PIAPTK
This is a seriously cool record label making unique artifacts in very limited quantities.
Why start a label?
Why not? What else did I have to do? Music is fun, arts and crafts are fun, and starting a label felt more constructive (though judging from the reaction of my co-workers, apparently less socially acceptable) than sitting around watching football.
When and how did it start?
I started PIAPTK in 2006 because I wanted to release records by my friends, and because I wanted a project. I’m a bit obsessive about constantly having something constructive to do. I love to make things. I was playing in bands and doing home recording and really wanted my music on vinyl, but had absolutely no hope of selling even 100, much less 500 copies of it. I met Lance Hahn (R.I.P) from J Church at a house show and he mentioned Peter King in New Zealand, who does lathe cut records, and will make you as few as 20 copies. This really got the ball rolling for me. I contacted Peter and a few months later, I released a record for my own project. Then, I heard about this very short lived label called Twenty Bees, who did a lathe cut subscription series for 20 artists, and sold only 20 copies of the subscription for bands like Mount Eerie, White Rainbow, Dirty Projectors, etc. Each record came in very unique and cool packaging. I really loved this idea and wanted to do my own subscription series for my friends bands. However, I figured it would be hard to sell even 20 copies of a series that expensive (lathe cuts are not cheap) for bands that nobody has ever heard of, so I started emailing every band I liked, hoping I could get ONE bigger name to carry the thing. Turns out, almost all of the bands I reached out to said yes! Most of them flaked out on me before actually coming through, but that led to the the PIAPTK Limited Edition Subscription club that got me my first bit of press and put PIAPTK on the map. It had records from Jad Fair, Wooden Wand, Poster Children, Will Johnson (Centro-Matic), Viking Moses, Tender Forever and Angelo Spencer.
What labels inspire you?
There are so many great labels that inspire me for different reasons. St. Ives, Gnome Life, Lost Sound Tapes, 555, Folktale, Orange Twin, Cloud, Joyful Noise, Southern Lord, P. W. Elverum and Sun, and of course the larger indie mainstays like Secretly Canadian, K, Kill Rock Stars, Merge, Matador, Sub Pop, Drag City, etc. I’m also heavily embroiled in a label feud for vinyl strangeness with Third Man Records. If anybody sees Jack White, let him know we are feuding.
I am also inspired by the hundreds of labels out there that start up, release a handful of cool things and burn out. Staying in this business is really hard. There is no profit margin for small run records. If you are lucky enough to get distribution, you have to sell it to the distro for cost, if you want it to be remotely affordable by the time it gets to the record store. Getting releases noticed and bought by the consumers is really hard unless you have the money to sink into publicity or the band tours a lot (and then they are buying copies from the label at just above cost). Figure in all that, the cost of artist copies, plus all the little tiny expenses that add up, it’s just not financially viable as a business model. Even breaking even on most releases is usually a pipe dream, unless you take the label very seriously as a business. I really like labels that DON’T take it seriously as a business. Most of the people I know who run labels, do it out of a passion and selfless devotion to music and art, not in pursuit of money. They release what they want, regardless of whether they feel like they can sell enough copies to break even. Unfortunately, sometimes (usually), the people that start that kind of label, with that kind of ethic, can’t sustain it for long, and stop doing it pretty quick. Sometimes they did it that way out of sheer, naïve optimism. Sometimes they do it because they recognize that all hobbies cost money, and releasing records is a lot better than playing golf. But, regardless of the motivation, I’m thankful that they did it for as long as they could.
What is the goal and purpose of your label?
The goal of the label is just to release cool things by bands that I really love. I want my releases to stand out on your shelf and start conversations. “Have you seen this record by Golden Boots? It’s made out of a picnic plate! Check out the letterpressed cover!”. My main goal is to promote the bands I work with it, to make people want their record without even having heard them. The only way to do that is to make it look cool. Be unique. Since I started cutting my own records a couple years ago, my goal has now become to get as freaky, weird, and crazy with both the record and the packaging as I can. I want to do things that haven’t been done before, or that were done on such a small scale somewhere that most people haven’t seen it.
How do you find new artists?
I have so many friends that make amazing music, that I don’t have to look very hard. I generally just work inside my circle of friends and wait for things to find me through that. The artists I work with are always turning me on to great bands that they’ve played shows with or they know from around town.
Why vinyl?
Because I haven’t collected CDs since 1997, and neither have most of my friends. There is the occasional hold out, but everyone I know rips the CDs they (rarely) purchase on their computer and throw the disc in a box. They just seem so disposable and cheap. I want to make things that will be valued. I have a lot of really nice handmade CD-Rs from various bands, but even those are in a box somewhere, rather than being on my shelf. I can appreciate the cassette comeback, but tape isn’t really a format that I listen to very often, and the size makes it harder to do cool packaging.
How important is packaging to you?
My philosophy has always been to spend as little money as possible, but still make packaging that makes people go WOW. I put effort and labor into my packaging instead of money. Most of my packaging materials are scrounged at garage sales, flea markets, junk stores, etc. I hand make almost everything. Almost everything I release is imperfect. Silkscreen smears, uneven edges, etc. It’s not that I intentionally make mistakes, or don’t care about how it looks, I do have quality control. All of my records are done at home, using some pretty low tech processes and really janky equipment, so perfection is impossible. Besides, I want people to know that these items were made by someone with a stake in the product, a real person. Not some random dude at a print shop that doesn’t care if he’s making record sleeves or boxes of Tylenol.
The record itself is also more of a consideration for me than most labels. The only decision most people have to make is the color of the vinyl. Because I can cut my own lacquers, I can do a lot of cool things with etching to the lacquer before it is pressed, which is something I’m just starting to experiment with. I can also cut records out of weird materials like scrap plastic, picnic plates, mirrors, x-rays, etc. Some of the records I release don’t sound great. They sound like a dusty old 45 that’s been played a million times in a jukebox. Because the material I use was never meant to be a record. It wasn’t tweaked and modified by chemists over the last 100 years with the sole intention of holding a quiet groove the way that modern PVC “vinyl” has been. All of my records include digital versions as well, though, so you have a pristine sounding copy of the recording. I was once drunkenly accused by a pretentious, but extremely passionate, scene-dude at a house party of “making gimmick and novelty records and ruining the sanctity of vinyl. You put all this emphasis on the packaging or some weird lathe cut format, when it should be about the MUSIC, man!” which made me laugh so hard I spewed beer out of my nose and smiled really big. If you take your format that seriously, you’ve got problems. Vinyl is my favorite format, but it’s not some sacred cow. Good music is good music and however someone wants to hear it is cool. I collect vinyl, and make vinyl because I want it to be as much about owning this tangible artifact of an artist. I want my records to be the music equivalent of a mouse ears hat from Disneyland, only more useful and unique. Besides, the weird audio artifacts and noise that happen during playback of a lathe cut sometimes augment the listening experience. All of the artists were aware of what lathe cuts sound like, and were fine (and some actually excited) with the fact that that they would be Mid-fidelity.
Music is free, it has no actual monetary value. It should, but the genie is out of the bottle, and nobody that knows how to turn on a computer actually NEEDS to pay for it anymore. People buy music for only three reasons, 1) They want to support the artist and/or label 2) they want to have a tactile experience with music or 3) they enjoy acquiring and collecting things. So, in order to get people to pay for music, you have to make the THING worth having. CDs aren’t worth having, the tactile experience is boring. The artwork is small and looks the millions of brochures of local attractions that you see at hotels. Vinyl is larger, and gives you so many opportunities for packaging. You have to interact with it before, after, and in the middle of listening to it. 80% of records are just standard, printed covers without even an insert. They are just like all of the other 2000 records on the shelf. I want my records to stand out. I want people to be drawn to them, or compelled to show them off. And weird packaging and record type is how I try to do it.
What are your future plans?
From here on out, my plan is to continue to try to push the envelope, of what I can make of the format, mostly just for my own giggles. I’ve got a lot of records coming out real soon from Little Wings, Ariel Pink, R. Stevie Moore, Solid Home Life, Advance Base, Devil’s Horns Kill The Matador, Wooden Wand, Catherine Irwin, Golden Boots, etc.
Do you collect vinyl?
Of course. But I only “collect” records with handmade covers. I have plenty of mass produced records, but I only have them as players. I don’t “collect” them so to speak. If they get too valuable, I trade them for new ones that I won’t have to worry about playing.
How big is your collection?
Probably a couple thousand at this point. Too many to listen to in my lifetime, but you never know when I’m going to want to hear the “Any Which Way You Can” Soundtrack.
What are some of your go to records over the years?
I go through really heavy phases. But my main focus is songwriting, in what I release and what I listen to. I’d rather have good songs recorded on a four track than some amazing sounding studio album with lush production with mediocre lyrics. Some of my perennial classics are Any C. W. McCall Record, Kris Kristofferson’s Greatest Hits, Belle and Sebastian – Boy With The Arab Strap, Fruit Bats – Spelled in Bones, Wooden Wand and the Sky High Band, Golden Boots – Winter of our Discotheque, Elvis Costello – Imperial Bedroom, Viking Moses – The Parts That Showed, The Smiths – Strangeways Here We Come, Sparklehorse – It’s a Wonderful Life, Replacements – Tim, Bob Dylan – Nashville Skyline, Tom Waits, Mule Variations, Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man, and Whiskeytown – Stranger’s Almanac.
