Stange, Wonderful, etc.

Mammoth Records at the End of the Empire

I purchased extra time on Spotify this month for the first time so that I could finish the audiobook of Tom Maxwell’s A Really Strange and Wonderful Time: The Chapel Hill Music Scene 1989-1999. I’m afraid I’m the perfect sucker for Spotify’s audiobook business. I need to spend a few more bucks to purchase a copy of Tom’s excellent book in physical form, because it’s fantastic. It’s truly one of the best books on the culture and business of music I’ve ever read. Don’t think about it - BUY IT!

Tom is particularly well-qualified to write the book because he lived it. He played in a series of locally significant groups I vaguely remember - Teasing the Korean, What Peggy Wants, Metal Flake Mother - before joining Squirrel Nut Zippers, writing and singing the band’s only real hit song. The book goes deep into the dysfunction and chaos of most of the bands, including some profoundly uncomfortable but all-too familiar stuff about the Zippers. The real focus of the book, however, is on the scene itself. The fertile combination of a young, educated population; low cost of living; great venues; college radio; business resources such as labels and studios; and a non-competitive, community spirit worked to produce a lot more fantastic and commercially relevant music than you’d typically expect from a sleepy Southern college town. That’s all super interesting, but the big payoff for me is the book within the book, which began as an oral history of Mammoth Records. I had a nearly decade-long relationship with Mammoth, which made it a fascinating and quite eye-opening. It brought up a lot of memories of my own experiences in the North Carolina scene and particularly with Mammoth Records.

A Tale of Two Indies

The story line invites comparisons between Chapel Hill’s two big indie labels, Merge and Mammoth, both of which started in 1989 (not coincidentally the beginning of the book’s story line). Merge Records began modestly as a way for local musicians - specifically Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance of Superchunk - to put out cassettes and 7” singles of their own music, then their friends music, and later full albums once they worked out real distribution. Mammoth began as a business plan by a Duke MBA student - Jay Faires - who managed the region’s biggest college band and interned for Irving Azoff at MCA. Jay saw money-making opportunities in the explosive growth of the CD market. Today Merge is one of the most iconic and consistently successful independent labels with an incredible catalogue of albums that they don’t even own - many of the artists keep their catalogue at Merge by choice after license terms expired. Mammoth is a dead brand that was sold to the Walt Disney Corporation for $25,000,000 nine years after its founding. Blake Babies signed to what we thought was a brand new cool little indie label with some ambition. A decade later it was a Disney Corporation asset putting out albums by The Teletubbies. Universal Music currently owns all its assets - including six albums I made for the label with three different bands. Merge and Mammoth represent two different versions of the music business, which is something we couldn’t discern at the time.

I’m sure back in 1989 most people would have bet on the MBA with the serious business plan over the cassette label that didn’t use contracts and shared costs with the bands. Someone could even make an argument that Mammoth had greater success at the end of the 90s because it sold for such an absurdly inflated price. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jay’s business plan included an exit strategy of selling to a major label purchaser for an 8-figure price. Mammoth cashed out and Jay got rich (or richer), but Merge still exists with a catalogue of indie classics, and they even won Album of the Year at the 2011 Grammy Awards with The Suburbs by Arcade Fire. I doubt the founders are conventionally wealthy today - it was never about enriching the founders. To me, there’s no comparing the two companies with the benefit of hindsight. Merge has always had an artist-centric, intrinsically fair business model, always shared profits, never to my knowledge tried to own artists’ copyrights.¹ Mammoth was about making as much money as possible in a booming industry.

Our Mammoth Story

My band Blake Babies started in 1986 in Boston. We were teenagers, college dropouts,² music obsessives hoping to figure out how to get gigs and maybe eventually make records and maybe even go on tour. We played around Boston the first few years, made a self-released LP titled Nicely, Nicely in 1987. The following year we met our producer, Gary Smith. Gary brought us in to his studio, Fort Apache, to make our next record. We didn’t have any money or real label interest, despite sending out a bunch of random solicitations, most of which were returned unopened.³

In 1988 I went on a summer tour with The Lemonheads and we stopped in Chapel Hill. I think we had some sort of show booked, but like most of the cobbled-together tour, it fell through. My brother was living there that summer post-college, and we took over the living room of his shared house for a few days to try to get another show. We called the UNC radio station, WXYC, and asked if we could come in for an interview. They were playing our new album, Creator, so they said sure, come on by. The music director Steve Balcom conducted the interview and we clowned it up, as usual. We actually got ourselves a show at a fraternity’s pool house, which is where we met pre-Superchunk, pre-merge Mac and Laura. I got Steve to play a couple tracks off Nicely, Nicely and I gave him the album. We either had our phone number on the jacket or I wrote it down, because a couple weeks after returning home from tour, Steve called our number.

He explained that he was going to work for a new label called Mammoth, and he invited us to come hang in Chapel Hill, talk about working together. My bandmates Freda, Juliana, and I decided to book some shows that fall and pay a visit, and our buddy Evan Dando - briefly in the band - came along. We had a great trip, even if very few people came to our shows. We fell in love with the South and decided Mammoth made sense. If we had a lawyer look at the contract, they certainly never explained it to us. All we knew was that they were going to pay us $5,000, barely enough to finish our sessions at Fort Apache. It was our big break, right? We liked the vibe, the people, and it just felt right. Right enough, anyway.

And it was right, for awhile. We became their breakout act, even if we weren’t making enough money to think about quitting our crappy jobs. I became good friends with Steve, whom I called practically every day to get updates on how many people around the country loved our record as it climbed the college charts. I’ll pause here to say whatever went wrong with Mammoth, Steve is a friend to this day and a person of integrity, a real music guy. Even when things got difficult, Steve Continued to believe in my music and put in the work on my behalf. Even when it was hopeless, he still gave a shit. He still took my calls, even called me from time to time. He’s truly one of the good guys and he made the experience a lot more enjoyable and successful than it might have been. It was an amazing time, early on, finally getting somewhere with our music. I looked forward to our daily calls, which for a time were mostly good news. I still couldn’t pay the rent, but the future looked better.

Like most bands, we had a rough time with our personal relationships as our star rose. We were kids; we didn’t have the tools to work through the inevitable challenges. We didn’t have a manager, though I now realize I was holding down that role as the primary contact with the label, agent, and others on the “team.” As our band struggled internally for control and direction, I’m sure it became obvious to Mammoth that they might end up with a successful solo act with Juliana. No problem; the contract provided for that. The label dynamic changed when Mammoth furnished one of their deals to a major label, making a tidy sum. Then the focus changed to finding a major partner for Blake Babies, and things got a little weird.

While our relationship - at least my relationship - with Steve Balcom always remained mutually supportive and friendly, we didn’t particularly enjoy Jay’s company. He’d go on these endless, monotone rants about the business, dropping names, talking about “units” and whatnot. We found all the business talk repellent, but we nodded along and did what was asked of us. We did want to make enough money to afford our rent in Boston, after all. Jay set up these label showcases and he’d come backstage before the show to “pep talk” us. Jay would tell us about all the big names in the audience, all the top A&R people and label heads. He’d say we’d better be great, because it would change all of our lives. This was our big shot! Then of course we’d go out there shaking in our boots and totally bomb.

Eventually we had enough interest from labels that they’d have us to LA to cut demos and take us out to fancy dinners. But this was in 1990 - nobody really had a frame of reference for what it meant to sign a band like ours. There were no big success stories yet - and truly nobody knew what to make of us. Everyone thought about how they could change our sound to make us fit in mainstream pop. This A&R producer guy who was the head of Columbia Records at the time told Freda and me to our faces that we weren’t good enough to play on our own record. He wanted to make a Juliana Hatfield album with session players, and then maybe we be in the video or whatever. He’d produced The Bangles, and he went on and on about how Susannah Hoffs was the star and the other members were dead weight, couldn’t really play, and complained a lot. That’s what it was like to talk to major labels before Nirvana changed the entire game; it was truly demoralizing. So what did we do? We broke up. Juliana made a solo album with session players. But at least they were people in our music community and not the flavor-of-the-moment L.A. gunslingers Mr. Douchebag had in mind. And we did get taken out for ridiculously expensive sushi a time or two.

Mammoth optioned both Juliana and me under a “leaving member” clause that cross-collateralized all of our projects - Blakes, Juliana, and me - under the same recoupable account. Juliana became the carrot to attract a joint venture deal with Atlantic Records, where Jay became the head of A&R in a deeply dysfunctional, internally competitive shitshow pitting indie against indie in a major label snakepit. I had a frustrating run over the next few years making records under the band names Antenna and Velo-Deluxe⁴ while Mammoth focused on integrating with Atlantic Records. I’d like to say I did my best, but it was a stressful time. I never really wanted to be a front person and it shows. I hitched my wagon to Juliana and Evan Dando for a reason - I knew they were personalities that could impact the culture. My greatest skill, the skill I rely on today, is having an ear for talent. On some level I knew I wasn’t personally going to move the culture, but it was humbling to see it play out. Although I had support and people rooting for me at Mammoth, after Blake Babies split I became more a liability than an asset.

Mammoth’s staff more than doubled in size in the mid-90s, and I hardly knew anyone who worked there. I remember swinging through Charlotte with the Lemonheads in ‘94 and meeting a bunch of Mammoth staff for the first time at our show. They were so young! For a time, Juliana was their biggest act, then it was Squirrel Nut Zippers. Then it was Seven Mary Three.⁵ It felt like they moved further and further away from anything resembling the indie music we favored. I felt no connection to their signings, little connection to Mammoth, and eventually a tenuous connection to rock in general as “alternative” music metastasized into a hit-driven radio format.

When Mammoth sold to Disney in 1998 I was still signed to the label, though it wasn’t on anyone’s mind. I hadn’t made an album in four years; I’d barely had a conversation with anyone there since 1995. I started getting my negative balance royalty statements with Mickey Mouse in his Fantasia getup on the stationary. I hired two different entertainment lawyers to get me out of my deal to no avail. I pored over my contract looking for a way out. Eventually I called the head of Business Affairs, David Agnew, in his office and explained that nobody else wanted to sign me, I just wanted them to finally drop me. That was in 2000, and he faxed me my termination the next day. The next year I started law school so that I could help other musicians navigate these sorts of situations, or better yet avoid them altogether.

I pretty much steered clear of music during law school and during the first couple years in law practice. I joined a corporate law firm in Birmingham and worked in finance. I got married and started a family. I didn’t have time to think about much else. Eventually, however, I found my way back to music and started working with artists as I’d hoped. In 2007 I spoke at the Folk Alliance conference in Memphis, and after my talk I ran into Jason Ringenberg from Jason & the Scorchers, a former Mammoth band. As we chatted Jason asked, “Do you ever talk to Jay?” “No,” I said. “Haven’t thought about him in a long time.” (A lie) “I’m sure he’d love to talk to you,” Jason said. “OK if I pass along your number?” I gave him my card, and Jay called me in my office the following Monday.

I did think about Jay from time to time, mostly thinking about all the nasty things I wanted to say to him. I was angry. But when he called I didn’t say any of those nasty things. We had a pleasant conversation and he had a lot of encouraging things to say about my post-Mammoth path. He invited me to stay at his place in Sewanee during Bonnaroo, and I took him up on it. He seemed utterly transformed, relaxed and friendly. I saw no trace of the hard edge he had in the early 90s, none of the competitive biz talk. I met a couple of his fellow houseguests who proved to be important in my life, including John Frankenheimer, who eventually hired me at Loeb & Loeb and gave me the opportunity to move to Nashville. I’m not sure what the lesson is, but I’m sure there is one. It’s either that people change, or else it’s about letting go of grievances and giving people a chance. Maybe it’s all of that.

My perspective today is that Jay was an ambitious young businessman who chose music. He could just as easily have chosen real estate if that were the hot market. I haven’t seen him since our Bonnaroo hang, but Google tells me he works in the wellness industry today. Nothing against him, but for some of us we didn’t choose music - music chose us. I don’t have anything to forgive Jay about because I went into that situation with my eyes open. Mammoth gave me my start, and the music is still out there on platforms, and we’re still reissuing vinyl records to an appreciative though modest fan base. I draw on the totality of my experience as a musician in what I do today in counseling artists, and I’m grateful for all of it.

I attended a Mammoth reunion at the Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill in 2009 and I played a few of my own Mammoth-era songs with former members of Seven Mary Three and Squirrel Nut Zippers. I had a blast and saw a bunch of old friends and made some new ones. Jay was nowhere to be found, but I heard his name more than a few times. Everyone had stories, some were still bitter, some like me just nostalgic. The music was still great, and the connections endured. Even if Mammoth died a sad death after all the money was sucked out, it still felt like a musical community…at least for one night at the Cradle.

1. This knowledge is based on doing numerous deals with Merge Records over the years, representing several of their acts. They make a certain type of deal (yes they use contracts now), and there isn’t much room to negotiate. Candidly there isn’t much need to negotiate because they are subtantively fair to being with.

2. Hatfield actually graduated from Berklee College of Music, such a nerd.

3. We “shopped” our songs to labels that put out our favorite records, Slash, I.R.S., Sire, Twin/Tone, SST, etc. We never heard back from anyone, but all the major label solicitations came back unopened without explanation. We took offense at the time, but now I understand it was risk management. If they kept the tape, or returned it opened with notes, then if we wanted to claim copyright infringement of anything they subsequently released, we would have an argument that the element of “access” had been satisfied - they heard the music because they kept our tape.

4. After the second Antenna album, Hideout, underperformed expectations and I (for the second time) significantly changed the sound and personnel of the band, Mammoth suggested I changed the name of the band. We were flailing by then.

5. Weird coincidence, I went on a hike this morning with the drummer of Seven Mary Three.