The Grapefruit Record club and Yuck single on Fat Possum

I wrote about this single Lonnie Eugene Meth had out on Unread Records a while back (which is still available from Unread). I loved his hushed 4-track bedroom recording sound few people can get away with no matter how accessible recording technology becomes. He emailed me the other day about a pretty amazing 12" record subscription series from Grapefruit Records he's going to be a part of.

Curated by fellow Omaha legend, Simon Joyner and composer Ben Goldberg you get a full length release every 3 months for the year...from who else besides Lonnie? Well... how about Lambchop, Richard Youngs and 200 Years which is awesomely a side project (?) with Magik Markers and Six Organs of Admittance members.

It's a good thing they accept gift subscriptions because I'm going to get someone who really likes me to spring for it.

I'm completely behind this model for distributing music...get people to support it on this small scale where the artists benefit directly from the fans...they release some unique material and we get super limited stuff that will make browsers of the record shelf drool.
Kind of like Jack White pressing his own stuff on 3rd man Records. Sure, I'll never be able to own any of it, but I'm glad it exists, and he's pioneering new formats of vinyl, which is pretty freaking nuts.
They joke about it being like the sub pop club without the singles, but it's done in the same spirit, and curated by people or an institution with a specific personal point of view.

They're only taking orders from Thanksgiving to Valentine's Day where all 300 subscriptions will be gone forever. Don't get all Jack White ebay on them.

Grapefruit Records is a subscription-only record club founded by Simon Joyner and Ben Goldberg to release exclusive and limited, vinyl-only LPs by dedicated artists, both known and yet-to-be-known. The only qualification required for artist participation is that both Ben and Simon love the music. Annual subscriptions include four quarterly released full-length LPs and a deluxe, hard-shell box to house the series of records that make up that year's roster of artists. The artists on Grapefruit are on loan and ever-changing so no subscription cycle will ever be the same.
By selling subscriptions directly to the public we avoid many of the expenses which make it difficult for traditional labels to make a profit. There are no promotional expenses, no distributor fees, and no returns. Since the number of subscriptions sold tells us exactly how many records to manufacture for a given year, we are able to pay all the participating artists up-front without ever having to worry about a record "breaking even" first. Additionally, the label's subscription-only distribution concept allows the established artists to share their audience with the lesser known artists featured on an annual roster. Grapefruit's mission is to expose fans to exclusive, challenging new music on vinyl while ensuring that the musicians actually get paid for creating their art.

The Tennis show last night reminded me of this single from Yuck, who I've been meaning to check out, the A-Side on this single "Georgia" has those layers of indie pop and fuzz with dual guy girl vocals. It's catchy and 90's guitar indie, which sounds good to me. If I'm not insane, they also have a sort of experimental mogwai giant sound slant at times as well. Interesting stuff. This will be gone fast.