G’day Mates! I’m Adam Baumeister. I work at Wax Trax off and on and I’ve been perusing its aisles since the early 90’s. I also run Meep – A lathe cut record company I started in 2012. [Editor’s note– Adam is awesome. We wanted him to share a bit about his main gig with you all.]
Lathe Cut Records are made using one of the oldest methods of recording sound. A good way to understand it is to think of it as the opposite of a record player. In a record player, the needle rides in the record groove picking up the minute sound vibrations which are then amplified out to a speaker. In a recording lathe, a cutting amplifier vibrates the stylus to cut those grooves into a rotating disc at a high volume to create a playable record. It’s very similar to how they make the Master for a vinyl record to get pressed over and over. Everything is cut in real time one at a time.
Over the last dozen years knowing this timeworn process has introduced me to many amazing people, who I then made amazing extra-rare vinyl with.
Here are a few highlights.
1. Flobots – Circle in the Square
I think The Flobots (local hip-hop superheroes) were the first people to pay me to make records. Thank you Flobots. We made 50 copies for their tour in 2012. The clear square 7” with one song was a perfect visual for their song “Circle in the Square”
2. Lucero (whiskey soaked alt-country from Memphis) – “Live at Illegal Pete’s 2013”
Recorded live at Illegal Pete’s on a Thursday – Made 50 copies on Friday and they sold them all at their weekend shows at The Ogden. Efficient!
3. A City of Whiskey & Fire – Comic Book and Record.
The comic told the story of the Great Denver Fire of 1863 in which most of the city burned down. The song, written by Dan Landes (renegade restaurateur, wordsmith & Patron of the Arts) – was recorded with Munly (local songwriter & “The Devil” in Slim Cessna’s Auto Club) backing him up on banjo. Comic by Noah Van Sciver (supremely talented comic book author) – 13th avenue LEGENDS!
3. Peyote Tapes – Locked Grooves by Musician and Sound Artist – Raven Chacon
Not sure how we linked up – Maybe Denver’s other Lathe Cutter and ex Wax Trax employee Tripp? I went and visited him and his friends from New Mexico who were doing a show at the Denver Art Museum and made some cool one-sided picture discs for it. Forgot all about them until reading the news one morning that Raven had become the first Native American artist to receive a Pulitzer Prize in Music!
4. Denver Temporary Audio Archive 2015
In 2015 I received a grant from Colorado Creative Industries to make 10 records pairing local musicians with local visual artists – Super proud of all these.
Rick Griffith from Matter designed and laser cut these unique rad “window covers” including Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats / The Blue Rider split 7” w/ screen printed artwork by Ravi Zupa and Arna Miller. Also Denver Noise Fest #5 locked grooves w/ art by Mat Brinkman, For Rhinoceropolis.Peep and listen here – https://meeprecords1.bandcamp.com/album/temporary-audio-archive-denver-2015
5. Mark Mothersbaugh Postcard Records
We were invited by Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) to cut records at the opening of Mark Mothersbaugh’s (legendary leader of DEVO) Myopia exhibit. He recorded a droned re-worked dirge version of “Blowing in the Wind” and it was amazing. A year later he called me randomly and told me how much he loved the record and that night. Wowzers.
6. Walking Dead Cast Christmas gift records. Still haven’t seen the show – need to.
Apparently the song “Easy Street” by the Collapsible Hearts Club was played over and over to torture someone in an episode.
7. John Carpenter – Skeleton X-Ray Bones Records.
Another former ex-pat Denver record store employee Caleb Braaten co–founded a fantastic label out of NYC (Sacred Bones) and asked me to make these for the Horror Master and Synth Wizard himself – John Carpenter!
8. Olivia Neutron-John / Anna Nasty 7”s
Have worked a few times w/ incredible D.C. artist Olivia Neutron-John / Anna Nasty and one time she posted that Henry Rollins bought one. I can die happy knowing that one of our records is in that collection.
9. Detour
Hit the road going to towns all over Colorado where we recorded and gave the public their own lathe cut records. Interviews – musicians – wacko’s all represented – In every town we visited Laura Goldhammer built a tiny house recording studio – the undefinable Chimney Choir did workshops and concerts and Davey B. Gravey’s Tiny Cinema (a silent cinema in a tiny trailer) thrilled. So much fun – learn more about these people in this lil documentary here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtgVADmtNaM
10. Rinsing The Bones – Jenny Yurshansky – Wende Museum interviews.
This was an art project by Los Angeles-based artist Jenny Yurshansky, a member of the Jewish diaspora descended from an estimated 2 million jews who left the Soviet Union after 1970. It was one of the largest mass emigration movements in world history. Some left because of blatant persecution; others sought to leave behind stereotypes and anti-Semitism.
Her community-based project, Rinsing the Bones, invited the public to bring to the Wende Museum a small family heirloom object and to record a brief interview about the meaning behind the object and why it was kept. While Jenny interviewed each participant, the objects were 3D-scanned to be later reproduced as a 1:1 scale 3D print in white material resembling bone. Portions of the recorded interviews were also engraved (by me) onto X-ray film, reminiscent of Soviet “bone” records. Read more about Adam’s cool projects here or order up your own unique analog disc at meeprecords.com.
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