One of the things I really enjoy about the metal community is meeting all the great people involved with said community. I had the pleasure a few years ago to meet David Lindley, who through his record labels has been a huge supporter of my radio show, the NW Metal Zone. He has made a couple of his bands available for interviews on my show, and now I've finally had the chance to ask him a few questions about running his record label.
I had
been out of work for a while due to a mysterious neurological condition that
was causing a lot of psychological and physical issues – I could no longer ride
a bike, ski, run, difficulty talking. My condition was deteriorating rapidly
and no one really had any ideas. Before medication saved the day, my wife,
pets, music and Family Guy kept me going. With treatment, I got some of my life
back and decided to start a radio show at a local community based radio station.
The show was and still is satisfying to a certain extent however I was still
unable to work full time or do the activities I used to do because of extreme
fatigue and pseudo-seizures, so I was searching for something to fill the rest
of my days. This is when I had the good fortune to bump into Gordon of Never To
Arise on Myspace. He contacted just as I was setting up a page for my radio
show. When I heard Never To Arise, the
Label Bug bit. I thought: “This stuff has to get out there!.” At the time, they
were raising money for the release and I thought “What the Hell, I’ll just give
it to them.” By the way, the new release is just about ready.
Bad God
Music was meant to be tongue-in-cheek like Bad Dog but most people took it
seriously and associated the name with only Black Metal. After a while I became
annoyed with blogs/webzines turning away my promos stating: “We don’t accept
Black Metal bands”. Also, the name began
to annoy me. It isn’t so much a name
change as a new label. My health became worse, as did my financial situation at
the beginning of 2013 and I barely got through the releases that Spring. I had
one more release as BGM in July and then I said to myself, “I think I’m done”
and considered BGM done. I didn’t tell anyone but lay low for a while and
skipped my radio show also. Near the end of 2013 I decided to pick up where I
left off as I still had some loose ends so I quietly started Cimmerian Shade
and the first two releases were in December 2013. I had to take another
extended break after Suffer Yourself’s ‘Inner Sanctum’ in March 2014 and
Aethyr’s ‘Corpus’ in February 2015 – eleven months between releases. So to
summarize: I consider BGM and CSR two completely different entities, although,
there will be bands overlapping on both rosters of course
Interestingly,
one of the bands on the label pointed this out to me the other day. Currently,
there are only two US bands on the label, and only one (Never To Arise) is
known to the public. For some reason, no US bands approach me. I did approach a
US artist I have admired for awhile and was floored when he agreed to release
something on my label. I will announce that in a couple of months. Otherwise
can’t explain it. Most of my sales are overseas and the bands that do contact me
are European.
I have
always been a fan of more extreme anything which has lead me down many a more
extreme path of everything.
I have
a favorite woman, vodka, dog and bike but other than that it is very difficult
for me to come up with favorites, making lists, etc.
I like
vinyl, tired of seeing only CDs in my shop and I think Nepente’s ‘Suffering Is
The Seed’ will sound like a headrush on vinyl. We are planning a couple of
cassette only releases also.
Facebook
is updated more regularly and all my website posts go to Facebook and Twitter.
Website is good for checking out archives, some sounds and links.
https://www.facebook.com/CimmerianShadeRecordings
There
are too many bands to thank but when I first lost my job and was sliding down
the slippery slope to Hell, music really helped hold me together and prevent me
from doing something I may have regretted before the doctors got their act
together. Treasure your health, family, friends, music and your life until the
end!
Oh yeah and support CSR!
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