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June 12, 2007
Sounds from a Distant Past-an interview with Mike "Rep" Hummel from Mike Rep and the Quotas
the inventor Nikola Tesla holding in his hands balls of flame
On December 6th, 1877 Thomas Alva Edison (lead guitar and vocals) made the first recording of the human voice by performing “Mary had a Little Lamb” on a tinfoil cylinder phonograph. Historians and archivist have yet to find it, but I’m sure if they dig a little further into the liner notes they would find the phrase “lovingly f$cked with by Mike Rep.” Around Columbus, OH he is stuff of myth and legend, (I hear if you gaze into his eyes you turn into a lo-fi recorded cassette tape…) Mike “Rep” Hummel and his tag “lovingly f$cked with by Mike Rep” have found their way into some of the most original sounding albums in the last three decades. From his monumental use of 4 track cassette and lo-fi recording techniques on Guided By Voices’ Propeller to the present where he was recently credited for slipping a cassette of what would become Times New Viking’s Dig Yourself to the Philadelphia record label Siltbreeze, Mike Rep’s ear for making bands sound great has become somewhat of a franchise.
All of this and I haven’t even mentioned the fact that he and his band Mike Rep and the Quotas have been making music on and off since the Nixon Administration, creating a contagious tour de force blending Sabbath’s grandiosity of sound with the celebratory fun of the Ramones.
Here are two songs from 2005's Black Hole Rock
Rocket Music On
What better way to start off an album then with a yelp? I'm surprised more albums don't start this way, even instrumentals...
Harrisburg Trilogy HM My Mind
This is the second song in the Harrisburg Trilogy which I had to include for the following lyrics:
In my cosmic reality it's still 1973/ No friends & no attention span/ I’m getting high with Iron Man/
Heavy metal has destrooooyed my mind/
After listening to Mike Rep and the Quotas’s Black Hole Rock I decided to pack my bags for a quest to track down the man of Columbus Ohio lore and ask him a few questions. Luckily he has a computer, and I didn’t even need to leave my living room to get some answers from Mike Rep Hummel.
Below is our Q&A which touches on topics such as his recording philosophy, his record label OLDAGE/NOAGE, recording in drummer Tommy Jay’s barn, and future projects with the label Columbus Discount Records. As you can see from his enthusiasm, Mike Rep and the people he chooses to associate with truly approach music as a labor of love. And if love chooses to be a bottle of Basil Hayden Bourbon and rocket fuel inspired music... so be it.
Yonah Korngold: I recently picked of The Harrisburg Ohio Sessions, yes I know it's been out for two years but lets just pretend the last two years did not happen and I am ahead of the game by writing about a great sounding record that I'm sure will stand the test of time and be as brilliant in 2007 as it is now in 2005.
Mike Rep: I think it will sound even better in 1905! If we can just keep time moving backwards I’ll be huge a hundred years ago!
YK: I wanted to write a piece on the Quotas and your philosophy
of sound for the music website merryswankster.com and was wondering if
I could throw a couple questions at you?
Mike Rep: Fire away Yonah! You caught me w/ a bottle of Basil Hayden & my feet up on the desk for a change.
YK: If you had the chance to lovingly fuck with any album in history since Edison's first voice recordings what would it be and what would you have done?
Mike Rep: Ah a fun question!: My late great old friend Jim Shepard used to joke about how we made records that would sound good on Edison Cylinders…Also one of my true heroes is Nikola Tesla, the man who basically invented A/C Current, radio transmission (NOT that fraud Marconi) and wireless energy transmission- he is worshipped in Europe as one of the Millennium’s great minds but basically unknown here….where would Rock N’ Roll be (0r anything our culture values for that matter) without A/C Electricity and Radio Waves????? As far as “L.F.W.” ing some record from the past, I think I could have made that album called Sgt. Peppers sound fairly decent…who was it that did that one again? I can’t remember, maybe it was Guided By Voices I think…
YK: Speaking of Edison, music has been around forever; recording music though is a pretty recent development in this sense of things. Are you interested at all in the future of recording or is there nothing better in your mind then a four track in a big empty sounding room?
Mike Rep: I am more interested in the sounds of the distant past than the distant future! A few years ago I read an article about how archaeologists found ancient pottery from Pompeii that had grooves in it created on the potter’s wheel. They spun them and talked into the grooves and you can hear the recorded voices!!! It might be a hoax though, I have heard nothing about it since., but the technology was there, we are an arrogant culture and then to underestimate the ancients…Other than that, I guess the answer is NO, I’m really from the Phil Spector school of recording I suppose- large rooms w/ the proper acoustics are ideal, but I like working in all kinds of environments really. For example all the Thomas Jefferson Slave Apts. Records we’re actually mixed in a shoe for example (A size 9 ½ steel toed boot to be exact) It was tight quarters but worth it!....As for the future of recording I am not a visionary…I suspect that it will never get better than Analog (waves of sound not little shit-bits of information) Perhaps someday someone might realize this and improve on Analog technology or at least advance the wave concept of sound…It’s all there in the Quantum Physics theories, we’re all just one big wave of existence, Brother, just one big wave.
continue reading the interview after the jump....
// Black Hole Rock buy
//Columbus Discount Records
//Siltbreeze Records
YK: Being from Philly I recently read how you have been credited with "reviving" Siltbreeze by slipping Tom Lax Times New Viking. How did this come about and was Times New Viking the last thing you slipped to Siltbreeze?
Mike Rep: I just played the Times New Viking recordings I had “L.F.W.D. (Lovingly F$cked With) for TJ (Tom Lax Siltbreeze Records) when he came to visit one day & he said “I gotta put this out!” I was quite surprised, as only a few weeks earlier he was telling me he would not be doing any Siltbreeze stuff anymore… I mentioned this fact to him & he said “Well…Somebody’s gotta do it!!” He was right. And now the Lax-man is BAAAACKKK!!!!.... TJ is the best I’ve ever been associated with, he has true integrity unfueled by overt ambition, It’s about the love baby!... I like working with the “Columbus Discount Records” people for the same reason. It’s about the love, love over money, love over all that is rational and mundane… The music is what matters to them.
YK: Have you played any more in Tommy Jay’s barn? Anything else
recorded there recently?
Mike Rep: We play there all the time so YES…”The Barn Lives!” Currently we are rehearsing a group of the original suspects for the vinyl/CD re-release of (long-time songwriter cohort & Quotas drummer) Tommy Jay’s Tom’s Tall Tales of Trauma (an OLDAGE/NOAGE Cassette-only release from 1986) to be released on the “Columbus Discount” Label this summer which will ALSO include BONUS TRACKS on THE CD! Tommy Jay deserves a lot more attention than he has gotten mostly being in my shadow, and it’s been a lot of fun getting back to our roots and shedding some light on his many talents! Besides that, the Quotas rehearse there regularly & I/We have mixed several recent recording projects in the barn also that will be released this summer (see details in the next few questions).
YK: I've read you say that your label OLDAGE/NOAGE as a stepping stone
for artists Do you still see it like that?
Mike Rep: Yes I do Yonah. Once bands start getting “ambitious” about their careers its usually time to move on-like the baby chick on the tree limb ready to take off in flight is a good analogy. I stay involved as long as I can contribute positively, but ambition usually breeds more complex relations w/ groups (& their future-label suitors who also hear what I do as “demo-quality”) So they tend to “evolve” away from my influence. As well they should in most cases…. So, Yes, I guess I see what I do as a stepping stone, and hope for the best for all those who keep steppin’ on. I only work with musicians I believe have the potential for greater things than my 4-Track frenzy (or at least learn to do it for themselves!)
YK: Do you still use cassettes?
Mike Rep: Yes I very frequently do- usually “Maxell UD-XLII””s (60 mins. Long when I can find ‘em, nice n’ Thick for Saturation) In the mixing & recording process when I can’t get a working Reel- to- Reel – I do not record digital, although I find digi-tech useful in the mastering process- once the analog is there to duplicate the current digi-tech usually does a pretty good job of apin the original analog sound- I recently did a couple of bands on a Tascam Postastudio, recording them live at USEDKIDS Records in Columbus, OH. (Among other places) It was a true pleasure & the fruits of much of it will soon be heard by the willing…
YK: Is it true that you have a project in the works with Columbus Discount Records if so this is pretty exciting, can you talk about it?
Mike Rep: A 7” of the Guinea Worms, a band that has been around here awhile making CD-R’s that I think are now starting to really blossom- recorded as said above @ USEDKIDS on my 4-Track Tascam “Portastud” (Jerry Wick- of Gaunt once took a black marker & blocked out the “IO” in “Postastudio” on my deck so that my machine would read “Portastud”- I miss Jerry a lot…. Also Tommy Jay & I recorded a 7” with Necropolis live in their wood- slated rehearsal space (great acoustics) which along w/ Guinea Worms 7” and the Tommy Jay LP/CD they will all be coming out very soon on CDR. I would be remiss also if I did not mention another project recorded @USEDKIDS; A live-in the studio peel-style sessions with local hard-rockers Mors Ontologica. a band I will be involved more in the future- If it were 1973 they would be the next “Stranglers” or maybe “The Saints” they are along those lines…. “Guess I love ‘em to death,” to quote Mr. Alice C……
YK: In your constant reality is it still 1973?
Mike Rep: "NO FRIENDS & NO ATTENTION SPAN / I'M GETTING HIGH WITH IRON MAN / HEAVY METAL HAS DESTROYED MY MIND" - Other than my music interests its more like 1473 in my mind, Maaaan........ pass me that Jimson weed pipe ha!
YK: Is there going to be a sequel to the Harrisburg, OH sessions called
the Harrisburg PA sessions?
Mike Rep: A funny historical oddity is that our little town of 300 was actually named for Harrisburg, PA. A city that our village’s founder greatly admired (he made his money driving cattle and homegrown peach brandy back to Maryland annually in the early 1800’s!) BUT the answer is…NO. Harrisburg Ohio is a unique place, I’m going to stay here as long as I can….
YK: Thanks Mike, I really appreciate it. After my first listen to Black
Hole Rock I had one of those great musical epiphanies where all of the
sudden you get mad that you hadn't been exposed to this kind of sound
earlier. Can't wait to hear more.
Mike Rep: Thanks for the kind words, I am very proud of Black Hole Rock & hope this Q&A will inspire more folks to check it out- and there will be more new Rep & Quotas coming soon! We are just finishing up a 10” EP For “Columbus Discount Records” that should be out in the late fall. Also watch out for a CD (w/ lotsa bonus tracks!) Reissue of Stupor Hiatus (on Siltbreeze of course) “In Due Time,” So until then….Rocket Music On- Keep up the good work Yonah & CO.!
Mike Rep and the Quotas:
Mike “Rep” Hummel- Vocals + Guitar
Johnny Furnace- Lead Guitar Sonics
Nudge Squidfish- Bass
Tommy Jay- Drums
Posted by Yonah Korngold at June 12, 2007 12:12 PM
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Comments
Nice get Yonah. Propeller is an all time favorite, and Times New Viking is pretty choice as well...
Posted by: Jeff K at June 12, 2007 01:15 PM
thanks man. With GBV and the scene in the Columbus area, it seems that Ohio would do more then hold their own in a state by state battle royale.
Posted by: Yonah at June 12, 2007 05:05 PM
