BLOGGER: shark batter records
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords
Sound of the underground
The big-time music industry may be suffering as the internet and economy bite, but in Scotland the grassroots scene is thriving. A new generation of web-savvy talent is emerging from unlikely places, ignoring all the rules … and taking on the world. Edd McCracken meets the bands, venues and labels creating a vibrant community of new music...
THE LABELS
News of the demise of major music labels is nothing new. They reacted to the internet as swiftly as an oil tanker doing a three-point turn in a shipping lane. And so, where once talks of international record deals were the preserve of musical ivory towers in London, LA and New York, today the scene shifts to a day-glo cafe in an Asda in Galashiels.
Two brothers sit at their usual table by the window, enjoying cheap coffee, discussing what to do with their signing from New York. Roger Simian and Mike Small played in a mildly successful Britpop band, Dawn Of The Replicants, but have swapped sweaty live venues for running their own record label, Shark Batter. Begun in 2006 and named after a defence technique for dealing with Jaws (rather than a Borders delicacy), it is part of a resurgence in Scottish indie labels, a musical sub-genre that gave the world Postcard Records in the 1980s and the booming Fence Collective. They are rising in bedrooms, kitchens and supermarket coffee shops, nimbly filling in the gaps left behind by crumbling majors.
"Indies are coming back, although it's different to what it was before" says Roger. "It is easier to set a label up now, thanks to the internet, but there are new difficulties, too."
The withering of the independent label's trusted distribution method is one such difficulty. The number of small, dedicated record shops has dwindled. As has the music press: only the NME remains as a weekly diet, while monthly magazines are in thrall to stadium acts or slavishly cater to the baby boomers' record collections.
While Shark Batter still burn promotional CDs, packed in home-made cases, they will be sent as readily to mp3 bloggers and online fanzines as to Q magazine. In an age when such a DIY ethos reigns, their tagline has an agreeable Del Boy chutzpah to it: "DIY Indie Label from Scottish Borders & Brooklyn, New York".
"It's somewhere between tongue in cheek and our ambition," says Roger. "One of the things now is that instead of indie labels being identified with one label and one country, thanks to the internet you can reach out and find an audience in America, Europe or Mexico, as well as your own country. There is a fascination with other cultures. Connections will be made, like twinning cities." He stops, as if contemplating whether to put his tongue back in his cheek for the next remark. "We'd like Galashiels to be twinned with Brooklyn."
The link with New York's hippest borough is not speculative. It comes from Shark Batter signing Kono Michi, right, a classically trained concert violinist and singer who manages to embody the sound of both John Cale and Nico in her slight frame. Mike bonded with Michi via MySpace over a love of The Cocteau Twins. She recorded violin for his band, The Stone Ghost Collective, before agreeing to be signed to their label.
Reflecting the "Think Global, Act Local" approach to running a label, Shark Batter's signings are highly personalised: Sarahjane Swan lives in their old house and Mike was her guitar teacher; the lead singer in the wonderfully titled Vacuum Spasm Babies worked on the same music fanzine as Roger; and The Stark Palace is Roger's own band.
As a career, they "get by" running Shark Batter. "We're not making any major profit out of it," says Mike. "We're always looking for new angles. We're full of ideas. One of us keeps the other on the ground. But we'll always be based in Galashiels. You don't always have to be based in big cities and follow the traditional routes. Besides, we get free coffee refills in Asda."
Kono Michi's 9 Death Haiku and Vacuum Spasm Babies' Whipping Clowns are out now on Shark Batter Records; www.sharkbatter.com
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords
Sound of the underground
The big-time music industry may be suffering as the internet and economy bite, but in Scotland the grassroots scene is thriving. A new generation of web-savvy talent is emerging from unlikely places, ignoring all the rules … and taking on the world. Edd McCracken meets the bands, venues and labels creating a vibrant community of new music...
THE LABELS
News of the demise of major music labels is nothing new. They reacted to the internet as swiftly as an oil tanker doing a three-point turn in a shipping lane. And so, where once talks of international record deals were the preserve of musical ivory towers in London, LA and New York, today the scene shifts to a day-glo cafe in an Asda in Galashiels.
Two brothers sit at their usual table by the window, enjoying cheap coffee, discussing what to do with their signing from New York. Roger Simian and Mike Small played in a mildly successful Britpop band, Dawn Of The Replicants, but have swapped sweaty live venues for running their own record label, Shark Batter. Begun in 2006 and named after a defence technique for dealing with Jaws (rather than a Borders delicacy), it is part of a resurgence in Scottish indie labels, a musical sub-genre that gave the world Postcard Records in the 1980s and the booming Fence Collective. They are rising in bedrooms, kitchens and supermarket coffee shops, nimbly filling in the gaps left behind by crumbling majors.
"Indies are coming back, although it's different to what it was before" says Roger. "It is easier to set a label up now, thanks to the internet, but there are new difficulties, too."
The withering of the independent label's trusted distribution method is one such difficulty. The number of small, dedicated record shops has dwindled. As has the music press: only the NME remains as a weekly diet, while monthly magazines are in thrall to stadium acts or slavishly cater to the baby boomers' record collections.
While Shark Batter still burn promotional CDs, packed in home-made cases, they will be sent as readily to mp3 bloggers and online fanzines as to Q magazine. In an age when such a DIY ethos reigns, their tagline has an agreeable Del Boy chutzpah to it: "DIY Indie Label from Scottish Borders & Brooklyn, New York".
"It's somewhere between tongue in cheek and our ambition," says Roger. "One of the things now is that instead of indie labels being identified with one label and one country, thanks to the internet you can reach out and find an audience in America, Europe or Mexico, as well as your own country. There is a fascination with other cultures. Connections will be made, like twinning cities." He stops, as if contemplating whether to put his tongue back in his cheek for the next remark. "We'd like Galashiels to be twinned with Brooklyn."
The link with New York's hippest borough is not speculative. It comes from Shark Batter signing Kono Michi, right, a classically trained concert violinist and singer who manages to embody the sound of both John Cale and Nico in her slight frame. Mike bonded with Michi via MySpace over a love of The Cocteau Twins. She recorded violin for his band, The Stone Ghost Collective, before agreeing to be signed to their label.
Reflecting the "Think Global, Act Local" approach to running a label, Shark Batter's signings are highly personalised: Sarahjane Swan lives in their old house and Mike was her guitar teacher; the lead singer in the wonderfully titled Vacuum Spasm Babies worked on the same music fanzine as Roger; and The Stark Palace is Roger's own band.
As a career, they "get by" running Shark Batter. "We're not making any major profit out of it," says Mike. "We're always looking for new angles. We're full of ideas. One of us keeps the other on the ground. But we'll always be based in Galashiels. You don't always have to be based in big cities and follow the traditional routes. Besides, we get free coffee refills in Asda."
Kono Michi's 9 Death Haiku and Vacuum Spasm Babies' Whipping Clowns are out now on Shark Batter Records; www.sharkbatter.com
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