Bomp! Records was formed by three-chord scientist Greg Shaw in 1974 as an attempt to breathe life back into rock and roll. That’s ‘74, the same year your folks were getting down to the chilled out sounds of Jim Croce, suckas. Now helmed by Suzy Shaw and her husband (Alive Records head Patrick Boissel), Bomp! continues to put out quality sounds for the true believers. Suzy Shaw was nice enough to take time out of her schedule to answer questions for the FSS.
Why did you choose to carry on Bomp yourself?
It was never an issue or a choice, it’s just what I do and have always done. Greg was, of course, the creative genius, I never signed a band or wanted to, but I was always right there taking care of the daily business. Greg hadn’t been actively involved in the company for quite a while before his death, he was sick for a long time. Patrick (my husband and owner of ALIVE RECORDS) and I had been pretty much running things for years by the time of his death. Greg did sign some bands not long before he died, but he didn’t come into the office or have much to do with the actual day to day work, we would take care of all that for him. Of course I will not add any new bands to the label, that was Greg’s part of the business and I wouldn’t presume to add to his body of work, but Patrick and I work with what is already there, remastering and reissuing some of the existing titles. And I have always run the mail-order by myself, so nothing changed there.
Bomp! has gone through almost every aspect of the music business: magazine, label and distributor, how important was it that Bomp! have complete control over what it did and wanted to do?
Suzy and Greg (circa 1970)
Greg and I were both VERY independent, neither one of us wanted other people making decisions for us. That’s all the fun of what we do anyway, we come up with ideas and make them happen, or not, sometimes things fail miserably, but at least it was our own doing. Our brief association with the majors made us very hesitant to try it again. Patrick is the same way, we prefer to do it our way or not at all. There are inevitable conflicts when you are working with other companies or people; everyone has their own way of doing things. We like to work alone.
How has Bomp! managed to stay one step in front of the rest without having a “commercial” hit?
I’m not sure we STAYED one step in front of rest, but we were probably one step ahead to begin with! Greg was a terrible businessman in spite of his brilliance, an absolute failure at making money. (See my stories in the Bomp! books for a good laugh and the evidence!) He would come up with amazing ideas… the first rock and roll fanzine, the first indie label, the first distro for indie records, etc, etc. It’s a long list of “firsts”. But he couldn’t make the connections needed to make things happen, or focus on one thing for too long, always off to the next project. Money and talent have little to do with one another, it’s not unusual. Greg’s solution to our inability to have a hit record was to hire a staff of people with suits and ties; he figured they knew how to talk to the other people with suits and ties, a talent that we lacked. Unfortunately the “business manager” he hired was actually a failed insurance agent, whose main advice had to do with building shelves. Going bankrupt? Build some shelves! The advice didn’t really work out too well and it cost us a fortune. (Between the shelves AND his salary…) We eventually got rid of the staff of 12 and downsized Bomp!, our attempt to play with the big boys was all a huge waste of time and money. The closest thing we had to a “hit” nearly bankrupted us anyway, the staff had forced the initial sales, but the records came back later. (That was the Plimsouls record) Lesson learned, keep it small!
How important do you think rock and roll is to America ?
Not very. I wish I could say there was a huge market, or that there was about to be, but it’s always been a niche. Of course I’m talking about the style of rock and roll that we do, to define the term. But America is a big place, and I’m talking about percentages here, probably 99% of America doesn’t care one bit about rock and roll. On the other hand there is a very vocal and enthusiastic minority that is passionate about music. Labels like us will survive selling to that niche, it’s pretty stable. But I’ve seen some labels try to expand beyond the market and go right down the toilet.
Has Bomp! changed how it handles business now that we are in the digital age?
Absolutely, I can’t think of anything that’s the same as it was 10 years ago, or even last year really, it goes very fast. We have to constantly adapt to the changes in the ways of doing business. 10 years ago our catalogue was print, now it’s all on line. And we do a lot of digital sales now too, as most labels do. We’re entirely dependent on the computers. If the computers are down, the only thing we can do is maybe clean the warehouse or go home, there’s not one thing we do that isn’t all about the computer. I wouldn’t turn back the clock; I like it much better now. I look back on the pre-computer days and wonder how I did it. It seems insanely problematic. We are not inclined to think that the pre-computer era was “the good old days”, which I think a lot of people do. I love technology! Mike Stax found a GREAT quote from Greg, from back in the 70s; it’s an astonishingly accurate prediction of what actually came about. I didn’t make this up, this is printed in a magazine from 1979!
Greg Shaw
“Imagine 20 years from now, if every teenager could sit in his bedroom with a computer screen and terminal (and stereo speakers attached) and call up anything he wanted, from Billy Ward & the Dominoes to Ed Banger & the Nosebleeds-see what they looked like, read extracts from fanzines and historians who wrote about them, cross-referenced to other artists and sources, and above all to hear the music, and maybe even see film footage if any exists.” GREG SHAW
That shows you how far ahead of his time Greg was… he was waiting for the internet all along, and when it came along he jumped right on it.
Do you have any bands connected with Bomp! that were your personal favorites?
Sure, I have a ton of BOMP! stuff that I play all the time, too many to list really, and on a personal level I was very good friends with Stiv Bators, he was hilarious, we were good friends. And of course Nikki Corvette is a sweetie, and all the guys from the Nerves/Plimsouls are very nice. We are working with them now to put out unreleased material, just got a great live Nerves LP in and a Breakaways to follow soon. Iggy is fantastic, we’ve gotten to be good friends since Greg died. He’s been very nice to me. We’re working with him and James, maybe some new projects in the works there too.
What do you listen to around the office?
I have a few thousand tunes on our Ipod… a lot of the classics, Stones, Who, Beatles, Kinks, and the newer ALIVE stuff is a warehouse favorite…. half of my Ipod is the ALIVE label….. Thomas Function, Black Diamond Heavies, Henry’s Funeral Shoe, Black Keys. Yeah, I know, I’m prejudiced, but I really like the label, a classic sound with a modern twist.
How much influence do you think you have had on pop music since Bomp!’s inception?
That’s very hard to judge, I think Greg had a big influence of people with his writing and ideas. Whether Bomp! changed anything musically on a large scale, impossible to say. I’m sure Greg influenced the whole Nuggets type reissues, no doubt about that.
What is in the cards for Bomp as time goes on?
We plan to keep the mail order going, of course, and maybe another book or two. The newest book, “Bomp! – Born In the Garage”, will be out in a few weeks, check on bompstore.com for details. I think it’s important for me to put back into print the material from BOMP! magazine, there’s so much great stuff there. All the early writings of Lester Bangs and Ken Barnes and Greil Marcus, the true greats of rock journalism. And on the label side, the back catalogue is enormous and just keeping that in print is a huge job. I wont be bored!
What is it about vinyl?
People are very emotional about vinyl, they see it as being more “real” that cds. Some people think it sounds better, some people love looking at the covers, some people collect all the colors of vinyl, just for the fun of it. I love it because you can’t download it, we lose a lot of cd sales from file-sharing and the like. We do a lot of vinyl sales now, which is a surprise because we thought the natural progression would be for it to vanish. Far from it…
Bo Diddley or Chuck Berry?
Go, Johnnie go! Greg was a big fan of Chuck Berry too, one of our favorites.
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Great interview! And an amazingly accurate 1979 prediction by Greg re. the iTunes/mp3 access.
Thanks