Words by HEATHER CONNOR
Photos by Andy ‘Woo’ Wootton
ColdRice whether it be underground or at venues such as The Victoria has long been one of our favourite nights playing all the best music in Garage trash, punk blues, rock & roll, rock & soul. Since 2001 they have hosted events featuring acts such as Bob Log III, Speedball Baby, The Soledad Brothers, David Viner, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The Breeders, The Von Bondies, The Dirtbombs, Weird War, The Ponys, The Black Lips, Modey Lemon, Thee Ohsees, The Hentchmen, The Kills, T-Model Ford, The Coachwhips, Immortal Lee County Killers, Heavy Trash, Entrance, The Rogers Sisters, Les Georges Leningrad, Whirlwind Heat, Rob K & Uncle Butcher and Boss Hog. Their house bands include Copter, Swampmeat, The Big Bang, Black Mekon and Vinny and the Curse.

Run by members of Copter and local promoter Carlton Wainwright they pride themselves on operating on a strict DIY or die attitude, so it’s no surprise that their latest venture is ColdRice Records. Stevie Copter gave us the lowdown.

You currently sell mp3s of albums on coldrice.com what made you decide to do a physical release label?
Several reasons, for one I think it shows a little more commitment from the label to put out vinyl. Anyone can record high quality albums and make mp3s or burn cds from their bedrooms these days and while that it a great thing that we find really useful we think that also putting it out there on vinyl shows we are willing to go the extra mile for our bands. Another reason is that we really miss the ‘event’ of listening to an album or a single. It’s so easy to have a permanent background soundtrack these days and with the click click culture a lot of times only 20 seconds of a song will be heard. If you have a piece of vinyl you make a point of sitting down, putting it on and listening from start to finish without distraction or interruption. And then there’s the nerdy side of us that wants the tangible piece of black with artwork that we can file alphabetically!
What’s going to be the first release on vinyl for the label, can you tell us a bit about the bands involved?
First piece of vinyl is a split 7″ by Black Mekon and Vinny And The Curse, 2 songs from each band plus a special ’side AAA’ which will be an extra downloadable song from each band. Part of the thing about ColdRice is that thru the events and our studio, Fazeley Park, we have gathered a small family of musicians and best friends, from this there are about 10 bands comprising of the same 10-15 people… like a below-the-belt version of Stax! Black Mekon and Vinny And The Curse are 2 of those bands, we chose to put their single out first simply because they had the recordings ready to go, sonically they’re a great fit and they will both be playing live a lot for the rest of the year so they will get to shift the wares quicker than the other bands!
Your fothcoming releases will be on vinyl with a download code why that format?
Best of both worlds. We are by no means vinyl purists who shun the downloadable format, mp3s etc. are just as valid and important to what we are doing, but we also want to encourage people to get involved with the vinyl side of things too for all the reasons we mentioned. We also appreciate how important it is for people to have their music at their convenience too and what a massive pain in the ass it is to get songs from vinyl onto your ipod.
Are you still planning on doing the ColdRice Singles Club? If so what’s the plan for that?
Definitely, we want to get a couple more records in the bank first (we have a Copter one already on the way and then another split by 2 of our bands) then we can start taking orders. We want to make it something a bit special and package the records with badges, stickers, underwear (Black Mekon, you know) and other such stuff. Hopefully the first one will come with a build-it-yourself record box. We’ve had a really great response to the idea so far so we will definitely get it up and running as soon as we can.
As you are in Copter do you think being musicians helps with promoting shows and running a label?
Definitely helps from the angle of knowing how to treat the bands and the music but it doesn’t help when it comes to doing the numbers… admin champion I ain’t!
Do you have a policy on which bands you release?
Well at the moment we are limiting ourselves to our immediate family because there is such a healthy mix in there already and we want to reward all of our kids for all their hard work over the years too. Hopefully if it all goes well we can start bringing in some other bands too, as for which sort of bands you just have to check out the cats we put on at our Rock n’ Roll Circus every month.
Who would be your dream band/artist to release a single or album?
So so many…. right now i would love to do a split 7″ between The Gories and The Oblivians to celebrate their brief reunions, I think the next Strange Boys album will be amazing and would love to put that out, Kid Congo Powers…. arrrgh that question will take me forever to answer!