Spooky Records: 10 Years On

As Melbourne’s Spooky Records celebrate 10 years in the business, TREVOR BLOCK takes founder Loki Lockwood for a stroll down memory lane.

SPOOKY001: The Last Gasp by Spencer P. Jones

I guess we should start at the start, really.
That came about because [my partner] Jasmine and I were thinking about starting up a label, and were already approaching people to see if anyone was interested. I was doing live mixing for Spencer at the time, and had done a fair few shows for him. Just from chatting, I found out there was an album being recorded, that was maybe half or three-quarters done. I got to hear it, and it just seemed like a fucking killer record to start a label with. And it gave us some instant credibility too. Every time I listen to it, I hear that crazy production that Tony Cohen did, it’s spectacular. It’s unusual because it’s a big band record, there are something like 14 people playing on it at any one time. I think Spencer found it hard to get anyone to put it out. Everyone thought it was a bit too left of centre.

I guess that’s one thing Spooky has always prided itself on, we’ve always deliberately tried to keep things left of centre. There’s not a lot of commercial merit on the label at all [laughs]. But I think that attitude has added to our longevity, and the respect we get from people overseas.

Do you think people still start up labels thinking they are going to have massive hits?
Well, I’ve got to say that there was a little bit of that in our business plan too. But clearly, it didn’t work out that way.

I like the way that you started out with Spencer, and you kept up your relationship with him for years.
Yep, all the way through to his last album, Fugitive Songs. It helps a label to have continuity, a roster of people you have developed a good rapport with. I’ve always been a firm believer in not taking on anyone unless it was part of a bigger picture, a plan to stick with them for a while.

SPOOKY006: Here Come The Lies by The Drones

But not all artists stick with their labels. Case in point: The Drones.
That’s a good album. I got involved with producing that about halfway through, with Dave McCluney at Atlantis Studios [in Melbourne]. A lot of our records get made at Atlantis. I think we may have got in a bit too early with The Drones. I remember around the time this came out, a lot of people didn’t really seem to “get” them, especially live. And we weren’t seen as being capable of pushing them far enough. People thought we didn’t have the resources, which is a fair enough call. That’s always the big problem with an indie label, the lack of resources. You have to be far more clever with what you do. I did mix and produce Wait Long By The River for them, too, which went absolutely ballistic.

I remember seeing them around the time Lies came out. It would have been a very brave person who had faith that they’d take off the way they did.
Yeah. The Tri-State Lovers were similar in a way. They were just these kind of nobodies, but they made a great fucking record [No Love], which is still very obscure. I thought it was a worthy … I dunno, a document? A worthy document of a great band. They played one show [at The Tote in 2007] when it was released. But two of those guys from Tri-State – Jensen and George – went on to form Deaf Wish, and now they’re playing Flip Out, they’re on Stained Circles. Sometimes you just can’t tell what’s going to happen. And The Drones are a good example of that.

SPOOKY007: The Spooky Bootlegs, Volume 1

I like this one a lot.
This started out as an idea, just a wish list, basically. It’s all stuff by people that I was somehow connected with via doing live mixing. That whole album was pretty put together in one day. I just started phoning all the bands that I really liked at the time and said: “I’ve got this idea, I’m gonna do this thing, have you got any outtakes I can use?” It was partly done to help raise the profile of the label, as well as The Drones, The Devastations and The Double Agents, who all had albums coming out around then. But I knew there was a lot more great stuff lurking out there. Like, I knew Spencer had tracks. But it really was just a case of me getting on the phone and talking to people. Some fucking amazing things turned up. And this was probably the first record that I actually mastered as well. [It’s] got that nice crisp sound on it.

Any plans to do Volume 2 at some stage?
Oh, yes, I’ve got plans, and I’ve definitely got one track set aside for it already. There’s probably a load more out there now, everyone has had a couple of years to accumulate things. I’ll have to make some more calls, I guess.

SPOOKY017: Low Life by Beasts Of Bourbon

The Beasts are kind of a big-ticket item.
Spencer was instrumental in us doing that. He’s always been very supportive of the label. He got me the job doing front of house sound for a couple of gigs, and the band and I got talking and someone decided we should record them. They did two shows, the first night was pretty woeful, but the second one was fantastic. Then we spent a night mixing it, it was done really really quickly. We put it out here, it also got released by Munster Records over in Spain on vinyl. It still sells too, it just keeps ticking over, which is fair enough. It was a great performance, just one of those classic Tote nights.

SPOOKY019/020: Cane Trash/Train Crash by SixFtHick

Speaking of classic Tote nights…
Ah, yes, the Hicks. I’ve been working with them for a while now, and I’d wanted them on Spooky for a while before that. But they had a good deal, a lucrative deal, going on somewhere else to begin with. I did their live sound, and we were good friends through that. Eventually, they needed a new home. It was pretty much a given that they’d come to us, I think, and it was great that they did. And I think it was a good moment for them too, because – and I don’t want to sound bigheaded or anything here – but when we teamed up and got into the studio, we made a fucking cracking album. Something really seemed to gel for them on Cane Trash. And, of course, the matching live album, Train Crash, which came out with it initially. Another one recorded at the Tote.

I find the comparisons to the Beasts, and the focus on their onstage antics, a bit puzzling at times.
Yeah, that shits me. I just don’t hear it, and I know both bands’ sound pretty well. And fuckwits who say the Hicks are no good on record shit me too. There are a heap of tracks on their albums that are just killer. We were down at the Brisbane Hotel in Hobart the other week, and they were playing On The Rocks on the PA in between bands. They told us that they play it there all the time.

There’s an ABCTV documentary about them due out on jtv, it’s taken a couple of years to get done. It’s a pretty substantial doco, I think it runs for an hour or so. Hopefully people will see that and finally be able to get a better idea of what they are about. And they are planning to get back in the studio early next year too.

SPOOKY020: Beat Me by Electric Eel Shock

Your only international act. Well, the only one so far, anyway.
Yep. A great Japanese band. This was done around their tour here a couple of years back. It’s a fucking great record, they have an awesome stage show, they had a great film clip – the works – so I thought, “Well, this is gonna be OK.” But nope. We lost money on this one. I actually set up a little side label and did a record by another Japanese band, The Gimmies, prior to doing this, and I lost a little bit of money on that. I thought that The Gimmies may have been a bit too gritty, and that the Electric Eel Shock album would do better. It had really great production and kick-arse songs too. And they were going to tour, so there was going to be plenty of exposure here. But no, it didn’t work out.

Would you ever consider releasing an international act again?
No. Nope. Nuh. Never – forget about it!

SPOOKY028: No Love by Tri-State Lovers

Back to the Tri-States.
We recorded this back in 2005, having met them at various places around town. There was just something that I really liked about them, and they wanted to make an album, so we went off and made a record. But as a band, they were pretty much finished, and they give it up soon afterwards. This sat on the shelf for 12 months or so, and every so often I’d put it on and say to myself, “This is a fucking good record.” It’s quite a “story” record, almost like there’s a narrative running right through it. And it had never seen the light of day. Eventually I said to Jensen: “Right, do one more show, just one fucking show, and I’ll put it out.” And they did. They did one night at the Tote with Digger & the Pussycats, and it sold out. I don’t think I made any money on this one, either, but so what? I’m glad it’s in the catalogue.

SPOOKY029: Let’s Go To Hospital by Digger & the Pussycats

We probably should talk about Digger for a bit, because you’ve done a fair bit with Sam and Andy, haven’t you?
Yep. They’re a hard-working pair of boys. As we sit here talking, they are over in Europe again, on what must be what, their seventh or eighth trip around Europe. Though they cheated a bit. They did two tours during the three months they spent living in Berlin a while back. They’ve been over there pretty regularly for years now, they are on top of the garage rock circuit there.

I know that SixFtHick have been there a couple of times too. You don’t seem to have trouble getting bands shows over there.
There are some really great people over in Europe, who have been really supportive of the label and of the individual bands. Whether that means getting our stuff out on vinyl, offering us shared tours, a bit of help with financing trips, whatever. Seb from Beast Records can help with shows through the whole Brittany area of France, so that’s at least five shows you can book first off, which is a great start. He’s a good man.

SPOOKY031: All Hail The Drunken Liar by Sailors and Swine

Some more local boys.
Indeed, and another great album. Maybe it didn’t do as well as we – the label and the band – would have liked, but once again, we’ve never really been about sales. It’s always been more about a certain quality, a certain … I don’t know – not a certain musical style, or a specific “Spooky” sound, although maybe in a very broad sense there is one, I guess.

Lots of guitars and shouting?
Well, yeah, there’s a bit of that. But there are no girls, either. Well, there are a couple – Kim from The Double Agents, Fiona from The Drones and Fiona from the Bakelite Age – but there’s not one band that has a woman out front all the time. Kim’s are the only female vocals in the whole catalogue. That’s just odd. It’s not deliberate, and we have been looking to see if we need to remedy it.

I’d guess doing live sound you’d get to see a fair few new bands. Do you get sent many demos?
I get them all the time. Occasionally I’ll just go, “Fuck, I’ve got another bunch of demo CDs I haven’t listened to yet”, and just sit down and go through them all at once. I’m pretty ruthless, though, I reckon you can tell within about two minutes if it’s something worth having a really good listen to. One thing for me is that even for a demo, presentation is critical. If I get sent something with a crap photo, for instance, that doesn’t help a band’s chances. Running a label, I think image is really important – not just for the band, but for the records too. If you look at all our records, there’s always some sort of clear, dominant image on them. Just look at SixFtHick’s covers.

SPOOKY032: 53rd. State by Hugo Race & True Spirit

Like Spencer, Hugo’s a long term stayer in the game.
He’s been with us a while. He’s fucking really big over in Europe, but those aren’t records that we put out. He was booked into Atlantis to finish this and to mix it. It was done half in Europe and half here, and the engineer that was meant to do it pulled out at the last minute. So I got a call and I said, “Don’t worry, I’ll fucking sort it out.” We went in the next day and got it all done. I think it’s a fantastic record. Hugo’s pretty much based back here [Melbourne] now, though he tends to be away about three months of the year. Lately he’s being doing this stuff he calls “dirt music”, you’d have to ask him to explain that to you though, it’s this kind of tribal sounding thing. He’s got people from all over the place involved in that. He’s just come back from a tour playing some really odd and interesting places around the world, for about the past two months or so.

SPOOKY 034: Shoot The Messenger by The Bakelite Age:

Link [Meanie’s] current outlet. Good on record, great live.
Once again, this shows how we’ve always tried to be supportive of the old cunts in the industry. Link had a stellar career with The Meanies, but his songwriting has gotten so much better now. I think he’s brilliant. Particularly on this one. The band didn’t have a lot going on towards the end of 2007, so we started making this. Then he broke his collarbone onstage, which slowed things down. We got together randomly, and did a load of really nutty sessions, from dusk till dawn, where we fucked ourselves up and experimented like crazy. I think this is a fucking killer record. We were really happy with it. You can’t explain what it’s about. It’s very emotive, I think you can hear that we got a lot of joy from making it. Anything I would suggest, about ideas for production, he [Link] would take and run with it even further. And the mixing was the same. I think we managed to make the record that Link really wanted to make. I’ve entered it in the AMP [Australian Music Prize] this year. This and The Stabs.

SPOOKY035: Dead Wood by The Stabs

The new boys. You were saying earlier that there isn’t a Spooky “sound”, but this fits in very well with the rest of your acts.
Yes, it does. This was another case of someone coming to me to act as engineer. And when we were about halfway through the recording, I said to them, “If you need someone to put this out, I’m your guy.”

It’s funny to think that The Stabs would have trouble finding a label.
That’s probably one of the best things about Spooky having been around for such a long time, and also being quite picky about what we actually take on, what we present and how we present it. It means people are happy to bring things to you. We started out doing one song, for a split single, and what we basically did was go into the studio one night and do it, out of hours, for virtually nothing. We set up, they smashed it out, mixed it, left as the fucking sun was coming up, and they were wrapped at what we had. I’d really enjoyed working with them, and wanted to do more, and then they got in touch and said they wanted to do an album. [Drummer] Matt Gleeson is just fucking awesome to work with, he’s a bit of a wild man. We didn’t really play much attention to producing his sound, because he just bashes the hell out of everything and produces the sound that he wants himself.

Is there anyone who you have wanted to work with, or release, that you haven’t been able to get?
Off the top of my head, I can’t really think of anyone. I really liked the Holy Soul’s first record [Sign of the Triangle], I thought it was awesome. And I wouldn’t mind someone from Sydney, because along with no women, we have no Sydney bands either. We’ve got Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide covered, and I guess The Drones were from Perth. I would’ve had Johnny Casino on Spooky if I could. He writes classic, absolutely classic, songs. I’ve got a lot of time for him. But he’s on Off The Hip, and that’s all right with me. Eddy Current I liked when I saw them but they seemed to have their own things already planned. And Graveyard Train, I love them too.

Got much planned for next year?
Well, I already mentioned the new Hicks album plans. Gentle Ben and His Sensitive Side should be finished with their new one soon too – they’ve been doing that in Sydney with Dave McCormack. Brian Hooper has been recording too, with Mick Harvey producing, and I love what I’ve heard of that. So, yeah, we’ve still got it all going on. Obviously, a lot of what we do is kind of interconnected somehow – like working with Spencer leading to putting out the Beasts – but it’s not all about old friends and friends of old friends. We are happy to take the plunge with someone like Tri-State Lovers, or Sailors and Swine. Unfortunately, as sales of CDs shrink, there’s less money for labels like us to invest in newer acts, to give them a chance.

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