A Chat with Fastlane Records Head Honcho Shawn C. Lane Part 1

Based out of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Fastlane Records is a great indie label which not only pumps out cool, unabashed melodic hard pop to hard rock and roll but they think big. I recently chatted with Fastlane Records owner and CEO Shawn C. Lane on what makes the label tick, what kind of music they are looking for and life in the iTunes generation. Part 1 runs today, Part 2 concludes tomorrow.

RRR: Tell me a bit about the label. How long its been going, what the mission of it is and what kind of music makes the FastLane grade?

SCL: FastLane Records originated in 1994 when I was managing a local band that was starting to take off at the time called Erotic Suicide. There was a buzz from Japan to England on this band as MTV-Europe called them one of America’s brightest hope in music, but remember at this time grunge had really reared it’s ugly head and had taken over the radio and MTV among others and gritty/sleazy rock and roll that we were doing at this time had all but died. We decided in 2000 to bring FastLane Records to fruition 24/7 as an actual Label and open our doors to find the best newcomers and undiscovered/upcoming talent we possibly could in the hard pop to hard rock genre with a guitar edge/crunch.

Our mission from day one is what it still is, which is straight-up, non-apologetic, slap-across-the-face rock and roll with a flair for showmanship as well as great musicianship..’audio for your ears and a visual for your eyes’ we like to say. Gone are the days of what I call ‘Shoegazer’s’..bands that look like the brother’s of a frat house. Anytime you can’t tell the band onstage from the kids in the crowd..it’s a problem (laughs). We stay away from the cookie-cutter approach as other major/indie labels go for which is the flavor-of-the-week, I personally think that’s about as contrived and artificial as you can get. We recieve many demos per week/month and it would be so easy to sign everything that comes across your desk, but I’m to old-school and believe in ‘quality not quanity’.

The kind of music we strive and look for is the kind that gives you that heart-pumping, unadulterated feeling of a ‘real’ rock show when you paid your hard earned money and you got a band that looked and sounds like a rock and roll band. Image is just important as the music to us..it’s actually 50/50 concoction that’s why it’s so hard to scour the globe for the band that meets the criteria. We specialize in hard pop to hard rock, but were a very guitar oriented driven label.

RRR: One of the things you state that you are trying to bring back to rock and roll is showmanship. What do you mean about that and how are you going about achieving it?

SCL: Showmanship is such a lost art form. In the last ten plus years we have been de-sensitised in thinking that everything you see on the video channels look like the neighbor’s kid practicing in the garage, etc. I’m a product/child of the 80’s and weened on Motley/Ratt, etc and I also know the big hair and over-the-top antics, big hair and lipstick will never come back, but it also made Hollywood and the world take notice between 1984-1990 or so. Everyone borrows/steals from someone else and if your going to steal..do it right (laughs). We like to think we borrow from the yesteryear bands (circa 70’s/80’s) and add a modern day twist to the mix. The audience have grown weary of today’s products and with the absence of rock videos on MTV, etc it really has taken away from a lost art that used to move product. I think that’s why all the nostalgia acts from the 80’s do so well on packaged tours because people want to be entertained visually as well as by the music..it really is a univeral language.

We just basically incorporate that mindset into the millinium and set-forth to put out a great product that will sell itself on it’s own strengths and hope it appeals to the masses.

RRR: What are the bands currently signed to the label?

SCL: As of now we have American Anthem (which you may remember toured with Bret Michaels in 2003 as his opening band as well as his band for his set playing the Poison songs). We also have a great band from N.Y. called The Meddling Kids which are great power-pop/edged rockers that are just fantastic. We also have from Nashville the Red Carpet Rats who just are incredible in their songwriting and performance as their finishing up their record with Jim Ebert (Butch Walker fame) and it’s just a mind-blower. We also house Annex from Green Bay, WI..these guys are over-the-top showman with a awesome stage-show as they deliver a fury of anthemic structures songs that stick in your head for days. As of now their first single were releasing (uncensored/censored versions of the audio as well as a video to accompany it) called ‘Brought It On Yourself’ has been a staple on the podcast network for the last few weeks in the top ten world-wide of podcasters and climbing everyday. Radio will be serviced with the radio-edit version this month..this could really be the break-out song of this year indie wise. (Rock and Roll Report Radio has already played the “radio unfriendly” version a few times already! ed.) We also have other bands were finalising as we speak.

We also have some great tributes we have out, such as the NY Dolls tribute ‘Jetboys Of Babylon’ we did in 2005 that features David Johansen himself redoing ‘Babylon’ (at the time we did this the NY Dolls reunion was on the table and I was the one speaking with the late great Arthur Kane about doing something for this tribute, I was also the one to make him aware of the Dolls reunion show in England put together from Morrissey) it also featured FLIPP/Steve Jones/ The Alarm and many more. Right now, we have just finished a Rick Springfield tribute called ‘Working Class Dogs’ and it flat-out rocks and modernizes his hits into the millinium. In the works (on the subject of tributes) we have one to Cheap Trick called ‘Tricked Out’ which we have pictures and liner notes supplied to us by none other than CREEM magazine (for you older readers, CREEM was a major staple in rock magazines throughout the 70’s and part of the early 80’s) and there’s talks about one to the Beatles called ‘Beatle-Esque’ and also the SWEET called ‘Sweetness’..those latter mentioned are still in the planning stages.

RRR: I like the fact that Fastlane artists tend to have great hooks and harmonies, something that almost seems old fashioned in this day and age. Is this a concsious decision?

SCL: Absolutely, 100% on purpose and we stand by it as well as resemble that remark (laughs). Rock and roll has always meant to be fun, tongue-in-cheek, raunchy and full-on debauchery at it’s finest. You take great hooks/harmonies with a soaring, guitar laden crunchiness for the structuring and your not only appealing to the college kids/power-popsters, but also metal fans who appreciate the guitar playing and musicianship as well…really, something for everyone. It’s designed for universal appeal..hate it/love it, but you can’t deny/ignore it.
We feel were onto a formula that is timeless and has a market in every major outlet you can find our releases in the rock/pop section and not the Indie section nor the Alternative (god, I hate that term) section way in the back that know one can find/see.

RRR: With the record industry in such disarray and the sales of CDs declining according to most estimates, how do you see a small indie like FastLane surviving and even thriving in this iTunes world?

SCL: You roll with the punches and keep up with the modern changes in technology as well as anything in cutting-edge. I wouldn’t exactly call FLR a small Indie. Maybe a medium Indie (laughs). We also take pride in our packaging of the CD’s (remember the old Alice Cooper/KISS packaging) we incorporate all the visuals as well as adding props to go inside. We also have taken upon ourselves audio-wise to master all our releases in high-definition which is a huge plus as most Indies do not want that costs it takes for this process..it’s costly, but well worth-it in our book. Only afew Majors have dabbled in the HDCD format. It might change now as the popularity is growing from HDTV’S/HDDVD’S to HD Radio, but we have been doing it since 2004 and will continue to do so..more bang for your buck. iTunes we have totally embraced as well as other knock-off companies..the more the better. Word-of-mouth will always be the best form of advertisement no matter how many thousands of dollars you spend on print ads, etc. If something sucks, it sucks…you can’t shine shit.

Check back tomorrow for part 2 of our interview with Shawn as we talk about everything from podcasting and the power of the amplified guitar. See you then!

Mark

Unsigned Artists Wanted for Cancer Benefit Album

The music “contest” and charity program, Download For The Cure®, combines the ability for the independent music artist to both get heard and have their music serve a bigger purpose. Partnered with the most recognizable name in the fight against cancer, the American Cancer Society, Download For The Cure® is offering a national music search to select a 12 to 15 song virtual album exclusively available through iTunes.

All download proceeds from that virtual album will be directly donated to the American Cancer Society’s fight against cancer. Music artists have until May 15, 2007, to submit their two best songs to both further their career and help the fight against cancer. Please visit www.downloadforthecure.org for more information and to submit your music.

ANTV Wants Video Interviews

Adrenaline Nation Entertainment, Inc., which produces Adrenaline Nation TV, the leading channel for cutting edge independent music TV, innovative short films, motor sports, and adrenaline sports for the highly coveted 18-49 demographic announced today that it is asking all fans, artists, and music heads to help bring indie rock to the masses by conducting their own personal interview with their favorite up and coming indie band.

That’s right - ANTV wants you to conduct your own interview that will be played worldwide on Adrenaline Nation TV. The company’s highlight reel is at www.brandedentertainment.tv/antv.

To submit your favorite indie artist, please mail the video interview to: ANTV, 810 Dominican Drive, Nashville, TN 37228 — Attn: My Favorite Indie Artist. All videos must be in Beta, DVD or DV Cam

The 3 Amigos will be live tonight on CKUT 90.3 FM

Don’t forget to tune in tonight to CKUT 90.3 FM for our 3 Amigos Fundraising spectacular on the Drastic Plastic Program. Have a listen to great songs you know by bands you have never heard of. Enjoy and if you can kick in a few bucks for the station all the better!

Later.

Amigo Mark

RockPop Cover Story: “Frampton Comes Alive” by Richard E. Aaron

RockPop Cover Story: “Frampton Comes Alive” by Richard E. Aaron

“Frampton Comes Alive”, a photograph taken in 1974 by Richard E. Aaron, used on the cover of Peter Frampton’s 1976 2-record set titled “Frampton Comes Alive”, released on A&M Records

by Mike Goldstein,

The biggest-selling live double album of all time (such a big-seller that, in the movie “Wayne’s World 2″, Mike Myers’ character Wayne states that “everybody in the world has ‘Frampton Comes Alive’. If you lived in the suburbs, you were issued it free along with samples of Tide.”), the record made Frampton, who’d made a name for himself as a “teen idol” in the UK with his band The Herd and then with his guitar chops both in the studio and with the band Humble Pie, a household name. His band’s powerful live performances, as well as his use of the “Talk Box” effects device, made hit singles of songs such as “Show Me The Way” and “Do You Feel Like We Do”.

The record was a compilation of a number of performances recorded in 1975, including shows in California at the Winterland Ballroom and the Marin County Civic Center, as well as 2 New York area performances. There was so much material available that A&M decided to make it a 2-record set, doubling the studio workload of the band and master engineer/remixer Chis Kimsey (see photos, below). Once it was decided that this would be a double album, A&M’s art department needed to create an eye-catching package, and so our story begins…

In Richard’s words - “One day Peter Frampton, whom I had photographed many times by the early 70’s, called and asked if he could take my photo portfolio of him to A&M headquarters in Los Angeles. The senior art director was looking for a photograph for Peter’s next record, a live concert album. Of course I agreed but thought nothing more of it. Although I was already in demand as a photo-journalist, I had pretty much given up on ever having an album cover credit; art directors, it seemed, preferred studio shots.

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A few weeks later, I got a message on my answering service that Peter had called and that it was “very important” that I return his call in L. A. By this time, his career was beginning to take off, and the answering service operator was impressed that he had called — “Do you really know Frampton?”

The message came in at 9:30 a.m., which made it only 6:30 a.m. in Los Angeles. I reached Peter immediately, and he said, “Richard are you standing or sitting?” ” Why?” I asked. “Well you should sit. You not only got the cover of my LP but you also got three out of four of the shots inside the double album. ” (Editor’s note - Richard’s photographs of Frampton, guitarist and keyboard player Bob Mayo and bassist Stanley Sheldon were used on the inside of the gatefold). I was in shock. Finally, after three years, I got my first album cover, and it was from a musician who’s music I actually liked and who was also a friend. He knew that it was my first album cover and he congratulated me.

A few months later at a party for Peter in New York, he showed me a mock-up of the cover — a gatefold with a performing shot of Peter that extended over both outer sleeves. This was the first time I had seen the photo A&M had picked (Ed. Note #2 - interestingly, the shot used was taken at an earlier concert at Madison Square Garden in NYC and is not from one of the shows featured on the recording). The art department had put an extra diffusion filter over the photo to give the hypnotic effect to the viewer, a dreamy effect. The two background stage lights to the side of Peter’s head had been re-positioned to make it more symmetrical, and also some coloring added in selected areas on the print. At the time, the only thing that really bothered me was that the focus wasn’t sharp; I was trained to believe that every photo had to be technically perfect — no exceptions. What would my professors at New York School of Visual Arts and the Brooks Institute say when they saw it?

Through the years, colleagues would good-naturedly kid me about the focus. At first, I would say that I had purposely used a diffusion filter. Then, about 10 years later on a radio interview, I came clean — I told everybody it was out of focus. The album went on to become the biggest selling live LP in history, which just goes to show you: teachers, and critics, aren’t always right”.

BONUS MATERIAL - For this story, Richard went into his archives and provided us with 2 additional never-released photos he took to document the making of this classic recording. Both images were taken at Electric Lady studios in New York City in late 1975 during the mixing sessions for the “Frampton Comes Alive” record.

The first photo shows Peter with his then-girlfriend Penny McCall (long before their famous palimony suit), the late Bob Mayo, and studio/mix wizard, producer Chris Kimsey. Richard was invited by Peter to the studio - his first visit to the Hendrix-built complex - and asked if he could bring along his camera.

The second photo shows the three lads in deep concentration - they’d just been notified that this record was going to be a double LP and now they had twice the work to do!

Richard E. Aaron biography -

In a career that spans over three decades, Richard E. Aaron has shot still photography for a wide variety of media, ranging from feature films, television and video to corporate public relations, entertainment publicity and album covers.

Perhaps best known for his music photography, he was honored by Modern Photography Magazine as one of the “10 Best Rock Photographers” in the world, he has more than 50 album covers to his credit including “FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE,” still the biggest selling double live LP. He shot the first photographic rock ‘n’ roll cover of Time magazine - Paul McCartney/Wings Over America. All told, his work has appeared in more than 6,000 magazines, newspapers and books worldwide.

His extensive work in music photography (4,000 groups photographed) led to his first tour assignment, “Fleetwood: The Visitor in Africa” (RCA Records), a tour shot on location in Ghana West Africa. Similar projects for many top rock & roll groups around the world followed. He traveled through the People’s Republic of China for several months in 1986, where he documented the first Western rock group to record an album and tour.

He still he shoots music - as in music videos, CD jackets and publicity. A native of New York, Mr. Aaron and his photo agency have been located in Los Angeles since 1980.

He is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts (New York City) and of Brooks Institute of Photography (Santa Barbara, California) - BA,BFA,MA.

Click here to see all of Mr. Aaron’s works in the RockPoP Gallery collection.

Provided by the MusicDish Network. Copyright © MusicDish LLC 2007 - Republished with Permission

Update Your RSS Feed Subscription!

With the move from Typepad to our own server and WordPress there has been a change to our RSS feed. Please update your favourite reader with The Rock and Roll Report’s new feed:

http://rockandrollreport.com/wp-rss.php

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All fun little details that will be ironed out as we get comfortable in our new digs. Next week will be busy so get ready for some rock and roll fun!

Later.

Mark

What’s New?

There are a lot of great new features on the site now with more to come in the future so I thought I would point out some of the obvious ones before things heat up in earnest next week.

 You may have noticed that there is now a Share This button at the bottom of each post. If you click on it you will find a veritable treasure trove of Web 2.0 services that you can use to share the post with friends and colleagues if something really strikes your fancy. Like the review of the new Mainliners album? How about Digging it or sending it to your Google bookmarks? Loved that film review? Tell the world through Stumbled Upon or Technorati or simply e-mail it to your friends. The Share This feature is a great way to let other people know that you found some great rock and roll on The Rock and Roll Report and wanted them to check it out.

Another thing we have added is On Random Play. Nothing could replace going to your favourite local indie record store but if that isn’t an option for whatever reason, On Random Play is there for you. On Random Play is a work in progress. It is eventually intended to be a complete record store featuring both digital and hard copies of CDs of bands and artists we figure you will like based on the fact that you are reading The Rock and Roll Report.  Created in partnership with CD Baby and Amazon, it is currently now filled with CDs either reviewed on the site, played on the radio show or otherwise stuff that just caught our ear in passing. Click on any album cover and you will be able to listen to the CD, read about the band, find other stuff of a similar style and then finally buy the CD. The CDs right now are loaded completely at random and I am still loading them as you read this but it is a great way to randomly discover some cool music that you might otherwise not have found. If you like the music you are hearing then support the artist and buy the CD. It’s that simple.

Another great series that we have coming up is our film review column in partnership with The Video Beat called Matinee at the Rock and Roll Bijou. The Video Beat specializes in some pretty amazing and obscure rock and roll films, TV shows and documentaries from the ’50s and ’60s so we thought it would be fun to review some of these amazing visual documents to get a sense of the time in which they were made. The first series of posts in this feature will look back at the “Summer of Love” 40 years ago this year with a review of some interesting and “groovy” films, documentaries, shorts and TV series from that infamous era. It should be quite the trip!

That is just a few of the treats we have in store for you in addition to our regular series of record reviews, label spotlights and radio show features. Stick around as we add more and more rock and roll fun to the mix and if you have an idea for a feature or service by all means let us know!

Thanks for reading.

Later.

Mark

Save Net Radio!

Welcome to the New Rock and Roll Report!

Well it was a long time in coming but with the amazing assistance of Graham Ford at Sugartune who is a genius at web development (and puts up with my often inane questions!) the brand new Rock and Roll Report is here. Over the next few days we will be fine tuning the operation but I just wanted to give you all a quick heads up on what we have planned for the site and some of the new features that it contains.

You may notice that I am constantly referring to “we” when I talk about the site now. I am excited to announce that we have a number of new contributors who will bring in a bit of new blood and new voices in our quest to bring to you all that we think rock and roll is really about.

From Toronto, Ontario Tova Jansen has climbed onboard and will be bringing her unique take on what she thinks is hot and worth your rock and roll time and attention. Tova brings a wealth of experience in “the biz” and she has already contributed a few posts before the changeover. Expect more from Tova in the near future.

From Cleveland, Ohio (hello Cleveland!) we have Matheson, a writer whose mission in life is to bring to your attention some amazing unsigned bands and musicians who unfortunately suffer for the lack of adequate publicity. Matheson also writes for the Cleveland-based magazine Exciting City where he covers the local Cleveland scene. A kindred spirit indeed, I am looking forward to what Matheson will bring to the rock and roll party.

Finally, we have Mr. Graham Ford himself. The man behind Montreal indie supersite Sugartune has pledged to not only help on the technical side of things but to bring his distinctive views on rock and roll to The Rock and Roll Report. We are in fact collaborating because I will be contributing as well to his very cool blog called the Indie Rock Blog so make sure you check that out often.

That’s it for now. There are a number of exciting new features to the site which I will talk about over the next day or so in addition to some plans that we have for the near and mid-term that will be a blast once they get going. One thing that will not change will be our focus on scouring the globe for niche-free rock and roll that will bring a glimmer to your eye, a smile to your face and a shake to your hips. The best is yet to come! Welcome aboard.

Later.

Mark Boudreau

Please excuse the mess!

 
Welcome to the brand new Rock and Roll Report! Please take a look around while we make some adjustments. Expect regular postings to start back again on Monday, April 30th!

A big thank you to Graham at Sugartune for going above and beyond the call of duty!

I’ll be introducing you to the new features and contributors a bit later but until then wander around and enjoy!

Later.

Mark

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