MUSIC .

Like a Demon

Mike Quinn works overtime with No Quarter Records.


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Published: Sep 18, 2007

FINNISH, THEM: No Quarter reissues key albums by Scandinavian experimentalists Circle.

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Mike Quinn learned a lot of crucial life lessons while fielding phone calls in the mail order department of Relapse Records. Not just the warts-and-all inner workings of a successful independent record label; we're talking things they really don't teach you in school, like how to impress a 15-year-old with a Slipknot fixation.

"Relapse had an 800 number, so people would always call and talk about whatever was on their mind instead of ordering something," explains Quinn. "I'd entertain them when I was bored, including this one kid that called from a rural part of Georgia regularly. Relapse was distributing Slipknot at the time, so he asked me if I could call this girl he liked at school and pretend to be [singer] Corey [Taylor]."

Quinn does his best mad-at-the-world imitation — which isn't menacing at all, to be honest — and continues, "It backfired because she said she had a crush on my Slipknot voice."

The moral of the story for prospective record label owners: Consumers appreciate when you're personable and patient. It leads to the level of loyalty needed to sustain such insular ventures as a psych/drone/stoner rock label on South Street. Or more specifically, the No Quarter imprint Quinn founded soon after leaving Relapse in 2001.

It certainly doesn't hurt business when you apply the same hands-on approach to your bands. Which is why Quinn decided to accompany Circle — his most active signing — on the East Coast leg of their September tour. With tickets to the U.S. costing nearly $1,500, the wildly experimental Finnish band couldn't afford a roadie, so Quinn is doing everything from driving their van and unloading gear to manning the merch table.

"This is my first time on tour in general, so it's definitely different than I expected," says Quinn. "I brought some books and magazines along, but it doesn't look like I'm going to have any down time at all."

Don't cry for him, Philadelphia. Quinn's used to a rigorous routine of running his record label from home and funding the whole endeavor with up to 90 hours of work a week at temp jobs including his most steady, maddening gig: driving a shuttle on Penn's campus.

"That's no exaggeration at all," says Quinn of his clock-punching tally. "I've worked three or four jobs at a time before, from Spaceboy to R5 [Productions] to Penn. That way I can avoid running a record label on nothing but credit card debt."

As the record industry continues to crumble — CD sales were down 20 percent in the first quarter of 2007, according to Nielsen's SoundScan numbers — Quinn remains a modest success story, quietly and sporadically releasing mind-fuck music to a dedicated underground following, from key Circle reissues (Forest; the Oct. 23 release of Sunrise) to an Earth remix record (Legacy of Dissolution) featuring contributions from Autechre, Mogwai and former Wilco/Sonic Youth member Jim O'Rourke. In fact, the only in-the-red properties at No Quarter are the records of Psychic Paramount. If anything, the label — run by Quinn without a publicist or any sort of business partner — continues to grow while others struggle with shrinking budgets, right up through Thrill Jockey's recent decision to exclusively distribute and manufacture No Quarter releases.

How does Quinn do it? He isn't a trust fund baby, if that's what you're thinking. A Bucks County native who got his start booking heavy/hardcore bands like Dillinger Escape Plan and Dropdead at a local youth center, Quinn moved to Philadelphia in 2000 to pursue a sociology degree at Drexel University. He decided to start No Quarter soon after, once a friend passed him the number of Earth founder Dylan Carlson, a drone-metal god who all but disappeared from the scene after the band's final Sub Pop disc, Pentastar: In the Style of Demons.

"I got a hold of Dylan somehow and asked him for the rights to [Earth's out-of-print demo/live collection] Sunn Amps and Smashed Guitars," says Quinn. "He said, 'Um, yeah, sure,' but he was totally out of it, so it took a year to get everything together from that point."

Quinn also had to deal with the issue of securing a start-up loan with no credit. "I basically agreed to put the Earth reissue out without having any money, so that was a great motivator to save," explains Quinn, laughing. "I didn't think the bank would respond to some drone-metal band from Seattle, so my parents eventually had to co-sign on a personal loan."

That $6,000 paid for the entire first pressing of No Quarter's inaugural release. Luckily, it sold well enough to pay for the acclaimed double-disc reissue of Laddio Bolocko's entire catalogue. Quinn's taken everything day-by-day since then, avoiding the kind of crowded release schedule that sinks overambitious labels. True to that premise, he doesn't plan on releasing any more original music this year, opting to support Circle's latest releases through the fall until Endless Boogie's latest riff-raking LP hits in early 2008.

(a_parks@citypaper.net)

Fri., Sept. 21, 8 p.m., $10, Circle with Endless Boogie and Birds of Maya, The Latvian Society of Pennsylvania, 531 N. Seventh St., 866-468-7619, www.r5productions.com.