Column 116: The Merch Merchant
Saddle Creek opens a new subsidiary.

Question: What is the life-blood of touring bands, from the greenest indie rock trio to the peroxide-blond ice-cream-cone breasted lady we’ve all seen on MTV?

The answer is merch. Short for “merchandise,” merch includes almost any sellable item a band can load into the van and spread out on a table after their set. T-shirts and hoodies are the staple, but it also includes posters, buttons, and yes, even records.

“Merch is how smaller bands eat on the road, and how the big ones buy mansions in Fairacres,” said Chris Esterbrooks. The frontman for Omaha punk band Virgasound and former guitarist for the legendary Carcinogents has sold his share of merch over the years. Now he makes a living creating it as the guy behind Ink Tank, a new subsidiary of Saddle Creek Records that screen-prints T-shirts and other items for touring bands.

Esterbrooks isn’t new to the business. He worked at the city’s largest merch company, Impact Merchandising, for four years handling tour merch for clients that included a number of Saddle Creek bands. Creek left Impact last November, and Esterbrooks left in January to take his new position at Ink Tank.

“Saddle Creek felt they could offer their bands a cheaper product, so why not get into the market?” Esterbrooks said from Ink Tank’s world headquarters, located in the industrial ghetto around 88th and H St. Ink Tank is little more than screen-print presses, a dryer that looks like a giant Quizno’s sandwich oven, and lots of storage. Add some computer equipment and a website (inktankmerch.com) and you’ve got yourself a start-up.

Esterbrooks talked shop while his crew mates, including Spring Gun bassist Micah Schmiedeskamp, feverishly produced T-shirts for the upcoming Bright Eyes tour that kicked off the following week. The 11-date tour required roughly 3,000 T-shirts, most of them in size “small” and “medium.”

“Indie kids like their shirts too tight, that’s the way it is,” Esterbrooks said. “If we were doing merch for a metal band, there would be nothing below a ‘large’ and lots of sleazy girls’ tank tops and panties.”

Cardboard boxes of brown and gray Bright Eyes shirts and hoodies were stacked along the wall, ready to be shipped to far-off locations including Toronto, Somerville, Mass., and Los Angeles, where they’ll arrive at the venue hours before the band (Bright Eyes is flying to locations on this tour). Most bands — like Maria Taylor, whose shirts will be on the presses next — simply haul their merch in their van.

Esterbrooks said he depends on the band’s touring “merch guy” to count shirts at the end of every night and call if they’re running low so he can print some more and ship them to the band on the road. The last thing a touring band wants is to run out of merch the night of a show.

Small runs of 100 black shirts with one-color ink cost $4.25 per shirt, with prices dropping as the volume rises. Most band sell shirts for around $12 on the road. You do the math. Meanwhile, huge artists like Madonna and Tim McGraw sign multi-million dollar deals with merchandise giants like Cinder Block and Bravado who handle every aspect of the artist’s merch, right down to sales at shows.

“Saddle Creek Records’ 50/50 split of CD profits with artists is unheard of in the industry,” Esterbrooks said. “Madonna might only make 20 cents for every CD she sells. She makes a lot more money selling her $45 T-shirts and $100 hoodies.”

Esterbrooks said Ink Tank currently prints all the apparel sold on the Saddle Creek website. Each Saddle Creek band, however, chooses where their tour merchandise will be made independent of the label. “I’m trying to make deals to keep their business,” Esterbrooks said. “They have the right to go wherever they want. They’re on their own.”

But Ink Tank is after more than just Saddle Creek bands. “We’ve set up our pricing to be competitive with all the big boys in the merch business,” Esterbrooks said. “I look at Ink Tank like a record label. We acquire bands, retain bands, and take care of their merch needs. That’s the way I choose to operate rather than as a typical custom-print shop.”

Just like any other record label executive, Esterbrooks will be representing Ink Tank at the South By Southwest music festival later this month, meeting with band management, artists and booking agents, and passing out 12,000 fliers in SXSW goody bags. “It’s a matter of convincing people to come to you,” he said, adding that he was at SXSW last year, representing Impact.

The long hours have left little time for Esterbrooks’ other passion, Virgasound. “I’m taking more work home, but it’s a startup, that’s the way it goes. I want to see it succeed more than anyone,” he said, folding a shirt and placing it in a box. “This Bright Eyes tour is the first thing we’ve done, and I don’t want to screw it up.”

Perfect Red, …Rebuild the Afterworld (self released) — No no no no no no no! Listening to this was painful. It has nothing new to offer to hardcore music. I wouldn’t even classify it as “hardcore” had they not been trying so hard to fit into the genre. This is wuss-rock. And the singer is borderline Geddy Lee. Not to say that there is anything wrong with Mr. Lee (I am, in fact, a big fan), but his vocal approach has no place in hardcore music. Rating: No — Brendan Greene-Walsh.

Tim sez: Brendan, you’re a knowledgeable guy, but come on, this doesn’t even remotely resemble hardcore, nor does it try to. What you got here is your typical guitar-fueled goon rock bordering on ’80s hair metal. If you’re into big, wailing guitars and buckets of riffs — a la Godsmack — you might dig it. I didn’t. Rating: No

Hot Young Priest, Fiendish Freaky Love (Two Sheds Music) — It’s difficult to find a three-piece that can fully actualize its status as a “power trio.” Hot Young Priest is on the verge. Their simple, stripped-down songs allow the lyrics and vocal prowess of Mary Byrne to pull you in. “Soft Focus” starts with “Pregnancy’s made a hopeless / Triple-X figure out of me.” That’s quite a way to look at being knocked up. And in the end, the grunge/punk falls just a bit short. The songs are repetitious and uninspired. Rating: No — Brendan Greene-Walsh.

Tim sez: With a name like Hot Young Priest, you expect some kinky shenanigans. Instead you get some laid-back indie rock with plenty of fuzzy guitar and a front-woman who reminds me of those ladies in Belly. In fact, the whole thing resembles ’90s bands like Hot Rod and Madder Rose (then again, modern day rockers Metric also come to mind). When they add a layer of warm keyboards, like on the lush “Wintergreen,” or some backbeat hand-claps (like on “Bear the Scars of Old,”) they take it all that much further, but never totally stray from their grungy, fuzz-toned roots. Rating: Yes

The Evening Episode, The Physicist Has Known Sin (Slowdance Records) — For awhile now every time I hear raspy female vocals I automatically turn off the music. Teresa Eggers has helped me out of this slump. Though raspy, her vocals are pronounced and float beautifully over the top while dripping right back down to create a gentle mix. Piano, lap-steel, keys, theremin and intricate programmed beats run throughout the album. Every aspect is calculated, and the overall product is a wonderfully entertaining. Rating: Yes — Brendan Greene-Walsh.

Tim Sez: I’m a sucker for breathy women singing about losing their way over fuzzy synths and dub-beat tracks. Pouring some trippy guitar over the whole thing makes it that much better. Overall, a nice way to apply technology to indie rock. They would have been a nice fit on 4AD, back when 4AD was good. Rating: Yes

Column 115: Funny Business
Former Nebraskan Flirts with Grammy.

And now the story of Dan Schlissel and his Grammy.

Schlissel, as followers of Omaha’s golden age of punk back in the mid-’90s knows, ran Ismist Records and released music by bands like Urethra Franklin, Frontier Trust, Such Sweet Thunder, Polecat and Wide back when Saddle Creek Records was just a glimmer in Robb Nansel’s eye. His music career was somewhat short-lived. Schlissel moved from Lincoln to Minneapolis in ’98 and slowly weaned himself from Midwestern punk rock.

But he wasn’t through with running a record label. Instead, he had in the back of his mind the idea for a new label that focused on comedy. Among his favorite funnymen was an under-the-radar comic named Lewis Black who was just beginning to get national exposure thanks to a 5-minute bit he did once a week on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. Schlissel saw something in Black that Warner Bros. and Comedy Central Records hadn’t. Both labels had turned down Black’s idea for a comedy album. Not Schlissel, who released Black’s debut, The White Album, on Ismist in October 2000. Within a year, the album had sold more than 8,000 copies.

Flash forward seven years. Schlissel still produces all of Black’s audio recordings as well as manages the bulk of his tour merchandise, from T-shirts to Zippo lighters. “Plus, I do vinyl for his Comedy Central releases,” Schlissel said via e-mail.

Now here’s the Grammy part: Last week Lewis Black’s The Carnegie Hall Performance — produced by Schlissel — took home the Grammy for “Best Comedy Album.”

“I don’t know if I get a statue or not,” Schlissel said, adding that he was the only producer on the project “other than the executive producer, and his job is just to supply the money anyway.” Schlissel’s role was to ensure that the recording got made the night of the performance, “and then to shepherd all of the raw materials into a final product.”

He may not get a golden statue, but he did get thanked during Black’s acceptance speech.

“I never win shit, so this is really, um, I’m astonished,” Black said. He went on to do a few moments of self-deprecating shtick, the kind of stuff he’s known for, before thanking his agents and, “Dan Schlissel, who had the nerve to start producing my CDs before anybody else.”

Schlissel says Black is the same laid-back guy he met all those years ago on the comedy club circuit. “He hasn’t changed because of fame,” he said. “That’s why I am still lucky enough to be working with him. He gets it on a level that few would.”

Schlissel said Black’s growing popularity — bolstered by his popular HBO specials and film projects like Robin Williams’ “Man of the Year” and the kid-targeted farce “Unaccompanied Minors” — have forced the tour out of the clubs and into 4,000-seat music halls. Just imagine what that could mean for Zippo sales. But despite that, Schlissel says he isn’t getting rich. “I am able to not have another day job, though, and that means a great deal to me,” he said. “It’s nice to not have to split focus on keeping a real day job and getting all the things done that need to on a day-to-day level with the label and merchandise.”

Since the first Black record (Schlissel also released his follow-up, 2002’s The End of the Universe), Schlissel has created a new label, called Stand Up! Records, whose roster includes comedians David Cross, Doug Stanhope and Jimmy Shubert, among others.

So would he ever consider going back to putting out punk rock records? “I actually just released a music project last year,” Schlissel said, “the long-awaited We Will Bury You: A Tribute to Killdozer. That was a band that I loved and had a bond with, since I put out their last 7-inch before they broke up. It took nine years, but it came out as a co-release with Crustacean Records from Madison.”

He’s also placed the Lincoln/Omaha compilation Linoma, Vol. 2: Riot on the Plains on iTunes last year. The 20-song collection, originally released in August 1999, includes tracks by Ditch Witch, Polecat, Plastik Trumpet, Sideshow, Cursive, Mercy Rule, Opium Taylor, Wide and Porn (ex-Ritual Device), among others.

But as for new music projects, well… “Stand Up! is focused on comedy, not music… I have no interest in dealing with music anymore. I did it for years and learned a lot. It’s now up to folks that are younger and have more energy for it than me. I am just glad to still be creative and active. It’s an amazing graduating class of folks I am contemporaries with from the Linoma scene.” Now that sounds like an acceptance speech.

Pelle Carlberg, Everything. Now! (TwentySeven Records) — This album still hasn’t completely settled in my mind. After an initial listen, I was dumbfounded by the quality of the music. The songs are well-written, as are the lyrics, and the two come together flawlessly. This is a solid album from beginning to end. And even when writing about more depressing topics like the death of Warren Zevon (CD opener “Musikbyran Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack”), the mood is still light and pretty. It picks up where Belle and Sebastian went wrong sometime around Tigermilk or If You’re Feeling Sinister. This well-substantiated folk-pop will be claiming its place in the mainstream consciousness soon. Rating: Yes. — Brendan Greene-Walsh.

Tim sez: The Belle and Sebastian comparison couldn’t be more on target. Carlberg’s sound and style on tracks like the hand-clap driven “Riverbank” and “Summer of ’69” so emulate those Scottish lads that it borders on aping. But it’s how he approaches his topics that’s so perplexing. As sunny sounding as the dour-lyriced “Musikbyran…” sounds, “Telemarketing” — an ode to irresistible bargains sold over the phone — is downright funereal. It’s Carlberg’s peppy shuffles, along with his smart, introspective lyrics, however, that make it a keeper. File this Swede-pop under the easiest, lightest stuff by Morrissey, Lloyd Cole, Kings of Convenience, and yeah, B&S. Rating: Yes.

Column 114: Cultural Attraction
Terrence Moore’s latest challenge.

I never actually stepped foot in Lincoln’s Dirt Cheap Records. Never even knew where it was until I talked to Terrence Moore last weekend. No, I spent my time at Omaha’s Dirt Cheap, flipping through bins of used vinyl records just like thousands of others who grew up going to one of Terrence’s records stores, looking for buried treasures among the stacks of black plastic.

People like Dirk Gillespie, who back in ’75 drove to Lincoln on Saturdays to have lunch at The Palms before digging through the store’s records and books. “It was one of the only places that you could find the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali,” Gillespie said, referring to a book of yoga philosophy. “And the records… You never knew what you’d find. I always came out of there happy with stuff I held onto for years.”

For local music legend and serious record collector Charlie Burton, Lincoln’s Dirt Cheap was “a fishing hole, and any fishing hole, to me, is great,” he said. “They also had a head shop, too. It was an important pitstop for many musicians.”

Yoga literature? Head shop? Sounds like some sort of hippie hang-out. “It was definitely looked upon as a hippie store,” Moore said, sounding upbeat and healthy on the phone. “We had parents stick their head into the store and not come inside or let their kids come in. It was a scary time to be a parent. Music brought people together, and they overcame their shyness to hippie stuff because they wanted to hear great music that you couldn’t hear on the radio.”

Moore remembers it was around September 1970 when he and his first wife, Linda, made the trip back to Lincoln from San Jose, California. At age 21, Terrence had reached a point where he didn’t need to be in school anymore — “my draft eligibility was done.” The original plan was to homestead with another couple in Bella Coola, British Columbia, but when that fell through the next logical idea was to open a record store in Lincoln.

“You could do things back then without a lot of capital if you were willing to live a Spartan lifestyle,” Moore said. “Three months later, we opened, and it just took off. It was great fun, and the music was exciting.”

Dirt Cheap in Lincoln had everything from rare British-import 45s to underground comix, alternative health books to handmade crafts and, yes, head shop gear. “It was a lot of fun back in those early days of the utopian marijuana culture,” Moore said, “back when it was simple, before it became something different six or seven years later.”

Twelve years after opening, Moore sold Dirt Cheap in 1982. It would be renamed Twisters, and eventually move from its original location at 217 No. 11th St. to 14th & O. The Dirt Cheap name, however lived on in Omaha, when Moore opened a new location at 10th and Jackson in 1986. That incarnation focused on music collectibles, with lots of posters, vinyl and eventually CDs. You could spend hours there, flipping through the bins while Moore or one of his friendly employees spun a variety of music — jazz, rock, Celtic, you name it. That’s where I got my vinyl copy of Graham Parker’s Squeezing Out Sparks along with a few hundred other albums.

Most people know Moore from those stores, but in Lincoln he’s also known as the guy who helped start community radio station KZUM 89.3 FM, providing $2,500 in seed money generated by setting aside a quarter or 50 cents from the sale of every bootleg record. Terrence sat on the station’s first board of directors, and was a DJ in the mid-’70s. Today, KZUM boasts 105 volunteer programmers and a staff of four, one of them being Moore, who returned to organize membership events. It’s through KZUM that he has health insurance “which is of great use now.”

“Now” refers to his recent diagnosis of an inoperable intestinal cancer. To help pay for costs not covered by his insurance, Terrence’s friends organized a fundraiser Saturday, Feb. 24, from 4 to 11 p.m. at The Loft at the Mill on 8th and P St. in Lincoln that will feature performances by The Cronin Brothers, Stringtown Castanets and Charlie Burton and the Dorothy Lynch Mob.

If just a fraction of the people who used to hang out at Dirt Cheap show up, it should be a helluva crowd. Not to mention all those who looked to Moore for business advice. Moore said that when Bruce Hoberman and his partners had the idea for Homer’s, he was happy to tell them how he did it.

“One of the things I’m proud of is that if anyone came to me for advice about starting a business, I would tell them what I knew. And my biggest piece of advice was always, ‘If you want to do it, go ahead and do it. Forget all the reasons you can’t do it, and just get started.'”

It was all about will power. Now with a battery of chemo facing him, Terrence will be relying on that will power more than ever, along with the support of an army of friends. “It’s tremendously gratifying, and something I hadn’t thought about until this happened,” Moore said. “The whole support system has been quite amazing.”