal' Metal band still sits unoccupied.

• Limited edition lathe cuts. Lathe cut records, as opposed to pressed vinyl, are fragile and can only be played a few dozen times before they completely wear out. Therefore, editions of lathe cut records are extremely valuable and rare. They must be cut in real time, and the special machine for cutting more than one at a time is quite rare. A guy in Australia does lathe cuts and can only be reached my snail mail. Turn-around time is comparable to getting your Italian bicycle sent back to the factory and replaced–or a long time. A guy in Olympia Washington, Peter King, sets up subscription services in which twenty bands (or however many he wants) to contribute a song or two, and over the course of a few years, you and 19 other people are incrementally sent the full edition. Usually the covers are homemade by the artists, too. They fetch a pretty penny on ebay, so look out for those subscriptions!

• Flickr! Lori told me to browse flickr for homemade covers. DUH! And holy Lennon, I stumbled upon the mother of obsessive album covers: Sgt. Peggy's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a beaded mosaic of the classic album cover. A must see.

• Mingering Mike. Here's what his website has to say: "Between 1968 and 1977 Mingering Mike recorded over fifty albums, managed thirty-five of his own record labels, and produced, directed and starred in nine of his own motion pictures. In 1972 alone he released fifteen LPs and over twenty singles, and his traveling revue played for sold out crowds the world over.

How is it that such a prolific musician has gone under the radar for the more than thirty years? The answer is that all took place in Mike's imagination, and in the vast collection of fake cardboard records and acapella home recordings that he made for himself as a teenager in Washington, D.C. in the late 1960s."

I'm sure there are more things to talk about here, and If you, dear reader, have stories to share, please do!

With Southern love,
James

An Unexpected Visitor

Thank you Tom for the graphic design insight and for the question of "what is authentic?" I encourage readers to take a look at the comments from the last post–it's good. Also, check out this link Anya found on the cassette funeral.

Tuesday was spent record hunting in Austin, Texas. I tried to find a recommended record store on the east side of town, but a Mexican beauty parlor has apparently taken its place. Like an intelligent tourist, I plan my hunting in advance according to a city's geography, so 'twasn't a thang when I saw the beauty parlor–there was another store a half mile away.

Often, my tack is to ask the locals for great record stores, and my back-up for the day was at the recommendation of David, the L.A. Hardcore veteran and Ph. D candidate. There are reasons things are called "punk as fuck" and Trailer Space record store certainly deserves the title. Austin has a smoking ban, just like every other city in the country now (except Wisconsin towns, bless their souls), but J.T. and his fellow clerk chain-smoked their way through my visit and proceeded to down Lone Star after Lone Star pints ("The National Beer of Texas"). There were a few cool records there, but I began to see a lot of stuff that I had previously seen at other Austin stores. In no city as of yet had the selection been that evenly dispersed across record stores.

The night finished with the co-opers and I going down to the local pub and enjoying "pint night," a weekly tradition amongst the Seneca House residents. I had the privilege of hearing about rural Texan rites of passage in which youths learn the valuable lesson of responsible and safe driving by practicing drunk on back country roads. I also heard the correct method of how to save cows idling in the middle of the road from getting hit by traffic–just punch 'em in the face!

I was planning on leaving the anomalous city of Austin Wednesday afternoon to see my dear cousin in San Antonio, but I had to get in touch with this one guy who was referred to me by a co-oper's friend. By the time I had finished in the library reading up on folklore recommendations (thank you Peter and Dan–these books only seem to be found at large universities) it was already 2 and I had to pack my stuff, leave a sweet note for my hosts, catch a bus to the east side of town to interview Chris who had some home-screen-printed CD jackets to show me before he went on tour with his band, Reverse X-Rays, and then boogie on over to the bus station for San An. This was not going to happen, and I'm glad I didn't rush things, because I never would have met the unexpected visitor alluded to in the title of this post. And no, the unexpected visitor was not a family of raccoons in the kitchen, but a lady named Lori, knocking on Chris's door, and who just happened to be the exact person I needed to meet at that moment. Was it fate that made me change my mind about the earlier bus to San An so I could stay a few minutes longer?

Chris described Lori as a filmmaker and his dear neighbor, though Lori would call herself a "maker" and "outsider artist." The newspapers call her a "Salvage Professional," while blogs and discussion forums on the Butthole Surfers call her all sorts of nasty things. I thought she was a nuisance and an intruder at first, then a crazy lady, and then as the three of us were talking, a really crazy lady. Lori finds and sells projector units, and has enough slides to fill twenty projectors playing simultaneously (she was the film performance artist for the Surfers a few years back). She also hosts a yearly Junk-a-Thon where she gets to sell all her treasures from the last year of salvaging, in addition to a small on-going "squirrel epiphany" piece–I shouldn't give it away, but its morbidity and awesomeness is right in line with the vagina and midget's arm, elbow-deep in a bent over man's ass snow sculptures outside my house.

She also makes her own noise-ist tapes and had some things to say about cassette culture, mail-art and experimental/industrial/noise!

Lori offered that some folk break things and use jackhammers and sheet metal to create sounds and cacophonies to calm themselves and their heads. Naturally, record labels can't give un-listenable-by-the-mainstream projects like those any funding (unless you're John Cage, the avant garde noise musician, but even his first recordings were homemade) so out of necessity they are DIY. It would follow that the album jackets would be DIY as well, and since such an endeavor is an individualistic one, the performance is quite different from the punk/indie process involving multiple people in a band, although Darien gave an extensive list of noise/industrial bands as well.

Perhaps we'll hear more about Lori in the future, but I wanted to briefly respond to Tom's question of authenticity, and to do this, I will go back to the conversation I had with Elizabeth and David, as it may shed some light on what is authentic.

Elizabeth has an incredible collection of homemade 45s and has been involved with bands all her life it would seem. Having spent a lot of time in Nashville, she saw many bands come and go and was so intimately involved with them that her comments on the networks of people surrounding the music can be taken with a high degree of validity and seriousness. She described how the southern rock band, Kings of Leon, could never be accepted as a "Nashville" band by Nashvillers because they didn't necessarily contribute anything to the scene there. Their social connections were somewhere other than with the musicians in the city, so they apparently never played with the locals, yet everywhere she turned after the band blew up, Elizabeth read that they were "of Nashville," a statement that reeked of unauthenticity.

Before I sign off, I have some personal things to take care of. Anya has informed me that she never received her record for the Homemade Album Art Historical Preservation Society that I sent off more than two weeks ago in San Francisco. Did everyone else receive theirs? Here's a list of those who I have sent records out to two weeks ago in San Fran:

Anya Dikareva
Truman Danz
Grace Grinager (sent off only last week from Denver)
Sarah Vig
James Linbloom
Matt Sario
Jesse Kegan
Brit Doolittle
Mr. Tzvi

I'll be sending Sean one as soon as I find a post office!

Also, thank you again Dan and Peter for the reading lists. I've been raiding the large university libraries whenever I get a chance, and I really enjoy the Sims book. The part on record store clerks is quite amusing.

From Texas with love,
James

Austin Record Stores

Yesterday was a whirlwind of record stores, donuts, theory discussion, fine Bloody Marys and finding some real gems among the lazily-produced xeroxed record covers. Oh – and being woken up at 5 in morning by a co-oper telling me, "the squatter guy," that she's going to begin work on painting her room that I have been sleeping in. Ugh.

Let's talk about record stores first. I realized yesterday I haven't written much about record shops as of late. I believe that it helps to go into record shops with the intent to write about it later in mind, because it keeps my eyes and ears open to anything out of the ordinary. Photographing record covers for hours takes endurance, (quite like the physical stamina needed to beat the heat here) and as I stated the other day, I feel at this point that I'm photographing the same jackets over and over. Sometimes this literally happens, and that occurrence has its intellectual merit because I can now chart geographically where I see the same record.

But this apathy on my part is cause for concern since record stores are the spaces where locals get to represent themselves in an artistic fashion, and impressions of a record store can give insight into the city flavor and sounds as well as the region. Sound on Sound Records had so many CD cases, 12" records and 7" that my camera died before I could document them all. The 12" records were especially striking, so check them out.

End of an Ear's employees sent me straight to the experimental section where I found a few items of note before finding the gems I mentioned, like a foam collaged cover, a letter-pressed jacket from 1985 (which is quite an early example) and another Caroliner album. I'll talk later about this enigmatic San Francisco psychedelic band. One of the older record clerks told me that homemade covers are usually the artistic products of friends of the band who work with layout equipment and design technology. This is not the first time that I've heard of bands finding people in their social networks with special access to production tools not otherwise available.

I also found an incredible 24 hour donut shop near campus. The need to find air-conditioning coupled with the desire to sit down with my book leaves me with no will power when I walk by. Oh dear.

Later last night, I met for Bloody Marys (which are on par with Palmer's!) with David Uskovich, a Ph.D candidate at UT Austin working on his oral history of 80s college radio stations dissertation, and another of his former classmates, Elizabeth, who was involved in the RTF program (Radio Television Film) at UT Austin. We had some very interesting conversation about some of the formal theories behind DIY music, tools of production, and homemade records, of course. One thing that stands out in my mind was the explanation that Third Wave Feminism has influenced the resurgence of craft in homemade record covers. David, a product of the L.A. hardcore scene, explained that back in the early 80s, simply getting your album out was a feat in and of itself. It really didn't matter what level of craft was involved, but as Third Wave Feminists realized that those traditional crafts such as knitting and sewing that had oppressed women in the past were okay to reclaim with the understanding that they had a choice to partake in them, the effort and attention put into record covers increased substantially.

As I review the tapes of the conversation, I'll throw in more insight, but for now, I have to get on with record hunting!

cheers,
James

Noise Clarifications

I got an email from Darien this morning with some clarification on what exactly industrial is. Here's what he had to say:

"Just to clarify, early industrial music *was* experimental / noise music. The etymology was pretty bizarre as far as the idea that it split off into its own sects of the genre. Industrial music in the 80's became fairly structured and more electronic-instrument oriented, whereas the 'real' industrial artists (the guys kling-klanging about with their jackhammers, drills and sheet metal) peeled off and started calling what they did experimental and noise, although some stuck to using the same instrumentation and the compositions became more structured instead of free-form."

Thank you, Darien! I knew that the blog would eventually come in handy with keeping up with correspondents while on the road.

Check out Darien's record collection on the Picasa page. The link can be found on the right side-bar ("more pictures of incredible covers").

Southern Hospitality/Noise

Whew! I finally found a place to stay in Austin. I was this close to losing all faith in humanity, cursing all of Austin TX, and saying 'to hell' with Southern Hospitality after requesting a couch at two co-ops around town only to be turned down in the name of rules, regulations, and bureaucratic bullshit. Finally, after a sleepless night in Denver, a flight to Austin, an incredible all-ages show across from a Macy's, a night spent sleeping under the stars, and a wrongfully-perceived-as-shoplifting attempt at an Urban Outfitters, some true sweethearts at the Seneca House allowed me to stay for supper and gave me a room to set up shop in.

I was talking with a gentleman at the show last night, and I really like how he chose to describe Austin. He said it "has guts" and "has dirt under its fingernails." Somehow these words rang true after wandering around in the 100° heat and watching all the Texans come alive at night once it began to cool off, as mosquitoes tend to do in Minneapolis.

We'll see if his description holds. I'm also excited to discover if indeed Texas is the country that everyone outside of Texas tells me it is. Did you know that "y'all" is not only the appropriate way to address a sir and a ma'am at the same time, but also the formal means?

I'll write the Texas ethnography on a later date as I get settled in with these co-opers and get them to give me the grand tour of Austin (scheduled for Tuesday).

Although San Francisco is still a good 1750 miles away, I still have a thing or two to say about it. I'm still working this out in my head and on paper, and any generalities I write of should be read with a skeptical eye, but it seems as though there are (generally speaking) two distinct camps of homemade album cover genres–indie/punk/hardcore and industrial/electronica/experimental/noise. For imagery of the latter, please check out the album "Aquarius records" in the Picasa page. (The albums really work now!)

I've intentionally kept my distance from categorizing album covers according to musical genres and just sticking to what can be seen and heard: forms, artwork, dates, and stories. I mentioned a few reasons for this decision a while back when I introduced the Homemade Album Art Historical Preservation Society, stating that I didn't have the time to do any musical content analysis and that simply tracing dates and graphic forms to construct a narrative was enough of a challenge for the time being. Don't get me wrong–I'm certainly not trying to make my job any less challenging–it's just that I feel that fitting sounds and artwork into my own neat categories, ones that may not jive with what their makers would file them under, is arrogant and simply irresponsible. So when I refer to genres, I'm mostly going off of what I see records filed under in record stores. For the sake of hypothesizing and testing out ideas, let's explore this modest duel-camp proposal…

…and back to San Francisco: I spent hours in Aquarius Records in the Mission photographing album art and talking with the clerks who specialize in electronica and experimental/noise. Never had I seen so many homemade albums that weren't in piles, drawers or boxes marked "Indie/Punk/Hardcore"! After photographing literally hundreds of records, I'm at a point where I can look at an album and usually date it in my head within a few years of what's printed on the sleeve. This is to say that I've seen enough imagery to file nearly any record in my head with others that share similar graphic qualities. Most of the records at Aquarius stumped me, because I hadn't seen that type of imagery before. An observation such as this is good sign that something is going on that I am otherwise clueless about!

In the meantime, I've had the opportunity to speak with a few different people about this observation, and two of them have shown me the doors to understanding why these records (mostly CDs, I might add) found at Aquarius under the electronic/experimental/noise section feature such different imagery than the usual suspects. Nat Russell, who designed the first two- dozen covers for Isota Records, didn't mention the usual Pacific Northwest individuals and labels like Calvin Johnson and K Records, that others usually do, as sources of inspiration. Instead, he told me that the experimental/noise folk were handmaking their own covers long before the punks and DIYers were on the west coast–and that they were mostly based out of the east coast. Darien, one of the engineers at Aardvark Mastering confirmed this and included 'industrial' music in the same boat as the experimental/noise pioneers.

Possible answers I and my gracious correspondents have proposed for the big question of "why make these things?" and "what function do they serve?" have usually applied to what record stores label indie/punk/hardcore. I cannot say with any degree of certainty that the same hypotheses apply to the other camp of noise/experimental/electronica/industrial until I speak with the artists and musicians and labels who make these products happen. (Again, these are the predominate labels I find in record stores, not the ones I group the music into.)

Oh dear–I think the heat here has worn me out and I need some rest. I'll write more in the morning.

later,
James

More on the whole "House" metaphor

Just when I think I'm about to lose steam, Sean comes along to hit me over the head and kick me in the ass with some insight and expansion on the "house" metaphor. I can't express my gratitude enough for those folks who are as invested in documenting homemade album covers as I claim to be. Sean wrote so trenchantly that his side of the conversation deserves a spot on the blog. Pay special attention to the last paragraph.

I've been purposefully avoiding describing my own involvement with the production of homemade covers (Sean and I are in Viceburgh together, and I screen-printed 300 double 7" covers for our "Diversity" album) in an effort to challenge myself to think outside my own experiences. I believe Sean's assessment of my own work is helpful to this project because he isn't as close to the work as I am. More discourse is highly encouraged! Thanks, Sean.

Check this out:
"I forgot that I hadn't given you my address and was sorely disappointed when I read your blog and realized I still needed to send it to get sweet records. Shucks.

Here are some more thoughts that came to mind after reading your blog. If we want to call homemade record covers houses than what type of houses are they? Furthermore, ideologically, what lives and resides in these houses?

It seems that you have established a blueprint for the homemade record cover as a house. It is built to contain music, ideas, history, and individuality. Mass-produced records may contain some of these things. However, what you have struck upon is that concept of an open-door that is built into the homemade covers that separates from most commercially produced covers.

As for what resides in these houses, I think it might be good to start by reflecting on our own experience making a homemade record cover. First, we wanted full artistic control over the production of our record. While this meant spending our hard earned bucks, with little hope of recouping our investment, it also gave us an opportunity to learn. And, what did we learn? We learned where to go to get records pressed and about the process of pressing, you were able to practice and refine your printing techniques, we found out which materials worked well, and we began to explore the history of homemade and DIY records.

Furthermore, what we entered into was an open-ended dialog with a community of artists, musicians, recording engineers and producers, and music fans that allows creativity to thrive. To me the reason, at least for the moment, why people make homemade covers, and why people buy them, is three-fold. First, it supports an ideal that allows for greater ingenuity, innovation, and permutations of the form. Second, it gives people a skill-set and network, so they are able to rely on themselves and a community of others instead of being for into the
nameless and faceless regions of commercial production. Finally, it pays homage to a history of record production that focuses first on creativity and social capital and second on homogenization and economic capital.

If we think about the history of record production as a metaphysical space, in which different houses are built, we can more clearly observe the importance of DIY/Homemade production for the development of culture. Mass-produced records, at varying levels, are subject to the ideologies of companies that make their money by making safe, accessible products that, primarily, work to affirm accepted beliefs, rather than challenge them. This means that politics and creativity will be utilized only to the degree that they help sell the image of the product. This makes mass produced records of music, for the most part, passive forces. DIY/Homemade records on the other hand are active in that they are able to not passively signify cultural changes but, albeit on a necessarily smaller scale, actively create cultural changes."

On a side note, I uploaded more photos. I also have more sweet records to send if people are interested!

all my love,
James

Cutting Records

It's been a while, dear readers. San Francisco turned out to be quite an intense experience, filled with driving around the city in a friend's car he left me, bolting in and out of Michelle's apartment in Oakland to fetch her stuff before the gunshots began, and hanging out with a pair of friends, a dynamic of which that hasn't occurred since 5th grade. The last night, I stayed up with my old friend Alex, talking about computers taking over/not taking over the world before catching a bus to the train at 7 in the morning. Needless to say, I've needed a day or two in Denver with my dear Auntie to gather myself and set up the rest of my trip.

Next time you're out in San Francisco, try playing this game: "who's an indigenous San Franciscan and who's not?"

Not to give away all the hints or anything, you may begin by asking people for directions, although as we all know, this isn't always a clear indicator of someone's local status. In San Fran, such a practice is very different from asking the guy in cowboy boots and a farmer tan at the bar in Hanover Minnesota directions to the next bar up the line!

After a few trials of this sort that end in people who you swore were from the city shrugging and saying "I'm not from here…", and after a few people come up to you and ask for directions thinking you're a local, you may be ready to call it quits–but don't give up! You don't have to feel like a cheater by asking your friends who live there to give you a few clues, either.

Maybe you'll at first be discouraged by your host's choice of words, but the fine distinctions will come into focus later. Nowhere do people place such emphasis on the difference between "being from San Francisco," "living in San Francisco" and being a "San Franciscan" while not sounding disparaging in the least. Regardless, your hosts may add, San Francisco is the place where all the freaks come to. So why the hell are you there?

Remember, its important to get a second opinion and continue to ask for directions because map reading sucks. So, you may end up asking someone who moved there because they felt so at home in SF how they tell the locals from the tourists. Surely, it's not all about size as your friend tells you bluntly, you think. How can all the natives be skinny and the tourists fat? But then you do a mental check of your wallet's contents and think about how much you miss that $17 you just spent on a beer and a sandwich and how one could easily put themselves on a diet.

Even a third opinion is a safe route to go, especially since by now you're wondering what the hell someone who has lived here their entire life thinks of all this. By default and by definition, they're a San Franciscan, but you get a strong suspicion that everyone else who lives here or has moved here you've met has come because…well, it's San Fran, right? So you voice your confusion over the matter to another one of your hosts, and maybe they tell you that the people who grew up here are immune to the stereotypes and mainly keep to themselves.

And then you have to catch a bus to leave town.

Here are all the clues I can give you for the game. I really can't divulge any more, otherwise the game won't be fun. But, you can always pick up where you left, I suppose, since there seems to be something inherently San Franciscan about San Francisco, especially when you hear about people moving there to be themselves or be with their loved ones, or people gathering in the park just to hang out by the hundreds, or people just wanting to figure out what this city is all about. Then again, it also seems like some expect San Francisco will give them what they're looking for, but cities are also harsh places that don't grant wishes to everyone.

I have more to say on this city, specifically about the new leads I gathered and the immense number of records I found, but I first have to express my excitement in getting a tour of Aardvark Mastering's facilities here in Denver. Louis, one of the Engineers at Aardvark showed me around the basement of Paul Brekkus' house where they convert tapes, CDs and other media into analog master lacquers that will later get turned into stampers used to press hundreds of vinyl discs that you use on your turntable. It was pretty amazing watching this antiquated 1970s Scully machine lathe-cut a Scott Joplin song onto a spinning lacquer-coated aluminum disc and then play it back!

Louis said that he could count on two hands the number of facilities in the country that do this kind of work; he is one of only a hundred or so people in the world who know how to operate such a machine; and he is one in a million who truly love what they do. It was awe-inspiring to look at this machine with all its tubes and knobs and levers and think that someone knew how to design and manufacture it to cut a master analog disc to reproduce sound. Apparently, Paul, the main guy behind Aardvark, is enough of a genius and an innovator himself to understand it all.

Nat, the artist of all the Isota sleeves from Berkeley, whom I met with in SF, explained the prevalence of 7" records over cassettes and CDs as a demonstration of the commitment musicians make to the distribution of their music. As he pointed out, anyone can burn a CD or duplicate a cassette, but it takes a lot of effort and money (!) to send one's mastered album to a mastering company like Aardvark, have them send the lacquers to a plating facility, arrange to have the plates sent to a pressing plant, okaying the test-presses and having them print the rest of your discs.

Vinyl also keeps guys like Paul and Louis is business and the specialized craft of cutting records alive.

Ride to live,
James

The 7". They just feel so right.

Yikes! that casserole diagram looked totally different in the blog composing-window. I tried to fix it, but alas, to no avail.

So long ago I promised that I would formally introduce the 7" record. I've revised part of piece I wrote for my pilot project last fall–hold on to your butts!

Although some people would mention that Sun Ra and others from the 60s were the first to create these homemade covers, others would argue that it wasn't until the punks came around that the DIY tradition became popularized and solidified in the popular consciousness. One story I heard was that the Sex Pistols were strapped for cash so their album artist cut and pasted some things and called it a jacket. Some years later, the DIY tradition of designing one’s own cover art out of economic necessity was reshaped to include production as well. For bands who were not signed to a label and lacking the record industry’s infrastructure, doing nearly everything was the only means of getting their songs heard, and the cassette, as far as I can tell, was the first low-cost way to have absolute control over the tools of production (all one needed was music, a tape recorder, mic, tape duplicator and tapes). For the time, this was THE punk-est thing one could ever do.

However, tapes are small, their surfaces are a nuisance to print on unless you have stickers or stamps, plastic cases don't feel right (you know what I mean), and the surface area of the jacket doesn't leave much room for a visual statement like that of a 12" LP.

But the 45 was an ideal form to begin homemade experimentation on the visual extension of the music. This was partly due to its form factor—larger than a cassette in order to make a stronger visual statement—but smaller than a 12” in order to save money on material costs. Another factor, and an economic one on the part of the producers and consumers that may have influenced the 7” becoming the primary form of the DIY tradition is that they included only a few number of songs. It is cheaper for a band to record a few tunes and fit them on a 45 as opposed to a mass number and putting them on a 33rpm long playing single. This also makes 45s more affordable to the younger audience on a budget. Budget constraints as well as feasible man-hours put into the production of these records without the backing of a record company also limited the number of records produced in a given pressing (not to mention the extent of the audience).

With this in mind, I will ask that readers take a moment to reflect on the 7" as a specific medium for housing a physical object that allows for music to be re-heard. This is to say that the medium of the 7" is different from the 12", the cassette, the CD and the cute mini cds. Each have their own specific design constraints and form factors. The person who put together the BRICK album in the "Record of the Day" sidebar (number 9) understood the medium he or she was working with, and that's why the composition is so striking and every form or texture speaks: the brick print was made by a real brick and the texture of the stamp can be felt on the cover; the black element is a piece of construction paper cut with a scissors; the lettering is xerox paper (I think); and it's all tied together with packaging tape. It's so crude. Even the word "Brick" sounds crude. And the print is just larger than a 7" cover (bricks are usually 8" x 4", right?) so having the brick go off the plane makes it seem even larger than it actually is. In essence, that cover couldn't really be made any other way–the construction is so frank.

Similarly, the Hacksaw cassette (Record of the Day part 10) achieves a high degree of cohesiveness in its packaging. Tapes are small and fit in shirt pockets, so this object suggests the durability of tapes and their portability. One might suppose that you could turn a pocket into a case for the tape. The recycled pocket and recycled tape give the piece unity, although the actual craft could be refined.

Keen readers will no doubt have noticed the hidden agenda behind the "Record of the Day" sidebar. What I'm trying to do is to not only describe what constitutes a homemade album cover, but also to identify covers that graphically "nail it" given a specific medium. But what's interesting about these two examples, and others in the sidebar (like the "Drums" album) is that they house their physical artifacts in such a way that their construction can be read by anyone. In this sense, their album covers are open-door houses–to build upon yesterday's argument and metaphor–anyone can come on in and participate and learn if they choose to.

The most transparent blueprint for building a structure to house your music today is MySpace–which is to say that all the tools are there for the taking. Just like a record jacket, your MySpace page allows for a standardized form of musical reproduction to be sorted, labeled and categorized. And, just like a record jacket, it allows room for the visual extension of the sonic statement. Aside from not being a physical thing, MySpace is the newest medium for housing music. If we are to throw this into the category of mediums already mentioned, (like 7", 12", CD, cassette, cute mini cds, MySpace page), what are the specific design constraints and form factors of the MySpace page that separates the pages that "nail it" from those that don't? At least the CD was adaptable from the 7" and 12" because they shared similar qualities, like being flat, tangible, and having to include certain information (title, artist, etc.). They also share the responsibility, as I mentioned yesterday, of defining relationships by those who come in contact with them. MySpace has even more responsibilities as a house, seeing as it serves as a bulletin board, a distribution viaduct, and a contact list!

The extension of this potential monograph may not be relevant to this project, seeing as there's no physical thing to document, but it's interesting to think of MySpace as this house as well. However, it doesn't answer The Big Question of why people make homemade covers–virtual houses just make it that much more ridiculous for anyone to release vinyl when all the tools of production are at your fingertips!

lovingly,
James

More of San Fran/Networks

This city is truly incredible. My friend Michelle and I decided to crash a housing co-operative potluck mid-western style: We made tater-tot hot dish. We both thought that we'd receive funny, "how-typically mid-west" looks from these San Franciscans, but no one knew what hot dish was! I'll do my best to graphically describe it for those not in the know:


(chili powder)
cream of mushroom soup+milk
tater tots tater tots tater tots
tater tots tater tots tots tater tots

|
\/
frozen veggies

|
\/
hamburger+onions (cooked)

|
\/
| |
|__________________________| <-----casserole pan


I think by the time we left after stuffing ourselves with salad (made with greens in the back yard), apricot crisp, rice pudding with dates, homemade tortilla chips, salsa and black bean dip, entertaining ourselves with games of "psychiatrist," "mafia," and "big booty", and testing out the youtube superstition of setting corn kernels a-poppin' by mooching off four cell phones' incoming signals (Abi swore it worked), they stopped calling our dish "hot-hot" or "hot-pot."

In other news, people who sent me an address for the Homemade Album Art Historical Preservation Society should keep an eye on their mailboxes in the next few days. I sent out some stuff yesterday. I also sent Jason Trachtenberg a cordial message inviting him to check out the KELP stuff, in case whoever posted that youtube link is interested. If he emails me back, I'll be sure to post it!

I claimed I would continue to write on this issue of the folk, so here goes. The last post basically outlined the people who come in contact with homemade covers in the hopes of gaining new insight into The Great Big Question of why people do this. To review, these people are, and are not limited to:

• Historians
• The Do It ('it' meaning everything) Yourself people
• Designers
• Record store personnel
• FFF (Fans: Family, Friends)
• Record label personnel
• Collectors
• Average Joe

I then mentioned after briefly discussing each character in the process that a network begins to reveal itself. This is the fun part, because we now get to speculate "why" and form hypotheses that can be later tested and retested.

But first, I want to introduce an idea that a co-conspirator brought up: The idea of the album cover as a house. In order to reproduce music on a massive scale, it makes logical sense to standardize the medium that allows for the music to be re-heard. In order to avoid confusion over which identical shellacked disc produces what sound, it would follow that a labeling device be utilized. Another issue here is keeping the fine grooves from becoming wrecked. From a purely functional point of view, some sort of cover to facilitate filing and to protect the object is necessary.

So why the "artwork" then? One could propose all sorts of reasons; to sell an image, to create a visual extension of the sonic idea, etc., but let's return to the idea of the album cover as a house. The possible reasons for making these things is endless, but I'm going to offer up the hypothesis from a scholarly point of view, and for the sake of my correspondents, that the homemade album cover represents this house of people involved in the production of such an item and invites others in to that house. The homemade album covers demonstrate a network of people and organizations and invites the consumer to become more than just a passive participant and to become active in such a process. The house is there; the door is open so to speak–it's just a matter of letting one's self in.

Seeing as this is just a hypothesis, this is just one way of looking at this phenomena and a possible answer to The Great Big Question; it is by no means THE answer. However, after speaking with people in that network, a few things generally point to it. Jon doesn't solicit other musicians for his record label, Lost Sound Tapes–he usually is contacted by them after seeing his work. Phil claims that the homemade records he owns represent a certain community. Sean K. works at a record label because he believes in getting others' music out there. Numerous other people have told me record labels and distribution networks usually get started because someone wants to help some people out. A few trusty record store employees tell me that small-edition runs of records (100-300) usually get sold or given away to family and friends and typically don't sell in the store.

I'm not entirely convinced of this argument as of yet, but it's a starting point. I believe its good to think through these things and the possibilities it has to offer.

My battery is just about out on my computer, so two things before it dies before my eyes:
1) Sean, give me your address, you deadbeat!
2) Since I'm trying to be as responsive as possible to your comments, the next blog may just be a transcribed interview with yours truly on his reasons for making album covers! Yippee!

Until then,
James

San Fran and "The Folk"

If only my trains were always late…for some reason, crying children, huffy-puffy middle-aged women and chain-smoking old-timers make for a really productive ambience in an Amtrak station. With three hours to kill in Seattle, I got a lot of writing done, and had some valuable phone conversations in the midst of a crowd of people practically ready to load their guns and shoot a few train conductors for representing such a seemingly incompetent company.

However, the ride to Eugene was quite pleasant and I had an interesting conversation with a fellow traveler about blogs, of all things. Naturally, I didn't tell him I was writing one, but he offered that he did a lot of blogging for The Stranger (the City Pages of Seattle for all you Minneapolites). Since I've only read a few blogs in my life, and I only regularly read one ("Anna goes to Tanzania" is awesome, by the way–how'd you think I got "James does America"?) what he said to me boggled my mind…or perhaps bloggled it…sorry. I guess a lot of people do a lot of blogging in Seattle, and sometimes it gets a little out of hand, with people hurling insults and otherwise unintelligent criticisms at each other over nothing. And there's blogs about blogs! And one girl in New York had to seek psychiatric help after feeling so threatened by bloggers and late-night TV interviewers ripping her to shreds that she no longer felt safe on the streets! I suppose the up-shot of all this is, dear readers, thank you for being civil and posting intelligent, discussion-worthy posts. I can't express enough my gratitude for everyone's support and the numerous requests for participation in the Homemade Album Art Historical Preservation Society.

I'm sorry to say that Eugene was a bit of a bust for finding homemade covers, not that I expected much to be honest, what with Portland being so close. However, I was introduced to the band Caroliner at the House of Records near downtown. While I'm in San Francisco I hope to get in contact with them, since they've been around for decades, and have been making unique, homemade covers for as long. If anyone knows anything about them other than the gibberish posted on their myspace page, I would be tickled to know.

Ah, good old San Francisco! People here are so courteous–I was reading a plaque on some historical hotel today, and someone said 'excuse me' as they walked between me and the text! What's even more incredible is that people smile to me here despite the fact I haven't showered in a few days. Wow. High five, San Fran.

But seriously, I stated in the last post that I wanted to talk more about the folk part of this project, as such a discussion may shed some light on the network of people who handle the objects in question, and the subsequent relationships defined by the transferring of them. With that said, let's first attempt to answer the question of who comes in contact with these objects. A list is appropriate here, no?

• I may be an oddball figure, but I count nonetheless–someone who is curious about these things and traveling, trying to put together a narrative with the assistance of others. In a sense, I'm like a collector, but I try not to fetishize them. Although some are so cool I'd like to keep them…

• Those who do everything. They write, record and perform their own music in addition to producing the packaging and distribution channels for it. Karl Blau is a great example, because he tours extensively and is prolific in recording and making his own covers.

• Those who record the music and make the covers but don't perform the music. I haven't come across any examples of this, and for good reason it would seem–if one is to distribute their records, playing shows is one of the most effective ways of selling something that wasn't practical to commercially produce a large scale run of to begin with. Thus, artists can't rely on record stores to sell albums. Adam, the shopkeeper at Bop Street could verify this statement at an observational level. He even went so far as to say that flashy, eye-catching covers fail to attract consumers and usually get lost in the stacks of the store.

• People who make the covers and do distribution but don't have a hand in the music. Dan Black comes to mind, a Minneapolite who does high-end design work, like the latest Signal to Trust double LP and the Best Friends Forever cassette cover I came in contact with the other day.

• Record store workers and owners. I already mentioned the process by which record stores acquire homemade covers. Briefly, large (or small) collections come through the store, the owner of which is paid a lump sum, the costs of which are recovered by selling the few gems, and the rest are cataloged.

• Avid collectors. I spoke with one such character on my last day in Seattle, Jon, (quite a knowledgeable son-of-a-gun I might add) who had a collection of homemade covers that surpassed that of any record store in variety, but not in age. Subscribers might fall into category as well, but more on them later.

• Fans, Friends and Family who are out to support their favorite band or artist by giving them something (money, labor, beer) in return for the album.

• Record labels. From what I've heard from Jon, usually this just means one guy who operates out of his P.O. box and calls himself a label for distribution's sake. Record labels also exist to help out other friends to get their tunes out. Jon cites this as a reason for starting his own record label, and I would suspect that Calvin Johnson of K Records would say similar things. People who run labels are often interested in creating networks. (This may be a bit on the assumptive side, since I haven't talked with too many of these people.)

• People acquiring them who have no connection with the band whatsoever. These may be people who scour record stores for obscure things for obscure reasons. The person who buys the band's album at a show after seeing them for the first time might fall into this category.

Already, we begin to see a network develop here that may help in understanding The Big Question of "why do people make these things?" Although people involved with the homemade model and the commercial model of producing and distributing music may all contend that the reason for producing music is "to get our tunes heard" (and I'm not being facetious here, really), the facts may speak otherwise. Perhaps there's more to this than just letting everyone know that you're a kick-ass guitarist. Albums are exchanged in the homemade model in the interest of forging relationships.

Sigh. My presence is requested in a short while here and I'm unable to develop this thought as of the moment, but I'd like to get something up after not posting anything for a few days. I'll try and edit this one later, so please bear with me.

all my love,
James

Too-da-loo, Seattle

Dawn is settling in as I prepare to leave town in a few hours for Eugene Oregon. Special thanks to the kind folks at Sherwood for letting me stay for a bit–it's been a great place to work and meet inspiring folks who are keeping the co-operative dream alive! I still have a shower to take for those sorry people sitting next to me on the train, a pack to load, a blog to finish, a bike to return, and a bus to catch in the next 3 hours. Only in such a grand city as Seattle can such miracles take place.

I've uploaded more Picasa albums: Bop Street, Jon's collection (more on him later), and highlights from my research last fall that are definitely worth a minute to check out, as the album's content is a distillation of hundreds of record covers. Yesterday I found the BADDEST record cover, but first I have to finish my "Record of the Day" trilogy of a specific type: The painted-and-then-cut-up-poster-board-with-the-textual-information-on-a-sticker-affixed-to-
the-plastic-sleeve album cover. Naturally, such a specific type deserves special attention. Also, the first few envelopes for the Homemade Album Art Historical Preservation Society have been given out. I'm so excited for what may come of it!

Lately we've been discussing the lore part of folklore…Sean and others bring some thought-provoking and blog-worthy questions to the table in regards to what kind of people are involved in the creation, production, distribution, trading, selling, buying and collecting of homemade record covers. In other words, who comes in contact with these items, how do they come in contact with them and and why? This seems like a good topic to cover, as I've spoken with enough people at this point that some sort of picture is beginning to develop as to what comprises the folk part. I've been doing some brainstorming, but the written outcome will have to wait until I stop being smelly and cross the state line.

Peaces,
james

Here's a crazy Idea!

Thanks to everyone who's been in correspondence with me and who have been reading the blog and posting comments–I'm loving every bit of it, so please, keep them coming! I have so many pictures to post, and so many hours of interview tapes to review, and so many things to comment on based on some great, constructive feedback, so please be patient with me. I'll try to address all these concerns in the span of 2 months, like community, political statements, recycling, form, more reasons for doing it and of course great stories. I have three people to do follow-up interviews with tomorrow before I leave Friday morning; work is already piling itself on me. Yikes.

Tonight: screw the 7" talk. Crazy ideas are the focus of tonight's discussion…so please read on dear readers. I finally made it over to Bop Street Records in Ballard of Seattle. Everyone has been talking about it; Chris, a friend's cousin who was gracious enough to lend me a bike for a few days mentioned it (Thanks a ton, Chris!), not to forget just about everyone else I meet and talk to about this project. I spent 3 and a half hours looking through and photographing records from 6 two-foot long boxes of 45s from the 80s through today. Oh dear is right. Bop Street, as I found out later the evening, is one of the largest collections of records in North America! It was like a record archive, boasting more than half a million pieces. The down stairs is stacked floor to ceiling with 33s, 78s and ancient 18" records. It was truly impressive to see that much volume in one place.

Contrasting the hip record shops in Seattle that have been around for a decade or so, Bop Street has been around for over 30 years, and didn't have quite the selection of cutting-edge handmade stuff as the newer stores. However, it had a formidable collection of work from the 80s and 90s, much of it from the Seattle area in fact. According to the shopkeeper, Bop gets most of its merchandise from collectors who want to off all their records in one go. The shop gives the seller a lump sum, sells the gems to make back its money and archives the rest–typical large-collection-record-store procedure, as far as I can tell. It's not surprising then that the collection of 45s consisted of throw-aways from collectors around the area and stuff that never sold in the store. I ended up picking up the choicest ones from the 6 boxes–those that were quintessential of a year or form, those that were truly one-of-a-kind, and those that were graphically stunning. I'm also thinking about an alternate title for 'handmade record covers', the choice to do so inspired by the shopkeeper saying, "oh, like homemade covers?" and changing 'handmade' to 'homemade'. This is also partly in response to Phil from Anacortes putting commercial production in a new perspective for me in that such processes too involve the human hand–people are just working with bigger and more technical tools. Plus, 'homemade' suggests the difference between bringing a store-bought blueberry pie to a party versus one fresh from your own hands and oven.

I must back up here a bit to explain a few of my issues I've been experiencing along the way before revealing the big crazy idea . First, those who have read the last two postings are aware of the difficulties and complexities in gathering and analyzing data in this volume–I'm taking hundreds of photos and even picking up a few records to keep. There's also the issue of realizing that this project can go in multiple directions and I only have so many hours in the day to research the record labels, artists, etc. Second, some people have been asking me about the content of the pieces, both musical and visual. I don't have access to a record player all the time, and taking notes on the visual content is quite time consuming. It's hard enough just talking about origins and form, not to mention trying to gather stories at the same time. Plus, lyrical commentary is not really my bag, so to speak. Third, I can only pack so much stuff with me: Vinyl is heavy! Finally, people have been asking, and I have been thinking about the cumulative project: what I'm I going to do with all this documentation in a way that somehow jives with the nature of the things I'm researching? I have the kernel of an solution to all of my problems. Get this:

I'm starting "The Homemade Album Art Historical Preservation Society." Here's how it works: Give me your mailing address, (you can email it to me at jamesshaff (at symbol) gmail (dot) com if you enjoy your privacy) and I will send you a record I've picked up while I'm on the road with a addressed and stamped envelope to my hired archivist back in Minneapolis. Included with the record will be a xeroxed sheet of paper that will have the following printed on it:

Band:
Record title:
Label and address:
Materials:

which will be filled out by yours truly, followed by a statement explaining its significance and then a statement encouraging the correspondents to listen to the album and write comments on the lyrics, artwork, and any other thoughts or pertinent info on the band, label or regional history. Then the recipient will send the album to my archivist, and when I get back, I will send you a hand screenprinted 45rpm copy of my own band!

Hopefully, "The Homemade Album Art Historical Preservation Society" will do a number of things: 1) Lighten my load on the road so I can be more flexible about traveling and visit more record stores and talk to more people; 2) Allow for more records to be documented in-depth (and listened to!); 3) Involve more people in the research and project–I believe strongly that a diversity of thought will result in greater insight–already so many people have been so helpful, and I'd like to extend an invitation to really get into it if they choose to; 4) Have more fun! Looking through the collections at Bop was so fascinating because I felt like an urban historian or detective, uncovering some great mystery.

Finally, this may be an opportunity to begin work on some sort of project outcome that, like I said, jives with the nature of the research. I'd like it to touch on a few themes that have been showing up lately in more contemporary homemade pieces: community, craft and reusing/anti-consumerism. I'll briefly describe these, with the intent of expanding upon them more in the near future. What gives many of these covers their social currency is their gift-like qualities and their use of known networks of people in their production. The "Homemade Album Art Historical Preservation Society" will attempt to do just this. Next, many bands are realizing that craft is an important element in getting people to participate at shows and to sell albums. The craft and dedication of this lies in careful consideration of as many pieces as possible. Finally, taking from the idea that there is so much throw-away stuff in this world, we will be reusing old albums that would otherwise be thrown away or lost in the archives of some record store as historical documents. This may not be the final form of the project, but it is at least a start at something; an experiment. Again, I'll be going much more in-depth on these themes in the near future and will attempt to relate them to conversations and physical examples as much as possible.

To those I have addresses for, expect a surprise album in the mail soon, as you'll be the first guinea pigs in the project! As it turns out, I have more albums than addresses, so please let me know if you'd like one. (Be sure to tell me what kind of listening device you have access to so I can send you something compatible.)

cheers!
James

P.S. if you know anyone/anything in the Bay Area who/that would be helpful to this research, let me know and I will be very grateful indeed.

More Methodology Madness

The point of this posting is to elaborate on some things mentioned yesterday in regards to my research methods. I believe I stressed the importance of capturing the why, and I didn't want to sound as if I was discounting the when and where.

The study of form is the logical beginning for a study of this sort of thing. In fact, I would argue that it is essential to understand exactly what I'm documenting for a few reasons–it's just that the way in which I go about documenting and following up on leads may have to be altered. First, there's the notion that by examining specific pieces I'll be able to discern some sort of structure imbedded throughout the form of these covers. If such undeniable forms or laws run continuously through the form of handmade covers, the question of why such structures exist is raised. This is to say that a critical look at the when and where could begin to answer the why.

Allow me to give an example. Say for instance one were to come across many cassette covers that were rubber stamped and dated back to the early 80s. One would say that the form of handmade covers involved the cassette format and that they were rubber stamped. After months of searching through used bins at records stores, you started noticing something else: rubber stamped 7" 45s from the mid 80s and early 90s, even some from the past few years. This is a major change in form, much more significant than small variations within the content of the stamp. By rigorously collecting data, (and this is quite an exaggerated example, keep in mind) one was able to understand that there existed the form of the cassette in the first place, and informed through dating processes, one was able to surmise that the 7" took its place as the primary form of expression. One can only begin to form good hypotheses when one can form good questions: Why did the 7" essentially "take over" the cassette?

I hope I've shown how important collecting data is in this process, however elementary I may make it out to be. Part of the assessment I wrote about the other day asked if I was collecting the right data on form. Usually I simply take a lot of photographs in record stores, (and make sure I take down dates if they are present) but as of late I've been trying to make sense of the information beyond that, like artists, if listed, record label, and place of origin. Getting in touch with those who produce these things is the follow up that I'm beginning to work on. I also think some sort of mapping exercise is in order, just to see what happens with the data! Maybe I'll come across something of interest. Maybe not…

Tonight: more on the form of the 7"!
-James

Methodology assessment

Check out the links on the side of the blog! I set up a photo account with Picasa to view more incredible covers at a higher resolution than those in the side bar. More will be uploaded, and captions put in if I have absolutely nothing better to do! On with today's report!

Seattle is a gorgeous city to walk through. I took an epic walk today from the University district, which sits on Union Bay, part of Lake Washington through Ballard to Golden Garden Park, which looks out into the Puget Sound. My temporary housemates at the housing co-op here said that I did a 10-14 mile trek round-trip. No wonder I'm worn out! Walking leaves one much time to think about what to blog about, after, of course, one gets tired of singing embarrassing improvised melodies on the street to no one…

The first stop on my trek was Golden Oldies, a classic record shop, the labor of decades of dedicated collectors, much like Hymie's in Minneapolis, for those familiar with Twin Cities record stores– broad and deep in terms of selection. I spoke with the manager on duty, who has worked there for 20 years and has been a blues musician for 40. When asked about handmade covers, he gave me a quizzical look and said that he may have a few bootlegs that people have drawn on. As it turns out, no one comes in with their handmade covers to sell to Golden Oldies, as is the case with Hymie's as well. I pressed the man, as I could tell he was curious about what the hell I was up to, and he eventually told me something to the effect of, "why would anyone spend the time and money to make a cover from scratch when you could just have it commercially done?"

I wish I had said, "That's exactly what I'm trying to figure out, too!" I'm grateful this man gave me the commercial perspective on what I'm studying, as he reminded me of my research question.

And then I thought about how exactly I was going about my research and decided after a week of being on the road, I would have to assess my methodology. As I walked (and there was a lot of walking today) I asked myself what produces the most leads, what sort of activities are the most insightful, what questions am I really trying to answer, and how is the project losing or gaining scope? While going to record stores is fun, and taking lots of photos is great, I feel a bit like a designer ripping pages out of the latest design rags for a personal three-ring binder "cheat-sheet". I think I've established the fact that people are currently pushing the material form of the cover and testing the possibilities that the album cover has to offer and I will continue to do this exercise. However, I haven't been going in-depth enough with regards to tracking down the people involved (musicians, artists, record labels) in making these specific examples, seeing as the more fruitful aspects of my research consist of talking to people (those who make the covers, in particular) and interviewing people. All of this relates to the issue of the origin of handmade covers; whether it's historical or psychological. I'm realizing that there are multiple ways I could go with this project–to look into when and where handmade covers have arisen, or to delve into why handmade covers came into being.

While I was thinking about all this at Sonic Boom, a record store in Ballard, Seattle, an interesting thing happened: I came across a handmade 12" hip-hop album cover–the first I've seen so far. This was one of my original hypotheses–that maybe, since many handmade covers were made with the concept of being underground and independent from record labels and the traditional music industry in mind, handmade hip-hop covers may appear as well. Then I remembered that this sort of research is about constantly testing hypotheses and reworking hypotheses, and that I'm just in a phase of assessment and that I should pursue both the historical and the psychological origins, seeing as the methodology is still being worked out.

I have more to write on changes in methodology, but I'm much too wiped out. More tomorrow!

ciao!
james

Attention is the new currency

After a night of mulling things over, I've realized I must return to the research component of this project, especially after visiting the Mecca of handmade covers. Anacortes (pop. 16,000) has a long history of doing this sort of thing, which has its roots, as I have gathered, with Bret Lunsford bringing in weird new records and tapes to The Business (Anacortes record store) and starting the Knw-Yr-Own label. (Please correct me here if I miss anything) Very few of the weird records were bought in this small town, and a few people released music on tape with his record label. Phil Elvrum was hanging out at the store quite a bit in the mid-nineties during high school and making zines and cassette inserts in the backroom with Bret's newfangled Xerox machine. Now Phil is creating his own music, runs a label and print shop and collaborates with other musicians in the locale. Bret manages Anacortes' What the Heck Fest, a four day festival to showcase Anacortes and bands from around Washington and the Pacific Northwest. Karl Blau, who's in the band D+ with Phil and Bret runs a mail order service in which subscribers receive handmade album art and goodies with a CD. Meanwhile, an old firestation has been converted into the Department of Safety, an all ages venue and residency for artists and musicians. In other words, this small town in Northern Washington is ripe with people supporting music, art and creativity, and challenging the common held belief that small towns are not culturally valid spaces. It is no wonder that it had some of the most striking handmade pieces.

One of the central questions of this journey/project is "why make handmade covers?" To some, this question is so obvious and the answer so self-evident, but it's a difficult one to articulate nonetheless. A figure in Minneapolis told me that album covers provide the visual complement to the sonic piece and that it's a way to make one's work more conceptually holistic. While this answer gets at why we have these physical objects around in the first place, (other than for buying and selling purposes) the statement could hold equally as true for commercially printed record jackets as well. Handmade things that exhibit any sort of creativity is an indicator of a celebration of life was an explanation that a Seattle record store owner offered to me. A prolific musician and artist out in Anacortes said that he wants to be surrounded with handmade things because they manifest a network of production as well as a community. Later, the same man offered up this statement: "Attention is the new currency."

This somehow resonates with me. People's attention is divided all the time. How does a band with a myspace page (or not) grab someone's attention? How can one step out of a crowd of thousands all raising their hands yelling, "pick me!"? Everyone with a computer, or a four-track, and an internet connection can produce something of value--the tools of production are in the hands of everyone. One way to do this is to invest more attention into the product that one is selling, giving or trading to others. When you invest more attention, people are perhaps more willing to give more of theirs in exchange.

This has probably been the case with handmade covers since the beginning; now even more so given the current technological state of things. There were probably more reasons back in the 80s, but we'll talk more on that later, after I make a trip down to Olympia in the next few days.

later,
James

PS someone said I should post more record covers on flickr. This will happen soon, as it is a great idea

Anacortes

Thanks you so much to everyone in Anacortes who allowed me to munch on their delicious food and photograph their awesome record collections. Special thanks to Phil, Kevin and Karl for the talks and to the kids at the Department Of Safety (DOS) who put up with me (and put me up) and gave me quick ride back to Seattle. More in the morning…

A New Lead

Today was the big hunt: 10 hours of walking and busing around Seattle checking out record stores (I also got fish n' chips down by the seaside market and made a few scenic detours). There were a lot of disheartening surprises--Bop Street Records not being open when I got there; two stores near downtown simply not existing; and another one on my list either moved or out of business. Rather than striking out, I found that luck was with me.

Funny enough, I ended up seeing a store out the bus window on my way downtown and stopped to find a few mid-nineties throwaways, and around the corner happened to be Easy Street, a new and vintage shop sporting what turned out to be the Record of the Day. I got the info for another record store I hadn't heard of and set off to find it in the Capitol Hill area.

Wall of Sound was the name of the place, and turned out to be a goldmine of handmade CD jackets. It would seem as though every town has a record shop in which they devote a special section of the store to handmade pieces, like Treehouse in Minneapolis, and Encore in Ann Arbor MI. Wall of Sound was that store in Seattle. I spent a good hour in there taking photographs and admiring the owner's eclectic European tastes in stuff that was meant to no doubt impress and embarrass people at a fancy party serving beers meant to produce the same result.

After catching a stunning view of Downtown and the bay from Queen Anne (a nice residential part of town) I wandered across the Fremont bridge to the campus side of the bay and found the boarded-up windows of the record store I mentioned that had up and left. And then things got strange…

I kept walking for another block and happened across a store, Jive Time, that was one of the missing stores that was supposed to be located downtown. Weird. I went in and told the owner about what I was doing, and he totally gave me a different story about handmade covers. Most people, and what I've gathered from seeing pieces in stores, maintain that they emerged with punk music in the late 70s when musicians, short on dough, or wanting to subvert the music industry started to do it themselves. Scott, at Jive Time, cited examples from the 60s when crazies or loners would put together their own covers of collaged mushrooms (for example). He said that Sun Ra started spray-painting his covers back in the 60s. Then he blew me away with an idea and a new lead that I haven't heard of yet: people going into department stores as early as the late 40s, singing along with prerecorded material and having their own voice cut to vinyl right there in front of your eyes! Interesting slant on everything, at any rate. Scott and I will get together next week to discuss his personal collection, so stay tuned. All in all, a successful day. I head to Anacortes tomorrow, a town 80 miles north of Seattle, and I'll write when I return.
Later,
james

Day 1

Arrived in Seattle after a long train ride (34 hours). I'm now convinced that Amtrak is short for "Amateur Track." (It was 5 hours late getting to St. Paul and then we were transfered to a bus in Spokane WA). First, some thoughts from Montana:

We just stepped out to refuel in the middle of Montana right before dusk. Everyone got out of the train--the old folks to have a cigarette and reminisce about past train trips, and the younger families to get the kids out for a minute before continuing on.

I paused next to the platform to consider the relic on display of an era passed: a locomotive of the Great Northern Railway, the signage under it boasting "The finest, most powerful steam passenger locomotive up to this time." My photo of the beast was almost interrupted by a John Deere tractor pulling 2 carts of checked baggage into the station.

I slept most of the way from St. Paul to Devil's Lake ND, and when I awoke, the landscape had changed to the plains--expansive, extending to the horizon, ending only when too much atmosphere got in the way. Why build anything small in an area that seems to go on forever? Building in a clustered fashion would only be seen as defense against the landscape.

And while the city and the rest of the civilized world gets caught up in limiting resources and moving ahead, here in Montana, such concerns are either dismissed or do not exist as concerns at all in the seemingly limitless landscape. It is totally cool to cling to a time when the railways were the "fastest and most powerful" and baggage can be transported with farm equipment.

Enough about the train…Today I showed up at the doorsteps of a fellow NASCO co-op, and they allowed me to stay for bit! I haven't traveled that far at all, it turns out, as this place is on frat row, something I am quite familiar with. There was a record store in the University district where I found a few records and spoke with a really talkative store owner. Back at the co-op, I discovered that people from the Seattle/Oregon/NorthCali area know a helluva lot more about handmade record covers than I do. Rory, a soon-to-be phD student was generous enough to show me his formidable collection of The Microphones singles, (including a pop up 12" !) and to fill me in on some places to go (Olympia and Portland may have to join the other cities on the itinerary).

Turns out I have a lot of places and people to visit…and homebrew to drink (Vince and Rory make it in a closet upstairs).