Honestly, to me, it was a sad replay of Big Star: best band in Memphis signs with a large-ish label who doesn't usually work in their wheelhouse. Then, when the label has internal turmoil/money issues, they cut bait on the outlier to focus on what they know. They never promote the band for shit and the records disappear damn near unnoticed.
What subpop loved was a band like Sunny Day Real Estate or Sebadoh because they had already done all the hard work of building their own fanbase which is pretty much what we did too. Makes sense business wise but sometimes we felt like a lot of people at subpop were just there to take advantage of travel opportunities and great hotels. I was like 'if you guys are worried about money so much then maybe don't stay at the most expensive hotels everywhere you fucking go.'
I'm not sure if Sub Pop had a good plan for how to take you guys from playing well-received shows in places like Boston or NYC to selling records to the people living outside the city centers and getting your posters onto dorm room walls.
Atlantic. Their indie label was called TAG. They only had like 2 or 3 other bands on their roster. I think Jawbox was one of them. I thought we'd be better off there because we'd get more attention as opposed to subpop who had 80 bands or something. But what we did (intentionally) was start a bidding war and subpop ponied up the most cash. But yeah, I often think maybe our biggest mistake was not signing with island when they offered which was before One Sock Missing. Probably mentioned this before but when Island was after us we had a final meeting with Denny Cordell (and Jesse) who told us they only had it in the budget to sign one more indie band that year and it was between us and 'a band from Ireland called the Cranberries'. We actually replied "Tell the Cranberries we said you're welcome."
Probably mentioned this before but when Island was after us we had a final meeting with Denny Cordell (and Jesse) who told us they only had it in the budget to sign one more indie band that year and it was between us and 'a band from Ireland called the Cranberries'. We actually replied "Tell the Cranberries we said you're welcome."
Probably mentioned this before but when Island was after us we had a final meeting with Denny Cordell (and Jesse) who told us they only had it in the budget to sign one more indie band that year and it was between us and 'a band from Ireland called the Cranberries'. We actually replied "Tell the Cranberries we said you're welcome."
And everything just came full circle. Nicely done, everybody.
We spent all of our money on a van and studio gear. The van has long since left this earth, but the gear lives on. It's the same core of stuff we just recorded 18/19 on.
Also, when AML came out I urged subpop to buy adspace with Fantagraphics. Something they often did anyway. They said they didn't see the point in doing it at that time. I was like 'well, Jim Woodring did the cover, so.......'. As it turned out Jim gave us a shout out in his comic for free.
We all still have our roll-cases we bought. And I think Stan bought a new drum kit which he still has. I didn't buy anything. Maybe a new distortion pedal. I've been playing the same bass since I was 17.
You guys are a bunch of whinny wimps! We had several days of temperatures hovering around -20°C, plus something like 30 cm of snow last friday. And I shovelled the whole damn driveway again and I enjoyed it! Proper character building weather, I say!
I often wonder how different OSM would've been had it been on Island. Probably still would have had most of the same songs. They probably would've pushed a producer on us. They had one in mind ( the guy that did debt and departure, he also worked with Aerosmith and was a friend of Denny's) EVEN THOUGH they told us they wouldn't make us change anything we're doing. I mean, they didn't push a producer on us but I bet if we'd signed they would've been like "welllll, actually..."
By the way, I've been collecting all the Grifters 7", just for fun. I had a comp of them all that Jesse gave me, but it's a cd-r. I've decided to replace it with the real thing.
Need to get caught up on my nerd shit. We watched Battle of the Sexes last night. I can't tell if it was movie of the year or if I'm just a sucker for a well-made feelgood movie but yeah, we loved it.
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Probably mentioned this before but when Island was after us we had a final meeting with Denny Cordell (and Jesse) who told us they only had it in the budget to sign one more indie band that year and it was between us and 'a band from Ireland called the Cranberries'. We actually replied "Tell the Cranberries we said you're welcome."
We spent all of our money on a van and studio gear. The van has long since left this earth, but the gear lives on. It's the same core of stuff we just recorded 18/19 on.
So, yeah, getting myself ready to be sick.
It would've had different album art probably.
We arrived in mid december, and it was -17°C. I was like "fuck this, I wanna go back". But did they listen to me? Nooooo!
Watched the Letterman/Obama thing last night. It was pleasant refreshingly coherent conversation amongst two retired dudes.