Handmade Records

utilizing a format which I knew nothing about. This is how he explained it to me as we hung out in the studio and listen to records you hear from us after this track and a little soware it anywhere happy?

And when you disappeared you gave me quite a fair very reppear under the strong light I watch at the disco and you'll little where it made me happy when you disappeared into the ground, all move and I saw and I saw you here ye again when all you good that scream under that's what you have bound h m hmmmmmm. I saw you ever disco and I know that soon I saw out and I'm here down that you make for me. Ever, disco wait didn't and I saw you come up and to give what I wush

m h h, I have lost school. Oh that's so it will be the world said one. Oh yeah, so who who's that? That was a guy named Elias Mason and he made that song with his creative partner June York. And this was a little A side B side single with the swoon on one side and diamonds on the b side. So there we go, swoon on one side and diamonds on the b side. That was swoon. This one was diamonds. This was diamonds the side. Yes, okay, so Seth, just what the heck is it that you do? Exactly?

Mostly what I do is I run a record label. And in today's world we live in two thousand nineteen, running a record label doesn't really mean what it used to mean a billion years ago, right, Like, people don't need record labels in the same way they used to need them back in the sixties, seventies, eighties, even the nineties, around around when people could start to self distribute with any kind of like reliability of like, hey, I can actually just put my album out there, people can actually

find it and then I can actually make money from it. Once that started to happen, I think the world became a much better place. But record labels needed another reason to exist. So the only reason I could find to actually maintain my reason for wanting to have a record label and actually making myself be a company was that I needed to make sure I could provide something to

ban something they couldn't get other places. And the thing I decided to just because I enjoy it, was to start making a very specific kind of vinyl for people who want it, and to to to let people have this product that I'm making. So I only know a little bit about it, Pretend I know nothing about it. What what? What is this thing? Specifically? These are lathe embossed records. So, um, I'll I'll spell it out in

a in a very broad sense. Anyone who's listening who knows like the depths of all the audiophile stuff will correct me on everything. But I'm just going to like spell it out in like real simple terms. When it comes to creating records, and I'm talking about just like like the standard records you're buying a store, like a vinyl record. There are basically three ways to make it. Uh. The most common way is you you basically stamp them.

It's like you get to like negatives of the record, the negative side a negative side B and think about like a like a waffle iron. You know. You just like put in this stuff, squish it together, boom outcomes your record. Right. That's that's the standard way to do it. The other two ways one is called lathe cutting and one is called lathe embossing. So you know what a lathe is, right, like like like a would shop, you know. Yeah, yeah, So for our listeners if anyone doesn't know what a

lathe is, basically, it's just like a rotating tool. That's all there is to it. So, um, the way that a lathe embosser and a lathe cutter works is that there's a record cutting head with a little stylus on the bottom that's moving at very precise, very exact, very steady speed and like an X axis like across a blank record, and the the stylus, the actual like needle for lack of a better term, is vibrating with the

music that you're putting into it. And then that is either cutting a groove or embossing a groove into this piece of plastic, this piece of acetate, the piece of polycarbonate or whatever people make stuff out of, um, chocolate, ice, um, cardboard, anything you want, Well, I've got it written down here. Uh what all can you make a record out of? So many? I mean, I mean, to be completely honest, anything.

The big question is what's going to sound good? You know, like I've heard an ice record and it sounds kind of garbage? How okay? Well, so when you where did you? Where did you hear an ice record? There was a band I believe it was the Shout Out Louds. I hope I'm getting that correct, but I'm n sure I am. And what they did is they made a um to release their new single. They released a silicon silicone silicon which which one is it rubbery stuff, silicone, silicone or silicon? No,

silicon Valley, Silicone is the rubber. Yeah, okay, So it was a silic. You could do a silicon record, but potentially it would be very expensive. Think the silicone was for like the almost like uh like an ice tray, okay. And so you filled it with water and they recommended that you used like a nice like distilled as clear as possible water, so you don't get any you know, little bumps and stuff, no tap water. Yeah, and you freeze it and then you put on your record player

and it's it worked exactly like an ice cube. That's exactly what it was. Oh so that again was just the negative imprint. Was it only on one side of the correct so you would just like sort of like it would be like making the B side, I get the underside, and it's it's uh, what's the right term for that. I mean, it's it's raised I guess in the tray in the in the Yeah, exactly inside the mold.

It would be raised and then you you fill it and then the grooves would be there and then you would you would pop it onto your record player, regular record player. That's the most dangerous part. Yeah, in a in a walk in freezer or something. You got to be careful what that part I mean, because the it's going to start dripping. You gotta play at once and get rid of it. But so you you said you

heard one play, how did it sound? Not very good? Still, so it is like that's that's the fun of analog music is that it feels like a magic trick, you know, like and that's that's kind of like the guy who trained me. Um, because, um, there's this guy out in Tucson, Arizona. His name is Michael Dixon, and he runs a record label called Theaptic Records. And spell it because it's a weird spelling, p I A p t K. It stands for people in a position to know. Oh, okay, we'll

have to link it. And uh, he's a fantastic dude, and he um he trained me everything. Everything I know I learned from him basically, other than like the things i've you know, gleaned other places. But yeah, that's like where I got my machine was from this dude. Whenever I need like new eyelas is from my machine, I have to like write to him to get them. Like

he's he's my connection. I want to talk more about all the things that records, but let me let me back all those So, so there's three kinds of ways to make a record, Yes, and yours lathe embossed is the embossed. What's the difference between the embossed and the other kind of lane? Lathe cut? Yeah, what's the difference between the cut and the embossed? Think about a muddy field okay, okay, And you are carrying a stick in your hand, all right, and you're walking and you're dragging

the stick behind you in this muddy field. So you're not actually getting rid of any of that mud. You're just creating a groove from where your stick is dragging. So all the I guess excess mud is just kind of slightly going out and maybe creating slight ridges along the edge. Right, So that's that's embossing. You're not removing any material from the actual physical blank record, You're just

slightly pushing it away. And so every once in a while, the fascinating thing about that is that, um, so it creates these things that are referred to as horns horns, and so what it is is, uh, every once in a while on a lathe embossed record, when you drop the needle on, it won't land in the groove, it'll land on the horns and it'll sound like it's broken

and terrible. And so that's fun too. So if you go to a regular music store and you buy a record, it's it's usually a pressed a pressed record, yes, so that's pouring what vinyl in or something. Yeah, it's it's standard vinyl. I believe it's science word, like you know, polyvinyl chloride or something. And um, if you go to a factor, you'll see him that come in what are called either biscuits or pucks. And it looks just like kind of like a little hockey puck, like that shape

of like soft poly vinyl chloride. I'll pretend and uh yeah, yeah, it looks just like a waffle. Wafflemaker just presses it down, opens up, pull out your record. And that's the most

economic way to make a bun shud Begs records. Yes, but that's the problem from what you just said, and that that also explains why I do this entirely, which is if you go to a standard record manufacturer and you say, hey, I would like a record made please, they go great, and you go I need hundred and fifty They go no, no, no, no no. Like the cost to make one record in an actual plant right well, actually manufacturing the plates and stamping it is so big

that you can't do it in small batches. You have to. Um, most places have a minimum of three d records and a weight of about three months to get your records. Is it cost to get through hundred records down a place like that, a lot, a whole lot like UM. In all honesty, are prices per record are actually pretty comparable UM because it's actually pretty expensive still to make physical records no matter who you are and at what level you're doing it, So um our prices are actually

pretty similar. The differences are that they only have to do it once, whereas I if I'm doing since I'm using my machine and my plastic and going through the through the motions. If someone orders fifteen records from me, I'm doing them at one x speed fifteen times to take me through this step by step, make er, you know, make a record totally in your mind here totally um and and this is the way that I do it, the lathembossing that way, you got it. That's what you're

here for. That that's what you're totally. So what I'll do is, first I called my plastic manufacturer and I order a whole bunch of polycarbonate. Polycarbonate is basically plexiglass. It's used for eyeglass lenses, it's used for a bulletproof glass. It's used for you know, all that transparent plastic glass substitute.

That's polycarbonate um. Through trial and error, UM, all of the people who have done this over the years have discovered that that's what works best for this system is because you can do this onto Like I said, almost any surface people have done it onto, like picnic plates or like just anything, any any surface you can imagine, you can do it into it, but it just might not sound very good. So poly carbon it is the easiest to get, sounds pretty good. And it's also just

like very um. It's malleable, it's easy to acquire, it's common, you know. So I contact my plastics manufacturer and depending upon what size I need. If I'm making seven inch records a twelve inch records, I'll be like, hey, I need um twelve inch records. They come in these like sheets. I'm like, hey, can you cut these into twelve inch squares for me? And they go, sure thing, Zip zip zip.

I drive out to my place that's O t P. You know, in Alpharetta or something, pick up my records and then I I'm sorry, pick up my squares of plastic, bring them back home. Uh. And then the next step is I need to cut them into a circle, because a twelve inch square will not fit on a record player because the actual sides will run into the edges again and again. So I need to cut into a circle. So I have a m I believe it's yeah, it's a router, a circle route or put a circle jig

on it and cut into a circle. Then I have a drill press where I'll drill the hole in the middle of the record into it, and then there we are. We have a just plane, blank plastic circle. I then go to my machine. And these machines are very odd. They are um leftovers from the radio era, like and

I'm talking like nineteen thirties radio era. So um yeah, like pretty much all of the lathe the home made lathe machines in the world are all about a hundred years old at this point at all, because because they're all just left over parts, no one manufactures machines for this anymore. So most people in this field and in this hobby, I suppose UM use a machine called a Presto six N that is horribly uninteresting to most people,

but that is the exact kind. Is that way, you have a Prestice sen I'm fancy, so I have a Prestoe a d G. So the the there's not much of a difference. Um. The only difference is, like mine is a pretty big console and it UM is a bit more rigid and rugged, so I don't have to

fiddle with it as much. I can do a lot of records with UM some assurance that it will work out well, whereas if using a six end you have to kind of like check after every single record you make to make sure that it's working still, because I mean you think about it, like the whole idea of

records is based on the idea of vibration. So if your machine is perpetually vibrating for hours on end, all your little adjustments, all of your all of your screws that are tightened, everything that needs to be where it is, it's just subtly shaking itself out of alignment the whole time you're using it. So it's a can be really annoying. That seems pretty problematic. Yeah. So so these machines, like

I said, um, they are old. Um you know because old days a radio, right, So we're talking fiber fibmcgee and molly, you know, like talking about whom Oh that's like an older thirties or forties radio show. Fibbru McGhee and Molly. It was Fibbru McGhee and Molly. It was very popular back in the day. I totally believe you. I'm gonna have to That reference went right over my head. I am coincidentally, also very into old time radio. So we can talk about the Great Guilder Sleeve all day.

Don't worry about it. Okay, we're gonna have I'm gonna check my references, I guess alright. Anyway, in the days of Fibber McGhee and Molly, Yeah, back then, UM, most radio shows back then were made to be played once and often just done live and then over. They that's it, they move on to the next one, because the concept of reruns wasn't really a thing yet. So apparently I wasn't there. But apparently one of the things that really spurned on the whole idea of a rerun was World

War Two. Because during World War Two, UM, they still wanted to have um military radio stations playing like a lot of the shows they played here, but they wouldn't like broadcast them like the same intervals and same times because you know, it's international blah blah blah. So they started actually putting things onto records, and they had to figure out a way how to do that. So that's

where these Presto six ends came in. Pretty Much every single UM radio station back in the days, let's let's say the thirties through the fifties had a Presto record maker in their building amongst all their stuff and so and same thing with like a weather report or like a news bulletin or anything. If you just had to have something and then replay it later, that's how you did it. And so so that's where these machines came from.

And one day someone realized, oh man, you know I could do something with this, and I UM various people started, hobbyists just started developing ways to make this all work. So so so anyway, so I go to my machine with my new newly made plastic circles, walk up to them, and uh, I take my music source. Now, the music source can be nearly anything. The way I have my system set up in my house is um it's just

all based on a one inch outlet. So anything that can be plugged into a one eighth inch headphone jack I can put onto a record and your iPod. Yes, exactly my iPod. Uh, both our owners of recurrent owners of iPods. Still you have to be I don't have the alternative. I don't know what it could be yet. Um. And then you you plug it in and um, if you're smart, you would probably master it a little bit before to make sure you're taking full advantage of everything

that you're doing. Like I run it through a graphic equalizer, and I have a preamp where I can turn things up and down and all that kind of stuff. But generally someone has sent you. I mean, if you're doing work for somebody, somebody has sent you the finished Yes. But even then, even so, let's say the song we heard earlier, okay, um uh, this person alias Mason would have sent me this song and said, here you go, here's a song, please put this on a record, blah

blah blah, here's the details. Like great, Um, I still have to do this thing where it's Um. So there's a thing called the r i a a curve, you know, So I have to invert the r i a a curve in the equalization. Because the way that we handle music now has almost nothing to do with the way how we used to handle music in the nineteen thirties through the fifties, because think about things like bass base didn't exist back then, you know what I mean? Yeah,

and then um also, um, stereo, stereo didn't exist back then. Um, there's all these little things that they had no way of anticipating. And so um that that's why I I specifically make mono lo fi records. That is my thing, Like I don't with my machine. I could do hi fi. I could do some stereo stuff if I wanted to, but it's like no, no, no, no no. My goal is to be as attainable as possible to everyone. So therefore, like I want it to be simple. I wanted to

be direct. I wanted to be pure, you know. And um so, so that's that's why my my records are coming from a hundred year old machine that is creating basically the same noises you could hear back then, but just being forced through a modern a modern machine kind of going through that hundred year old machine. And um so yeah, then I I put the machine on lower

the arm, um, the cutting stylus. You can use a lot of different gems basically, Um, I've used um, let's see, what's there's so many you can use mostly I use ruby. A ruby stylus works the best is it actually made out of ruby. It's it's red, it's transparent, it's it's a full blown ruby. Um, there's sapphire stylus is too. That worked pretty well. Um, I thought gem was I didn't. I didn't know. I didn't realize you meant actual gem. I mean actual gem and uh. And then if I

if I was doing lathe cutting, let's go back to that. Um, that field of mud and you're dragging your stick. Now, pretend it's a stick, you have a shovel, and you are actually removing the dirt and putting it somewhere else, removing it, putting it somewhere else. Then you needed diamonds stylus for that. And that's that's for the actual cutting. And when you're cutting it, you'll actually see a ribbon of the acetate because you also have to use acetate

if you're cutting, and you'll see it coming off. And that is the most flammable substance I've ever encountered. Yes, because I also have to treat my plastic right before I cut. Um, you can do a lot of things. You can do turtle wax, you can um me, personally, I use light or fluid. I will take a just standard barbecue light or fluid squirted on top with like a little apothecary bottle, rub it into the plastic to start it kind of softens it a little bit, makes

it a bit more malleable and uh. And that's then I put on the needle, play the play the music back in real time one x and that's vibrating my my needle, my ruby stylus, and it moves across the record, and then I put it down, pull it up, pop it off. There we are, and so that the first one you've just gotten alias is uh mix and you're cutting the first the first side of the first record? Correct,

does that thing come out to be a coaster? Oh? Yeah, no, the first I'm gonna say, on average, the first two or three our coasters because because um it also has a lot to do with actually making it sound good too, because if you you can make it just come out no problem the first time. But not only does every machine have like its own kind of like quirks when it comes to the machinery, it also has its own quirks when it comes down to just like standard, how

does this sound. Does it sound good? You know, like my machine, for example, I know that it's sibilants is really hard, like right, I think about my graphic quializer in my brain, like right here, I gotta turn this down exactly. I'm right, okay exactly, and then um yeah, and I I gotta roll off the low end I got.

There's this just like all these little things that like I know my machine needs, and so I can try to do those things in advance, but you're not to know how it sounds until you cut one and listen to it. No matter. So your process is like you cut one and then you just you take it off and you just sit there and listen to it. Yeah. Yeah, Then you say a little less on the ten thousand, roll off a little more base, and you just do

another one. You listen to it, and then once once you're in a groove, do you keep listening to them one at a time. So let's say I'm done. I found like I'm happy with it. I'm like, okay, great, I have I have this side. I am happy. This is good. Here we go. Um, then I will cut one more with those exact settings to make sure that like all right, everything is perfectly still doing it again, and so I've listened to two in a row. You

know it's been like, okay, this, this is replicatable. It's working. Then I will usually go every few I'll check just to make sure that it's still moving, moving forward and moving well and nothing's getting in the way, and no sound differentials have happened, because you know, this isn't playing through a speaker. All I can hear is the subtle

vibration noises. It's kind of like when you listen to a record player that isn't hooked up to speakers, where you can still kind of like hear that song, but it's just kind of a weird, tinny noise in the background. That's more or less what my record machine sounds like when it's cutting is just cardureuer harder. That's that's what it sounds like. So you have to kind of like, I just hope that that sound is actually making it all the way through onto the onto the machine itself.

So yeah, still, every few records, I'll just do a quick needle drop just to make sure it's still working. Check. But but yeah, that these, Yeah, then I'll just do that until the order is fulfilled and um usually like like like, my whole thing is to be obtainable. That's my whole goal is. I want literally every single person who just makes music and wants to put it on a record to do it. So that's why I like

my record label. We don't have any minimums. If someone wants to contact me for one record, I got you. You will we will do this, you know. And um, So the point of doing that is I have to make sure that all of my goal are aimed towards keeping it as inexpensive as possible, not only for them, but for me as well, because if I don't stay in business, then they definitely don't get anything. So let's say there's a B side, so I've cut the A side.

Do you sometimes do ones with just an A side? Yeah? Yeah, sometimes a lot of artists. Oh well, actually, here I'll hand you one. Here's one. Oops, there we go that one. Here you can pull it out. That one's got a engraving on one. So this is the actual right, I thought this was just like, um, the cover or something. Wow, that's so cool. So so yeah, that's got an etching on one side of one man shaking another man's hand.

And it exploding because it came from I believe, an old like gag catalog of like selling like you know, novelty gags and whatnot. It's like traced out from a yeah, yeah, traced out from a book. And um so what I did is on one side is a song and on the other side. And that's that's the thing too. I had to just do this again and again and again. I took a little um jewel engraver things and it just had to draw that, you know, several times until

it was done. Um so that's one reason for Wait, So you cut the record, you had the lathe cut the music on one side, and then you by hand did this illustration on how many records that one? It was definitely in the tens. Um I'm gonna say less than fifty, less than fifty, I'll say. And it's it's this is a pretty involved like there's like here's a couple more cross hatching on the tie and the guy, and there's like it's a it's a full cartoon and

they there's multiple images. This this was a series. Oh so so you did a different there were multiple versions of each image, but there were also multiple images. So this is what like a lady and some cella eating some cello, or she's about to, but there's a fly on it. I would assume this was an advertisement for plastic flies to stick in people's food as a gag. And so yeah, that's either mashed potatoes or ice cream.

I don't know what that could be. And then this some like two hands holding cards some kind of trick deck. Yes exactly, Oh my gosh. So so yeah, you're really involved. Oh yeah, no, no, it's it's a lot of fun and and that that's kind of the thing I like about it too, is that I'm gonna make an analogy for you. You're ready, okay, So back in like the old days of um, let's go with art in general,

large art. Uh. People start off with like cave paintings, right, and they're doing their cave painting things, and um, they're doing what they can with what they know, and they're they're painting their bison, and they're they're they're they're like hunters and there's all all all that you've seen cave paintings. You know, as they develop, they got closer and closer to actually representing what they actually saw. Like the photo

realism Actually bad choice of words. There were no photos yet, but you know what I mean, like the actual like representation of what was in real life and what they were creating. So when now we're up to like the Renaissance naturalism, perhaps, yeah, exactly, It's like people could actually paint what they saw now because they had acquired enough skills over the age, point, perspective and all those techniques

and made them made them better and better artists. And then the camera was invented, and that's when things got interesting, you know what I mean, Because like as soon as the camera was invented, that's when all of the best art, in my opinion, started happening. That's when you've got got you know, you know, uh, abstract expressionism, that's when you got point is. Um, that's when you got all these really cool things because you didn't need to be a

replicator of reality. We had that, so now painters got to be whatever they wanted, unlocked everybody just so we're all painted the giant canvas and things. Definitely. So so I feel that way, um about the records. I do, and obviously a very small way, but what I do is like so artists will come to me, and they're like, wait, wait, wait, why mono and why low Fi. I'm like, well, if you want a perfect reproduction of your sound, you've got it. You've got a wave file, You've got an MP three

that will never change. You've got it. Don't worry about it. If if, if you want a perfect replication, we got flak lossless all day, you and it and it will never degrade. You're You're perfect. If you want something else, I got you. I will make an etching onto a thing of a lady with a fly in her mashed potatoes and put it, put your song on the B side,

and it's it's it's mostly um. My main clients are artists that are I don't want to say unpopular, because I think most artists are unpopular, Like I think writ large if we think about every single artist in every single medium throughout the world, like what, maybe one percent is popular from each each each genre, Yeah, stretching it exactly. So so I really am for everyone else. And it's funny because I don't know why people don't target that

demographic more because most of us are unpopular. Aim for the unpopular, you know. So um yeah, my clients are a d percent people who are like, wait, you're charging me, I need three hundred minimum records in my order. Like, I don't have three hundred fans. I can't do that. Most of us don't have three hundred fans. That's silly.

So so that's my audience. My audience is people who just they need twenty, they need fifty whatever, and then they're going to sell them at their shows while they're touring, they're they're going to a record show. They want to do things. Actually, I have been getting quite a few, um, very personalized records, which is really nice, Like um I've done.

People will like record their child's first words, like on their iPhone, and so then they'll want something special to remember that by, because obviously there's gonna their phone's gonna die, their SIMCARDI get corrupted, and then that that memory is gone. So they'll send me that file and be like, hey, can you put my child's first words onto a record? Absolutely? Why not? And why not do some really cool packaging for it? So let's what's that one look like? The

first word? The person that sent you the first words? What did that record look like? That one? I was actually I love that one because um the guy I was dealing with. I guess I won't give his name just in case he wants it to be a secret. But he is a fantastic artist. Um, before all this, I don't want to confuse the whole world I came into into this realm from um, the world of the fine arts and animation, like that's where I've spent all

of my life. Yeah, it doesn't work so well in the audio format, but these records are like incredibly I can't believe they're done by hand. But yeah, yeah, I know it took a long time. But but that's where I come from. So I have a lot of friends in the art world. So this this example I'm talking about specifically a friend of mine. It was a gift for his wife, and um, that good job. Yeah, and I'm going to steal your head totally and so he Um,

he's already a great artist. So I was like, okay, here, I'll decorate the disc for you and then you I'll just send you a white blank sleeve so you can decorate the outside. And so, um, I think I've got one around here somewhere. I did just a simple stamp set. Oh, here we go, Here we go. Um, one of our coworkers, Andrew Howard. Isn't that band, Oh Spooky Booty and the Tombstone goofs? Yes, I can believe that Andrews in that baby.

I'm sure it's great. So I did something kind of similar to that for that one, which is just like handstamped, real low fi, just just looking real simple. It kind of looks like maybe you know a kid did it in you know, in class or in their church Sunday school Project's smeared a little bit, the wise smeared and Booty? Can we play a little bit of this one? Um? I don't know, I don't know, just play it. I'll cut it out. I'm just hear a little bit. Andrew's band?

Is this new? No? No, this is really this is really old and and and. In fact, let's make sure this may not even be what we think it is. Because one of the things I do often is, um, let's say I'm making records for someone, right, Um, I make twenty six x that way, if one gets broken or corrupted or something, then I was like, phoop, I don't have to start all over again. I can just give them that extra one and I'll keep the garbage one for myself. This might be a garbage one. Okay,

I kind of hope. I kind of would love to hear what the coasters sound like. I was glad that we actually got um what was it um that skip? When we played the first time we got that one, I think we both went like, oh, yeah, it was good. So let's see what we got. This one might be a coaster. Oh that's great though, that's Andrew Howard. Everybody. Let's see what else we got here. Oh, this one definitely a coaster. But I know who this is. Yeah,

this is an artist named Phantom Manner. Oh yeah, it's grooving. But yeah, this is a total garbage version. It seems like the Outfit virus kind of Oh yeah, fascinating, fascinating. You're looked through some more of these records? What else? What else? What else is? I'll hand you a bunch. I know, it's a little hard to summarize because there's just like, like, so, this is nit and a lot of these are square. These are so what give me the specs of this of this? So that is a

seven inch record. It's seven inches square, and I like the square because it holds the shape of the packaging. A lot better. So, for example, the one year looking at right now, that is a nit record sleeve. And so because of that, um like, if you just put a circle inside that exact same packaging, it would have like these floppy edges, you know. So the the alternative to that actually went to hand it to you. You could use this as a potholder afterwards, afterwards, but just

while you're playing the record. I guess. So here you've got like a knit twelve inch twelve inch, and so twelve inches have to be circular exactly, or else they won't fit on a standard record player. But um so in that case, I was able to get a little interior sleeve to make sure I hold you know, the shape of the actual knit thing of a jigs like what you would have in a in a normal uh thirty three exactly. That's sort of yeah paper insert that

goes inside of the record sleeve. Yeah. And so yeah, the the knit sleeves or something I do simply because I like to knit. So that's just something I do. And so how do you find to all these things? I don't know. I I love to make things and I love to stay busy. So um yeah, the the knit album sleeves are really fun because do you remember that Wou Tang album a while ago? Um it was this one for a while ago. Where do you remember

a guy named Martin Screlly, huge jerk. He like yeah, he like played up all the heat come up in this here's how, here's how. So a long time ago, I'm gonna say, um, I'm gonna say five to six years ago, maybe maybe even longer than that. At this point, there was um a Wu Tang Clan album called Once upon a Time in Shaolin that they made one and only one copy of period, And so they made this they put it out into the world and they're like, hey, whoever wants to buy this, then they get to do

whatever they want with it. Unfortunately, the person that bought that album was Martin Screlly. That's what I do remember this story. Yes, and so he paid an obscene amount of money for it. He's the one and only owner. Then he got sent to jail for being a jerk, and he drastically and layd the price on AIDS medication. Yes, scumbag. Absolutely, we don't even need to throw an allegedly in there. He is a scumbag and um so yeah, now that

album is out there in limbo. But anyway, that that that example I only bring up because I love making one of a kind records, and those knit ones are that that like, because I mean, I'll be completely honest with you, that that little one, the little seven inch knit album, that one is forty hours to just knit that sleeve. And so because of that, people don't want to pay for that, you know what I mean, Like people will buy like one copy tops and and then

that is kind of the fun of it. Like I do these things, probably at least on a quarterly basis, called the Haunted Birthday Mystery Record. Oh, I guess I haven't said the name of my company. It's Haunted Birthday Records. So the Haunted Birthday Mystery Record I make once per quarter and I contact some artist and I'm like, hey, I'm gonna put out one and only one copy of this album. Ever do you want to contribute to it?

And artists love to do that, and it's like compilation with people on your on your label or pretty much anyone anyone I can contact because I don't tell anyone who's on it. I don't tell them. I don't I honestly mostly give them away. Sometimes I'll sell them, sometimes I'll hide them places. You know, there's a thing in um in Atlanta, the free Art Fridays thing I've I've given them aways for free art Fridays before, and yeah,

it's just a it's just a complete mystery. I will never tell someone who's on it, like there there could be just like I'm gonna jump to an extreme to prove a point, but there could be a Beyonce single that no one's ever heard on one of my Haunted Birthday Mystery records. And that's just the way it is. And I never say a single on one of your I can't tell you. But but that's kind of the fun of it is that it could be anyone, and I really enjoy doing that. That's something I do probably quarterly,

which is, you know, just just for kicks. And that's That's the other thing that I love about this style of record making is that the buy in and this stakes are so low that you can just do art for art's sake and have fun and make dumb things and put them out into the world because who cares.

You know, if I had to make three hundred copies of a mystery record, then like I would put some time and energy because it's an investment of resources and money to actually put out these three things in the world. I need to make sure there's enough of an audience for it. I need to make sure that it like appeals to enough people to make sure I'm blah blah blah blah blah. If I'm only making one copy, it could literally just be farts for like, you know, five

minutes on each side, and who cares? Have you done any like sort of large runs, longer runs of which whis maybe the biggest one that you've done, um, I'd say,

or in the in the hundreds. Once people reach three hundred, that's when I tell them, I'm like, hey, I'm very willing to do this for you, but since you're making this many, you can just contact a regular It's going to be cost effective at that point exactly breakthrough and also and also time effective too because you have to go and still do everything go one one at a time.

So so so yeah, I would say the biggest orders I've ever done have been in the hundreds, and then like, yeah, what Once people ask me to do like a five run for them, I'm like, are you sure? Here's here's what I would recommend. But I can do this if you want me to do your discs, so I call them discs, but they're not necessarily disc Do your records? Are they all playback at the same speed? Or they all seventy eight or thirty threes? Or I can do I can do it for three different speeds. I I

can do thirty threes, forty five, and seventy eight. Um, but I usually do thirty three and a third simply because I want to fit as much content onto each record as possible. But yeah, I can, I can. I can do any of them. Why don't you play something else? Give me another? Give me another example of something? Here? Do you want to do? You want to hear some uh, let's see some local like a local electronic artist. Or you want to hear a California punk band California punk uh,

local electronics? This both sound good? Play a yeah? UM? So here I'll start with local artists. This is a woman named Puma Shock. She is absolutely one of my favorite musicians. Um. She has this amazing project that she's working on right now called high Score. And what it is is that she takes um a video game and she plays it on mute, okay, and then she imagined

she plays it like she's got the controller. Yes, okay, And so she's playing the video game on mute, and she imagines what she thinks that game sounds like, and so then she will write the music and basically replace it in her mind. So I have that here. This is from a this is from a video game called Golf Story, and this is this is what Puma Shock thinks that music would have sounded like if she would have unmuted her television. Yeah to Puma Shock, hire her

for your next video game composition project. This fantastic. Isn't that great? No, she she's fantastic both as a human being and as a musician and as Yeah, that second track was called Hungry Hearts Diner. So that was the second game that was on that one where. Yeah, so Golf Story and then Hungry Heart Steiner. I have to imagine that that music was way more fantastic than the music that was in the Gulf. Yeah, I mean, I don't know really, but golf doesn't really strike me as

having necessarily all that evocative of music. You're you're dead right, and and that's that that to me is the fun of this too, is like anything you want, just do it, just do it. You know, I love it. I love it. It's so much fun. But we were saying, well, the music was playing, I was well, I was thinking about the difference between I think about this a bit in my own life, the difference between listening to a record or what it was like when really that was what

there was to listen to. You know, I grew up in a in the air where there was CDs, you know, my first music and CDs and some stuff on tape cassette too, like I had a walkman when I was a little kid, you know, And obviously now have a tremendous amount of digital things that I can just click on and you know, come instantly to my ears. Uh, plenty of other things that I have to scround for

it too. So but you know, I was listen. We were listening to what some old long, pain fluid songs together, my wife and I and just like, you know, don't skip to the next track, just listen to the whole side, and then when it's done, you gotta walk over and flip it over. Just the experience of it listening to it is is different I guess I think a big part of it is there is a feeling of commitment.

It's you saying, I'm intentionally doing this. I am setting aside some time, I am physically standing up, I am moving this, I am dedicating my energy to this, And like you said, it makes it harder to skip, it makes it harder to ignore, you know. And I actually I feel that way about streaming music in general. I mean, I'm by no means putting it down. Anyone who extreme music. I know it is the main format for everyone these days, but personally, I've never liked streaming music because it feels

too disposable for me to give it enough attention. So if I go to a store and I buy a record, I know that I have paid for this, I'm bringing it home, I'm putting it down on a record player, I'm playing it, and I give it that amount of attention. You know. I've I've had to make decisions. I've had to decide what record I wanted to buy. I've had to And when I say record, I also mean CDs.

I still buy CDs all the time too, And there's a commitment there that makes me give it as much attention and as much I guess dedication as it requires of me, as compared with when I stream something, it just kind of happens at me. And whether I do anything or not, it's just going to keep going or stopping or whatever. It means nothing, just dip into that continuum. Yeah,

and which is fine. I'm not putting it down. I just know that for me personally, I pay more attention to an album and to music in general, if I've made any kind of small commitment to it, any kind you know, if I've just bought in a little bit, I'm paying attention. That relationship that we have with media I think has changed a lot in really the last ten years or so. I mean, Netflix, Spotify, the other

ones exactly the other one. But like in the early days of digital music or you know, when when the EMP three first came around the iPod, it was still about um having keeping archiving, you know, I own this thing. And now it's much more like, oh, I pay a service for you know, I pay a fee for this service to maintain my music collection for me. And I don't like it. It doesn't like it. Don't like it

at all. And let me tell you what one of the pros of that is for me is that I have a kind of big personal library at home of all kinds of things that I some of which I've will never ever part with, in some of which I don't know what to do with, but I can't part with, you know, tapes, films, videos, things that are family historically significant, things that I just haven't had the time to go through. Um,

I just got rid of every CD I owned. I've kept all my tapes, I kept all of my There's two CDs that are on my desk right now that I don't know are in any other format, Like, I don't know if they're online. Um, I could rip them and then have them in a but I but you have to maintain that file, so I have to know where the file lives, as opposed to if it's on like. But Spotify surely doesn't have everything. And the thing that I hate most about Spotify is that it's in flux,

that that that you may not notice it. But there are albums that you'll listen to one week and then the next week you go back to listen to again and it's gone. Right. They're working out that licensing, I'm sure it's very complicated for the people that are in the legal department at Spotify. Absolutely, And so that's that's one of the saddest things to me. Like, I'll give you a perfect example. That is a movie based which

is uh Peewee's Big Holiday. See that movie? Gosh, I wanted to say yes immediately, but I can't remember anything about it. Um, that's this one where he is going to Joe Magnanello's birthday. Yes, yes, I watched it. I watched it shortly after it came out. And he loves like rupier, barrel candy in it a lot and all all that. Anyway, there there's a lot of distinct in my memory. Is the original one from the eighties, Oh, definitely, that one is King of the Crop. That one's amazing.

But I love that new one just because I love Paul Rubens. Was very It was very good. And the thing about it is is, yes, I've had a Netflix, um, you know, account for who knows how long. It's got to be like close to a decade at this point, you know. But what if I don't someday, what if they decide they want to take that movie off there, then I can't watch this movie. I love why because

they say so. And in the old days we're talking pre VHS days, that was the way it was, and then we all got used to this world of no, if I want to watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit, I can watch it whenever I want, because I own that VHS because I've taped it off the TV and was carefully, carefully paused it every time a commercial came on. And and so so that being the case, the fact that the world's trying to take that away from us. I

know that in some regards, it's it's helpful. In some regards, it is like this thing of like, oh, we're don't worry, We're gonna save your shelf space. You don't need to be your own personal curator anymore. But I think there is an ulterior motive, which is money. And is that ulterior I mean, I think that that's clearly the motive behind, you know, the the VHS days, the Spotify days, everything

in between, the things before. Yeah. Yeah, and it's but it just makes me a little sad that, like, I can't watch that Pee Wee Herman movie whenever I want. I can only watch it when I have access to Netflix, you know, And that's that's sad to me. I do think something like, like I consume most of my new music, I consume a lot of old music from like places like archive dot org, YouTube, but like band Camp, Oh totally all damn it. I love band camp so much.

It's it's it's it's the best music platform of the past twenty years period. I can stumble. I can just go click a couple of things categories and just stumble on random albums, pick albums based on the cover that people put on there, which is not even recover really. We call it I'm coloring it a cover, but it's just an image that's sitting in a square on a page album exactly. But I can in in a way that I can't do in any other format, Like I

can't stumble. If you just click next video and YouTube, you get stuff that you don't want to see. You can't unseee can't on here. In band Camp, I end up hearing things that I would never hear anywhere else, definitely, And I do think that in some way that's you know, is you know, owe something to to the digital revolution, to this idea of but there's the twofold thing on band camp to where it's like, hey, I've got my album streaming here and it's free and you can listen

to it whenever you want. You could buy it and it goes most of it goes directly to the artist, or I maybe have a thing that I put on tape cassette or on vinyl or some other I've got a friend that does things on real to real, hand made, real to reel, So that's great. But no, I think

that's fantastic. And also one of my favorite features about band camp that you were just talking about, like the discover ability of band camp is if you go to the home page, um, they'll have this thing downe at the bottom showing in real time what people are buying, so like little things what pop up, like just like a little albums like this just was bought in Denmark for eight euros, This was just bought in Japan for

this much, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And if you just see this stream of albums passing by your eyes and you can just click on one and go what's this click and you just see and it just reminds me of being in a record store and seeing like a the employee recommendations or seeing like we're just listening to the stuff they're playing on the on the on the speakers in there, and it's just nice like that, that sense of discoverability I think is really valuable. And I'm I'm

I love band Camp. I think they are they are. I know that they have a plenty of acclaim. I think they are perpetually underrated only because they deserve all the acclaim they need to be for artists too, I mean, don't know exactly what the deal is, but the cut is better, as I understand, than something makes Spotify. No, my record labels on on band Camp, and so I know exactly what the cut is. It's very little. It's very little. They take like pennies. It's it's nothing. Yeah,

it's it's something you'll never even notice. And I like also, um like sometimes like you know, you're listening like a favor Wave of album for instance, and you're like, I don't know what part of the world is came from. I can't tell is this Japanese? Does it matter? I have in the past year released two albums from two completely different bands that both claim falsely that they are from a small town in Greenland, and you just don't

know where they're from. Oh I know where actually, I I personally know where they're from because I worked with them both. But but the fact that two completely separate bands both on band camp claim that they are from the same town. It's called Nuke and I can't spell it, but anyway, it's written in Greenlandic. But um uh, that that that's claimed they are from the same small town in Greenland makes me just so happy and just it's just so strange to me. And they're very different genres,

they're very different everything. What one is like a pop punk band and one is like a complete noise experimental band. And they both are like, yeah, yeah, that's where we're from. It's like, wow, no, you're not. But that's so cool because you could be from anywhere, you could be anyone, you know. I think a lot of my you know, personal music education for a long time was very much based on like English language music, you know, music that

was in characters that I can understand. And I feel like, you know, perhaps you had to do a little bit more work to get outside of that bubble before. And it's becoming easier to sort of see through to the other side. Yeah, and I really hope. I I don't know people. I'm sure people do whatever is people do,

but I really hope people are taking advantage of that. Um. I use my wife as a barometer for what is actually reaching the world, because like she's very good that at having her pulse on what's happening in the world. A little more in touch and you're just in the other room over your lace. Yeah, I have a similar relationship in my life. Yeah. And and so quite often if there's something I'm really enjoying, I'll say to my wife, hey, do people actually know this or is this just me?

And she'll let me know if like no, no, no, this is a very popular thing or no, no, no, no one's ever heard of this, And that happened last night. Speaking of foreign language music, have you ever listened to a woman named Rosaliah. She's the best. She's a pop star out of Spain, and I mean pop star straightforward, Like she's incredibly good at what she does. But it's

just pop music, just playing straight pop music. But I've seen to my wife, I'm like, clearly she's super popular, right, and she's like no, I'm like why she she sings in Spanish, I'm like, what what different? Oh, you know it maybe so sad? It was just like that. That's the that's the barrier. I can never times feel I very often feel put upon by lyrics. Yes, um, I you know I also subscribe a bit too. I don't

have to go to for in this. But like John Cages, you know, school of thought that music doesn't have to be about expressing, you know, expressing anything. Really, it can just be fun to listen to. It can just be you can just you can just listen, yes, without necessarily like having to have someone's feelings put upon you or or their message. And I do feel like if I am going to listen to lyrical music, music with vocals, it's sometimes really nice when it's like said icelandic it

doesn't matter matter. Um. There was this you know, the band as gur Ross of course, yeah, that they had this one song whose sings not exclusively in Iceland. There's a there's Alantic right, yes, they're they're made up language of hope landic. Um, they released this one song. I'm gonna say, Oh, it was a while ago now, I've gotta be at least a decade where they were like it's our first English language song. Check it out and they played it and I listened to it. I was

really excited. I was like, it sounds like the rest, you know what I mean, Like it doesn't matter. I remember that, I remember reading about that. Yeah, it was during the GOBALTI book like era, which I think was a great era. I agree, I agree, I agree. I believe that z Uh married an American guy. Yeah, yeah, it's um let's see their their group. His name is Alex Alex Summer. I want to say, because they have a band called yon Zi and Alex and they're very

very good. Yeah yeah, maybe a little bit more upbeat figures. Yeah, I'll also um look into Alex Summer's brother is also an amazing musician. Well yeah yeah, but yeah also good. Yeah yeah, we maybe got off track a little bit. Definitely records, so you cut all the roast records on your now let me you know, let me ask you, is is business booming? Does? My business always has inquiries? Literally every single day I have a new email from somebody. But a lot of it is people just kind of exploring.

A lot of people don't really know what's happening with both what I'm doing and just music writ large. So like, for example, I would say, on a daily basis, daily, no close to daily, I get an email from someone going, hey, will you make me a record? I'm like, yeah, sure, what you need And they're like, well, I want this Eagles song on one side and I want this Madonna song on the other side. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, copyright, copyright. I can't do that for you, of course not. You know, like,

why would why would you want that? Exactly? I've heard a couple of things. One is, um, if they own their own personal jukeboxes in their own homes, Okay, that's kind of cool. Yeah. And then the other reason I have heard from DJs where if there's if they are a vinyl only DJ, that makes sense and they want to keep that going here in DJ you should be got to shuffle your disks, I mean, but and then um, gosh,

there was one other reason. Oh, and then I think people who are literally just getting into vinyl for the first time and they're just curious, they know what they like and maybe it's a gift for someone. Could it could be lots of reason, But every time I obviously say no, because I like, no, no, The copyright law. That's very illegal putting Madonna on it, not unless you're unless your name is Madonna. I'm not putting Madonna on a record for you. I'm very very sorry. So so

things like that come up a lot um. I'll also get a lot of people that again, because vinyl has had a resurgence, i'd say in the past decade, you know, so a lot of people are wanting to just do something with it, but they don't really understand it. So like, for example, on a seven inch record, I can put about five minutes on each side, five minutes of audio. So someone will be like, oh, hey, can I put

this song on on this record? And they'll send me like, oh, let's say a seven minute song, Like, oh, actually, no, we can't put this on a seven inch. I can put this on a ten inch or a twelve inch for you, but I can only put five minutes on a on a seven inch record. And they're like, oh, well, can't we just make it fit. It's like, ah, like it's literally space. It's like literally space and time, Like it's we can't. We literally cannot. If you yeah, if you don't, um, I suppose if you maybe if you

didn't grow up with it. You just really haven't thought about you even thought about the Literal Record, the Literal Grooves, the thirty three and the third revolutions per minutes, like you don't if you don't think about it as a because because definitely I get a lot of kids to kids who are brand new to this world and which I think is so cool. Absolutely absolutely that makes me

very very happy and and it's it's so great. Like one of my favorite things in the world to do is putting out um an EP for a band where their entire EP fits on a seven inch. That makes me so happy, like like young like punk bands today, that makes me so happy. Where it's just like, oh, you kids, you're doing it. Good for you, you know, And um, it's fun too. Are having a Millennials are tracking down turntables exactly good. It's very good, it is,

and and most most people get it. I would say I only get angry people who are mad at me for not making hi fi records maybe once a month. But it's so easy to get high fire records exactly. No. No, My my my stance is very very simple. It's that if you want to high fire record, you can get it. And if you want something that sounds exactly like the digital file, you got the digital file like it's it goes back to that camera and painting metaphor. It's like,

I'm I'm not doing that. I'm making something else. I'm making a a side path, a side route, and you don't have to have it, you know what I mean. Like, I'm not insisting that everyone listens to low five Motto records that were handmade. That's that's that'd be silly. But if you want it, I got it for you. I want I want to right now. Why don't you play me the last one that you got queued up here? You got it, you got it. I got the label on this one. This is a band called Undercover Monsters

and this is their EP called Trash Friends and Great Names. Guys. They contacted me and they're just like the logo of the band isn't this font? Can you write that on eight of the records? And like, of course that's all you do. You just cut just cut in the name in cursive. Yeah, I just I just got my little etching tool and one record at a time. But it's fun. That is certainly not something you can call just anyone

to do for you. No, No, but it's it's I like art, like art for art's sake, and I like making things, and so if other people want to do those things, I'm here for them, you know. So Yeah, this is a band called Undercover Monsters. Trash friends and then make a just you know, some fun party pop punk tik kind of stuff. Truys start from the beginning. It's fun. Get some good fully in here. Floy We like somebody. We don't goss, We don't we like some

im I saw. We don't mind nobody because we're just kids to rock the mic pride when we run the mic right, rock the mic frind s. It's all because of me. I'm feeling side and food now then you're gone. It's ready dead me. I really love yes, so how much you neverver No, because you took my truck to wed frock me Slunday night. We like somebody with outcast I we talk about that nobody cause were there some kids and rock the mic right and we run the mike right and rock them like fry Monday, not even.

We like to fight, don't goss summer. We don't by nobody because we do some kids to rock the mike Rick, we ruck the bike, rack the rock the right right. Why don't you give me some way we can break it down. The market's way that and there give me that. Okay, I can give you all my love, said dad, Donkey Doggy.

Can't you see sometimes you brikes his him and times I just stop all you tassy wags, Tommy Donty scary kids and rock the mic Prime when Prime rock the pipe, Riddy, don't cos body cut the kids and rock them like bright. Oh yeah, so you can probably get a lot of punk songs on a twelve inch yeah, oh yeah, yeah, Um a lot of times. I've done a lot of um single sided punk twelve inch gps. There's been a lot of that, and uh and it's fun. It's a

lot of fun. I mean, like if art is actually this is a big thing in my life in general. I really, really really am happy that becoming a musician is no longer a get rich quick scheme because remember, like back in I'm gonna say the late nineties into the early two thousand's probably probably longer ago people wanted to become quote unquote rock stars or pop stars or musicians in general because it was a get rich quick scheme. It was like, Oh, that's how I'll make a lot

of money, I'll become a musician. Well, that sort of ties in timeline wise with like particular kind of commodification of artists you think of, like the boy band era, that sort of thing. And not too long after that, that's when napster kicked in and all these other things kicked in, which made it's not so easy to make money from music, and so a lot of people who were only in it for the money they went away.

And I love that because it means that anyone who's still doing it, they do it because they love it, and those are the best people in the world. I agree, Seth, Tell me tell the listening public where they can find more about your record label. Um, I would say the best place to find me is you go to Haunted Birthday dot com. That's the that's the main place, and then you can go from there to find the social

media sites, etcetera, etcetera. Actually, I suppose, since we're talking so much about what these things look like, a really good place to go would be to my Instagram page, which would be at Haunted Birthday, And there's a great couple of videos that you've done of this process, because describing it and seeing it are death are definitely different things.

So I will I will include a link to that in an easy to find place, because I mean, like the the the interesting thing about this process, like I've been saying, is a lot of its education, like just letting people know what it is that I'm even doing, you know, and um, so that that's why I made these videos. I have learned a lot today about exactly how this works. So I surely have a lot more questions. I think most of my questions might be the kind

that would bore people. That's understandable. But I want to talk more about that curve off. Mike, You and I can talk all day about all the really boring stuff about like groove depth and the r I a acres. Yeah, I mean, think about like the depths of the depth

of sound. That is the difference between a traditional like hundred eighty gram record and me just pushing a ruby as hard as I can into a piece of plastic, you know what I mean, Like the depth of sound you can get from a quote unquote real record is so much deeper. But that's that's that's that's that trade off. It's that, well, do you have three fans and a whole bunch of money or do you need two copies? And you can do whatever you want? And it's it's a trade off. You do whatever you want to do.

You got one more thing to play us? Play us out here? Um maybe giant stack of handmade records. Yeah, you know, it all depends on who I have the rights from. Let's see here. Oh no, I'll go ahead and say thanks a lot for coming in and doing this absolutely, and thank you to the artists also that I contacted to say, hey, do you mind if we play your music on the show today? Thank you to them for allowing us to play their music publicly. That's

very nice of them. Thanks artists. Let's go someplace where no one knows times you could play in town Gate and shall blow. I may be in the crab, but I'm only with you. I know, we just meant And

then's okay. I got phot of n St again, which to day I can't keep seeing r one girl to see ship stand So the new kids, so keep pretty down a show, no ang fight the children of the night and time to be prag don't be this, led by all of the dentists, even the one to post oh yeah, yeah, I'd like the dark one but me like like Sati sends to the evil Tachists, like child Sah sends him to it. So shock me to find the night and child Tops, led by all of the dead,

is given best Yeah. Thanks to Elias Mason in June York, Puma Shock and Undercover Monsters for letting us play their music. The eye, his ears, hands and brain behind Haunted Birthday Records is Seth Nicholas Johnson. See this process in action and get your own record produced at Haunted Birthday dot com and follow up on everything you heard here at a fem dot show. For more podcasts from i Heeart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.