March 3, 2005
Grabbing the bull by the horns or stepping in a steaming pile of B.S.?: Wherein Josh Jabcuga is left for dead as he “attempts” to interview Gerard Cosloy of Matador Records (home of Interpol, Cat Power, Mogwai, and other indie darlings).
Josh Jabcuga, Moviepoopshoot.com:
Last year Matador released its 15th anniversary compilation. Scanning
down some of the contributors,-- Interpol, Cat Power, Mogwai, The Jon
Spencer Blues Explosion, Belle and Sebastian, Yo La Tengo-it's pretty hard not to be impressed by such an eclectic line-up. Is there a specific "Matador" sound?
Gerard Cosloy, Matador Records:
I think you've answered your own question. There's not a specific Matador sound. We put out records by our favorite bands and our tastes tend to be rather eclectic, though never by design.
Josh Jabcuga:
Can you give me a little background on the origins of the company, and
some of your own personal history in the business, pre-Matator? What was the impetus behind starting the label?
Gerard Cosloy:
The label’s origins are well documented and any number of other interviews or google can help you get there. Same for my own "personal history". I didn't start the label, Chris Lombardi did. I think the impetus was hoping he could start the
best label on earth and then watch me get most of the credit in poorly researched interviews.
Josh Jabcuga:
Matador is a superb label. The direction that was in mind when the company was in its planning stages, and the place where you find it at now…is this where you thought it'd wind up, or is it safe to say it's veered off the tracks and taken on a whole life of its own?
Gerard Cosloy:
I think we've concentrated on putting out the records we liked. That's been our direction.
Josh Jabcuga:
What were some of the defining moments in the history of the label that
really established it as an indie force?
Gerard Cosloy:
That would be for someone else to specify. I don't think of us as an indie force, that's too qualified.
Josh Jabcuga:
Being one of the head honchos behind an indie label, where do you stand
on file sharing and illegal downloading?
Gerard Cosloy:
It's great. Especially for movies.
Josh Jabcuga:
Supposedly the numbers are in for last year and with all the downloading going on, record sales have miraculously increased, even if just slightly. Could file sharing be the byproduct of radio stations with rigid playlists, in the sense that kids are just looking for the music they like, not the music they're told to like, and saying to their friends, "Hey, check this out, this is cool," and passing it along to their friends via file swapping and downloading?
Gerard Cosloy:
I don't know, but I'll seriously consider repeating what you just wrote the next time someone tries to interview me on the subject. Or maybe I'll just give them your phone number.
Josh Jabcuga:
Considering the fact that a few huge mega corporations bought up all the radio stations, how difficult is it to get support for your artists from radio stations, excluding satellite radio?
Gerard Cosloy:
It's pretty difficult, but it was always that way.
Josh Jabcuga:
Has this affected your strategies behind promoting a new release, because I know it runs deeper than just radio stations, since Clear Channel and others have their hands in clubs, too. I imagine it's gotta be a bit of a nightmare at times, just trying to get the word out about a great release.
Gerard Cosloy:
Yes, but we've never been totally dependent on crap radio.
Josh Jabcuga:
What are some of your best memories being involved with the music business and this label? Any personal anecdotes, maybe a particular concert or whatever, where you said, "Yeah, this just made it all worthwhile, this is why I do what I do"?
Gerard Cosloy:
Having Geoff Travis tell me he liked Juliana Hatfield's records ranked pretty high.
Special note to my readers: If I ever take myself too seriously, feel free to give me a dick-punch. Thanks, your pal, Josh Jabcuga.
CAT POWER DVD & CD: SPEAKING FOR TREES, A FILM BY MARK BORTHWICK (matadorrecords.com)
Wow. This one's a tough sell. CAT POWER, aka CHAN MARSHALL, is a talented singer/songwriter who likes to play camera-shy more than she likes to play the guitar on stage, or so it seems. In 2003, Matador released You Are Free by Ms., er, POWER. The album was haunting. It showed an artist reaching beyond artistic borders, meeting at the crossroads of potential and promise, a time and a place where everything just clicked. It was daring. It was beautiful. And it was a place where she belonged. A place where she could hang her hat. It was like NEIL YOUNG, circa After the Goldrush. It was that special moment when an artist creates something that will outlive even their own existence, outlasting the wars and diseases of the time. It's a fine line, though, between relevance and self-indulgence. You can't get too comfortable because everyone knows this is nowhere.
CAT POWER'S Speaking for Trees is described as: "A two-hour film of CAT POWER performing solo outdoors in the countryside. Filmed in a single grainy long shot amidst the ambient sounds of nature, in the tradition of WARHOL and WISEMAN." The CD portion of the combo is described thusly: "One gorgeous unreleased 18-minute song saga, "Willie Deadwilder." Rounding things out is an "elaborate fold-out package with 64-page book."
I really wish I could give this a positive review. But I have to call it like I see it. Matador has put out some fine releases. Speaking for Trees is not one of them.
CHAN MARSHALL has a reputation in some circles as taking herself too seriously. I guess that type of statement is relative, isn't it? The point is, she's been known to put out some top-notch albums, but in concert, she comes across as an enormous bore who is, get this, afraid to play in front of a crowd and wear her heart on her sleeve for all to see. Lucky us that we get to see anything. Spare me.
This project was described to me by someone at Matador as being very personal for the artist. Sometimes that's a code-word for, "Hey, this thing really sucks, we don't know how to sell it, and we're afraid to release it, but let's all play along and see how people respond." For better or worse, these types of projects are usually shelved. Or they wind up on Ebay. Or twenty-years after the artist kicks the bucket, all's fair game and the name of the game is commerce, baby, commerce, so the personal projects get stamped with a barcode and are put out there on Wal-Mart shelves for mass consumption.
JEFF BUCKLEY is floating in the sky somewhere still cursing out his record label. The song "Forget Her" was never meant to be heard by anyone. BUCKLEY deemed it too personal. It was deleted from BUCKLEY's debut, Grace, at the last minute, and replaced with "So Real." Eventually, a shitty recording of the song popped up on Napster, Kazaa, etc., and JEFF's own mother, God bless her, decided, "Well, now's the time to release this fucker officially, since hey, if it's out there, it's spreading like a virus...for free, and we can't have that." (By the way, that's not an official quotation.) The official word provided, in fact, was that JEFF's mom knew the song was being bootlegged, so she wanted it to be given a proper release, cleaned up, restored, shiny and new, 'cause JEFF's fans deserved better. If you believe that logic, I'll sell you a copy of KURT COBAIN's unreleased journals; oh wait, nevermind, some money-hungry whore beat me to that punch.
The latest release from CAT POWER is extremely mind-boggling. Why? Because this release had the artist's blessing and full consent. The description provided by the label is spot on. If you can dig that, then go for it, but you've been warned. Essentially, you're getting Ms.MARSHALL in a field, the woods, whatever, alone with her guitar. The sun beams down. The crickets chirp. She stops and starts songs, like a teenage girl discovering the potent lock-and-key that is a writing utensil and a diary notebook for the first time. Freedom! Or Freedumb? You can see the songs drift in and out of CHAN's head like worker bees making their rounds. They never quite land, but somehow you know they serve a purpose. Perhaps this is to document an artist at work. At play. Never truly at ease, though, even alone, in the middle of nowhere. Why is the world so heavy, CHAN, speak up? How can you speak for the trees, when it seems like a cat's got your own tongue?
I give Matador Records a lot of credit for releasing this. It takes guts to support a quirky artist and stand by their projects. It takes even more guts to inform an artist that what they've just handed in is a joke, and maybe that's when the bull should have been grabbed by the horns and stopped dead in its tracks. You know how ANDY KAUFMAN was funny, in that unfunny kind of way? Well, Speaking for Trees is funny, in that same kind of unfunny way, except it's not even supposed to be a joke.
What exactly is it then? Did you ever watch the Yuletide Log? You know, the Yuletide Log! It's that mindless invention that someone came up with a few years ago; during the holiday season, you can turn on your local public access channel and watch a log burning, accompanied by its own Christmas soundtrack. It's for those of us that don't have a cozy fireplace to sit next to with our hot cocoa as we open presents and, er, roast chestnuts (in the microwave, maybe?). That's exactly what Speaking for Trees is: Think Yuletide Log meets THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, with a soundtrack courtesy of the gorgeous vocals of CAT POWER.
SUPERTRAMP said it best when they sung the lyrics:
"Even in the quietest moments
I wish I knew what I had to do,
And even though the sun is shining,
Well I feel the rain, here it comes again, dear,
And even when you showed me,
My heart was out of tune,
For there's a shadow of doubt that's not letting me find you too soon,
The music that you gave me,
the language of my soul..."
If I were speaking on behalf of the trees, man, I dunno, I don't think I'd be mumbling and fidgeting like CHAN MARSHALL does here, almost like it's her gimmick now, that of fidgety artist. My guess is the trees are a little more confident that CHAN gives them credit for, and a little more poised than CHAN is at this stage in her career. Actually, I think trees are pretty pissed off. They've probably got a lot of pent up anger. Think about it. You've got nowhere to go, you have to stand in the same place all day, birds nest on you, they shit on you, and sometimes you have to watch as your friends are chopped down in favor of a re-zoned shopping mall.
If I were to speak on behalf of the trees, I'm thinking BLACK FLAG. I'm thinking they're screaming trees, belting out SEPULTURA at the top of their lungs. I'm thinking RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE. If that's not in your vocabulary, then maybe you should just go out and hug a tree, how's that sound? Just don't try to sell it as a DVD/CD combo to the public, because then that would be personal, exploitative even, and the trees, they seem like they've been doing a fine job speaking for themselves all this time. My guess is most of 'em will outlive the wars and diseases of our time, or any of the art you or I might conjure up anyway.
Praise for the writing of Josh Jabcuga, who pens Squib Central, published every Thursday, exclusively at www.moviepoopshoot.com:
“Josh Jabcuga can take the 26 measly letters of our crude alphabet and capture the bi-polar soul of all that is classically yet disturbingly American. Then, when his typewriter is left to cool, he can turn right around…completely ready to trounce any drunk punk that’s got me backed into a corner.” –The Colonel J.D. Wilkes of The Legendary Shack*Shakers.
Press kits, promos, items for consideration to be reviewed in Squib Central should be sent to:
Josh Jabcuga
3910 Sharondale Dr.
Hamburg, NY 14075
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