carried this new notebook around since Christmas and have not writtien anything in it yet! I’m up here on my second favorite bridge in Kreuzberg, Berlin- the one that connects Fraenkelufer to the Il Cassolare Italian punk-rock pizza place- over the gorgeous little canaI I walked along to get here. My first favorite bridge is the one at the far end of Görlitzer Park that looks down on the water and over the little improvised circus-style trailer-houses where some brave alternative community lives and has outdoor shows in summertime.
The white fluffy cottony things were floating down all around me, this sunny day as I walked past Kottbusser Tor, past the needle exchange and Fix-Point and the time wearied drug-ravaged people gathered round, nursing from Berliner Pilsners till their “medicines” kicked in. The white fluffy cottony things come from the trees and blow down in these warm, sun-shiny Spring days.
I am coming along today, smiling inside as I listen with this music player to freshly mastered versions of my own songs. Not only producing, but I learned alot from the years locked away in basements, garages, friend’s houses and small dark rooms where I was sure that the music I was making would certainly be heard, and maybe even enjoyed some day by actual human beings somewhere “out there” in the wide, whacky world. I think I composed about 2000 songs, or “pieces” or noise collages or ghastly symphonies- yet I seemed to never be able to take the NEXT big step to actually release them. Too scary, too difficult, too risky and far too expensive and maybe these songs weren’t as good as the ones I might create today, or next week……
The only actual real released records I was on as a songwriter were the very fine things that Sky Cries Mary created. I was one of seven musicians in that band, all of whom wrote the songs together quite organically. Also- my friends at Chuckie Boy released a CD of mine called Colour Twigs, many years after I recorded it. My group Absinthee released two songs (a cover of a Cocteau Twins song, and one original called 100 Crymes) on Cleopatra Records in Hollywood, and we had one of our songs featured on a compilation of Seattle bands in the 1990’s. Yes, thats all thats out there, up until NOW.
I started a fevered pitch, 5 years ago- to release ALL of my own music that I still enjoy listening to, as well as my favorite songs by all the other artists that I have produced/recorded/worked with, that never saw the “proper light of day”! I started with a modest list of 400 songs by 33 different artists. Here at Gordotronic we will begin by letting you hear some of my songs first, and then as momentum increases, hopefully we will get permission and advantage to show off the other cool/ creative bands, some featured and blabbed endlessly about on my Shoplifter Records page.
A word about my Shoplifter Records hmmm!?
Even in the pre-Grunge Seattle days I began hustling and recording some super-fine, innovative bands and tried to start my own label to showcase these talents. Green River- (which later branched into both Mudhoney and Pearl Jam), Soundgarden, Bundle of Hiss, Serious Dark Angels and Feast were some of the first rock bands that I recorded and wanted to sign, promote and release. There was also a very great project from my friend Tor Midtskog called The Violet Caste that I loved quite brightly. Young Gordon Raphael was extraordinarily “scattered” however, and no good at all in the art of getting organized- or business- or money matters; so I never really got it together.
Instead I got involved in setting up a recording studio/ music gang/ crash pad, housing project in an old church in Ballard, calling it the Ars Divina Network of bands, artists, characters and general freaks. This live-in art project took an immediate and funky dive towards chaos and discord, creating a huge mess– which I definitely participated in, along with a whole cast of lovely fuzzy warm characters.
Just as things there seemed to really start going, (we had a film premiere party with Barb Ireland, and were recording the Urban Rhythm Unit) the church burnt down in a mysterious, sad, scary, very hot fire, and along with melted instruments, burnt Hammond Organs, and Synthesizers turned to ash- the curtain closed on that chapter, very abruptly. The neighbors cheered when that place was gone. They hadn’t appreciated the punk-rockers and homeless kids jumping onto their garage roofs, dancing on their automobiles with dirty boots or pissing outside after parties under the bright streetlights.
Many years later, in a quite different life, I moved to London and was granted funding for Shoplifter Records through Sony, thanks to Mark Chung- a super-cool guy who really did play bass in Einsturzende Neubaten– a German band that was always a big favorite in Seattle when I lived there. Sony SINE offered to give me funding for any band that I could sign– wow!! and finally!! I immediately went after Miss Machine, Kill Kenada, Regina Spektor and The Satellites (from Mallorca). We put out two Miss Machine singles, and had just released Regina’s unbelievably-fabulous-amazing and classic Soviet Kitsch, when things started to disintegrate / fall apart. For reasons that I will not describe- we mysteriously lost all of Sony’s money while I was away in New York recording The Strokes for First Impressions of Earth, so they canceled and dropped Shoplifter Records! The End.
HOWEVER, now, with a clearer vision, with lessons learned after many days reviewing this energy and experience, I have a new outlook and a new chance with GORDOTRONIC to move forward again. Thanks for reading this and I certainly hope you find inspiration and amusement in the music here.
xx Gordon Raphael, Head Shoplifter
