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| by rick valentin | |
(Editor's Note: When I first proposed the idea of a feature on Twelve Inch Records to Rick Valentin of Poster Children/Salaryman fame, I never expected he would write one for us! We at OpeningBands.com are very thankful to Rick for sharing with us his memories and his humour as they relate to this piece of Champaign music scene history. - JP)
Back in the early nineties there were some really great bands in
Champaign but no one wanted to put out their records. Rose and I
decided we should do something about it. My original concept was to
start a label called Ten Inch Records and only put out 6-song EPs on
10" vinyl but no one seemed very excited about the idea. Vinyl was on
its way out and bands wanted "real" albums on those new-fangled
compact discs. I'm not sure why we called the label Twelve Inch
Records since the first six releases weren't released on 12" vinyl
either. I guess it was supposed to be ironic.
 | Hum, Fillet Show
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TIN001: Hum - Fillet Show 1991.
Andy Switzky was our roommate at the time. He had previously been in
the bands Tugrik Dhugugrik and Obvious Man and had formed a new combo
named Hum with Matt Talbott, previously of We Ate Plato. After a
series of bass players and drummers, the lineup was filled out by
Baltie De Ley (former Bad Flannel member and future Mother/Menthol
founder) on bass and Bryan St. Pere on the drums and cymbals. They
spent some time at Clubhouse, the world's smallest studio, with Kent
Whitesell (currently in the Greedy Loves) and came out with nine
golden greats. Matt's high school pal Darren pitched in some cash; we
pitched in the rest and Twelve Inch Records was open for business.
This being the era before affordable computerized graphic design,
something got messed up with the color separations and what was
supposed to be lovely oxblood lettering on the cover turned out bright
fuchsia; the first of many "learning experiences" with the label. If I
remember correctly, the CDs (and cassettes!) arrived while Poster
Children were on tour, so I recruited my mom to ship out promo copies
of the record right away instead of waiting until the tour was over.
People who heard the record liked it and Hum started playing shows
outside of the greater Champaign-Urbana metropolitan area. Fillet Show
sounds quite a bit different from the rest of the Hum catalog (Andy
sings lead on three tracks) but you can hear inklings of the future in
some of the songs. I'm not sure if Matt wants you to hear this record
but the next time you see him, ask him for a copy; he's got a couple
hundred cassettes of this baby that he picked up when we cleared out
our basement a couple of years ago.
We soon realized it was really expensive to put out CDs (this was when
a blank CD-R cost $100 and a CD burner cost $5000 and even if MP3s had
existed, they would have taken 5 hours to download from a text-based
bulletin board with a 300 baud modem, so pressing CDs professionally
was the only option). We decided to jump on the 7" bandwagon. At the
time SubPop had a Singles Club which you could subscribe to and
theoretically get a single every month. We couldn't pull that off
(sometimes SubPop couldn't either) but we thought we'd exploit the
collector mentality by numbering our singles and enforcing a
consistent cover design.
TIN002: Lovecup - Tearing Water/Juggernaut. Single of the Moment #1. 1992.
Mark Baldwin (future Mezzanine) sings and plays some kind of crazy
neon green/yellow metal guitar with a built-in handle, TJ Harrison
(future Lonely Trailer and Glifted member) plays bass and Jim Kelly
(formerly of Sixteen Tons, later of Centaur and Parasol Distribution)
performs drum duties. Every scene, every era has a great unsung band
and Love Cup is that band for C-U in the early 90's. They found a
perfect balance between metal and indie rock and influenced my band
and had an even greater influence on Hum. This was also recorded by
Kent Whitesell at Clubhouse. Did I mention that the place was tiny? As
I remember, it only had one room. It was like a treehouse that was on
the ground instead of in a tree.
TIN003: Hum - Hello Kitty/Roar, I'm a Tiger. Single of the Moment #2. 1992.
Jeff Dimpsey (formerly of Bad Flannel and Poster Children) takes up
the bass after Baltie leaves to form Mother and Andy makes his last
appearance on guitar and vocals. Recorded in the big city of Chicago
with Brad Wood at the soon-to-be-very-hip IDFUL Studios. This single moves
even closer to the now familiar Hum sound.
TIN004: Dis - Ed Was Solace/Girl Song. Single of the Moment #3. 1992.
Dis was the only 12 Inch band not to hail from the twin cities; they
were a trio of Albini familiars hailing from the city of Milwaukee.
Their song Ed Was Solace was their entry into the hearts and minds of
the Twelve Inch family. Chris Fuller played guitar and sang, Rob
Sieracki played bass and sang. Matt Morgan played drums. Recorded with
finesse by Steve Albini in his home studio, dubbed Kitty Empire during
these sessions.
TIN005: Steakdaddy Six - Rubber Pants/Play. Single of the Moment #4. 1992.
When seminal 80's C-U band Bad Flannel broke up, many bands sprung up
from its ashes. Jeff Dimpsey and Bill Johnson went on to form Honcho
Overload. Baltie went on to form Mother/Menthol and the dual drum
assault of Gordon Pellegrinetti and Chris Green reappeared in the
hulking rock quintet that was Steakdaddy Six. Nick Macri (formerly of
Hot Glue Gun and later of Euphone) played bass, Rod Van Huis (future
member of The Great Crusades) played guitar and Jason Anderson sang
whimsical lyrics about striped shirts and Guy NRG. This single was
recorded by Hum drummer Brian St. Pere at his home studio. Two
drummers, heavy guitar and wah-wah bass sounds like a recipe for
disaster but these guys pulled it off with panache and a sense of
humor. They were the figurehead band of Twelve Inch, releasing all of
their music on the label.
 | Dis, Small Fry Sessions, 1 & 2
|
TIN006: Dis - Small Fry Sessions 1 & 2. 1992.
Dis went back to Steve Albini's basement to record the second
full-length release on Twelve Inch. This record sold out of its first
run of 1000 very quickly. When it came time to repress the CD the band
demanded that they get the profit rather than let us invest it back
into the repressing. We bowed to the pressure, ponied up the cash for
the next 1000 CDs ourselves, and sold approximately 5 more copies in
the next 5 years. This was probably the only time in history that a
band made more money than their label.
After growing weary of calling up stores directly to distribute our
records, Twelve Inch signed a distribution deal (or was it a
Mephistophelean pact?) with Cargo Records.
TIN007: Hum - Electra 2000. 1993.
The first appearance of the classic Hum lineup. Tim Lash joins up on
guitar and the band went back to IDFUL to record with hipster engineer
Brad Wood. The first Twelve Inch release that actually came out on 12"
vinyl. This album, along with a healthy diet of touring, set the stage
for the band's breakthrough two years later. Unfortunately when "You'd
Prefer an Astronaut" went ballistic and "Electra 2000" started selling
like hotcakes, Cargo decided that they no longer needed to pay us. An
indie label's greatest dream is that one of their bands will go on to
great success and the back catalog will start selling and the wealth
generated can be used to release more great indie records. But did I
mention that Cargo never paid up? I guess they used the money to put
out more records...
 | Steakdaddy Six, Arkadelphia
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TIN008: Steakdaddy Six - Arkadelphia. 1993.
Steakdaddy makes their first full-length with Andrew Beddini. Chris
Green had left the band to go on the road with Hum and others (he's
the guy driving the van in "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart") or maybe
he went to Harvard, I can't quite remember the sequence of events.
Anyways, Chris was replaced by former Hardcore Barbie and WARD drummer
Larry Thompson. Arkadelphia is a town in Arkansas. The subtitle of the
record is "Birth of the Syndicate" and the front cover features Gordon
with tin foil wrapped teeth, holding a tin foil wrapped gun. A human
completely encased in tin foil graces the back cover and a tin foil
wrapped sneaker, guitar, human head, and Millennium Falcon are featured
inside. They explained the whole concept to me and it made sense at
the time but it's been over ten years now and I've forgotten what it
all means.
TIN009: Love Cup - Grefus, Gronks & Sheet. 1993.
Definitely the best record to come out of Champaign from this era, and
I'm not just saying that because we put it out. Lovingly engineered by
Matt Allison who had recorded a ton of stuff in Champaign during the
80's and had moved to Chicago to pursue fame and fortune in the big
city (he later produced some Alkaline Trio records). Jason Milam (now
of Emotional Rec Club) took over on drums. You should buy a copy of
this CD. I think Parasol still has a few copies. There was some
touring when Grefus came out and there was some major label "interest"
but things never materialized. One begins to question the whole music
eco-system when a band like this goes unnoticed.
TIN010: Dis- M386.D57 1994.
The band returns with a new drummer, Peter Pollack (a momentary Bitch
Magnet skinsman) and adds a "-" to its name: Dis-, not Dis; it's a
prefix, not an abbreviation of "disrespect". Rob was deeply involved
with the cult of library science, hence the title, which conforms to a
non-Dewey Decimal library classification system, I'm not sure which.
I'm pretty sure Mr. Albini helmed this one also but he's not name
checked on the insert so I'm not absolutely positive.
TIN011: Steakdaddy Six - Houstonia: 1995.
Continuing the place names as titles trend started with Arkadelphia,
Steakdaddy named this CD after a town in Missouri. This time there's
no subtitle but there's a colon in the title continuing the
superfluous use of punctuation started by Dis-. This was recorded in
at the Home of Good Shoes which was a loft that Rose and I lived in in
downtown Champaign back when there was nothing around but the Blind
Pig and a few abandoned department stores. Best song title ever: Hip
Hop Chewbacca.
TIN012: Hum - You'd Prefer an Astronaut. 1996 (Vinyl only).
We were excited for the opportunity to release the vinyl version of
Hum's major label debut. Unfortunately there were problems with the
mastering and then the cover art was left unfinished for a few months.
It wound up coming out a long time after the CD. We discovered that
not many people buy vinyl and those who do expect to buy it before or
on the day the CD comes out. There was a poster included and some
copies were pressed on clear, green vinyl.
 | Salaryman, s/t
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TIN012: Salaryman - Salaryman. 1997.
OK. It's not a typo. Well, I guess it's a typo but it's a nine year
old typo. The numbering system for a record label is very important.
We neglected to check the spine number on the Hum vinyl (TIN012) and
wound up assigning the same number to this CD when it came out. Maybe
subliminally we were trying to avoid putting out record 13. This was
the beginning of a new era for Twelve Inch. We decided that we should
spend all our free time as musicians, not as music businessmen/women
and only release recordings we had made ourselves. Salaryman started
as a lark. Jenny Toomey asked Poster Children to back her up for a
show but to do something "different". We pulled out some synthesizers,
learned her songs and then improvised a set of our own instrumentals
over the course of a few days. On the way to the show we decided we
needed a different name from Poster Children so Rose suggested
Salaryman. People seemed to like the show so we went back to our
rehearsal space and recorded everything very quickly and put it out
with Parasol's help. We didn't expect much from the CD but Christof
from the German label CitySlang heard the disc, liked it and put it
out in Europe. We wound being lumped into the "post-rock" scene and
did a lot of touring overseas.
TIN014: Salaryman - Karoshi. 1999.
Karoshi is a Japanese word that means "death from overwork". For some
reason we thought that was funny. Recorded by Mark Rubel at Pogo and
mixed at home. This one's got a lot of Enhanced CD content that may or
may not work with post-Y2K computers.
TIN015: Poster Children - Flower Plower Reissue. 2000.
The first Poster Children album originally released on Limited
Potential Records in 1989. One of the few records of ours that we own
the rights to. A majority of the rest are owned by Warner Brothers in
perpetuity (which means forever).
TIN016: Salaryman - The Electric Forest. 2006.
This is a record that's been rattling around unfinished for a long,
long time. It's finally done and we're planning on releasing it in the
next few months!
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