User:Olive Juice Music/Sandbox

Olive Juice Music is a D.I.Y. label, studio, and mail-order distributor, based in New York City, interested in helping people who are in the developmental stages of trying to do something with their art. It is not a traditional record label. For the most part Olive Juice Music is a testament to what one guy, working out of his apartment, with a lot of help from his friends, can do.The artists associated with Olive Juice take an active part in how their music is produced, financed, and marketed. They in turn receive more of the profits gained from the sales of their records directly, which is how it should be. The strength of Olive Juice relies upon the active participation of its members to share resources and help promote a communal spirit among everyone involved as well as claiming responsibility for taking their art to wherever they would like it to go. Olive Juice Music is about independence and community. And if that doesn't sound cool to you, well then you're just going to have to buzz off, mister...

1998-99:

Major Matt Mason had a dream. A dream of joining forces with other like-minded musicians to get their music to more places than just their backpacks and bedrooms. The dream called Olive Juice first took shape in 1999, shortly after Matt recorded his first cd, Me, Me, Me, with fellow songwriter and recording engineer Tom Nishioka. He started chatting with Tom about the possibility of creating a collective/label called Olive Juice and involving both Matt & Tom's musical projects.

Nan came into the picture in the spring of 1999, after she caught wind from Jon Berger to check out this Major Matt fellow. She saw his show one nite at the Sidewalk Cafe and asked him out a short while later, thinking to herself, "What a catch. Not only is his music totally inspiring, but boy, is he cute". Schwervon! began soon after she and Matt began dating, and that became another band to include in the Olive Juice roster.

At this time, Matt was working at a post-production house, editing sound for commercials. He was able to use their studio at night to mix the first Schwervon! record, and also to record the debut Prewar Yardsale record, Lowdown. Mike Rechner had been playing solo for a while but had starting incorporating his wife Dina into the songs, playing buckets and singing. Prewar Yardsale was one of the first projects Matt recorded and it whet his appetite to make some changes. He quit his job at the end of 1999 to do freelance sound engineering and to devote more time to his music and the engineering of musicians. Tom Nishioka helped put up the first Olive Juice website, along with Chris Hart's help later (who has since moved to Paris). Prewar Yardsale, Schwervon!, Major Matt Mason, and Tom Nishioka (and his project Never Louder Than Lovely) were the first Olive Juicers. Soon Randi Russo, American Anymen, and Derek Richmond were welcomed into the OJ family too.

2000:

In the beginning they would meet monthly and have snacks and they even had a dues system and would use the money to take out ads in indie rags together. They helped each other get some press and they talked about the Olive around town and at parties. Somewhere around that time Toby Goodshank (of the Moldy Peaches) joined the team, and Peter Dizozza too.

They began having cd release parties & Olive Juice shows at Sidewalk Cafe and Galapagos and other NYC/Brooklyn venues and a community was slowly being created--though a lot of the acts met and were friends already through the antifolk scene and the Sidewalk Cafe.

2001- early 2002:

The team Olive decided that getting people together for monthly meetings was too difficult because of busy schedules and it was taking a lot of time to make simple decisions because they had to wait for collective agreement. They let Matt take the reins of Olive Juice as Executive Decision Maker. All of the artists were still promoting the label in various ways, but were free to act independently in regards to their music without checking in with the whole group.

After Matt was appointed Executive Decision Maker, he began to sell other musicians' stuff off of the site, on the On-Line Distribution Page... not just the people officially "on" the Olive Juice Label. This helped foster even more of a sense of community, not to mention the growing fascination of opinions expressed on the OJ Message Board.

Matt released an Antifolk compilation cd entitled Call it what you want with a slew of musicians in the immediate community and one who was far away, Daniel Johnston.

He and Nan moved in together the fall of 2002.

2002-2003:

Nan Turner (solo) & Pantsuit, American Anymen, & Brer Brian were added to OJ. Prewar Yardsale, Major Matt, Randi Russo, Toby Goodshank, and Schwervon! all were taking periodic trips to the UK and Europe. Mike and Dina had a baby named Harmon Gillespie Levy Rechner.

2004:

Knot Pinebox and Secret Salamander were added to the OJ artist pages. Major Matt tours the UK with his sister. Knot Pinebox moves to Seattle. Schwervon! tour europe with KImya Dawson. Matt's recording business picked up momentum ensuring that he didn't have to do freelance commercial editing anymore. OJ becomes a hotbed of new talent and added more artists to their pages: The Babyskins, Dream Bitches, Kansas State Flower, Snap Pusher, Double Deuce, and The Wigg Report.

2005-2006:

January 1st Olive Juice Music launches a brand new website designed by Yoko Kikuchi. OJ radio, a periodic streaming Internet radio show of Real Independent Music, begins soon after. Several OJ artists tour Europe. The good news of OJ Distro continues to spread throughout the UK, Germany, France, Belgium, The Netherlands and the rest of the world. The OJ Messageboard evolved into a community resource as well a center for discussion of topical subjects, philosophy, and good old fashioned gossip.

The OJ Vol. 2 CD is released and OJ distro's profile is amped by carrying the complete comic book works of Jeffry Lewis as well as albums by Cheese on Bread, Lisa Lilund, Bear Creek, Coming Soon, The Kitchen Cynics, Jack Lewis and many more.

Late 2005 sees OJ hosting regular live music nights in NYC's Lower East side at Bar 169 and in 2006 at The Cake Shop.