"The Friday Interview" is a new feature in which I interview someone I know - well or even just slightly well or maybe even not really well - about stuff via email, then post the interview here. The aim is to be informative, entertaining, and to further my goal of taking over the world or becoming rich and famous - whichever comes first. Enjoy!
Voguing to Danzig: We first met - in the non-physical sense of that phrase - back in 1997, when I sent Matador a zine slating that GBV/Cobra Verde album, and you sent me a promo for Helium's The Magic City. Then you left Matador to do promo for The Leaf Label, right?
Ben Goldberg: Yup. I worked at Matador from 1998-2004, then left to run the U.S. operations for The Leaf Label. Your zine was really funny, and our rules for sending promos to people were mostly based around if what we read made us laugh. So you easily got added to the list.
Tell me about how Ba Da Bing! came about. And I must admit - every time I see or think about that name I get a glowering mental image of Tony Soprano. You handle Leaf simultaneously, don't you?
Just for the record, I started the label in 1994, before The Sopranos (existed). I was a senior in college, and I formed a band with the main goal of being able to put out a 7" of my own music. After that, and doing a friend's band, I put together a compilation. I pretty much had the goal from the start to do a regular label. I had interned at Matador and was just excited to be around records and figuring out how they got made and marketed. And yeah, I oversee Leaf US operations, do Ba Da Bing, and manage a few bands - Beirut, Damon & Naomi, and Shearwater.
How'd you wind up signing the Dead C.?
Jon Dale did this great article on them in Signal To Noise a few years ago. In it, they said they didn't have anybody to release their new record. Through a friend, I sent them an email, and they replied saying they were planning on releasing the album themselves, but were giving thought to a retrospective release. I ended up doing that with them, and it went so well, they offered me their next release. Getting to work with a band like that, and getting to visit New Zealand and actually stay with them and meet their families....it's been a pretty mind-blowing year.
About how many releases does Ba Da Bing! put out annually?
Usually six to eight. I've done more and it's gotten hella busy. I've done less and have been twiddling my thumbs. Luckily, it seems to work out with the bands I work with that their timing on finishing up albums works into this frame nicely.
What kind of commitment is it - in terms of time, resources, money, etc. - to run your own record label? Does it ever seem untenable, especially given the scary state of the economy and illegal downloading?
It's so relatively cheap to put out records. Do it smart, and you really have a low rate of success you need to achieve. Like, to manufacture 1,000 CDs costs about $2,000 all in. So, I get back around $6 from my distributor for every album I sell, so I only need to sell 333.33 copies to break even. Not every record does that, mind you, but it's a lot easier to achieve when people are also using eMusic and iTunes and all that. I try to avoid extra costs - like I rarely advertise, I almost never hire out jobs that I can do myself, and I offer the bands a 50/50 profit split, so it's in their best interests for me to spend as little as possible up front. The economy is in a scary state right now, but luckily, music is cheap. People are going to keep going to the movies, and they're going to keep going to shows - albeit, maybe fewer - but when you're talking about buying a $10 CD or download, it's just not all that much compared to other forms of entertainment. And illegal downloading is inevitable and unavoidable. But it also helps, in that it spreads the word about your bands and lets people hear them. And, weirdly, whenever I've made a mp3 available for free to blogs and websites, it's always those tracks that end up being the most purchased on iTunes and eMusic. That's strange economic logic, but it tells me that the more people know about something, the more it will sell, even if a lot of those people are getting it for free. There's got to be somebody with an economic scale they can create of this somehow. I have no idea what it would look like. The only bummer of late has been how difficult it is to get coverage for bands. Beirut, Dead C, that's no problem, but for releases I've put out by bands which aren't either huge or hugely influential, and I find it harder than ever to get anybody to pay attention to them. I think there's a full-capacity point right now with bands people like to cover. Blogs/websites needed to get their own bands to write about, so while they would still cover Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth, they also adopted groups like Sufjan Stevens and Cold War Kids as being the bands unique to their presentation. Now, the canon of Bands You Must Cover has grown so large, new bands aren't getting written about as much as they used to be, just a couple years ago, because all the space is being taken up by the reigning kings and queens. I find it a bummer just as a music fan, since I'm hearing more new bands these days from friends and accidental MySpace discoveries than from websites I really enjoy reading. It could always be that I just have Old Man Taste at this point - that's actually extremely possible.
Artists on your label aside, what're some of your favorite bands, records, and genres? Are you a noise fan? I'm thinking of the CD sticker for Erudite, Vain, and Stupid, where you sort of make an entreaty to Dead C. newbies by throwing a couple noise heavies out there...
I've tried to put out anything that strikes my fancy, irregardless of music genre, but I still have yet to find (1) a metal band I like as much as Slayer, (2) an avant-pop band I like as much as Talk Talk (luckily, I get to work with Shearwater by managing them), (3) a Krautrock band I like as much as Can, or (4) a folk singer I like as much as Jackson C Frank. Luckily, I found a noise band I like as much as The Dead C (and, honestly, working with them has been a complete highlight of doing the label, on par with getting to work with Damon & Naomi. The 22 year old me would find the 35 year old me incredibly cool, and that's always been my main goal, to impress the younger me.
You used to be in a band yourself, right? Cash Money, maybe? I'm blanking on the name at the moment...
You're thinking of the estimable Scott Giampino who used to work at Touch & Go. Cash $$$ was a real band, mine was a band that put out a seven inch and played about four shows - Salteen. We did a killer Bedhead cover, though. That seven-inch was the first Ba Da Bing release, actually.
If you had it all to do over again, would you do it the same way?
Wow, never been asked this...Um...you know...yeah. I don't regret one record I've released. I like them all, and even if sometimes things have gotten dramatic with the bands involved, I always grew from the experience. And I hate those people who give advice to someone wanting to go into their business by saying, "Don't!" Nah, do. Form a label, put out records, do it ethically, smartly and work hard, and you'll be successful.
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