Touch & Go record label S&D

I was a big Pinback fan at one time, but my favorite thin on Touch & Go is QUASI. That band still doesn't get enough credit.

Yes indie stores return unsold indie CDs to distributors. It sucks because you're like, I thought we sold a million, why are they coming back!

LATimes' Todd Martens blogs:

... Touch and Go has handled distribution for such labels as Merge Records (Arcade Fire, M. Ward), Suicide Squeeze (Minus the Bear) and Kill Rock Stars (the Decemberists' Colin Melloy). Yet Touch and Go has also been affiliated with Warner Music Group's distribution arm Alternative Distribution Alliance, which has handled the heavy lifting on major releases, including all of Merge's in the past few years.

Merge was distributed exclusively through Touch and Go for 15 years before going direct with the Warners' ADA. In a statement passed along to Pop & Hiss, Merge notes that had it not been for Touch and Go agreeing to manufacture and distribute the label, the Chapel Hill, N.C.-based indie could not have existed "as something other than a singles label."

In an e-mail, Merge founder Mac McCaughan calls Touch and Go "the most straight-up and ass-busting-for-music-they-love people we know."

"Corey Rusk is the most meticulous, cautious, thoughtful business person I know," he said, "which is what makes this whole thing so unbelievable and such a bad portent for the rest of the independent music business -- if a company that did everything the right way can't survive in this environment (and the environment existed before the current worldwide financial disaster -- the Bush economic legacy only piled on), then who can?"

It's unclear at the moment if Touch and Go will continue to sign new acts, or operate only as a catalog imprint. Billboard quotes a source that implies the latter, but a Touch and Go spokeswoman declined to clarify, and Rusk has not yet returned calls. Indications are that Touch & Go will continue to be distributed via ADA, but affiliated labels will soon have to seek new arrangements.

all of this jay babcock & dan seltzers

selzer

white girls

I prefer cherry selzer

what about white girls?

what jay said about retail + credit is otm, but I think the major assumption in his scenario is that corey waited too long to make this step and he's now irreversibly in the red. if the decision to close down distribution was proactive and will result in a balancing of all accounts then it's not unthinkable that nobody's going to get screwed out of monies owed (even if corey has to lay people off to support it).

although conservative outlooks during mid-2008 now seem wildly optimistic given the current conditions, one has to assume corey's character is going to have a lot to do with how this thing plays out.

Edward III - True! Could be it's proactive. Still, the disruption/etc.

yo, i think they'll be alright, but you know, at the moment, it really is touch and go

RIMSHOT

People who were doubting what me and Contenderizer (and others...) were saying would be likely fallout -- check this new article by Greg Kot in Chi Tribune -- Touch and Go's cutbacks leave independent music labels reeling: Owners say they will have to scale back operations to survive; others unsure if they will be able to make it

Yes, jay,as was clearly said upthread, there would be NO FALLOUT from this. Way to fucking twist words,dude. You're the human form of Godwin's law.

System - Not referring to you, obv.

(System: I was talking about what the likely fallout would be and why... not whether or not there would be any fallout at all. Sorry for any confusion.)

Jay did you read the article you linked? It's rather less doom 'n' gloom than your tone on this thread.

yeah it really is

Here's a new report from Billboard/Reuters

what's a "catalog-only imprint"?

a label that only keeps their back catalog in print, and doesn't release any new albums

According to T&G's own website, everything they've released (excepting licensed stuff and the, ahem, Butthole Surfers catalogue) is still in print, which is pretty remarkable. So while it's certainly sad that they're downscaling, at least they're not going the way of SST and disappearing into a crack in the ground.

bought the reissue of the 1st die kreuzen lp today (with dl, thanks). we do our part

^ C: S

According to T&G's own website, everything they've released (excepting licensed stuff and the, ahem, Butthole Surfers catalogue) is still in print, which is pretty remarkable.
Would be if it were true! I expect most of it is, but not everything. The most obvious being the Necros, but there's at least a couple of old EPs not in print - Flesh Columns, Angry Red Planet etc.

Oh well, most of it is. Can't find where I read that about the whole catalogue now, d'oh is me.

In any case, it's still a damn sight better than SST, or even Sub Pop.

anyone picked this up yet??

http://www.bazillionpoints.com/touch-and-go-magazine-the-complete-years-by-tesco-vee-dave-stimson-and-steve-miller/

it is AWESOME

I've been on a big Laughing Hyena's kick for a few months for the first time since the 90s, mostly getting ready to see Easy Action open for Dino Jr. earlier this year. John Brannon is definitely one of the more intense vocalists in that group of bands.

A joke a buddy of mine made the next day after seeing the Laughing Hyena's back in the 90s in Bloomington always comes to me when I listen to them trying to imaging John Brannon trying to order breakfast at Dennys.

I WANT BACON!!!
TWO EGGS!
OVER EASY!
WITH A SIDE OF TOAST
AND A CUP OF COFFEE!!!!

Brannon's vocal style is pretty much 110% all the time. Don't know what he is like off stage, but he's pretty intense dude with a microphone in his hand (even today). When I saw Dino Jr. earlier this year Brannon did the vocals on their old tune "Don't".

So his vocal style has been like that for decades then I guess! Remember him from way back when.

Yeah, Brannon still has the hard man stage persona. Easy Action was pretty cool at that show I saw earlier this year. Saw Laughing Hyenas a couple of times back in the early 90s and they were great live.

I probably saw that same Bloomington show, I know they played at 39 Steps (short lived all ages club) and maybe at Second Story once?

so fucking good

oh wait, no, those were 80s shows

I saw them here in Oregon in like '91 once more before they broke up, Larissa was so smacked out

He's on twitter now and he starts every single tweet with the phrase "check it out"

he starts every single tweet with the phrase "check it out"

this is so wonderful

THIRD MAN RECORDS' REISSUES OF LAUGHING HYENAS'
MERRY-GO-ROUND AND YOU CAN'T PRAY A LIE
NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER

http://thirdmanstore.com/pub/media/catalog/product/cache/small_image/320x320/cd7fcf27be6a733566b266f46cb4e67d/t/m/tmr509_hyenas_cover.jpg
https://thirdmanstore.com/pub/media/catalog/product/cache/small_image/320x320/cd7fcf27be6a733566b266f46cb4e67d/t/m/tmr471_lhyenas_youcan_tprayalie_final.jpg

In partnership with Touch And Go Records, Third Man Records is re-issuing the full discography of punishing Michigan hardcore punk blues band Laughing Hyenas for the first time in over 25 years. The first two of these reissues, Merry-Go-Round and You Can't Pray A Lie, are available for pre-order on black vinyl now. Both reissues will be released on February 14. View both reissues HERE.

The Merry-Go-Round 2xLP reissue will include the 5 bonus tracks that were originally included on the 1995 Touch and Go CD release. The reissue of You Can't Pray A Lie will be a straight reissue of the 1989 release.

Formed in the mid-80s wreckage of American punk and hardcore, Laughing Hyenas were comprised of staples of the Detroit punk scene, including John Brannon (Negative Approach) and Larissa Strickland (L Seven) along with the locked-in rhythm section of Kevin Strickland and Jim Kimball. Groundbreaking, game-changing and some of the scariest records to come out of Detroit... or anywhere, and lovingly re-mastered for vinyl and cut by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering.

nice, those are great records

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/31171453_10215607905448959_3412478781121976672_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=8b079d3bcdd86ce4322314799aea7610&oe=5B6FDC5B

Tigers/Dodgers World Series hero Kirk Gibson introduced Negative Approach last night as they opened for Jack White in Detroit.

https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/an-oral-history-of-the-laughing-hyenas-one-of-the-great-unsung-detroit-rock-bands/Content?oid=18664679

awesome, thanks.

Wow to Kirk Gibson introducing Negative Approach! That Laughing Hyenas piece was good too. RIP Larissa

John Brannon: Larissa had never picked up guitar, she just kind of learned her own way. She wasn't affected by learning Eric Clapton or Led Zeppelin, she did it by feeling.

Hey, they're on Bandcamp:

https://touchandgo.bandcamp.com/

Most excellent.

Kinda disappointed the early Shellac singles aren't up there, though.

I have a feeling those are coming "soon", which is Shellac terms means anytime between now and 5 yrs from now

Good to see they went with this pic of Killdozer

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/0019944862_36.jpg

Always loved that photo. It's like they out-Urge Overkilled Urge Overkill.

the shirts alone are incredible, yes

Thanks! That's good to see.

I wish they'd put their old yearly sampler compilations up, although I concede that maybe there isn't so much point in comps in the new online/bandcamp era. But a couple of those really changed the shape of my record-hunting in the late 90s, and now I can't even find them listed on the T&G website.

Guess I can look up the tracklistings on discogs and just listen to the individual tracks & buy whatever artist's albums take my fancy, which I suppose might be what a sampler was supposed to inspire, rather than being listened to on loop as an album in its own right by broke students who excitedly picked them up because they were cheap and had a lot of tracks on.

(Some of them were coproductions with their sublabel Quarterstick Records, who have their own bandcamp: https://quarterstick.bandcamp.com/ )