I’d like to welcome Mike Jones as our December Suburban Home Buddy of the Month. Each month we select someone we recognize as a big supporter of what we do and this month, Mike topped our short list. And after reading his interview, I can only hope other folks have similar experiences with our small, independent label. Mike started out a fan of Drag the River and was later showed Tim Barry by a friend. At some point, he saw that both records were put out by the same label and at that point started finding out more about our releases. In an era when people don’t consider what label a record is on like they used to, it is nice to see that some people still do.

I encourage you to read on as Mike explains his introduction into Suburban Home, his favorite SH and non-SH artists, a band we should consider putting on Suburban Home, and suggestions on what we can do. Thanks Mike for all the support and thanks for taking the time to answer these questions.

SH: Your name and the city you live in. What do you do for a living?
My name is Mike Jones. I live in Louisville, Ky and work as an EMT for Louisville Metro EMS.

SH: How did you find out about Suburban Home, what was the first SH release you ever purchased?
I first heard Drag The River not quite two years ago. I picked up several of their records (lowest pressings of all the 12″ except the Live At Oklahoma City) in an auction on ebay. I didn’t really pay much attention to what label they were on at the time. The more I listened to them the bigger fan I became. I also started buying from vinyl collective’s ebay store late last year. A friend of mine turned me on to Tim Barry and Chuck Ragan earlier this year when I let him listen to DTR. It didn’t hit me that Tim and DTR were on the same label till about 3 months ago. It was then that I decided to thoroughly check out Suburban Home’s site. I learned that they had several other artists I like as well and I have since become a huge, huge fan of the label.

SH: What is your favorite Suburban Home release? Favorite Suburban Home artists?
Right now it has to be Tim Barry’s “Rivanna Junction”. I’ve been listening to it quite a bit here lately. Besides Tim I also like (in no particular order): Drag The River, Jon Snodgrass, Chad Price, Two Cow Garage, Austin Lucas, The Takers and Look Mexico.

SH: What other labels do you follow?
It seems that most of favorite artists are spread out among many labels. So Lost Highway is probably the only other label that I follow. I also check out Sideone Dummy regularly, but only for Chuck Ragan stuff.

SH: What are some of your favorite non-Suburban Home artists?
There are many. Lets see: The Black Keys, Chuck Ragan, Heartless Bastards, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Jimmy Buffett, Lucero, Lucinda Williams, The Murder City Devils, Pearl Jam, Grayson Capps, Mama Sweet, Uncle Tupelo, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Beastie Boys, Rage Against The Machine, The Dropkick Murphys, Black Diamond Heavies, The White Stripes, The Detroit Cobras, The Dirtbombs…..

SH: What is your musical format of choice? CD, Vinyl, Digital?
At home I love to listen to vinyl. And I don’t usually go anywhere without my ipod. They need to release a 250gb ipod with the quickness. I haven’t actually listened to a cd in a long, long time. I still buy them, but only to rip them to my hard drive. That’s because I can control the sound quality whereas with mp3 downloads I can’t.

SH: Where do you buy Suburban Home releases?
Online. Either from the store, from members of the vinylcollective message board or from ebay. I’ve had nothing but good experiences with the fine folks from the message boards. In many ways they’ve been better than a lot of ebay sellers.

SH: If you ran Suburban Home, what band would you sign?
Mama Sweet is still not very well known and would fit in very well with the artists that are already on the label.

SH: Which Suburban Home artists have you seen live, which artist(s) on Suburban Home that you haven’t seen are you looking forward to seeing?
Unfortunately, Tim Barry and Austin Lucas are the only Suburban Home artists that I’ve seen live. But I absolutely HAVE to see Drag The River at some point in time. Even if it’s just Jon and Chad together, I’ll still be happy. I really wish I could’ve made it to the Revival Tour stop in Memphis this year. I’d also like to Two Cow Garage. I bet they put on a great show. (MIKE, they sure do – virgil)

SH: We at Suburban Home realize that we are a small label and are always interested in hearing suggestions on what we can do better, any suggestions?
It would be super dope rad if there was a bigger Susburban Home presence here in Louisville. I can never find the releases in the local record stores. And I’d love to see more of the artists (Drag The River… wink, wink, nudge, nudge) play shows close by. And I’m willing to help with both those.

SH: Have you ever called the Drunk Dial Hotline? If no, why not?
No, not yet. Guess I just don’t get drunk as much as I should anymore. I’ll have to rectify that.

SH: Do you have any interesting Suburban Home related stories?
No stories right now, but I am planning to go to RMNP(rocky mountain national park) next year and will definitely be paying visits to the Suburban Home offices while I’m there. I also will be hitting up some of the local breweries (New Belgium for sure)and hopefully there will be some good shows around that time. If I don’t have any good stories after that then I just didn’t have enough fun.