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Archived: Shmat's Features
The Shmat has decided to discontinue the Features section for Shmat Records. That is to say, there will be no NEW interviews or features. If you are a band that was featured here earlier, rest assured that your feature will be archived here for eternity (or somewhere near that).
Like Shmat's Reviews, any future Interviews and Features will appear on the Palebear site.
Please note that the Shmat and his Peoples take no responsibility for typos, inaccuracies or misinterpretations contained within these articles.
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May 27, 2004 :
Mmm... delicious, delicious tapes. They sure taste goodly to the Shmat. Especially when they're the sort of indiepop tapes freshly baked at the Riverside, CA, label known as Popgun Recordings. Unabashedly DIY in construction, destruction, and conception, Popgun has been doing its thing for nearly a decade, releasing homemade tapes sealed in little ziplock bags and holding innumerable indiepop shows all around Southern California. With over 60 releases, the label is well on its way to its stated upper limit of 100 releases. Shmat got a chance to speak with the ringleader behind it all, the werewolfian Raoul de la Cruz. In the spirit of the "digital" age, this interview was conducted by private messenger via the Indiepages message board.
- interview by
 So for the folks reading this who don't know Popgun intimately, how and when did you get dragged into this whole label thing?
RDC: Well, back in the summer of 1995, me and my friend Mike hit upon the idea of doing a zine called "Cha Cha Cha". The plan was to put out a zine once a month for an entire year. Each zine came in a zip-lock baggie along with a tape of songs that we wrote and recorded, and each song featured a different singer. Well, we called it quits after only two issues. It was hard finding new singers willing to participate in our project. Most of the friends, family members, and co-workers we tried to get involved were really reluctant to sing. So, we ended up turning "Cha Cha Cha" into a band instead, and enlisted our friend Rachel as lead singer.
 We started doing tons of shows and people would always ask us if we had any recordings they could buy. That's when I resurrected the idea of putting out tapes in plastic bags and, in December 1995, Popgun Recordings was born. Soon after that, I started putting out tapes for our own individual projects and then tapes for our friends. Rachel sent the first Cha Cha Cha tape to Parasol and they loved it so much that they decided to start carrying that tape and other Popgun releases in their mailorder catalog. After that, things just sort of took off...
That's cool, so it sort of snowballed along as you went. Was there a point along the way when CD-Rs became more readily available that you ever entertained the idea of getting out of cassettes? Sadly, there seems to be not as many tape labels around nowadays...
RDC: No, never. The idea behind Popgun is to stick with what works and what got us on the map. To "stick to our guns". You know that old adage, if it ain't broke, don't fix it? Well, it's like that. My initial goal was to put out 100 releases, all on cassette, and that's how it's going to be. I never wanted to switch to CD-Rs, or to start putting out real cds or vinyl. Not with Popgun, at least. Maybe with Popgun, it's all about arrested development. Maybe it's about sticking to old ways, being a bit old fashioned, being anachronistic, being a bit nostalgic about how things used to be and going against the grain in our own little way. It's what makes us stick out from the rest of the crowd and it's part of our identity. It's part of Popgun's appeal.
As for tape labels... well, I don't think there were very many "pure" tape labels to begin with in the first place! And those that have disappeared (or rather, those that started progressing beyond tape-only releases) seem to have been replaced by new tape labels. I sorely miss ((tape-tape)) and In A Lighthouse. Those were two great cassette-only labels. But look, on Indiepages alone there are three cassette labels! There's Popgun, of course, Lil'Lion Records, and Best Kept Secret. And then there's a couple of new tape labels - the upstart Unnecessary Friction Records out of Washington/Minnesota, and the Rub-A-Dub Tape Club out of Brooklyn... it just seems like there isn't as many tape labels as before because nobody talks about it. Most zines won't even review tapes. And like I said before, most "tape labels" aren't really tape labels at all. They're just record labels that start out with cassette releases and then eventually progress to vinyl and cds. Their intention was never to remain a "tape-only" label. But I'm stubborn. And I love cassettes. One of these days I want to host a tape label convention in my living room. Ha ha!
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Archived Shmat Features
February 2005
Anamude
November 2004
American Analog Set
October 2004
Pants Yell!
July 2004
Snoozer
June 2004
Elk City
May 2004
Popgun Recordings
April 2004
East River Pipe
February 2004
Elliott The Letter Ostrich
January 2004
Damon of the Swirlies
December 2003
The Ladybug Transistor
November 2003
Bill Ricchini
October 2003
Shiny Around The Edges
September 2003
Dave Klotz of Fonda
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