If you’re reading this here you probably have some connection elsewhere to my Instagram/Twitter etc and you already know: What once was my blog is now my record label. Like having a child a little over a year ago: you can prepare all you want for what’s about to come but then all of a sudden it shows up (a pallet of records from a pressing plant, a new human, etc) and it’s suddenly REAL and you just have to deal with it and keep it alive. NO, Desperate Bicycles, it was NOT cheap, it was NOT easy but eh, what the hell…
All that said: Thank you so much for everyone who helped me get this label off the ground, whether it be through advice, connections, insider info or all of that combined: Tom Lax at Siltbreeze, graphic design guru Raoul Tinybear at Tedium House, mastering wizard Josh Stevenson at Otic Sound, Chris Freeman at Fusetron, and anyone and everyone who’s answered any of my dumb questions about this stuff the past few months. Thanks to Fats White AKA Brent Hayward for entrusting me with his amazing Smelly Feet archive to kick things off, and of course, Thanks to all of the stores, distributors and individuals who have already purchased over 250 copies of the 300 copies pressed! So if you’ve been holding out on ordering one, hit up the Minimum Table Stacks Bandcamp ASAP before they’re all gone, OR better yet, save me some paper cuts and just order from Tedium House, Fusetron, State Laughter, Digital Regress, Midheaven/Revolver or if you’re in the UK or Europe try World of Echo in London or Discreet Music in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Lastly: Just as soon as I got the Smelly Feet LP out the door I was hit with the same question over and over: What’s next? Well, I decided to make things difficult for myself and submit 3 separate projects to 3 separate pressing plants in 3 different countries all at the same time just to see who would cough up the goods first. Citizens of France will be pleased to learn that their plant has beaten those in the Netherlands and the USA by a mile (well, kilometer). So it remains to be seen what release will appear in second place but… Coming soon: MTS-002 is a 45RPM 12″ EP collecting the complete recordings of early 80’s Wales, UK outfit Violin Sect. Two songs from their painfully elusive self-released 7″ from 1981 plus two additional previously unreleased songs from the original recording session mastered from the original studio tape by Josh Stevenson at Otic Sound in Vancouver, CA. UK DIY post-punk/pop in the same realm as early Scritti Politti, the Slits and the poppier side of the Homosexuals universe. Also: MTS-003 Zyklon B Zombies “Skull” LP is a vinyl reissue of the first cassette by the early 90’s Japanese post-punk/improv noise unit led by the late Hirohito Taneguchi AKA Seed Mouth along with friends including Junko of Hijokaidan. Any track from “Skull” would have fit in perfectly on the “Dead Tech Sampler – No Wave From Japan” LP from 1986. Harsh noise, feedback-drenched psychedelia and post-punk song structure weave in and out of one another pushing the limits of whatever cheap live recording devices they must have strapped to a folding chair to capture.
After that: It’s not just an archival/reissue label, I swear! Two LPs by actually active contemporary bands from the US, and then…Probably more archival stuff. Stay tuned……….
