Vinyl Collective

For those of you not familiar with my State of the Unions, I use these posts as a forum to discuss the things going on with my label (Suburban Home), my Vinyl imprint (Vinyl Collective), my music industry blog-site (IndieHQ), and other happenings in my life. The posts are usually very long so make sure you have some time on your hands if you decide to read further. If you do, know that I usually discuss the inner workings of all of my endeavors for whatever that’s worth.

It has been over 2 months since my last State of the Union and I honestly can’t believe that much time has passed. Last time I wrote, I was just getting used to working out of my house and the many adjustments I had been making. This time around, we are now dealing with the loss of Kyle. No, he did not die! He is moving to Minneapolis to live with his fiancé, yes fiancé. He proposed to her a few weeks back and she said yes! I am super excited for Kyle and Jamie, but I am truly bummed to see him go. Kyle has become one of my closest friends as well as a valued employee. Kyle worked half days this Monday and Tuesday easing us into the transition and today, Wednesday, July 25th, was our first day without him. I think we will be able to continue in his absence, but as my wife Steph and I pick up the slack, it means that I will have a lot less time for things like IndieHQ which is unfortunate. My time is more valuable now than ever and I really hope I can juggle it all. As much as I love IndieHQ, I need to pay the bills and IndieHQ is more of a fun outlet.

Our lack of employees will not translate into a lack of future projects as I have more going on now than I have ever had going on. I feel like the only way I can keep things going is by keeping busy, busy, busy. Speaking of keeping things going, this September is our 12th Anniversary. As Suburban Home is on the verge of becoming a teenager, it really is hard for me to believe that we are still around. What will the future hold? Your guess is as good as mine. To celebrate another year, we will be throwing a weekend full of parties and you are all invited. September 14th, 15th, and 16th will see us throwing 2 shows featuring LaGrecia(could be their first show), Tim Barry, Josh Small, Jon Snodgrass, Chad Price, Ghost Buffalo, Two Cow Garage, and Love Me Destroyer. We will also be hosting a punk rock flea market where some of our bands will be doing acoustic sets. The weekend will end by having a big barbecue at Wash Park with a Washer’s tournament. Good times for sure. If you are anywhere in the area, please come and celebrate. Who knows how many more of these we will have?

Suburban Home has a lot of interesting things going on and some that will hopefully happen soon. In the demise of Drag the River, it looks as though both Jon and Chad have really cool things going on. Jon has already been actively playing shows and working on new tunes and sometime in the near future, we will be doing his first record. Jon will have to fit in time to record in between solo shows, an Armchair Martian tour, and all the other crazy stuff that Jon does. Chad is currently on a tour with Rocky Votolato playing in his band alongside other Drag the River folks, Dave Barker and Casey Prestwood. Chad hopes to work on his own material when he gets back as he has over 30 songs written already. With luck we will be doing both debut albums.

Speaking of Jon and Chad, I am working on what I think will be a really cool split 7” series. The idea is to put together split 7”s where the acts each do 2 covers of songs that have influenced their songwriting. This is a modification of the Under the Influence CD series I had been working on but was cursed from the beginning. I think it is just a lot easier to ask bands to do 2 songs rather than do an album’s worth of covers. The very first split will be a split between Lucero’s Ben Nichols and Drag the River’s Jon Snodgrass. How fucking cool will that be? I think we might do the series as a short run split CD, too, but I am not sure yet. We have also confirmed doing a split with Chuck Ragan and Tim Barry. I asked Chad Price to ask Rocky about them doing a split so hopefully I will have news of that, too. I have been trying to reach William Elliott Whitmore about doing a split with Josh Small, but I have only been able to try to contact him through his Myspace page which he has yet to get back to me on. If anyone has an email or phone number, let me know. I also hope to be doing a split between Two Cow Garage and the Drams. Two Cow’s manager is talking to the Drams so keep your fingers crossed. Lastly, I asked Limbeck to do a split, but I am not sure who they would do one with. I ran into Gared of Planes about doing one, too, and he suggested I get in touch with Frankie Stubbs of Leatherface to do the other side. Who knows how that one will pan out, but all you need to know is that this will be a super cool limited 7” series which may or may not come out on CD and will be available digitally.

Other future releases from Suburban Home include two re-releases. The first is a re-release of Armchair Martian’s “Who Wants to Play Bass”. I love this record, I love this band, and I am excited to bring it back into print. The record will have different artwork but other than that, it will be the same record. No bonus material. We will also be re-releasing Two Cow Garage’s first album, “Please Turn the Gas Back On” which will have 6 bonus songs. The songs have never been released and are some of Two Cow’s earliest recordings. Those two will be coming out in late September. In late October, we will be releasing the debut album from the Revenge, “Less Talk, More Shots.” The Revenge features my good buddy Anthony from Stereotyperider and features Dennis formerly of Sam the Butcher. These guys rock ala the Bronx or maybe the Gallows, just really rocking punk rock.

In the, “Holy Shit, this might happen” realm of things, it looks like we might be working with the super rad Joey Cape. Joey has been working on a project called Dead Penguin with a whole cast of other songwriters. He recently made a post on his Myspace page about it and said that they were label-less. We exchanged a few messages and it looks very promising that we will be putting it out, but we are currently playing one hell of a game of phone tag. If this happens, you will see one super-stoked dude as I celebrate Joey Cape’s entire catalog. I have always loved Lagwagon, Bad Astronaut, and all of his solo material. We might also help release his solo acoustic album in the states although that might not happen as Bad Taste in Germany is releasing it and we would have to work a bunch of stuff out. Either way, let’s hope this happens. Joey is amazing and I would love to work with him.

LaGrecia is coming together nicely. Jason and Dana have found an official bass player which we will announce next week. The songs are coming together nicely and it looks as though Lupe’s Fault (an On Guard track) might soon become a LaGrecia song but in a much more rocking way. I can’t believe how cool Jason has been to deal with. He is one of those guys who if he lived in Denver, I think we would become drinking buddies. It is his birthday today so wish him happy bday! LaGrecia’s first show could be our 12th anniversary show. How cool is that? I can’t wait!

Now to talk about Vinyl Collective, we have a lot of really exciting news to share. The Minus the Bear “Planet of Ice” will soon be shipping from our manufacturer and it is very possible that this pressing will be out of print before I even get the copies. We are pressing 2,000 copies and close to half of those will be gone through online orders. Nearly all of the sets of 4 have sold out which we set at 100 sets. The remaining 1,000 copies have already been spoken for through our distributors. This will be the quickest selling release in Vinyl Collective and maybe even Suburban Home history! The Suicide Squeeze/Minus the Bear camp seem to be cool with how things are going because they have given me the green light to release their remix record on vinyl. I had originally gotten in touch with Suicide Squeeze to release this remix record and they had initially passed. I am glad that things are working out so well with them and I could not speak more highly of David of Suicide Squeeze or David of Minus the Bear.

Some other records we will soon be pressing include Portugal the Man’s “Church Mouth” which is officially in stores today. I absolutely love this band and am excited to be doing another record for them. Our pressing of “Waiter, You Vultures” will be history over the next month as I only have one full box of copies left. “Church Mouth” should have a gatefold jacket and although the band had asked to see if we can do Glow in the Dark vinyl, it might end up being way too expensive. We are still looking good to be doing Poison the Well “Versions” and it is more than likely that we will also be doing Every Time I Die’s new album. Carl at Ferret said that as long as they are not doing the vinyl for ETID, we will get it.

In the Scott Heisel is one of my favorite people category, it looks as though he has sent a few people our way that might turn into new releases. The first is Chad from Tooth and Nail records. I have had a few people tell me that it would be cool if we could do vinyl for a few of the Tooth and Nail/Solid State bands and it looks like it might become reality due to Mr Heisel. Chad wrote me an email saying that Scott suggested he get in touch and we have been talking quite a bit since. It looks as though we might be doing a Norma Jean box set not unlike the Every Time I Die one we did as a trial run with Tooth and Nail. If all goes well, we may end up doing some stuff for Anberlin and maybe Underoath. Crazy! Scott also recently sent Blaze James (manager of Sparta and Coheed and Cambria) my way. I have known Blaze for years back when he used to manage At the Drive In but in a conversation with Scott, the topic of vinyl came up. Blaze mentioned that Sparta really wanted to put “Threes” out on vinyl and once again, he was kind enough to mention me. Thanks so much Scott! Looks like someone might be getting some really cool test pressings if these ever happen. Note that Scott will also be our August Vinyl Collector of the Month because well, he rules!

Some of the other someday soon vinyl releases include the vinyl for “Let me Come Home” by Limbeck; and Hobo’s Demos, Closed, and Chicken Demos by Drag the River. We will also have to do a small repress of “Rivanna Junction” as Tim needs copies for his tour with William Elliott Whitmore. If you haven’t ordered the first pressing of Rivanna, do so now, I have only 12 copies left and after that, the pressing will be gone forever. The Every Time I Die box sets are nearing their end, too. I have only 2 full boxes of them left and note that since they are a box set, only 17 fit into a box. I am really excited at how well everything is going with Vinyl Collective. Our Message Board is going really well, too, and what I like most about it is that there really are no assholes on our board. They are inviting to new people and there really isn’t any pretense there. The store is going well and we have some really cool store exclusives planned including a special color of the new Ben Weasel album. Mike Kennerty of All American Rejects has started a label(Edmond Records) and will be doing a vinyl release of Ben Weasel’s latest album. Mike has been so cool that he even suggested doing a special run on color that only Vinyl Collective will have. I will keep you posted on that for sure.

There are lots of other things I could be talking about, but it is time to make dinner for my family. Thanks to everyone who read this far and thanks to everyone who supports our small, indie label.

Your Friend Through Music,
Virgil Dickerson