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Interview: Mark N./Bloody Fist Records
StoreTags: mark, bloody, fist, records, interview
Author: nagrom on February 28 2008 Viewed 1495 times. 8 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
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bloody fist roughly started back in 1990/91 on account of Mark Newlands and Aaron Lubinski. amiga500 destruction and really angry noises. aside from that, no use describing something that doesn't seem to want to be described.
they've gone from tape distribution, to cd to vinyl, licensing with industrial strength and have been around the world a few times (10+ years!).
check the 411, and be sure to support bloody-fist if you're in the shops and are looking for an unsafe alternative to all those labels that thought they were hard and "really don't care".
What inspires you? Doesn't have to be music; food, tactility, etc etc...
Ignorant unthinking behaviour inspires me. Plebian values inspire me. Mediocre music inspires me. Being broke as fuck inspires me. All of the aforementioned things inspire me because I hate them so much. A lot of people don't realise that if you can compact your hatred and plough all of that energy into doing something reactionary, it can be quite powerful. (It can also fall on its arse as well, but that's another story).
Do you sometimes wish you were folding cardboard in a 9-5?
1pm-6pm would suit me better.
Who would you most like to have signed to your label?
err.. one of those 'boy band' things..
What are the worst and best thing(s) that your label has gone through?
What are the worst and best thing(s) that your label has gone through?
Best thing ever - Licensing material to Industrial Strength back in 1994/95. The mid-nineties were the 'golden years' of industrial hardcore.
Worst thing ever - chasing unpaid royalties for the 'Best thing ever'.
Where'd the label name come from?
A 'Bloody Fist' is what you usually find yourself with after severely chastising someone.
Have sales gone up or down since mp3/napster proliferation?
Stayed exactly the same.
How many total records & cd's have you sold?
shit ... err... that's a hard one - not counting all the records we licensed to other labels throughout the last 7 years - I'd say somewhere in the vicinity of 23,000 (on our label).
What genre would YOU call the music on your label?
Our bread & butter genre would probably be called 'Industrial Hardcore', but we also release styles which have an obvious connection such as harsh drum + bass, lo-fi breakbeat, and some broken beat/noise shit. We have also released some cut-up hip hop in the past...
What annoys you most about the demos you get?
What annoys you most about the demos you get?
They are on CD for the most part... tapes were good because you could record over them.
What do you feel are the biggest misconceptions/misunderstands about running a record label?
A local misconception is that there is loads of money in this. I only have enough to scrape a living together - thats about it. Every man and his dog carries on about having their own 'record label'. It appears to be a status thing for some people. When you ask them what they've released they sheepishly answer 'ooh... just a CDR of my own stuff I did on Fasttracker....' - nine times out of ten they also have no distribution for their product either.
I guess the biggest misunderstanding for these people is that they can run a label with no distribution. If you go and press 500 cd's with no distribution - you only have so much room under your bed for 450 unsold CD's, after giving 50 away to friends and relatives.
How important is marketing in terms of an artists' success?
We don't bother with marketing. The best marketing in the circles we move in is 'word of mouth'. People don't like being bombarded with bullshit rhetoric about how good a certain record is - or how many stars out of 5 Joe Critic gave it. This is all irrelevant bullshit in my opinion. Once the record is out there people can find it for themselves and decide whether or not they are into it, without me trying to tell everyone about it all the time... it's just a waste of time and effort to try and plough money into marketing this style of music.
How many demos does your label receiver per week, roughly?
Just a couple per week. On a good week we will receive none.
What do you feel that interviewers/inquirers usually forget to ask about you or your label or your labels' artists?
What do you feel that interviewers/inquirers usually forget to ask about you or your label or your labels' artists?
Exactly that.
Tell us about a "music industry" phenomenon that's really frightening or disgusting?
Stores or distributors not paying other distributors. Distributors not paying labels, labels not paying artists.
Do you feel that music today is disposable? For example, #1 on the charts today is forgotten within a week or two. And is this a bad thing or is it good that people are so demanding? Or are people in fact just following the radio stations?
Yes. It is disposable for sure. It's a bit of a shame this happens because a lot of the time there is much effort and skill involved in making pop music (albeit a skill in cynicism). You get to wondering if these people ever think that they're wasting their time and energy on something so disposable.... I suppose money talks though. Nine times out of ten, the general public only know about music they are exposed to via radio and TV. Anything which falls outside these mediums becomes automatically marginalised and ignored to a large degree, so you can't really blame the public for having mediocre taste - especially when the media are the ones promoting it.
What sorts of factors do you feel help to promote an artist? For example, if they have a "rough" or "street" image, they will be more popular in the urban market. Etc...
I don't know about this. We do not operate in these circles. Image means nothing as far as we're concerned - it's what's on the record that counts for something in the grand scheme of things..
Do you have a janitor?
Yes. It is I. I am also the inhouse secretary, accountant, and shit kicker. | |
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02/29/08
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papergoose
HA.
03/03/08
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flies
i understand why these interviews are now gone but, ah, the old days... the men knew who the men were, the women knew who the women were, the women knew who the men were, and the men knew who the women were. not like now.
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