Half-Baked Musings About Running A Record Label

Joe's Exploding Zoo is, at the time I'm writing this, a micro-microlabel. It's been a longtime ambition to get to the point where running a label made sense.

While that never happened along the way, I decided to start one ANYWAY for the sheer bloodymindedness of it but also to make sure that when I eventually drop dead from that curious medical condition known as Too Many Birthdays, I leave something behind that might sit in a record collector's "what the hell is THIS shit?" bin for as long as physical media survives.

Joe's Exploding Vinyl

You might have gotten an impression from reading the above that Joe's Exploding Zoo is going to start releasing physical media. This is correct. Joe's Exploding Zoo is in the process of recording two vinyl record projects as this I write this, and there are more physical media releases planned on cassette and even in print.

I have ambitions to put out the kind of records my favorite musicians would get excited about. Weird records that the people running your favorite record stores would play on the overhead saying, "I can't believe THIS came in...what the hell IS it?"

Not The Vinyl Record Announcement

This is probably a half-assed attempt to announce the vinyl record projects but when I think seriously about that for two seconds it's clear that the projects should be in their finished-and-headed-to-the-pressing-plant condition before we go off all excited about the latest addition to the world's WTF vinyl record collections.

Growing Your Record Label In Public

Putting this label together at the end of last year and running things into the here and now has been a process. One that's still being developed...running a microlabel means scrabbling for support for album sales, live events, all that...and I am at the very beginning of this journey. 

I was tempted to pretend a bit that I've always done this shit, but that isn't entirely true. I've run microlabels in the past, but it's been a lonnnnnng time.

I decided to grow up in public instead...I want to be a bit more transparent about these things because when I tried it all the FIRST time round I thought there was some kind of secret formula to make it all work properly.

There isn't. But what works for ME might work for someone else, too...and there is plenty of room in this town for MORE MICROLABELS. I hope other audio-minded folk reading this are inclined to do their own and share their existence somehow.