Transcript (auto-generated, may contain errors; songs left out)
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Sound Scene Revolution. You're excited. It's the first show of the new year starting sometime in late February. Chinese New Year. We took a long break because Sound Guy Nairman is Chinese. I bet you didn't know that about him, but it's true. At least he's attracted to Asian women. He's told me this, but we took a long break. Sorry for that, but we're back. We've picked two winners for the Austin Lucas and MC Chris interview contest thing, so be sure to check your mailbox every day to see if you win, and if you didn't get the package today or tomorrow, you'll get it soon, so keep checking every day, and be sure to send us lots of angry emails about how you haven't gotten it in a timely manner because we love to give away free stuff and have people complain about it. Actually, please send us emails. We got a few. Fan mail is like a new thing for us.
I wouldn't even say it's fan mail. It's mail, but we've gotten some emails from some people who listen, and it's always really kind of interesting to see what you guys think, so please feel free to send us stuff on MySpace or at Gmail. It's unusual. It's kind of like, I don't even know. It's kind of like you guys know what we think and what we say because we're here five times a year or so. Maybe we do eight to nine shows a year, so you know what we're like, but I don't know what 90% of you guys are like because I know at least more than my mom and my dad listen according to our numbers, but so yeah, feel free to send us stuff. I don't know. It's interesting, and it's kind of cool for the ego, you know. Anyway, that's enough of that. Unless, oh, it's not good for the ego, however, to check Gaslight Anthem message boards after you do a Gaslight Anthem interview because those fucking kids, let me tell you, those kids are fucking awesome. They are ruthless and apparently are unaware that other people in the band exist besides the lead singer, so it's pretty awesome for those guys.
Good kids, good kids. I'm sure in a few years they'll all grow some pubes and everyone's going to get stoked on that and all take photos of them and post them on message boards when they start to come in, so. Here's my pubes, guys. Check it out, the first one. Named them Curly. Anyhow, so good luck. Look forward to lots of those kids, but so this week we have our first interview of the new year and it's with Stevo of 1234 Go Records based here out of Oakland, California. He's been here for I don't know how many years. I'm sure it says in the interview, but I don't remember. I don't listen to these fucking things, but Stevo's been here for a long time and we never actually have interviewed him, so we set it up and we sat down with him and we got some pretty good content, I think. Really, you know, Peabody award-winning shit, but we are also, for those of you who like free stuff, we are giving away three CDs that Stevo gave us. He gave it to us for the music and I've ripped them onto my computer and I no longer have any more use for them, so I'm going to be giving them away to you people, so listen to the end. We're going to be giving away three CDs. We're going to be giving away Love Visions, or No Bunny, Love Visions, the name of the album. We're going to be giving away Get Some, their latest CD, Cosmic Rock, and we're going to be giving away the Ringer's Detention Hall CDs, so we're going to be giving away three CDs to someone who listens and enters, and we'll tell you how to do that at the end. In the meantime, we're going to be playing a track off of each of those albums, and then we're going to be playing Stevo's Interview. So the first track we're going to play is off of No Bunny's Love Vision because I think it's the most recent out of the three releases, and it's really my favorite. It's kind of a fucking corny, shitty album. It really is pretty awful, but I love it. It's fantastic in every way for being awful. So this is off of No Bunny's 1, 2, 3, 4 Go Records debut, Love Vision, which is actually a re-release.
It was on Bubbledom Records, I believe, and I believe Stevo said No Bunny's putting out a new album this year, so look forward to that. So we're going to do that, play some interview, play some songs, play some interview, give you the information for the contest, play some songs, and we'll be out of here. So enjoy the interview, enjoy the songs, and we'll be back in a little bit.
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Splitters here in Oakland with Steve O of 1, 2, 3, 4 Go Records. Howdy. How are you doing? Awesome, we've had two beers and some pizza. Yeah, pizza here is real. Getting me warmed up. Yeah. Preacing the gears. Oiling everything up. Uh-huh. All right, so are you taking photos? Sound Guy and Airman's taking photos of us at a pizza joint, like, we should put this on the wall. We should tell him, we're like, this guy's a celebrity. You guys should put his picture up on the wall, have him autograph it. Like Alan Alda. Do normal people have microphones? No, they do not. No. Strictly celebrities. Oh, that's my buddy. Oh, your gay phone. My phone. What? Ouch. I like my phone. It's pink. It's all bedazzled. It is bedazzled. I don't know what you'd call it. It's bejeweled, actually. It's rhinestones. A bedazzler would punch through the plastic. Oh, right, right. I have to glue them on. So, I guess the easiest place, just start with a brief history of how you got involved with music. How you got kind of to where you are today as a media mogul. I had talked shit about starting a label for a long, long, long time before I actually did it. Probably about three years of approaching bands that were entirely too large to be approached by a guy who'd never put out a record before. Like, ACDC, how would you guys like to put out an album with me? I was, like, 1998, I was way, way into AFI. I totally asked AFI. No. And not a lot of people have faith in the guy who wants to put out a record. Yeah. Who's never done it before. And I found that, like, once I even had one down, it was way more reasonable for people to give me, like, the time of day.
Like, I just picture it hard to get the band to, like, I know you're doing the one with the guy from my offspring. But I've never put an album out before. You and me? How about it? I don't know. You know, I figured, like, I was actually a little taken aback. I was like, what? It's a seven inch. I mean, what's a big deal? No one buys these things anyway. I mean, back then, like, it was a little harder. But, like, it was, you know, and I think, you know, they definitely, they were so nice. I mean, they were really nice to me. But they were kind of like. But that was, you know, a couple years goes by away from that. And I ended up putting out a seven inch for, like, a local kind of, like, funny thrash band called Spitting Teeth. It's still an awesome record. And they're great. And up until, like, a year or two ago, it was one of my best selling records for a band that, like, played maybe one or two shows in California outside of Seattle. Like, but yeah, once I had done that seven inch, it was pretty easy. Like, the next thing I did was the Foundation record, which is Rob from Man Barretta's kind of side project thing. I'd never met that guy before in my life, you know, and he lived in, you know, Richmond, Virginia, like.
Yeah, yeah. And once I'd done that. It's quite a step on that, yeah. Yeah, it was like, you know, and once from there, like, it was pretty easy to, you know, pretty much do everything else. Nice. Yeah, that was, I started, first record came out August 2001. Nice. So we're coming up on. Eight years? Yeah. Wow, dude. Weird. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. Okay. So, uh, the first vinyl LP you put out was The Ringer's one, right? Yeah, that was it. I can't, and it took me, like, I mean, that was my, I think, catalog-wise, I think that was, like, record 13 or something like that. Yeah. And it didn't end up coming out until, like, two years after it actually came out. Yeah, I was going to say, it only came out a few years ago, right?
Yeah, and I was surprised. I think I'd gotten to, like, 28 releases with ever, like, never actually putting something on, uh, LP. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I'm addicted to it now. I'm addicted to the most expensive thing you can do. It's amazing. It's like heroin. It's really expensive, but you're like, oh, so good. I should just do more. So why did it take you just, like, I mean, obviously, the market's different now, I guess it was, than seven years ago, but to put out an LP on that, just price-wise, the overhead? Um, at the time, like, especially at the time when the Ringer's record came out, like, I wasn't really, I had really bad distribution, so I wasn't making a lot of money that way. I had a really bad job, so I wasn't making any money that way.
And, like, the place that does the CDs gave me credit. So, like, I was totally able to get, that was way easier for me to do. The vinyl people, they don't, not so much with the credit. They want, they want that cash up front. So, it took me, um, actually hooking up with no idea for exclusive distribution, like, really helped the label take off. I get pretty significant checks on a regular basis, which is, uh, crucial. Yeah. To, uh, to actually putting out more records. Yeah, yeah. So, before you guys signed with, uh, did the exclusive distribution with no idea, what were you doing? Just kind of. Sure. So, at the very start, like, I thought it would be super easy, because I worked at a record store in Seattle, and I was like, oh, cool, I talk to distros all the time, like, it'll just totally take some.
They'll totally do it. And a lot of these places did take, like, five, ten copies of this band they never heard of just to kind of, like, do me a solid. Yeah. But, like, trying to get paid for any of those was impossible. It was, like, really, really annoying. Um, and then this guy started up a distro, uh, called Road to Ruin, um, and I honestly believe that he started it with, like, a, like, really good intentions. And he had, like, I mean, he had the ability, like, he was doing some pretty cool stuff, like, from, you know, starting small, and then, like, getting everything distributed, uh, distributed through, like, Nail Allegro, which is kind of like a, you know, one of the, I guess, mid-tier, big distros kind of thing that sell to, like, major stores.
Um, and then he kind of stopped paying people and stopped answering the phone and answering the emails, and he would get back to you, like, a month later. And so I bailed on him and went with this place called Red Eye, which for a while was, like, they won awards for distribution, which I didn't know. I wasn't aware those even existed. As was I. It was, like, the Narm Awards or something like that. They were supposed to be great. They, like, taped a couple of coffee cups together. That's our award. Distribution award. Get that shit in gold, and there you go. Yeah. But they talked this amazing game, and all these labels who had left Mortem were going with them, and I was like, and they were interested in me, and I was like, well, how do?
So I went with them for a while and then realized that, uh, you know, they just took on all these labels, and their main thing was, like, oh, we can get you into listening stations and onto all these, like, promotional things. I was like, oh, that's cool, because I don't know anything about that. That sounds awesome. I have no idea how to do that. Yeah. And I was just about to put out that replacements comp, so I was like, cool. Like, this thing could be pretty big. Like, it'd be nice to get it in a place where people could hear it. Yeah. Um, but it turns out that, like, they have their own record label and, like, some really big labels they distribute, and there's only, like, three or four opportunities to get into these things.
It's like, oh, yeah, we're going to take one of those, and these two other big labels are getting the rest in. Yeah. You're shit out. And, uh, through, like, a lot of, like, creative accounting, and this is all very legal, it's all in the contract, if I had really looked at it, and I did, and I knew some stuff, but, like, they, uh, they keep your money away from you as long as possible. They take a certain percentage out, uh, to hold against returns, which is reasonable. A lot of people do that. Um, no idea doesn't, but a lot of people do. Yeah. But then they will hold the rest of the, the other 70% for, like, six months to a year. Just. As a, just as a, that's just how they do. It's like a, it's like a parent when they're like, I don't think you're ready for this money.
Right. And, you know, like, for a big label, all right, that's fine. You know, like, we got a lot of money for a small label. It was, like, crushing. And I basically whined and cried until they let me out of my contract. And, like, they were super sweet about it. They actually did let me go. I mean, it was, like, it was better than having me call every day. Yeah. Um, but then they owed me about $5,000, um, that should have been payable, like, the next month, but because I got out of my contract, they held it for a year. Oh, my God. Um, but, coincidentally, uh, that $5,000 came right at the time that I wanted to open a store. Yeah. So, it kind of worked out. It was like a little savings plan, because I would have blown through that like nobody's business.
Fine, you get $5,000. I'm like, there's a lot I could do with this. Big screen TV. Spending money like a chimp in a beat-up contest. I've not heard that one before. That's, that's a new one to me. Since you've never heard it before, I'll claim, uh, I'll claim credit for it. You were the very first? Mm-hmm. I'll allow that. So, um, you had mentioned the replacements comp, and I want to touch on this, because, uh, it, it seems like that had taken a while to get together, like, the original idea had kind of formed, and then it kind of snowballed as you went through it, is kind of what I had originally heard, so. That's pretty much how it goes. Like, any comp always starts with like this idea, and you get a lot of bands who are way into it, and like, at the time, I mean, at one point, like, the Reverend Horton Heat was going to be on it, like, there was like, there was a lot of crazy stuff that could have been on that comp.
Um, it ended up really good, but like, there was a lot of stuff I was talking about that like, all these bands wanted to do it, and then a lot of them just wouldn't come up with the goods. Yeah. Um, I'm surprised I ended up with 23 tracks, it's a lot, um, especially when I had to tell people to go back and re-record things. Who did you have to tell that to? Um, basically just one guy, I mean, um, but he was, he's like a really like super lo-fi guy, um, but he basically turned into this thing that sounded like he'd never heard the song in his life, and it was very possible that he didn't, he just wanted to be on it, and I was like. He's like, I just want to be on this comp. I was like, man, I don't, I don't believe you're ready for treatment at all, like, you go back and like, you know, he was doing Treatment Bound, and I was like, you go back and record this, I don't, you know, and he came up with a great version, and like, it closes out the record, I feel like it really like, it really fits it, but yeah, I'm not afraid to tell people that this is not good enough for me to put up.
Not gonna work out, but yeah. Well, especially when you put that much time and effort, and there's 20, you know, 22 other artists on the way, you know. Yeah. If you're a band who put a lot of time in, like, I guess, Against Me recorded it during a session of something they were doing with Sire or something. Right, during the demo, uh, the funny story about that. Uh, they recorded it when they recorded these demos for the, uh, for New Wave, and, um, they sent everything to the Sire guy, and he was like, yeah, man, you know, like, you know, these songs are good, but I think that bastard's young, man, like, that's the single, that's the single right there, and they totally, like, strung him along for a while, and they were like, yeah, man, we really like that one, too, isn't that a great song?
Yeah, your label put it out 15 years ago. Yeah, he has put that shit back out in the early 90s. Congratulations. Congratulations. They totally took credit for it for a while, and, like, it ended up, like, it's like a bonus thing. Yeah. But, like, uh, I was really, they did an awesome job on it. I was really stoked on it. But, like, yeah, I mean, when you got bands doing something like that, it's kind of, they might get a little pissed if someone turns off something that sounds like it was recorded in a trash can over the telephone or... Right, and, you know, there's a certain, like, there's a certain charm to it, but, like, I just didn't feel, like, I can get down with lo-fi. Yeah, yeah. I just want to know that you put, like, the effort into it, and I really didn't feel like that first round.
But he totally, what he turned in afterwards, I thought was great. Was great. But... Well, obviously, you put it out, so... Yeah. But it's, you know, I was talking to somebody else about this, but it's like, I'm not afraid to, like, you know, if a band I really wanted to work with turned in a bunch of shitty songs, I'd be like, I'm not gonna do this, like, either, you know, either we can do different songs, like, and that actually cost me, like, most recently, I was gonna do a record with this band called The Thomas Function, who I was, like, jumping up and down about, like, they'd put out a 7-inch themselves, and they're from Alabama, but, like, if they were from Brooklyn, they would be the hugest band in the world right now, no shit, but, like, they're from Alabama, so, like, hardly anyone knew about them, and, like, things are really picking up with them, like, Alive put out their last record, and Fat Possum is gonna do the next one, which is, like, Epitaph's, it's supposed to be Epitaph's, like, blues label, but...
Is it really related to Fat Possum's related to Epitaph? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's, like, Fat Possum, Anti, and Epitaph, and Hellcat, I guess, but, uh... At least that screamo's putting out something good, funding some worthy project. It's so bizarre that they do that. Well, I mean, it pays for it, I guess. They sent me this demo, and I was like, these songs are not as good. I was like, if you guys are gonna do, like, you know, are you guys recording anything else? And, like, they were still totally friendly about it, and they were like, yeah, you know, these songs aren't great, but it's like, now the ball is, like, their ball really got rolling, and it rolled away from me. So, but at the time, it just wasn't right.
Yeah, I mean, you can't bank on the fact that, you know, in the future, maybe this will sell back catalog. Right, right, yeah, who knows? Yeah, then you have a label full of bands that, you know, never sold and aren't going to sell because they broke up five months later, but they had potential. I don't know. That actually is a very accurate description of my label. That's not true. You got some bands. I got some stuff. I got some stuff. You got a few bands. Speaking of which, what would be... How many releases do you have thus far? Um, as... Catalog number-wise, I'm up to 34, and I think probably three or four of those have not actually come out. Okay. Stuff that was, like, really close to coming out, but something happened, or, you know, like...
Um, but yeah, I would say legitimately 30. 30? Yeah. And out of those, what do you think? I mean, not to slight anybody, but do you have one that's, like, your favorite that you really kind of... That either... I mean, even musically that you're not into, but, like, you were just really stoked to be able to work with? Um, at the time, like, I think Maximum Excitement Level was probably, like, the Foundation record, because, like, that was my second record. Somebody was giving me the time of day that I, like, that Foundation LP that's on, like, Fueled by Ramen or whatever, which is totally bizarre, was, like, my favorite record, and he was such a sweetheart about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and I was still, like, I still get excited when, like, test pressings come in.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, like, there was, like, an overwhelming joy, you know, like, when a pressing would come in, where it's, like, actual accomplishment, where it's, like, oh, if you've done 30 records, it's, like, oh, great, here's a huge box of shit that I have to, you know, that it's going to be in my back room forever, or, like, you know, great, like, now I have to send out 300 pre-orders this week before people start losing their minds. That's the worst part, too, is people, like... This most recent record I did for No Bunny, it came out on another label, and the guy was sort of taken aback by how popular it was, and he wasn't able to get the records out in time, and in some cases, at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, when I did my version of it, people were already skeptical and pissed. So, it's, like, I had all the... Even though you're an entirely different label, it was, like, fuck this. And it's, like, seriously, if it was, like, you know, a day longer than they thought it should be, angry emails. And it's, like, dude, I told you it was going to be... Yeah. And I had a guy come into the store, and it was, like, a pre-order. A pre-order means, this is not out yet. Yeah. It comes out at a future date. Pay me now. Yeah, when it gets out, you'll get your copy. I think the greatest description I heard the other day was that it's the punk record Ponzi scheme, where it's, like, yes, yes, give me your money, and I will then turn it into something else.
And then nothing ever materializes out of it. But this guy comes in, and he was, like, you know, the record was still legitimately two weeks away from coming out, just like I said it was. It was still coming out on time. And he's, like, oh, it's just like that label all over again. And I was, like, no, it's not at all. Not even close. Everything is happening. Exactly. But, like, people were so skeptical. Yeah. Like, even to this day, like, you know, I had a guy email me who ordered on, like, the 17th of December, and he emails me on the 7th of January, so, like, three weeks later. Yeah, yeah. And he pays for media mail. And he's, like, I still haven't gotten shit. Like, what's going on with this? And I'm, like, he's, like, I ordered almost a month ago.
I was, like, actually, he ordered three weeks ago. And, like, media mail over the holidays, like, this is totally reasonable. Media mail can take a month and a half on regularly. I've had it take, like, I found this funny thing about media mail out. When I did the Cute Leopard 7-inch, I sent out all these pre-orders, and it was another situation where, like, if it didn't come the next day, people were, like, what's going on? Yeah, that's starting to happen more and more. And it was before I got tracking on everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I sent out all of these records, like, media mail, and two months, literally two months had gone by, and all these people hadn't gotten them. And I was, like, oh, my God, what is going on?
And I went down to the post office, and the lady was, like, oh, the summer's the worst time to send things media mail, because what happens is, like, they fill up a container. Yeah. And when the container is full, the container moves. Yeah. If the container is not full, the container does not go anywhere. Yeah. So you could put your stuff in the container, and if nobody else did a media mailing. Yeah. And she's, like, also, summertime is when a lot of people take vacation, so everything slows down. Yeah. And I was, like, oh, that's awesome, because now I got, like, 300 people thinking I ripped them off. Yeah, fantastic. It's just sitting in the, you know, the 7th Street station, never going anywhere. Media mail is really weird, because, uh, didn't...
You know what's funny? Like, now, it's, like, uh, it's almost as fast as first class, like, five, six days. Yeah. It's not bad at all. It can be, depending. Yeah, it can be. Well, it was, uh, there was, uh, record label at Oakland. I can't think of it. Not Oakland. East Bay. Anyhow, I ordered something from them, and, uh, I realized, I was like, oh, shit, I forgot something. So I ordered something else, and I tried to tack it on, but something, they wouldn't let me. Both things came in email. One came in, like, two weeks. One came a month and a half later. Both mailed the exact same day. Yeah. And it's just, like... It's totally random. And I've had stuff, like... It's a crapshoot. I sent stuff to, uh, Goleta once, and I got tracking on it.
Four days, max, even media mail. It's not a bad deal. Um, and I started, like, two weeks had gone by, and I was like, hey, did you ever get your stuff? And they're like, no, it still hasn't come. And I tracked it, and it was in New Jersey. Like, it was in a New Jersey processing center, and I was like, what? Why is it there? And then, like, a week later, it ended up showing up in Goleta. Like, seriously, three weeks had gone by, and it had totally gone to the other side of the country. And it traveled the world. And back. And I was like, you know, this box has got to be hammered. Like, there's, you know, like, just let me know if it's screwed up. I guess it was fine, but, like, yeah, I've had things go to New Jersey via media mail that were going in state California.
I don't even understand how that happens. I know UPS does it because they have, like, a national, like, processing center. Yeah, there's a good hub, yeah. But, like, UPS, or Postal Service, everything just has to go through Richmond, I think. Yeah, and usually it goes fast. Yeah. I mean, like, the next day if you use tracking, it'll be like, oh, it's at the Richmond Processing Center. Yeah, exactly. Apparently, sometimes they like to go through Jersey when they got the time. Kids love to hear about the USPS. Yeah. Well, I got to imagine, I mean, this is what I notice more and more now is kids get into mail order, and especially now that everything's automated, you can PayPal, everything in, you know, two minutes' time.
Everyone's, if it's not there in a week, everyone starts freaking out anymore. Yeah. I mean, they didn't, I mean, I don't know, it seemed like an old fogey, but, like, back in 1996, when I ordered my Class War t-shirt from Profane Existence, and it took six weeks, because, you know, like, even then, like, I sent the letter off with my, you know, eight bucks or whatever it was. I made a back patch out of that shirt on a hoodie I still have, but I was checking the mailbox, like, the next day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was doing that even then, but it's, like, I totally did understand, like, oh, this could take five, six weeks. Five to six weeks. I mean, like, six to eight weeks for delivery was pretty standard.
Yeah, yeah. And now I feel like it, seriously, it is, you know, one, people don't understand the concept of pre-orders that you're paying for something that does not exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, um, and it will exist at a future date, but it's, like, oh, I get, every time, like, no matter how much, like, warning you give, like, attention, all caps, like, this is not coming out for a month. People get, like, I ordered this a month ago, and I still haven't got it. It's, like, neither have I. It actually does not exist yet. You were plainly told what was going on. It should come in in a couple weeks. Yeah, I think, you know, it's, like, you know, people are familiar with, like, you know, ordering with Amazon or whatever.
It's, like, this ship's in 24 hours, whereas, like, I'm usually pretty good about mail order. Like, it definitely goes out the week that you ordered, and sometimes it'll go out the very day. Like, sometimes it'll go out within a half an hour, depending on if I'm, like, checking email as I'm packing orders. It'll totally go out super fast. But, uh, people think that, like, every record label is a company that has employees that are constantly working on this one task, and it's, like, no, most record labels are a dude who is trying to take care of, like, 80 different things and live a life. And it's not an excuse, you know, because there are definitely some labels who take advantage. Yeah. Um, but there should be a certain level of understanding that it's not going to show up tomorrow.
Yeah. You're going to have to wait a little bit. But, yeah, that's, that's the, uh, modern internet ordering for you, though. Yeah, well, definitely. I think it's, it's, it's like the world, you know, that the whole world is shrinking kind of policy where it's, like, now everybody's more connected, and so now you got message boards and everything, and so everybody instantly is like, I haven't received this. Well, I haven't received it either. None of us have received this. Oh, and it all snowballs, and, like, you know, everybody's filing claims on something that they just ordered. I mean, I've had people, seriously, I've had people, like, file PayPal claims seven days after ordering, who, like, did not email me, like, oh, you're ripping me off, what is this?
And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you talking about? Like, you ordered on a Sunday. Yeah. You know, so I'm like, I'm not even, like, you know, there's no way for me to even mailed it out that day anyways. Um. Just drive it over. And that's the thing, like, that's why I get tracking on everything now. Yeah, yeah. And it is cut way down, like, so I used to get all these PayPal claims, because if you don't get tracking, all people have to do is say, I never got it. Yeah. And if you can't prove they got it, they get their money back and they get their stuff. So it's like. Well, that's why PayPal's trying to try to do their own shipping, try to. Yeah, yeah. PayPal's trying to take that area over. Before, my store got broken into in, like, April or something like that.
And I literally just bought a scale, just bought a label printer. I was going to start doing everything through PayPal, because it's actually cheaper. Like, it's. Yeah. Like, tracking instead of 75 cents is 15 cents. Yeah, yeah. So it's great.
And I got like, you know, I totally got an insurance check for it, but I was like, I had to buy a metal gate. So I was like, oh, that's $700 out of that. Like, it was. The insurance check went into more security measures as opposed to the PayPal scale. It was a very expensive lesson to learn. If you open a business, security first. Definitely. Well, we'll definitely take advantage of you if you don't. SoundGuyNairman just told me I should inform you all that Barack Obama is president, which I guess is a good idea, because I think, I know it was before he got inaugurated, but I think it might have been after the election that we did the last show. But he's now officially president, so we have a black president.
And that's kind of cool, right? We also have a, what the fuck is that job? The one that Janet Reno had. Secretary of State? No, that was, was Janet Reno Secretary of State? The, uh, Attorney General is black. I think. I'm not very politically savvy. Anyhow, they're painting the White House black. Get stoked on that. Um, racism. Runs rampant. Um, we're going to take a break. We're going to play a track off of Get Some's album Cosmic Rock. And then we're going to go back to our interview with Steve-O, and then we're going to tell you how to enter to win a copy of No Bunny, of Cosmic Rock, or Cosmic Rock by Get Some, and The Ringer's Detention Hall. So stay tuned, and we'll tell you how to win all of those. Also listen to the interview, because despite looking like a fucking five-year-old baby, Steve-O, five-year-old baby in a leather jacket, Steve-O is like 50, and has lived an incredibly interesting life, so you want to keep up on that.
So, uh, enjoy, and we'll be back at the end to, uh, wrap everything up. Bye.
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Sorry, Grandpa. I don't leave my house. I like how mortar and brick is, like, ridiculous. It's like, mortar and brick. It's always on my lawn. I can't leave the house.
It's contrary to common knowledge, you know, common opinion is not, uh, the worst idea in the world. There's a, I mean, you could have started a porn industry, I don't know. They're asking for a bailout now? Yeah. Yeah, although, otherwise, I do believe that they're entirely successful. Yeah. I guess, yeah, I guess porn sales are down, like, 20%. I jack off. I think, so. I think, well, you know.
I'm just saying, I don't know where their money's going. I mean, I'm, you're doing your part. I'm trying to float the porn industry. You're only one man. There's only so much you can do. We could have been talking about the auto bailout, and you would have been like, I jack off. What more do they want? What else am I supposed to do for Chevrolet? Explain this to me. So, but yeah, I don't, I guess if you can get $5 billion from the government, go for it. Something tells me that's not going to go through. No, I wouldn't imagine. But, so, back to your brick and mortar store, as the kids are calling. They say on the internet. So, what. They call them Brymos. Brymos. Brymos. What prompted you to open the physical location?
I've been thinking about opening a store for a long time, and I actually was thinking about buying the store that I used to work at in Seattle and moving back there.
And a friend of mine was like, it seemed like he was going to help me out with it, but he wasn't quite able to. I needed like $30,000. It's not like I needed $10. Yeah, yeah. And like $30,000 is a lot. I didn't know. It's a lot to command. I didn't have a business plan or anything like that. Like, I'm not like a, I'm not the most professional person. But not that, you know, he didn't have faith in me, but it's just like, oh, you know, $30,000. It's a lot to command. He'd just gotten like an advance from like a big label. So, he had it, but it's like, this is kind of all I got. Yeah. It was a little iffy. But anyways, it didn't end up happening. And that was your interaction with Lionel Richie. Yeah. Lionel. I call him Lionel.
It's close. First name basis. Sorry. He's really going to take off. I feel like he just got his advance, and I feel like, you know, the future is Lionel's. Yeah. Sorry. So, anyways, that was probably two years ago. And I like put all this effort into it. I mean, I was talking to like my aunt who worked at a community bank in Oregon. I was doing all this stuff, and then like it didn't end up going through, and it was kind of heartbreaking. So, I totally shelved the idea. I was like, forget it. My credit is awful. This is never going to happen. Yada, yada, yada. Anyways, go forward about a year. I get laid off from my job, and I get awesome unemployment for like six months. I was getting like $1,600 a month, which was just great.
To do nothing. To do absolutely nothing and like go to Amoeba and buy records and sell them on eBay. And like I put out five records when I was unemployed, which is just astounding to me. Ridiculous since you have no actual income. Right. And like, you know, when I was making $25 an hour, I was always broke. I never had money for shit. But, and like, now that I'm making half of that, I have money to do everything. It was, you know, it's all about like rearranging priorities and like, you know, because I used to be miserable at my job. So, on the weekend, I'd be like, I need to go out and get crazy. And, you know, you just spend all this money trying to make yourself happy because you're working a terrible job.
But, anyway, so, time goes by, and like, I'm literally unemployed for like eight, nine months. Unemployment's run out. I'm still making money off the label a little, you know, enough to get by. But, I was like, uh, it's probably getting close to trying to find a job again. Probably do something. Yeah. And, you know, like, at first, like, you know, the first couple of months, it was a little maddening. Like, I was very, you know, I needed a job. I needed to have something to do. And then I got really into not having a job and having something to do. Waking up at noon. Right. And like, doing whatever. You know, like, that's actually pretty killer. Like, I can get behind that.
And I'm like, I don't want to work for anybody. I don't want to do nothing. You know, like, I want to work for myself. Like, I want to, you know, if I got a project I want to do, I want to do that. Yeah. But, anyways, so, this woman I used to work with, her and her husband were opening a bike shop. And she sends me this email. And she goes, oh, you know, there's this little space right next to our shop that's open. And maybe, you know, maybe this could be your chance or whatever. And I went and looked at it, like, February 1st, 2008. And February 14th, I signed the lease. And March 14th, I was open. And I had literally gone from not thinking about opening a store at all to opening a store, you know, a month and a half later.
And the first two months were unbelievable. Like, the first day, like, I hadn't really done even any advertisement. I made some handbills and put them at a restaurant. And, like, I made, like, you know, nobody actually knows how big the store is, I guarantee. It's about 180 square feet of actual retail space. It's about 12 by 15, maybe. Right. It's very small. But, like, so, for me to make $1,500 the first day I opened is unbelievable. That was a good day. That was a great day. I was there that day. It was the best of days. Because, but, and, like, I had people come in who were like, I was downtown and this homeless guy yelled at me, hey, there's a record store that's open at 40th. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
He's like, no, I have no idea who this guy was. Bumbertizement right there. I know. I was like, this is my guerrilla marketing campaign. Homeless people working on your side there.
But, yeah, it's been, I mean, it could always be better. Yeah. But it's a small retail shop. This is definitely the area to open one in. Like, people go out of their way to support it. I pay attention to what people are, what people want. So, like, I try to stock, you know, a lot of good stuff. And it's a small space, but there's a lot of cool stuff in it. Oh, yeah. You know, it's definitely, it's definitely taken off. And I'm always a little amazed. You know, because every, you know, anytime you tell somebody that you run a record store, they go, oh. That's too bad. That must be hard. Like, oh, how's that going? Is that going okay? Couldn't get a real job? It's like, yeah, it's actually, it does okay. People still buy records.
There's a few people out there who pay for physical music. Right. You know, it's, you know, one, everybody thinks that, like, you know, vinyl records are dead. Even though, like, you know, USA Today is telling them different now or something. 89%. You know, and that's crazy, is that, like, that's just, like, people who report to SoundScan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, like, I don't report to SoundScan. Yeah. And most mom-and-pop stores don't. You actually have to pay to report to SoundScan. It's unbelievable. Sound Guy and Airman's asking why you would do it. And part of the reason people do it is because some distros are more likely to send you more stuff because they know that that's going to go on a SoundScan, so it's going to get added to their total.
But, I mean, if you're a mom-and-a-pop and you're moving two copies of a Britney Spears album because no one's coming to your store for that, it doesn't do you a lot of good. Yeah, and I used to work at a store that did SoundScan, and, I mean, I used to, because I was the punk guy there, the guy who did Red distribution would literally bring me a 30-count box of promo CDs every two weeks. That's kind of sweet. Oh, it was awesome. I mean, it was mostly, like, unlistenable garbage, but it was definitely, like, sweet, I just made 50 bucks. Thank you, red promo guy. Just sell these back to the store, and we're set. But, yeah, SoundScan.
But, yeah, anyways, store, doing good. January seems to be awesome despite economic recession, and January is supposed to be a terrible month. Really? But, yeah, that's the one thing that I've, here's a few discoveries of mine since I opened a store. One, I'm really, really sorry to my boss at the small record store I used to work at because I never understood why he was so stressed out. He was always such a dick. You're like, why are you such a dick? And I hated him so much. And, like, you know, I would, like, he trusted me to do orders, and I used to do a lot of the ordering. And I would turn in, like, a $3,000 order to this distro. Yeah. And it was all stuff, you know, like, I knew what was selling, and I, you know, like, I was very good at what I did.
But he would be, you know, he would get the invoice, and he'd be like, $3,000. So he was like, oh, my God, you know, what is, you know, and I was like, what are you so stressed out about? You know, like, well, you know, just because that's more than the store made last month. I mean, what's the problem? It'll move. Give it to her. Like, what's the deal? And, like, luckily, like, I got really nervous because he was so bent out of shape about it. Like, he was really, like, he was hot over it. But seriously, within, like, two weeks, most of that stuff was gone. Like, I'm good at what I do. But, yeah, like, a $3,000 pill is impossible for me to swallow at this point. And I could only imagine, like, he definitely had, like, a bigger store.
It does a little bit better than mine, but, like, that's a big something or other. I would imagine. And, you know, when you're actually in control of the money, it's very stressful. And it's hard because, like, you want to do all this ordering, but that's all money at the door. Yeah. But it's also the source of the money coming in. Yeah. And it's trying to find the balance between ordering too much and too little. Spend money to make money. Right. Exactly. And then it's, yeah, it's something else. And then, you know, the other thing that I learned was that there's no rhyme or reason to business whatsoever. There have been weekends where I have made $200, $100 Saturday and Sunday. And then Monday I make $500.
A lot of businesses are closed on Mondays because Monday is a shitty day. Like, Monday isn't, you know, like, nobody wants to be open on Monday. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.
But, and then, you know, sometimes a sunny day where you figure people would be out walking around, nobody comes in. But on a rainy day, everyone comes in. Yeah. Like, it doesn't, you know, there's no, like. Yeah. I feel like there's no rhyme or reason to any of it. And once you kind of realize that, it takes a load off, you know, or, you know, because I'll have, I haven't had, like, a bad two weeks in quite a while. But you were like, oh, my God, you know, three days have come by and I've only made $50 a day. Like, maybe this is it. Maybe no one's ever going to come in again. Like, it's over. I've peaked out. And then it's like, oh, it all pops back up and everything is fine. Like, yeah, there's, and you learn something, not every day, but pretty often.
Like, you know, like, I feel like I'm still pretty amateurish about it. But the longer I do it, the better it's going to be. I imagine, especially on your level, like, a lot of people, it's people coming out of their way to get there, you know. So, it just depends on when they can make it. Whereas, like, back when Tower was around, they were on every corner. Now, well, they're all gone. And I think now is the time to be small. I think, you know, because we're able to adjust more rapidly than a large store. And also, I think now is the time to be small and young. I feel like there's a lot of confused older people struggling to, you know, get a grasp on, like, modern technology and, like, what's really going on.
And plus, like, when you get to a point where you've got 20 years experience with something, a lot of people rely on that experience exclusively. They don't really care what's going on in front of them. They're like, you know what? I've been around for 20 years. I know this is going to happen this way. Yeah, this is what worked for the previous 20. Yeah, and it knocks them for a loop when that does not happen.
And so, I think now is the time, like I said, to be young and smart and small. Seems to work out pretty well. So far, so good. I mean, at least one guy is able to make a living. I'm not unemployed. I'm not unemployed. And paying taxes, all that. No, yeah. Benefiting society and all that. Small business owner. Were you worried about Barack Obama taking all your money? What about Steve, the record store owner? We heard about Joe the Plumber. Oh, my God. I'm so happy he's going to the Gaza Strip. Is he? Oh, yeah. I had not heard of him. There's a... Oh, Joe the Plumber's going to... Oh, yeah. What? He got hired by a conservative website called, like, pajamas.net or something like that, which is totally ridiculous. But he's going over to the Gaza Strip to interview people.
I thought you meant Obama. And I was like, well, that makes sense. But Joe the Plumber makes no sense. Oh, I can't... What is he? He's just going to go talk to people? He's going to be like... He's going to talk to the average Joes of the Gaza Strip. Yeah, what would you... Josepe? I don't know. What do they call people in Israel? Joseph. He was a carpenter. He's like, I'm just like Jesus' dad. You and me, we got something to think. I either hope that he really likes it and never comes back, or they put an average-sized bullet in his head. He is one of the worst people ever. He was pretty fantastic. I felt pretty awesome for the guy because... I can't wait to hear his country music album. Is he making it on? Uh-huh.
He's got a contract for that. You should put that out. Yeah, I should totally do that. You should do the vinyl on that. I would shoot myself in the face if I ever even thought about it. Let alone the money you would make off that. Because you know, like, 40,000... And I think he has a book and everything, but it's only available on his website. But it's like, his name isn't Joe. No. He's not a licensed plumber. No, he's not a union plumber. He's not a licensed plumber. Everything he said was an absolute lie. Yeah. And everything else that he's... You know, like, all of the other, like, things... Like, he's a shill. Yeah. He's just like... He's like a conservative pundit's dream. Because they get to say that he's like an average dude.
Yeah. When he is not. What do you mean? Yeah. And he has an agent. Well, that's the thing. He's like, well, I'm worried about the tax cut. I'm like, the average guy? I'm not worried about a $100,000 tax... You know, tax. Right.
He would be benefited by Obama's tax cut. But... You douche. And it's like, you know, people are like, oh, yeah, it's so hard on people who make, you know, a quarter of a million dollars a year. Boo effing hoo. You make a quarter million dollars a year, and that's in profit. Because it's like, you know, running a small business, you get to declare all your supplies and all that stuff. But if you are seriously taking home a quarter of a million dollars, I have no sympathy for you whatsoever. That's a lot of money. I was taking home, at my height, $45,000, and if I had been smart with my money, I would have been great. Yeah. No issues at all. What was I? And a quarter of a million dollars? Because I do believe that the more money you have, the easier it spends.
Yeah. But at a quarter of a million, you should be pretty cool, man. Yeah. At some point, that plateaus. Yeah, yeah. You should have a house, and you should be pretty... Unless you're just buying clothes made of money, or you're lighting your cast here with $100 bills. Right, right. It's like, there's no more to be spent. You should be cool. Yeah. Yeah. I've got no sympathy. Well, I was like, I had a conversation with my father, who is very well off about the whole thing, and he was very McCain, and he knew where I stood, and he was like, well, you know, I just think it's ridiculous that they're trying to tax me when I paid more on taxes last year than you made, and I'm like, hold the phone. Right. That may be true, but you also took home much more than I paid.
If you're paying more in taxes than I make, how much do you think you're taking home? Five times what I make? Probably. And so... Yeah, they don't take... You know, there's no, like, you know, it's not 80% taxes or something like that. We're not... Yeah. I don't know. I just... The worst part is, you know, a brief political side... Yeah, sidebar here. ...that Republicans were so afraid to spend money on things, even though they ran up this crazy debt doing this war, they were afraid to spend money on infrastructure and like social plans, you know, that now we have to spend infinitely more to get back on track. And it's like, if we had just kept up with the things that we were doing, we wouldn't have bridges collapsing, and we wouldn't need to redo all these highways.
Wouldn't redo, yeah. Redo the education system. And I hope that people give Obama a little bit of patience with that, because, like, there's going to be a lot of deficit spending, just to get us to where we should be. We need infrastructure. You need roads. Like, that's how everything moves everywhere. I'd hope people would get that far. I would just hope people are happy they have a president who can speak properly, but that's all I'm stoked on, is I'm like, the world isn't going to laugh at our State of the Union address anymore and be like, that was... He was a treat. I can still hardly believe that we're a week away from it being over. I can't believe he was around for eight years. That... That was the first one.
I was like, there's no way. Oh, there was no way. There was no way it was going to happen, and then it did. And it did. And he won by an even greater margin than he did before. He actually won that second time. Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. But... All right. We're good. We're good on that. So, I think we're going to wrap it up, because we're approaching 40,000 minutes. 40 minutes? All right. Wow. How do you? So, we'll wrap it up. Zare, what do you guys got going on in the future there? 1, 2, 3, 4, go. This year, there's a new No Bunny record. Not just the re-release of Love Your Friends? No, no. Like, a new record. I'm not exactly sure what it's going to be. He's going to be a very busy dude this year. Mm-hmm. A brand new Ringer's record, followed by a national tour, which would be their first...
First real tour. And a whole bunch of 7 Inches. I haven't... You know, there's like a lot of... I've pretty much booked out for the rest of the year. Nice. So, I hope there's no good bands that I haven't heard yet. I hope no one starts coming to you and is like, hey, by the way, can you release this? Right. Shit. All right. Well, fantastic. Well, I wish you luck on that. Thanks, dudes. Anything else you want to add before we take off? It's all that stuff you want to plug. Oh, yeah. One, two, three, four, go records.com. Also on MySpace. I'm scared of Facebook. I can't figure it out, so I'm not on there. It's... Dude, I have no idea how it works. It seems complicated. I have a Facebook page, and I'm like... I signed up for both of them.
It doesn't make sense. And there's nothing on them. I can't get it. I think my Facebook page is like a photo of me, and then... And I'm not a dumb guy. I feel like I can figure... It's out of my range. It's for college kids. I don't get it. But anyhow, so MySpace, one, two, three, four, go records.com. Yeah, et cetera, et cetera. All right. Well, fantastic. Thank you so much for coming in. All right. Yeah, thank you. All right. All right. That's the end of the interview. As we mentioned, Barack Obama in the middle section, our current national president. National president? Nice. I'm going to date this episode a little bit more. Currently, the big news is they shot a monkey. If you keep up on that. Fucking lady had a monkey that went fucking ballistic and ripped her friend's face off, and she stabbed it with a kitchen knife, and the monkey ran off into the fucking forest, and then attacked a cop, and the cops shot it.
So that's the news. And California still doesn't have a state budget. What's up with that, California? Eight months? End of the fiscal year in California? Some shit like that? And we still don't have a budget. So that's... And they just replaced the head of the California Republican Senate. So now we're even farther back. So pretty exciting for the 10,000 California state workers who are losing their jobs. So that's... These are the things that weigh on my mind when I'm not masturbating, which is a lot. So, I mean, really, these aren't things I think about a lot, but when I do, it's pretty intense. On that note, I'm going to go masturbate. But before I do, we're going to end our contest, or start our contest for 1, 2, 3, 4, Go Records and Steve-O.
Fantastic individual. Enter this contest, and you will be entered to win a copy on CD. We're not doing vinyl, because it's a fucking pain in the ass to mail, and I don't want to store vinyl for you. You're going to win a CD version of Nobody's Love Visions. Actually, that's just Love Vision, rather. Cosmic Rock by Get Some, and Detention Hall by The Ringers. I'm pretty sure it's Detention Hall. It may be their other album. I haven't checked. But you're going to win a copy of all three of those, and here's how you enter. Send us an email, soundscenerevolution at gmail.com. In the subject line, put 1, 2, 3, 4, Go Records Contest or Steve-O Interview Contest. Either one of those is fine, just so we know what it is.
And answer the following question. Steve-O of 1, 2, 3, 4, Go Records served as, for one period of time, a tour manager for the band Against Me. It was only during, I think it was only one tour. Though you may remember it was the pretty fucking awesome tour. They got in a huge fight in Canada with the St. Catharines. Not against St. Catharines. They were on the same side. They were fighting bouncers and other shit. But it was a good time. Ask Steve-O to tell you the story. He fucking loves to tell that story. But, uh, what band would you tour manage for? Hmm? That's an interesting question. I wouldn't tour manage for any band. Because all people in bands are assholes. Every last fucking one of them. But, answer the question, what band would you tour manage for?
Send it to soundscenerevolution at gmail.com. Put 1, 2, 3, 4, Go Records in the subject line. Put your name and address and all that shit. If you do not have your fucking name and address in there, you aren't going to win shit. I, please God, we can't fucking telepathically send you these CDs. And I get a little bitter about it because people always send this stuff. And they're like, oh, I never win. And I'm like, you never win because you never send your fucking address. I'm not going to fucking email you CDs, dude. I'm not going to email you a vinyl record or a t-shirt. Fucking send me your address. Because I'm not going to ask you.
Just on the off chance that maybe we just want to mail you something. Like pooping a fucking Pringles can. Which I don't think you can legally mail. But I'm going to do it one day to somebody. Maybe I'll mail you the cremated ashes of my dog. Which I have. Which is really creepy. If you ever get that. All my dogs hate you, dude. It's because you're brown. Get used to it. But, um. Brown Chinese guy. Brown Chinese, dude. You're tan. A lot of time in the sun because you're poor.
Ha ha ha. Racial Asian brown guy joke. So, yeah. Just send us your address. I lost my train of thought. But that's the end. That's all of it. We have some more shows coming up. Please send us your thoughts. Your comments. SoundSceneRevolution at gmail.com. We're on MySpace. MySpace.com slash SoundSceneRevolution. We have a comment section on the webpage. I don't know. I'm kind of interested to see what you guys think. If there's a band you want us to interview. Send us that. We've gotten that before. But it's all from, like, the bands themselves and promoters. And holy fuck. Most of them are so terrible. It's unfathomable. So, if you speak on the band's behalf. We'll know they at least have one fan who will listen.
Because, seriously, dude. A band is always like, no, we're super good. We've been compared to fucking, you know, Led Zeppelin and Linkin Park. And I'm like, dude, you're not going to listen to the interview. You don't have any fucking fans. So, if you're a fan. We know you at least have one fucking fan. So, support your bands. And tell us to interview them. And we will most likely do it. Because I have no standards. All right. That's it for this week. We're going to take you out by a song from The Ringers. Thanks to Steve-O and everyone who listened. And hopefully we'll have at least four more shows this year.
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