You Owe Me Money!
“..one ongoing problem that indie labels had, and still have, is, uh, cash flow due to not getting paid by distributors. So, mmm, we were in New York at the New Music Seminar, in the Summer of ’88, and we decided to drop in on one of our distributors, Caroline Distributors, okay? And what we did is we walked in, we’re super-chill, just talking to everybody, cracking jokes. And they’re looking at us, and they see we’re wearing these t-shirts that say, YOU OWE ME MONEY!” — Bruce Pavitt
Sub Pop is famous as and indie music label, but it also has a long history of humor, both in its music, and in the comedy albums it's produced; from Sarah Silverman and Patton Oswalt to "jazz daredevil" Jon Benjamin and KEXP faves Flight of the Conchords.
Today’s feature, hosted by KEXP DJ and Morning Show host John Richards, is about a few of the humorous and frankly weird stories from our friends at Sub Pop.
Airing on The Morning Show Wed 8/1 at 8:00 AM PT:
Sub Pop Stories: Weird & Funny includes excerpts of music from:
Flight of the Conchords - "Inner City Pressure"
The U-Men - "They"
Mudhoney - "No One Has"
Hall & Oates - "Man Eater"
Babes In Toyland - "House" (from The Grunge Years Compilation 1991, Caroline Records)
J Mascis - "Is It Done?"
Velocity Girl (featuring former-CNN reporter Jim Spellman) - "Pop Loser"
ARTIFACTS
[ courtesy of Megan Jasper, except where credited ]
Job Application
Alternate Logo? No thanks, T-shirts with the real logo on them outsold the actual records early on.
Is that our DJ Masa!? YES! IT! IS!
Apparently Erica “Man” Hunter had help in the promotions dept.
Hmm, maybe that’s just too much.
Didn’t think the Rock Island Line rolled through Seattle, but either way got allllll pig iron.
There’s a fantastic line-up featuring Velocity Girl. There really was a spread in Vogue. It got Marc Jacobs FIRED from Perry Ellis.
"Sub Pop Stories 5: Weird & Funny" is part of the From the Vault documentary series, made possible thanks to a generous gift from Paul Allen, and in cooperation with MoPop. Production, writing, and editing thanks to Isaac Kaplan-Woolner and Julian Martlew, with help from Owen Murphy. Hosted by KEXP DJ John Richards.
