Round the Dial
Wednesday 19 June @ 10:17:45 |
 by Tom Hallett
Anybody who’s spent just a couple evenings at local clubs over the past decade has most likely caught singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer Ed Ackerson rockin’ in one incarnation or another. Whether co-helming Twin Cities cult faves The 27 Various, wrangling mutated, space-age howls from his axe as front man for the lush-n-layered rock outfit Polara, jamming with old pals like The Mofos and John P. Strohm, or just hangin’ by the stage with a big grin as one of the countless bands he’s produced, nurtured, and promoted over the years tears new holes in the sonic folds of the universe, the thirtysomething music fanatic has always had a hand (or two) right smack in the middle of the Minneapolis/St. Paul music scene.
Maybe that’s why it feels so right to see Ed, his longtime musical partner Jennifer Jurgens, and their pal, Astronaut Wife founder Christian Erickson, pooling their collective talents and resources and forming their own indie label, Susstones. (http://www.susstones.com) Not (in Ackerson’s own words) “your average record label,” Susstones is more of a community/co-op setup, where local and regional musicians and artists who strike Ackerson & co.’s fancy are given a chance to release their product with a sympathetic, understanding group of Twin Cities stalwarts who’ve traversed the choppy waters of the major labels and survived to share their experiences.
Ackerson chose to populate Susstones’ initial stable with some obvious choices- Polara, several of his side projects, (Sideways, Tiles) and a couple of off-the-cuff projects his partners have been involved in of late, including Jurgens’ delicious mod-pop alter-ego, Bipolar Bear, and Erickson’s trippy, futuristic electro-noid sonic comic, Fear The Robots!- but plans to expand and diversify over the coming years to encompass a larger spectrum of the area’s rich musical offerings. The label’s first releases, Polara’s Jetpack Blues, Sideways’ Oblivion And Points Beyond, Basement Apartment’s Interstellar EP, and a label sampler, Where Will We Go? are all available now at your finer local indie record stores, with more to come this fall.
I recently spoke at length with Ed about his latest musical doin’s, and got the low-down on Susstones’ current and upcoming releases. He’s currently as swamped as ever with production work for non-Susstones acts at Flowers, his legendary recording studio, but was eager to hip locals to the inner workings of the fledgling label. “There are various people who participate on various levels. Some might just put an mp3 up on the site, or put a track on the compilation, (not all of the acts on the compilation are officially “signed” to the label) and there are other people with projects that we’re going to be developing (in the future). One thing we’re trying to do is structure it so people can participate at whatever level they want. We’re not the kind of label to say, ‘We’ve got to acquire talent!’ that kind of trip, you know?”
Those kinds of “trips” are exactly why Ackerson and his friends got together and created Susstones, he says. “I think it’s atrocious that you have labels saying, ‘We’ll give you a two thousand dollar budget to do your record, and we get options on your next five albums, and we control you forever!’ (laughs) I mean, that’s ridiculous. I don’t understand why things have gotten to that point now, maybe it’s just a sign of how desperate people are to get deals with record companies, and how short the opportunities to make that happen are. But that’s not what we’re trying to do. If we have friends or people we know, and we like the stuff they do, we’ll try to give it a platform.”
He says he hopes the label will also eventually expand to the point where he and the rest of the Susstones gang will be able to bring other local talent on board. “We’re certainly interested in seeing what’s out there, what people are doing. We’ve got people interested in trying to do things with us in the fall and the winter, and we’ve got a few projects still in the pipeline. We’re limited as far as how many resources we have, and how good of a job we can do on certain things. We’re probably going to try and do three records in the fall, along with some weird stuff, like we’re doing some re-issues of 27 Various stuff. But that’s all kind of sideline stuff, we’re probably going to have three or four proper releases in the fall, like three CD’s and a DVD. We don’t have an enormous amount of time to do tons of new stuff, and we pretty much know what we’re doing in the coming six months. But things can always change, and it’s certainly interesting to see what people are doing.”
One of the most exciting releases to come out of Susstones’ first batch is the new Polara album, Jetpack Blues, a wall o’ sound collection of Ackerson originals that ranks right up with the band’s classic ‘90’s offerings. He’s proud of the album and says that he and the rest of the band plan to use their major label experiences to their (and Susstones’) benefits. “We did three records for Interscope,” he recalls, “and it’s a very, very big company! (laughs) I think that we learned a lot, we got a lot of connections, and they certainly were able to throw us fairly high in the air so a lot of people were able to see us. We’re benefitting from that now, because a lot of people in the industry know who the band is, and they’re gabbing about it. The nature of the music Polara’s done, and the things that I like in general, are pretty much indie-oriented music, and not the kind of stuff that’s going to get on the radio, or sell out stadiums, or whatever the %@!#$& you have to do these days. It’s very binary, there’s no such thing as putting out a record and selling fifty thousand copies and having them think that’s success. You’re either platinum, or you’re done, you know?”
Not having to answer to those big label cash-hounds, says Ackerson, is one of the main benefits of being involved with Susstones. “We’ve only got to answer to ourselves. And if I had to go to a committee, I couldn’t really find a smarter bunch of people who know more about this kind of stuff. I really am very happy at this point to be able to make records exactly the way I want to make them, and sort of be relieved of that idea of, ‘Well, we’ve got to have a couple of hits.’ I think the Polara record is pretty solid, one of our better ones. There’s a general sort of vibe on the record of feeling some sort of alienation towards your surroundings, and I suppose that’s probably pretty active on a lot of levels, both personal and relation-wise, with the world. The landscape out there is really weird, compared to five years ago, as far as rock goes. You think back to the mid-’90’s, everybody was super optimistic, and there were awesome bands all over the radio. Some of the biggest bands in the world were also some of the coolest bands.
“That kind of thing is really, really cool, and it was going on all over the country. A lot of my other friends who are in bands, and were, or still are, on labels, have all been looking around for the last year or two, and going, ‘What on earth is going on here!?’ It’s like being completely stranded in this weird place where there was a real chance that things were gonna turn into this huge steamroller. It’s not happening so much now. The first Polara record, which is the one people really went ape-%@!#$& over, was another situation where it was done completely on our own. There was no chance, in our minds, that anybody at all was ever going to hear it, so we just made a record that we wanted to make. That seems to be a pretty good way for us to do it. Some people work better under pressure, they need to have some sort of wall right there in front of them that they’re going to hit if they don’t come up with stuff. For us, it’s more of an on-going process, and we just have a tendency to fiddle with things until we’re happy. The best stuff is being produced because those (major label) guys aren’t in there %@!#$&ing everything up.”
Next week- RTD delves further into the Susstones catalog, with updates on Astronaut Wife, Basement Apartment, Sideways, Bipolar Bear, Medication, The Meg, Robert Skoro, Tiles, Christian Erickson, and The Plate. Also! Don’t miss local banjo-maestro John “Caveman” Knowles live on KFAI’s (90.3 or 106.7 FM) In Your Ear program tonight, 6/19, from midnight-2AM. Until next time- make yer own damn news.
If you have local music news/gigs/events that you’d like to see listed in this column, or you’d just like to share your own major label horror stories, send replies to: TMygunn777@aol.com.
|
|
 |
|
