Indie-er Than Thou

Wax n’ Facts was crowded last Tuesday.  It was afternoon, and shoppers browsed through the old vinyl in the casual sort of way people who no longer own a turntable do.  Others, fanatics, had questions.  One man asked for the soundtrack to Carwash.  They had it.  I asked for the owner, Danny Beard.  They had him too. 

He was standing at the register on crutches, leg mending slowly from some radical encounter with a moving vehicle.  I introduced myself.  I told him that in my conversations with local music industry types, he had been unanimously mentioned as the man to talk to about the independent music scene in Atlanta. That he was the founder of dB Records, the label that produced Rock Lobster, the B-52’s (and dB’s) first single, then went on to handle Love Tractor, Pylon, the Fans, Guadalcanal Diary, and (briefly) Matthew Sweet.

In the world of indie music, there are few financial success stories; despite Beard’s remarkable intuitions, dB was not one of them.  The label, like so many other seminal Atlanta labels, is “inactive” now.  Yet Beard did not seem distraught.

“I only did it because there was a band I thought would make it,” he said, referring to the B-52’s.  He had known Fred Schneider personally, had heard the recording, offered his services, the rest was history.  I asked him, sitting on a bench in front of the Vortex, whether he had regrets at dB’s failure to take off.  Was he disappointed at his inability to successfully penetrate the music industry?

“The industry?” he asked, almost smiling, honestly amused.  “Who’s into the industry?  It was just a hobby.  The store always made money.  The label never made money.  I’m stupid,” he said, in the way only extremely intelligent people can, “but I’m not that stupid.”  From the bench, removed from the fray, the frantic contest of Atlanta’s music industry seemed faintly ludicrous.

Of course at the front lines people were taking it very seriously indeed. As the front lines of the music industry are drawn at the commercial radio stations, so are the front lines of the indie music scene drawn at the independent radio stations. In the studio at WREK, Georgia Tech’s famously eccentric, independent station, two intense young production-types leaned towards me as if a wind blew behind them.  

“Atlanta doesn't really know what they have,” said Hormuz Minina, WREK’s director.  “Everybody complains about how shitty the commercial stations are.  Fine, so they're shitty.  Flip the dial. . . You can show [listeners] to the water, but. . .”

“It takes a brave man to go beneath 92mhZ,” added Ramsey Tatawi, WREK’s Public Relations arm.  He was referring not only to WREK (91.1), but also to WRAS, GSU’s station at 88.5.

WREK recently followed WRAS into the indie fray itself by producing and distributing a compilation of avant-garde music in which local artists such as William Carlos Williams, Estrada, Charlie Parker (the band, not the dead genius), and Neel Murgai are prominently featured. . . all under a new local label, Stickfigure.  The CD’s variety and depth is impressive.  So is the cost: $5. If WREK makes too much money from CD sales, the student government will cut their budget, which has not been raised since 1978.  Putting the CD out took one third of WREK’s $30,000 budget.  The station, unable to purchase speakers, manufactures its own.

At Daemon Records, Steve Dickson too is frustrated about money. 

“It's an expensive business,” he says, “it's just incredibly competitive.  Indie labels are always going to have difficulty competing with better-funded, better-exposed commercial bands.”

s that a special problem in Atlanta, a city that has been accused of crass corporate commercialism more than once? 

“That corporate mentality is definitely there,” he admits. “But I think that's the above-ground scene.  That isn't where the people making new music go.  It's not visible to the people from Seattle, from New York.  True to any art scene, it's more organic.”

"Are the independent labels letting local acts down?" I asked.

“There’s just enough activity to get out what needs to get out,” he said.  In defense of Daemon, he noted that “one of the unsung heroes of the indie scene is Amy Ray [of the Indigo Girls, who owns Daemon]. The focus at Daemon has always been to really nurture Southeastern bands.”

A musician himself, Steve lays some of the blame on the market.  There are too many bands, too few venues, too few consumers genuinely interested in the music.

“I wish people would take the time,” he said. He didn’t need to tell me about the demographic problem. I am the demographic problem: twenty-something, just got here, can’t tell the local talent from the local trash, too cheap to spend high covers gambling on unknowns.  Danny Beard shook his head in wonder at the depths of my ignorance when I revealed that I had never heard of Pylon, or of the car accident that destroyed The Jodygrind.

“A few good bands,” agreed Shachar Oren, of Ichiban, a local company that handles scores of local and national labels.  “A lot of lousy bands.  There’s no reason for the scene to be so saturated, no excuse for it.”  He agreed that there aren’t enough live music venues in Atlanta, but also blamed the market; “There just wasn’t the demand for it.”

Ichiban already handles a lot of local music.  They once specialized in local R&B acts like The Shadows and Francine Reed, as well as some hip hop artists, most recently the SleeStackz, but they also handle successful locals like Drivin’ and Cryin’ and Pineal Ventana.  Recently Ichiban started its own label, Shoestring Records, to handle local acts exclusively.

Oren was once program director at WRAS.  He established WRAS’ live production facility; he was responsible for WRAS’ Radio Oddysey compilations, the second of which featured local bands exclusively.

“I wanted to work with local artists I really believe in,” he said.  And he is optimistic about things to come.  He continued; “Music-wise, I think the past year and a half have been the best it’s ever been.”    If a local act should hit at Shoestring, Ichiban will promote and distribute them nationally.  Oren sits at the gateway to most local acts’ dreams.

So what do indie bands, indie labels, indie stations in Atlanta have to put up with?  Here’s a list:

1. A market saturated by the grungy residue of corporate America’s entry into the “alternative” music market.  “Certainly there was more of an ‘us versus them’ attitude during the eighties,” Danny Beard recalled.  “Commercial radio was never much of an option. . . It’s harder, now, for bands to stand out, but that’s not unique to Atlanta.”

2.  An ineducated market, or worse, an apathetic one.  “I don’t know if they’re there for the band or the beer,” complained Steve of the bar crowds he sometimes plays for. WREK worrys about the basic conflict between airing “elitist music, music you won’t hear anywhere else” while admitting that probably one in twenty-five Tech students cares that the station exists at all.  You can’t be slave to the market and still be independent.  On the other hand, who pays the rent?

3.  Insufficient press coverage.  Everyone was happy to admit that this situation is improving, although given they were talking to press coverage, perhaps they were just being polite. “The local media,”  Oren allowed, “is almost catching up.”

What does the scene have to look forward to?  Quite a bit actually.  Whether Atlantan’s take WRAS and WREK for granted or not, the stations are powerful (WRAS is the most powerful college station in the country) and popular.  At least, WRAS is popular.  WREK’s mission is not to care.  Unlike their listeners, college DJ’s know exactly what they like and want to play, and are allowed to play it.  In their own carefully circumscribed way, they are the dictators of the music industry.  If the independence of college radio led to the successful recognition of many “alternative” bands before the genre was assimilated, then Atlanta still has two of the most independent college radio stations in the country.  As an added bonus, WREK broadcasts online. Hardly a case of creativity stifled by commercialism.

Likewise the industry is willing and able to support and develop talented local groups.  Both college stations have reference materials for bands searching for promoters/labels and frequently serve as conduits for talented unknowns seeking exposure.  Even 99x and 96 Rock have local shows. “If you think we’re doing bad, look at Philadephia,” says Oren.  Those who can’t get access to bands, labels, or airplay simply aren’t trying or. . .

Or they suck. Of course, you  have to be good in the first place.  So does your studio work.  Your label must be staffed by competent staff, the DJ’s who listen to your music must be able to discriminate between noise and sense. As must the audience. Yet from Danny Beard’s curiously untroubled perspective, these are not issues worth worrying about, ultimately . “If the band is good enough,” he said, “it doesn’t matter.”