1. HI BRAD…. PLEASE INTRODUCE YOURSELF…

Well it’s very kind of you to ask - I suppose you’re interested in my musical exploits. I’m one half of Merchandise with Conrad Astley who looks after the programming and keyboards/ samplers end of things while I busy myself with the guitar, bass, vocals and recording/ production end of things. I am also the bass player for Mazeppa, an indie band without the usual electric guitars but with grand piano and lush string arrangements instead making for some fine soaring live stuff. On top of that I also run Cityscape Records, a small indie which puts out the above mentioned loveliness and I record other projects I’m interested in with a view to putting them out when finances allow. The latest of these has been for an as yet unnamed band playing some wonderfully dark songs in a sort of Americana meets Violent Femmes meets new accoustic vibe. You might be able to tell that I don’t write our press releases!

2. TELL US ABOUT YOUR BAND MERCHANDISE…

Merchandise was something that Con and I put together at Uni. We met one night at some band jam session and drank a prodigeous amount of vodka. I awoke next morning to find him and another lad crashing in my flat and after reaquainting ourselves it turned out that we had agreed to put together a goth band. After one rehearsal that was thankfully axed and we ended up meeting to record electronic stuff. Over time we have gone back to song structures and now mix a lot of folk and rock influences with our electronica.

We write the songs together usually and the lyrics occasionally come from myself but more often from Roger Williams, a good friend of ours who writes lyrics such as those to Swallowing Curses in between writing his first novel. This usually works best as we just pick from a bank of lyrics that he’s written and put it all together with our music until we’re happy with the result: A sort of modern alchemy, except maybe Roger gives us gold and we turn it to base metal.

3. YOU ARE LO-FI BUT NOT… PLEASE EXPLAIN…

Well that’s your quote so I suppose you could explain what you mean better. I suppose what you’re getting at is that we have a fairly loose feel and use a lot of odd and unpolished noises and production but everything is pretty well recorded and mastered so although we take advantage of piles of odd instruments and sounds and record it all pretty cheaply we know how to use what we use so we get a good sound in the end anyway. I’ve always been attracted to unpolished bands such as Pavement or Bright Eyes. You don’t really know if a song is going to stay together or not and I feel that you can be a lot more human if you’re not trying to ape the perfection of a machine. But having said that, you can hear that they have contrived some of the sound at least on the newer recordings as they can often bring everything into sharp focus when they please. You can consider the lo-fi the artistic blur in a photo: while that is nice and adds character you do need some of your music in focus to give it some point. In our case lo-fi just means that we can’t afford better equipment but the limitations probably help us to get the best out of it. If we had the sort of money to book into a studio and record live strings and grand piano (like I managed with Mazeppa) then we would, we’d just probably manage to get a kazoo or a melodica or a moog over it at some point!

4. WHEN YOU ARE NOT PLAYING, YOU ALSO RUN ‘CITYSCAPE RECORDS’ YES?

Yes. That takes up a lot of my time as you can imagine. There is always so much to do and with a very limited budget you have always to make everything balance to the satisfaction of all. I enjoy designing the covers though and it gives a wonderful outlet for my photography. The finished product also gives you a great sense of satisfaction - especially with vinyl releases. And hearing back from people out there who’ve bought our records or reading reviews all helps make it worth it. For anybody wanting to go into it though, cost everything out - the expense doesn’t end with the finished product: it begins with it. So possibly does the work. Most of it is what you want to do up until the record is made: the selling can be soul destroying especially when distributors don’t pay their bills. . . But I suppose money is not what we do it for (one day, one day!) and with a slightly dippy pricing policy which seeks to give everyone good value you can end up making quite a loss. Its important that people hear whats coming out though and one way indies can do it is to put out a more lovingly produced record at a lower price - I bet Sony don’t spend so much time sourcing the exact size this and that to make it all perfect. They usually can’t even be arsed making the CD look like its got anything to do with the rest of the packaging - but perhaps its only me thats particularly bothered!

5. DO YOU GIG MUCH WITH MERCHANDISE, AND DO YOU HAVE ANY MERCHANDISE FOR SALE AT YOUR GIGS?

Merchandise are strictly a recording band. Myself and Con play too many instruments to make it practical to play the songs live unless we used a backing tape and, to be honest, I see no point in doing that. I feel that without the need to be able to perform live it really frees up what we can do on record. Also, without all that time rehearsing the same songs it gives us time to work on ever newer and better material. With Merchandise I feel the one version of the song is all that is required - it’s not a document of what the band is doing at the time as a rock band might describe a studio recording - the record is what the band does - there is nothing else.

As for for producing Merchandise merchandise - we don’t do it. The name Merchandise comes from a Fugazi song and although we’re not straight edge or anything near it we’re not into the over comercialisation of anything much, least of all music. The title of our first album This is. . . Merchandise was supposed to be a comment about the comodification of art hidden in what could be taken for a bland “This is, Here are, The Best Of” type album title. Obviously nobody got it but you’ve got to try! We did think about releasing some Merchandise merchandise to make a similar comment - really rediculous items, and I suppose we still might but I’m not too sure I can be arsed. Besides I worry about having such control beyond me and decisions made for me where it could all look a bit hypocritical. I’m not too sure where the line between irony/making a living and selling out is but I’m sure someone will point out that it wasn’t in the place I thought it was when they want to take me down a peg or two! I can’t say I have anything against obviously related merchandise such as T-shirts and posters but when you brand a band (or a sports team) I feel it’s just cheapening whatever it stood for in the first place alowing people to buy into an image/lifestyle without the hard work of genuinely caring about it. A little mudle headed but I’ll revise harder for Newsnight!

6. WHERE CAN PEOPLE HEAR YOUR MUSIC? WHERE CAN PEOPLE SEE THE ACTION?

People can hear Merchandise by buying the discs - that’s the only way! They are available from either www.amazon.co.uk or from us at www.cityscaperecords.co.uk (quicker!).
As for Mazeppa, you can check our website at www.mazeppa.net and get a list of all the gigs. Mazeppa is a very different set up to Merchandise, a gigging band with grand piano, strings etc. There’s a sample on the website so give it a listen!