I’m still in quiet shock over Vic Chesnutt’s death. Some people have such an indelible presence that it’s impossible to imagine the world without them. Vic was one of those people.

Through his beautiful, incisive songs, the world seemed to blaze a little brighter. As Kristin Hersh wrote in her incredibly moving tribute:

I don't think I like this planet without Vic; I swore I would never live here without him. But what he left here is the sound of a life that pushed against its constraints, as all lives should. It's the sound of someone on fire. It makes this planet better.

A few years ago, my friend Giles wrote a wonderful post about discovering Vic's music for the first time:

Arriving home, I placed the A-side on my turntable. A few plucked notes that bent upwards, a plaintive harmonica, and then the first line, "I dreamed I was dancing with Isadora Duncan." I was smitten, and devastatingly so. ... This, this music, this little song, was simple, sad, and crushingly beautiful.

Rest in peace, Vic. You are missed.

***
Kristin Hersh has set up a Paypal donation page to help Vic's family defray the expenses associated with his recent hospitalizations and death. 100% of all funds raised will go to Vic's family.

For more about Vic’s music, visit Constellation Records.

Vic Chesnutt and Kristin Hersh, “Panic Pure" (live)]]> tag:www.warpedrealitymagazine.com,2009://1.160 2009-12-20T23:54:41Z 2009-12-21T00:09:43Z

A wintry mix tape for our wintry mix.

16 zipped tracks + artwork that you can assemble into your own little CD sleeve, if you so desire.

1) ICICLE WHEEL : the focus group
2) HOT SPRINGS IN THE SNOW : the creatures
3) AFTER TORINO : David Cunningham
4) JASZ : Dome
5) BRIMSTONE IN A BARREN LAND : Danielle Dax
6) SNOWS PAST : The Lowest Note
7) THE SCREENS : Atlas Sound
8) A DULCIMER'S FANCY : The Occasion
9) SUN DRAWING : Movietone
10) CORPOREAL : Broadcast
11) HEREFOREVERALWAYS : His Name Is Alive
12) LITTLE TIGER : Tune-Yards
13) BLUSH : Bows
14) DEATH + ANNIE : Quickspace
15) ZOMBIE CLOUD : Urdog
16) IN BRISTOL WITH A PISTOL : Third Eye Foundation

”Snows Past" sleeve art (1.7MB PDF)

"Snows Past” Winter Music Compilation (70MB .zip file includes artwork, MP3s and playlist)

ARTWORK BY ANDREA FELDMAN

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Dean & Britta
13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests
RISD
October 3, 2009

A Walk into the Sea
Esther Robinson, director
T. Griffin, composer
2008

Unspooling in slow motion, Andy Warhol’s screen tests exert a strange kind of hypnotic allure.

Documenting the Factory superstars, as well as the hangers-on, artists, writers, musicians and infamous acquaintances that were pulled into Warhol’s orbit, the films collectively stand as a poignant elegy to the lost innocence of the 60s.

Made between 1964 and 1966, roughly 500 exist. Filmed with Warhol’s 16mm Bolex, each film runs two minutes, the length of a single reel. Slowed down to four minutes, every blink, sly smile and hand gesture takes on a curious gravity.

A single tear tracks agonizingly slowly down Ann Buchanan’s cheek, then hangs, suspended, like a jewel.

Lou Reed, looking very Street Hustler behind enormous shades, swigs aggressively from a Coca Cola.

Square-jawed, blond Paul America evades the camera’s gaze until he finally cracks up, smiling broadly.

Doomed Freddy Herko —the Judson dancer who sailed out an open window in 1966— looks anxious and drawn as he sullenly drags off a dwindling cigarette.

In her memoir, Swimming Underground, Mary Woronov (one of the 13) cannily notes that Warhol’s screen tests are remarkable because “you would see the person fighting with his (or her) image —trying to protect it. …After that it slips and your real self starts to show through.”

Encapsulating that sense of self in flux must have posed a challenge to Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, the married duo who record as Dean & Britta. Looking to give the screen tests new life, the Andy Warhol Museum commissioned them to compose a soundtrack for a select group of 13.

(As principal songwriter for Galaxie 500 and Luna, Wareham’s music has effortlessly channeled a Velvet-y vibe for years. He must have seemed like a natural choice.)

The result, as it played out live last night before a packed house at RISD, was powerful —as sweet, funny, sad, desperate and ridiculous as the subjects themselves.

Mixing originals and covers, including Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine” (written for Nico) and a furious version of the recently unearthed Velvets gem “I’m Not a Young Man Anymore”, the score perfectly captured the hazy, narcotized momentum of the scene.

The instrumentals had the most frenzied energy. “Silver Factory” (for Billy Name) was shimmering and thunderous, like a wave cresting over and over. A Luna instrumental, "The Enabler" (re-titled “Herringbone Tweed") fit Dennis Hopper’s test to a tee, its swaggering, low-end twang a perfect corollary to his glowering presence. (He breaks character halfway through, reverting from tough to goofball.)

The most languid, dreamy songs were paired with the most tragic figures, like the aforementioned Herko or poor, haunted Ingrid Superstar, who disappeared from her upstate NY home in 1987, leaving behind her false teeth and fur coat. And who could forget luminous Edie, who died of a drug overdose in 1971?

Danny Williams was another Factory casualty. Warhol’s live-in boyfriend for a time, he worked as a film editor for the Maysles and designed the lighting for the Velvets’ Exploding Plastic Inevitable traveling show.

In 1966, after a grueling (and emotionally taxing) tour with the VU, Williams drove home to the Cape to see his family. Late one evening he borrowed his mother’s car to go for a swim. He was never seen again.

Thirty-five years later, his niece Esther Robinson stumbled across a treasure trove of her uncle’s extraordinary black and white experimental films. Intrigued, she set out to solve the mystery of his disappearance. The result is the documentary A Walk into the Sea (2008).

Brooklyn musician T. Griffin composed the film’s soundtrack.

Working with collaborators Catherine McRae and Bruce Cawdron, the three set up in Williams’ old house, put microphones everywhere and let the sounds of the sea and surrounding woods lend their own haunting naturalness.

Of the process, Griffin writes, “I wasn’t dumb enough to try to sound like the Velvet Underground. But I knew they’d be hovering in the background somewhere, along with the Jaynettes and LaMonte Young.

“Esther was looking for music just at the edge of hearing, something that signaled the music swirling around NYC in 1966, but was impossible to place. Suggestive, not descriptive. We wanted music that sounded like a yellowed newspaper, like a rusty set of keys.”

13 Most Beautiful is on DVD from Plexifilm; you can buy it from the Dean & Britta store. A Walk into the Sea is available from Shiny Little Records. You can find the film at Amazon.

STILLS: ANN BUCHANAN, FREDDY HERKO, EDIE SEDGWICK [© THE ESTATE OF DANNY WILLIAMS]

Dean & Britta, “Herringbone Tweed" (Live) (from 13 Most Beautiful…, 2009)

The Velvet Underground, “I’m Not a Young Man Anymore” (Live at the Gymnasium)

T. Griffin, "In Silver" (from A Walk into the Sea, 2008)]]> tag:www.warpedrealitymagazine.com,2009://1.156 2009-09-28T02:47:03Z 2009-09-28T03:01:31Z

Extra Golden
Providence, RI
September 24, 2009

The saying “If there’s a will, there’s a way” fits Extra Golden to a tee.

The group’s certainly had to prove its resilience in its five years of existence: they haven’t let visa troubles, political unrest or the untimely death of a founding member get in the way of a joyous international collaboration between American and Kenyan musicians.

Formed almost by happenstance in 2004 when musicians Ian Eagleson, Alex Minoff and Otieno Jagwasi began playing one another’s compositions, for fun, just to see where they could take them, the group quickly coalesced into a full-fledged band.

Ian and Alex were American musicians from the Washington, D.C.-based band Golden; since 2000, Otieno had been assisting Ian in his doctoral research documenting benga, a guitar-heavy kind of dance music (similar to Congolese rumba) that has been popular in Kenya since the 1960s.

Over a couple of days, the group hashed out several songs, building them on top of rhythm tracks that Eagleson had recorded earlier with local drummer Onyango Wuod Omari.

Making due with less than ideal recording circumstances, they set up a laptop and a mixing board in the middle of a Nairobi restaurant. Three hours later, the majority of their debut album, Ok-Oyot System [Thrill Jockey], was complete.

Nearly five years and two more albums later, the unbelievable difficulties they’ve weathered haven’t touched the music, a jangly, funky, propulsive mix of rock and benga that transcends pastiche and achieves a rare grace.

Appropriately enough, summer returned with a vengeance in time for the band’s outdoor show last Thursday evening. Their sound —crisp, buoyant, insanely danceable, all forward momentum and frenzied riffage — cut through the heat with joyous abandon. And, while the crowd was a little thin, the group didn’t let that stop them from giving it their all.

By show’s end the motley audience —an oddball mix of hipsters and the drunks who practically live in the park — were all dancing like crazy, won over by the music’s effortless charm.

If you’re curious about traditional benga, you can buy CDs by Extra Golden vocalist Opiyo Bilongo and other Kenyan artists through Kanyo Kanyo.

Extra Golden, "Anyango" (from Thank You Very Quickly, Thrill Jockey, 2009)

PHOTOS BY ANDREA FELDMAN

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View Nonstop Eating in Chicago in a larger map

OK, I'll admit it: I judge every city against NYC. To me, NYC is the ne plus ultra, the pinnacle, the über and the ür — even when it drives me crazy (which is most of the time).

Now that I'm back from my first-ever visit to Chicago, I realize that it's not fair to judge it by an East Coast barometer. It's completely different from NYC. For one thing, I didn't expect it to be so welcoming. Or quiet. (NYC, with its teeming sidewalks and incessant rush-rush-rush, is NEVER, ever quiet. I don't think the city even has a pause button.)

By contrast, Chicago takes its time. It's happy to let you discover its charms at your own pace.

Which I did. I didn't even see one thousandth of the city, but I like to think I got a real glimpse of the real Chicago. No, I didn't have any deep dish pizza. (Don't tell, but I'm a thin-crust girl all the way. Rhode Island represent!) And no, I didn't go to a Cubs game.

Aberrant Periodicals and Weimar Decadence
A friend I hadn't seen since college road-tripped in from Wisconsin with her husband. We all made a beeline for Quimby's, self-described "specialists in the importation, distribution, and sale of unusual publications, aberrant periodicals, saucy comic booklets and assorted fancies." (Wisconsin being a bit culturally deprived of such things.) The store is pure evil from its Chris Ware signage to its dusty, crammed-floor-to-ceiling shelves. Evil I say! (Plus I used to sell my zine there! Aww.)

After a Zen Noodle interlude, we drove (and drove, and drove) north to the no-man's land where the Portage Theatre resides. This enormous, gorgeous relic —a former home to the silents scarred by too many slap-dash renovations— was the perfect setting for Nitrates and Kinogeists, a two-day celebration of Murnau's Faust, McKean's Mirrormask (and short films) and German silent movie posters. Talk about a match made in heaven.

A jet-lagged but chatty Dave McKean tirelessly signed and doodled his way through the piles of books, comics and ephemera that fans brought. (Missing was my own copy of Cages there was no way I was going to lug it through airport security and back again.)

McKean's short films were a mixed bag, but culminated in the visually stunning "The Week Before," a sumptuously imagined and wry look at God's fraught first attempts at Creation.

Afterwards, we got ice cream at the wholesomely retro Oberweis outpost near Wicker Park. Butter pecan for the win!

The Natural World
Sunday was a day to wander. Luckily my hotel was near the Art Institute of Chicago, where the new Renzo Piano wing just opened. I made a beeline for the Steve McQueen installation, Girls, Tricky, an intimate fly-on-the-wall portrait of Tricky in the studio. Thanks to McQueen's use of available light and Tricky's mercurial, agitated performance style, this made for an unsettling, abstracted, intense fifteen minutes.

The small but perfectly-formed Cy Twombly exhibit, The Natural World was exquisite. Nothing compares to seeing Twombly's paintings in person: the colors are luminous, the brush strokes at times chaotic yet graceful, even languourous. It's easy to get lost in the sense of light and movement, which is broken up by little impastoed blobs of paint, wax smears, and pencil squiggles. By contrast, his sculptures seem leaden and reductive, although his series of photographs of one sculpture in particular, Untitled, have a transformative effect, rendering the earthbound ethereal.

I ended up in Wicker Park (again!) and wandered by Paul Kahan's The Bluebird purely by happenstance. This is one of those places where the ambience is keyed so that you miraculously feel right at home: exposed brick walls, rough industrial touches like salvaged lighting and reclaimed wood (the bathroom doors apparently came from a shuttered Catholic girls' school), and chalkboard menus above the bar. A gastropub with an emphasis on wines, whiskeys and small batch distilled spirits, the leather-bound drink menu was far more time-consuming to negotiate than the one-pager of savories.

A Tree Grows in Wicker Park
After some consultation with our very helpful server, we ordered a bottle of German Scheurebe, the 2005 Kruger-Rumpf Kabinett. Clunky name, but the wine was lovely — a hint of sweet with mineral, floral and herbaceous notes. It was the perfect complement to my plate of fiery chicken wings and grilled citrus fruit, but it didn't pair quite as well with Mike's milder ale-braised rabbit leg with saffron, english pea and bacon-studded risotto or Kate's mussels in blanche de chambly ale with shallots, chili flakes and garlic. Ah well. We enjoyed it nonetheless.

By then we were too full to even contemplate dessert. It was a beautiful night, so we wandered around the neighborhood for a little while. I spent a lot of time in Wicker Park while I was in Chicago, and ultimately it reminded me of a more refined Williamsburg, with its squat brick row houses and hipster enclaves. It was also more appealing, with a slower pace, less attitude, and more trees.

We ended the evening with rich Greek coffee and desserts at Taxim, a new restaurant over on N. Milwaukee, next to the Double Door. We split the orchid-root ice cream (oddly chewy but delicious) with orange blossom and pistachios, and the phyllo with walnuts, pistachios and clotted cream. (Mmm, clotted cream. So wrong, yet so right.)

Robber Barons, Mies and Me
I started Monday with the Chicago architectural tour by boat. I recommend this to ANYONE who has even a few hours in Chicago. The weather was perfect —sunny and pleasant, with not a trace of humidity. And it was beautiful out on the water.

If only you could see NYC's architectural highlights this way. It's really so special.

I knew I wasn't going to make it to Urban Belly, Bill Kim's much-fêted new Asian restaurant tucked away in an unassuming strip mall. Oysy was my second choice, and it didn't disappoint.

I made sure to snag a table, rather than sit at the sushi bar, and ordered off the pricier a la carte menu. Highlights: tender garlic-and-miso glazed flank steak; tuna tartare with chili dipping sauce; and the exquisite summer roll, with tuna, yellowtail, slivers of green pepper, cucumber, avocado, cilantro and lime juice.

I enjoyed my meal at Oysy so much I went back for a final lunch before heading off to the airport. This time, the place was much busier and I ended up sitting at the sushi bar. With time of the essence, I ordered the prix fixe bento lunch, which included miso soup, salad, california and spicy tuna rolls, shrimp tempura and the aforementioned garlic-miso steak.

Shockingly, the quality was completely inferior to what I'd had off the a la carte menu. The steak was tough and gristly, the rolls totally blah. (I hate California rolls to begin with, but the menu specified "No substitutions.") I was so disheartened that I ordered the summer roll again, just to make sure that the first meal hadn't been a fluke.

When it turned out to be as good as before, which made me wonder: why the totally schizoid shift in quality? A restaurant with good word-of-mouth reputation (as Oysy seems to have) should aim for consistency in everything they do, whether it's a $12 lunch special or a $13 hand roll.

Back to Monday: my colleague and I skipped out on the open bar and headed back to Wicker Park/Bucktown to try our luck at the super-hot Bristol. They don't take reservations, and we were running late (we got stuck in rush-hour traffic getting there). Incredibly, we were seated right away.

In Which I Wax Rhapsodic About the Bristol
The Bristol has a number of similarities with The Bluebird: the dinner menu is dwarfed by the leather-bound wine, beer and top-shelf booze list. Chalkboard specials: check. Industrial/rustic interior with exposed brick: check. I would say the food proved more consistent and polished than at The Bluebird, although I preferred the laid-back vibe of the latter. Both were incredibly good value given the quality of the presentation and freshness of the ingredients.

I also appreciated the honesty of the service at the Bristol. Greg and I came very close to ordering duplicates of the same salad; the server stopped us with, "It's plenty large enough to share." And he was right. The salad was an abundant mélange of green and red leaf lettuces, herbs (parlsey, tarragon, chervil, chives), and thin slivers of radish and fennel, all tossed in a light buttermilk-peppercorn dressing.

For my entrée, I had the raviolo, a single, giant, perfect pocket of pasta dough filled with a mixture of ricotta and herbs, with a runny egg yolk in the centre. The raviolo was brushed with clarified butter and chopped herbs. It was chewy, buttery, decadent perfection. (Greg, whose mother is Italian, declared it the best he'd ever tasted.) He loved his burger, too —especially the duck fat fries.

I coveted those duck fat fries. Throwing caution (and my HDL) to the wind, I ordered a batch. Oh my god, these were the best fries EVER. Paired with a garlicky, addictive aioli (the less said about the dullsville house-made ketchup, the better), the fries were simply heavenly. Served piping hot, they were dusted with a gremolata of lemon zest, sea salt and Parmigiano-Reggiano. I'm going to try this at home as soon as I can.

Afterwards, we decided to walk around the neighborhood. This time we went in the opposite direction down Damen, window-shopping as we went.

Last Night in Town (So Make It Count)
Tuesday night was my last dinner in town. I met up again with Mike and Kate at Perennial, a chic, sprawling place near the lake.

The décor was an odd mix of minimalist and organic Orientalist —faux-bamboo, real bois and shiny surfaces trying in vain to coexist. The food was, thankfully, more consistent, albeit miniaturized. (I was surprised when entrées didn't arrive with their own tiny magnifying glass.)

We started with cocktails: an Amaretto-touched Manhattan for Mike, an elevated Cosmo for Kate and a Perennial (gin, St. Germain, lavender simple syrup and grapefruit juice) for myself. All perfectly mixed and chilled. And strong! (I sipped slowly and held onto the table for dear life.)

When it came to choosing a wine that would complement the small plates, our waitress suggested Torrontés, an Argentinian wine known for being a) cheap and b) having an O Henry-ish ability to evoke the sweetness of a Muscat yet hit the palate with a light, aromatic crispness. (And did I mention it's cheap?) I totally fell for this wine and intend to track some down ASAP.

We started with the tuna crudo with citrus and basil oil. (A perfect summer appetizer —so clean and refreshing.) The chicken lollipops with Asian slaw and soy glaze didn't quite top the Bluebird's crisp, fiery wings, but still disappeared toot sweet.

Entrées were more problematic: my semolina gnocchi were dry and un-gnocchi-like (although the intense black truffle reduction and mixed vegetable accompaniment were both good). Mike's hamachi was flavorful, in a light soy broth, but Kate's salmon was just okay.

We ended the meal with 10 year tawny port (lovely) and the cheese plate, which was a bit on the fussy side. Each sliver of cheese came with its own amuse-bouche, essentially. For some reason I found this distracting and unnecessarily flashy; I would have preferred the cheese to stand alone, with more traditional nibbles —quince, fig paste, nuts — on the side. The cheeses were all excellent, however: an aged gouda, Ewe's Bloom, Lincoln Log and a marvelously stinky and gooey cheese, the name of which currently escapes me.

Afterwards we walked down to the lake and talked while looking out over the incredible city skyline, as sailboats disappeared off into the direction of Michigan.

All in all, a perfect last night in my favorite new city.

PHOTOS BY ANDREA FELDMAN

Speed Dating has the feel of a great lost mix tape. If you think about it, a 7-inch is basically a band’s thesis statement. Speed Dating captures that headlong rush of great pop ideas —the fizz and pop— many times over. Stylistically restless but aesthetically consistent, Speed Dating is also a reminder of a more innocent time, when a band could make its mark with an A-side and a record label’s careful connoisseurship still meant something.

Luna’s Dean Wareham once said of Terry, “You meet two kinds of people at major labels —those who live for music, and those who live off music. Terry lived for music.”

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PICTURED: TERRY WITH DEAN WAREHAM, 23RD ST. PHOTO COURTESY HOWARD THOMPSON

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Originally a Deadhead from New City in Rockland County, Terry’s musical paradigm was forever shifted in 1978 when he moved to NYC. Turned on to punk rock by his boyfriend, who ran a small record label, Terry was enlisted to take records around to Ed Bahlman’s influential 99 Records on Macdougal.

It didn’t take long for Bahlman to offer Tolkin a job. From there, he became involved with the day-to-day operations at the store and at Bahlman’s label, 99,* home to ESG, Liquid Liquid, the Bush Tetras and Glenn Branca, among others. At this time, he also started DJing and booking shows at NY venues like Danceteria.

It was the start of a career that would include A&R jobs at Touch & Go, Dutch East India Trading Co., Caroline, Rough Trade and Elektra, where he became VP of A&R from 1992 to 1996, signing Stereolab, Luna, the Afghan Whigs, Scrawl and Jennyanykind.

He started No. 6 in 1989, when he was at Rough Trade, and disbanded the label ten years and fifty releases later. During that time, he released records by Dean Wareham, Tindersticks, Cagney and Lacee (Dean Wareham’s band with his first wife, Claudia Silver), Ornament (an Afghan Whigs offshoot) and Unrest, among others.

The high-flying “alt-rock years” finally ended at Elektra in 1996 with a huge personnel shake-up. This was an incredibly dark time in Terry’s personal life as well —his apartment building collapsed and he lost everything in the resulting fire, including all the No. 6 masters and artwork, as well as his three cats and his record collection. (This period is covered in great detail in Dean Wareham’s memoir Black Postcards.) Terry currently lives on a farm, as far away as you can get from the insanity of NYC.

Terry chatted at length with me about the genesis of the label and his wayward adventures in the record industry.

INFLUENCES
At what age did you first get interested in music? What were some of the first bands to make a lasting impression on you?

My Mom says that I always liked and reacted to music. [My parents] spent a lot of time (and money) sending me to different music lessons on all kinds of instruments. It always ended the same way: "Terry just doesn't want to play music.” I remember performing in front of my family and at a couple of recitals and just hated being stared at!

I [went] to the same summer camp in upstate New York for 11 years from 1967 to 1978. My counselors were all Dead Heads and would go on weekends to see the Grateful Dead when they would play. At night they would load up the reel-to-reel and play their tapes of live Dead shows as we went to sleep. By the time I was 12 I knew the words to most of their songs and I still love and listen to them (up to and including 1979's Blues For Allah).

After Jerry Garcia started working on their movie and locking himself in an editing room with mountains of cocaine and heroin it all went downhill. But they remained an important influence on me throughout my "career.” For many years as a teen, the only records I owned were their albums and boxes of live tapes.

I grew up in New City, an upstate suburb of NYC. When I was 17 I moved into Manhattan on my own. I lived in a small studio above the Waverly Theatre in Greenwich Village. There were record stores all around me and I became friends with some of the employees.

That's when my music education really started to diversify. There was WNEW-FM in NYC. This was in the days when the DJs could play whatever they wanted, so it could be John Lennon then Bob Marley and then Elvis Costello all back-to-back. You would never hear that today. But the "Go-It-Alone" aesthetic of the Grateful Dead in their heyday still inspires me now.

When you first moved to NYC, you worked at the original 99 Records shop on Macdougal. 99 only released a handful of records over the course of its short history, each one of them reflective of owner Ed Bahlman’s impeccable ear. Working alongside Ed must have been an incredible learning experience.

Working with and becoming friends with Ed Bahlman was one of the most important relationships that I ever had. It was one of those relationships that sends your life pinging off into a completely different realm.

I went to the store every Friday after I got paid. Ed would be spinning records and a pile would start to develop. I always left by telling him that if he ever needed to hire someone that I would take the job. He worked at the store seven days a week and worked as a maintenance man at an Upper East Side condo building full time.

After about four months he asked me if I would start working there. I didn't even give notice at the office job I had been at for a year. I just started the next day. I went from making about $300.00 a week to $125.00. I didn't care. I thought I had the best job in the world.

What inspired you to start No. 6?

I started No. 6 while still a salesman at Caroline Records Distribution. This was after 99 had closed and a short stint at Dutch East India. DEI had hired me because I was the buyer at 99 when it went under. So I went from retail to wholesale.

At 99, DEI and at Caroline I formed many of the relationships that would come into play later on in my life. Many bands sent their demos to me to try to get into the door at each of those outfits. I thought a lot of them were worthy of release, but higher ups did not, or their limited budgets wouldn't allow for it. I sat on the tapes and kept in touch. I had already signed the Butthole Surfers to Touch n' Go while I was at 99. I was de facto managing and booking their shows for them although neither of us would use that poisoned word. But that's off of your point and a whole other story.

What really got me going to start my own label was that, one day at Caroline, Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth, they really wanted to be on 99 but Ed just didn't like them) came in with a cover of a Captain Beefheart song for a compilation album of his songs to be released later that year called Fast & Bulbous. I thought it was good, but when he brought me a tape of the final LP, I hated it. [SY’s] contribution was the best one on it. (I would become good friends with Don Van Vliet years later and he told me how much he hated it too!). I had the thought of doing one of these tribute LPs of Neil Young's music. Caroline bankrolled it and No. 6 was born.

Why “No. 6,” aside from the obvious fact that The Prisoner is one of the strangest and most surreal television series of all time? (And I see that Mark kept the typeface for Speed Dating’s artwork. Nice one, Mark!)

I remember seeing some of the series on public television in the late 1960s and thinking about how cool it looked. Then around 1975 they re-broadcast it again. I was 16 and could really get my head around it by then. The whole concept and execution was unlike anything else being shown on television at that time.

The KAR-000 catalogue system came from the license plate prefix on the lead character’s car back in the real world. Although I had about 50 releases, this first one in 10 years is catalogue number KAR-006. I had purposefully skipped past the No. 6 catalogue number in the course of my releases so that I could use it at a later date for a project just like this.

Aside from 99, what labels were you enamored of at the time? Did they help you refine an aesthetic vision for what you wanted to do with your own label?

There were so many at the time. It was the season of the indie label, both here and in the UK. Mute, Touch n' Go, SST, Sub Pop, 4AD, Amphetamine Reptile and Db.

But the one whose aesthetic I most closely related to at the time was Factory. Tony Wilson had come into the store a few times and I really liked his attitude and approach.

I also had a boyfriend at the time who worked at the Phyllis Kind Gallery in SoHo. She was representing a lot of really good new artists at the time and I really dug some of the work.

She also represented Howard Finster. He would call me up when new packages came in from him. And of course —film. I went to the movies almost every week in the ‘70s and ‘80s. The city was flush with some of the greatest first run and "art houses" in the country and I took full advantage of them.

Shortly after I got the job at 99 I had to move. I couldn't afford $450.00 a month rent on my new salary so I moved in with my boyfriend in 1979. He had a nice sized loft a few doors from CBGB's. It would become the scene of a lot of band flops over the next few years. He was older than me, and a writer with many connections in the underground. I think he was a Weatherman in the 1960s. He knew Ginsberg and Burroughs and I met them during this time too.

Over the course of its history, would it be accurate to say that No. 6 functioned as a testing ground for bands —a place where they could experiment and develop on their own terms?

I never thought of No. 6 as any kind of "proving ground" for bands. The bottom lines were that whichever label I was working for at the time didn't want to sign them and no other label did (usually) either.

I was able to get Caroline to sign Unrest while I was there. Later I was able to get Rain Sanction signed to Sub Pop after Rough Trade (where I was working) said no. I did Dean Wareham's single from the demo we got paid to do for Elektra. I had pretty much already signed him to Elektra by the time it came out. jennyanykind were just too prolific to let it all back up, so we started releasing it on No. 6 just to take the pressure off. Nada Surf was kinda imposed on me by Elektra employees AFTER they became one hit wonders. But 90% of the other artists would never have gotten their music out if it wasn't for my salary and No. 6.

There’s a fairly clear aesthetic at work throughout most of Speed Dating, with one notable exception: the Dwarves. Stylistically, where do they fit in? They’d split with SST at that point, right?

To my mind the Dwarves fit in perfectly. I had gotten a demo from them at Rough Trade. Of course Geoff Travis hated it. The only things they let me do there was sign the Butthole Surfers (again) and they let me license an old Robert Smith of The Cure side project LP called The Glove, but that was it.

The Rough Trade gig was more important to No.6 as a source of income and in developing relationships with Scrawl and Dean Wareham from (then) Galaxie 500.

I told Paul Cafaro (Blag Jesus) that I would put out the Dwarves whole demo as a 7". I then booked a bunch of shows for them between Chicago and NYC. Their first show in New York was at CB's. They played the single track for track and then left the stage. They were on stage for about 12 minutes. It was fantastic.

What was the genesis of Greg Dulli/Afghan Whigs/Marcy Mays collaboration, Ornament?

Both bands were from Ohio. Scrawl from Columbus and the Whigs from Cincinnati. They had actually been on the same bill several times so they already knew each other. This collaboration was all about taking that "Bad Boy For Girls" image down a botch, but only one notch.

How did you find the Tindersticks? Their dark, velvety pop vision (v. Scott Walker) fits well alongside Dean Wareham’s contributions.

The Tindersticks debut had already been released (to no initial aplomb) in the UK. I had Stuart Staples' first record as the Asphalt Ribbons and quite liked that.

But the Tindersticks debut LP was on a whole other level. It was brilliant and still one of the most relevant double LPs ever recorded.

I tried to license it for Rough Trade but they didn't want [it]. I became friends with [the band] during the process though. I was hired by Elektra around this time and I thought of licensing their debut for them. But as with several bands (Monster Magnet, Balloon Guy and Spiritualized), as soon as I became interested, several other labels would suddenly want to get on board.

In the cases of Spiritualized and Tindersticks, they had signed in the UK worldwide to their respective labels, which had no intention of releasing the work over here. But when Elektra’s legal department approached them to do the license, they decided to put [the record] out themselves.

So much time had elapsed since the Tindersticks’ debut and when the US company could schedule it that it was decided to wait to simultaneously release their second LP here. I couldn't afford to promote the debut properly on No. 6 so I dropped them into the lap of Bar None, friends of mine who had had great success with They Might Be Giants.

Did Cagney and Lacee, Dean’s group with his first wife, Claudia, ever release anything else? Or was it a one-off?

Yes, I did a full length CD with Cagney and Lacee. It's called Six Feet Of Chain and is brilliant. They also appeared on No. 6's last release The Lives Of Charles Douglas by Alex McCauley. Moe Tucker plays drums on that record too. It was produced by Kurt Ralske and is my single favorite release on No. 6.

Which No. 6 release are you most proud of? Which was the most difficult to get out into the world? Any projects that you never got off the ground, despite your best efforts?

The one record that, over ten years later, that I still actively listen to is The Lives Of Charles Douglas by Charles Douglas (available on Amazon for like 99¢). Next up would be the Cagney And Lacee LP and Unrest's Imperial f.f.r.r. I still plug in Guitarrorists occasionally when I'm working and of course —duck, upcoming shameless plug— the new singles compilation Speed Dating.

Actually this release was the most difficult to get out. That's because over the Thanksgiving weekend in 1997, I had flown back here to Kansas for the holiday. When I got back I found out that the 135 year old brownstone that I had been living in for the on E. 17th St. for the last eight years had collapsed while undergoing renovations.

Everything that I ever owned was destroyed in the collapse and ensuing fire. That meant my lifelong record collection and all of the masters and original artwork for No. 6. All three of my cats were also killed. There was nothing left to salvage.

In order to cobble together this compilation, I had to buy most of the singles on the Internet. They went for between literally 1 penny to $68.00.

Then I had to send them all to Dean Wareham, who has a turntable and burned them onto a CD. That went to Mark E. Robinson at Teenbeat, who spent many hours equalizing everything and trying to take out as many pop ands skips as possible. What a man.

There are several gaps in the No 6 cataloge. That's because I spent money on a project that didn't come out. These would be a single by the Butthole Surfers of two songs, a Paul Leary composition called "I Love You Peggy On Mannix" b/w "Wholly Man". That didn't come out because they signed to Columbia and they didn't want it released.

Another was a Flaming Lips single of three tracks from the then unreleased "Mushroom Tapes" demos. This would later evolve into their (for me) magnum opus In A Priest Driven Ambulance... LP. They dumped the woman who had been their manager up until that time and signed to Reprise, who didn't want that to come out either.

I spent thousands on Sean Macoviack's (aka Grasshopper of Mercury Rev) solo record. The thing was my idea in the first place and he went and secretly sold the rights to it in Europe. They then rushed it out two months before I was ready to release it here, which killed all of my sales. In a way, there was one little bit of good to come out of that whole shitty situation. That record really sucked.

The last one was a Captain Beefheart EP called Hoboism, a fantastic track left over from the Bat Chain Puller sessions. I had become quite friendly with Don Van Vliet through my years at Rough Trade and then especially Elektra. Elektra's CEO was Bob Krasnow, the last of the great 1960's A&R guys to run a major label. He had to fight hard through all of the "regime changes" that took place at our parent Warner Bros during the 1990s. He made it possible for me to sign bands like the 'lab, Scrawl, jennnyanykind, the Whigs and Luna.

Anyway, I went out to Don's house in Eureka, California. Kras had produced Beefheart’s Safe As Milk LP and then signed him to WB. Things somehow turned acrimonious after that and they hadn't spoken in 15 years. I had persuaded Don to let me back up a mobile studio onto his front lawn and we were going to record a LP of old blues songs. I had flown out there to meet him face-to-face for the first time and kinda seal the deal. Well, instead of coming together over the next three days, it mostly fell apart. Don used his wife, Jan, to say that they didn't want Hoboism to be the last word on his career and that they couldn't find anyone they like to play on the blues album.

In the early- to mid-90s, Elektra had a phenomenal roster of bands that included Stereolab, Luna, Afghan Whigs Scrawl, and th’ Faith Healers, among others. The music had a great sense of integrity and individuality.

I'm proud to say that I signed three of the four bands that you mentioned in your question. I didn't sign Th' Faith Healers. I don't know who signed them —most likely they came through the International Department but they were A&R'd by Nancy Jeffries. She is the most unflappable human on the planet. She went on to head the A&R Department after the disposition of Bob Krasnow and, later, Howard Thompson. Those two men were the real reason that Elektra managed to have the Pixies, Danny Gatton, Metallica, Brand Nubian and jennnyanykind all on the label’s radar.

Let me tell you how my final job interview for Elektra went. My lawyer and Elektra's legal eagle Gary Casson had already agreed on a contract by this time. I just had to meet with Bob Krasnow. Fuckin' Bob Krasnow —google him and you won’t get a sliver of what the man has done! I went up to his magnificent corner office on the 17th floor at Rockefeller Plaza.

I sat in a chair opposite him and we just introduced ourselves and he asked me a couple of benign questions and then there was the silence. He broke it by asking me if I had any questions. I instantly said "Yeah, what was it like working with Captain Beefheart during the Safe As Milk era"? He had been smoking a Cuban cigar throughout. He kicked back in his chair, put up a foot and said, "You know, I took so much acid during it that I can hardly remember. Um, when can you start?"

Despite the "Gonzo" atmosphere on the East Side of the 17th Floor in that period, we still had weekly meetings with radio, legal, production and press staffs to jam our projects down their throats.

It was up to the A&R person to coordinate all of that. I just wanted my bands to get their fair share of the "Milllion Dollar Bullets." None of my bands were ever dropped while I was there. There are projects like Balloon Guy (buy their West Coast Shakes on Amazon for like a $1), Astronaut (check out their tunes on MySpace) and Daniel Johnston that I wished that I could have worked with. But things happened the way that they did and I'm proud of what I did get done while I was in "the Majors.”

* The 4th issue of Tim Ross’ zine Tuba Frenzy included an incredibly comprehensive history of 99. Still in print, you can order it by writing to Tuba Frenzy.

Vivien Goldman, "Private Armies (Dub)" (from the Dirty Washing EP, 1981)

Unrest, "June" (from Imperial f.f.r.r., 1992)

Stereolab, "Golden Ball" (from Transient Random Noise-Bursts with Announcements, 1993)

Luna with Laetitia Sadier, "Bonnie & Clyde" (from Penthouse, 1994)

Cagney and Lacee, "Time" (from Speed Dating, 2009)

RECORD SLEEVE IMAGES COURTESY OF No. 6