Masstransfer: A Zinethology

By Ryan Anderson

Take an indie trip through 25 years of dreampop, shoegaze, post-rock, ambient and electronic music with Ryan Anderson - musician and former editor of the music zine Masstransfer.

Over the past year, he has pulled together all of the music content from issues covering 1997-2003, adding contemporary commentary and updates on many of the bands and musicians who are still active.

In addition to almost 40 band profiles--from The American Analog Set to Windy & Carl--Ryan covers several music scenes that provided much of the content found in the pages of the zine. These include: Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, Texas, Eastern Canada (Montreal, Toronto) and Scandinavia. As a nod to the artists that influenced the sound of Masstransfer, an entire chapter is devoted to "Our English Icons"--seminal 90s groups like Stereolab, Broadcast, Spiritualized and Flying Saucer Attack.

As a "Coda" to the Masstransfer story, Anderson provides a glimpse into the closure of the zine and subsequent reboot as a podcast, and offers his take on where the music scene is headed into the future.

Recommended for anyone who was part of the scene in the 90s, whether you were in a band, worked at a record store or college radio station, or just a fan of these bands.

The Featured Bands: Landing, The Asteroid No. 4, Rachel Goldstar/Experimental Aircraft/All in the Golden Afternoon), Air Formation, Adrien75/Carpetbomb Records, Lenola/Twin Atlas/Lazy Salon, Accelera Deck/Chris Jeely, Tex La Homa, Mazarin/Therisphere/Light Heat, Bright/Forma, Au Revoir Borealis, Windy & Carl, The American Analog Set, Kiln/Earthtone Collective, lovesliescrushing, Yellow6, Seely, Tristeza/The Album Leaf, The Electrosonics, Hinterland, Meisha, Jessamine/Fontanelle, Jessica Bailiff, Her Space Holiday, Perplexa, Cerberus Shoal, Portal, All Natural Lemon and Lime Flavors, Dallas, Telemetry Orchestra/Clan Analogue, Isobella, Aleutian, Charles Atlas, Seven Percent Solution, Signaldrift, Electric Birds, Coastal, Severance. 

Other Bands Include: Outrageous Cherry, Getaway Cruiser, Tomorrowland, Gravity Wax, Monaural, Delta Waves, Intermodal, No More Than Seven, Fuxa, Paik, Bent Leg Fatima, Azusa Plane/Jason DiEmelio, The Sea & Cake, Tortoise, Pulseprogramming, Daniel Givens, L'Altra, Western Automatic, Morning Recordings, Transona Five, Do Make Say Think, Fly Pan Am, Twine, Casino Vs. Japan, Pole, Jega, Nudge, CNS Engineering, Four Tet, Transient Waves, Languis, Mogwai, Aartika, Charlene, Should, Greg Davis, Land of Nod, Malory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ryan Anderson
• Release date: Apr 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781736909102

Book preview

Masstransfer:

A Zinethology

By Ryan Anderson

With:

Derek Supryka

Rachel Staggs Jackson

Pearson Greer

Phil Salathé

Matt Borghi

Joel Hanson, Consulting Editor

Copyright © 2021 Twenty Goto Ten Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form on by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

First Digital Edition, March 2021 (v83)

ISBN 978-1-7369091-0-2 (ebook)

Masstransfer: A Zinethology

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Parts of the Book

Notes on the First Digital Edition

A Few Words Before We Begin…

Fade-In

What Is Masstransfer?

The Musical Playing Field

Crossroads

The Masstransfer Sound

Music Industry Evolution

What It Means To Be Young, Urban and Frugal

The Bands

Landing

The Asteroid No. 4

Rachel Goldstar / Experimental Aircraft / All in the Golden Afternoon

Air Formation

Adrien75 / Carpetbomb Records

Lenola / Twin Atlas / Lazy Salon

Accelera Deck / Chris Jeely

Tex La Homa

Mazarin / Therisphere / Light Heat

Bright / Forma

Au Revoir Borealis

Windy & Carl

The American Analog Set

Kiln / Earthtone Collective

lovesliescrushing

Yellow6

Seely

Tristeza / The Album Leaf

The Electrosonics

Hinterland

Meisha

Jessamine / Fontanelle

Jessica Bailiff

Her Space Holiday

Perplexa

Cerberus Shoal

Portal

All Natural Lemon and Lime Flavors

Dallas

Telemetry Orchestra / Clan Analogue

Isobella

Aleutian

Charles Atlas

Seven Percent Solution

Signaldrift

Electric Birds

Coastal

Severance

Our English Icons

Stereolab

Broadcast

Flying Saucer Attack

Movietone

Spectrum & Spiritualized

Laika

Local Music Scenes

Detroit

Philadelphia

Chicago

Texas

Canada East

Scandinavia

The Electronic Scene

Reviews

Demo Reviews

Live Reviews

Other Reviews

Coda

2002 - 2004

Shutting Down The Zine

Masstransfer Reboot & Podcast

Sonixcursions.com

Future State

Zine Staff & Contributors

[In Memoriam] Erik Kassab

Appendix

Record Labels

Compilation CDs

Masstransfer.net

About The Author

Colophon

Cover

Table of contents

Acknowledgments

A huge thank you to all of the people who contributed to the original run of Masstransfer, and those who offered follow-up interviews and conversations for this book over the past year.

This project would not have been possible without the support of my wonderful wife Kristen, who put up with my endless thinking out loud about obscure bands during the Coronavirus lockdown. Thank you for helping to make this happen.

I also want to thank my mom and dad for letting me watch way too much MTV in the 80s, hosting band practices in their garage, and even helping to assemble zines.

Finally, I want to thank my editor Joel Hanson who jumped in and edited the book section by section, non-linearly, over most of January and February 2021. His feedback, suggestions and insights helped to make this a much stronger work.

This is dedicated to my children, Lydia & Miles, who will undoubtedly hear me talk about this book for years to come.

Introduction

The Movement Of Sound Information

—Masstransfer slogan, 1998-2004

The weighty boxes were fresh off the UPS truck when they landed in a living room full of people ready to get to work. There were six or seven of us sitting around, listening to the latest Stereolab album Dots & Loops, about to assemble the first 1000 copies of a new zine called Masstransfer. The headquarters for this operation was known colloquially as Camp Füxa, a townhouse located just outside Detroit that served as the home for the band Füxa as well as the Mind Expansion label and various other enterprises. Each issue of the comic-book-size zine came with a CD sampler compilation, and bundling and inserting them into a plastic sleeve and sealing it up required a little more effort than I had expected. Thankfully, there were always people passing through our house or visiting from other cities at any given time, happy to sit for a bit and help out.

So much has changed in the 25 years since Masstransfer launched. The music industry has gone from a world of all physical media, to MP3 file-based music, to digital streaming services. The sheer ability of an artist to record their own material and have it distributed instantaneously to listeners worldwide is no less than groundbreaking. The listener now has access to digital networks that deliver any song ever produced to anywhere in the world at any time. They have the ability to sample and access the entire recorded history of music literally at their fingertips. And just about everything I used to publish and distribute the zine is dead or dying: indie record stores, book stores, Adobe PageMaker, compact discs, the post office.

However, much has not changed: fans still want to share and listen to music; bands are still making music and trying to get it heard. Many bands that were included in the zine are still releasing albums, standing the test of time and continuing to produce fresh music. Their continuing achievements attest to the strength of the DIY and Indie models amidst the constantly evolving music industry environment.

The Bands

The common theme across the bands covered in this book, regardless of what type of music they played or how it was performed, was that they were in complete artistic control of their recorded output and not tied to any major labels. In many cases, they had their own record labels and managed their own releases a decade before Bandcamp became a thing. Though not famous, they are highly respected and escaped relatively unscathed by the major-label domination and ongoing corporatization of music over the past two decades.

When I started Masstransfer, the problem was that these indie musicians didn’t have a platform and it was hard for people to find and hear them due to lack of exposure. These days, it’s definitely easier to build a platform online, though from an artist’s perspective, it’s increasingly difficult to cut through the noise and reach people. There’s just too much competition for finite listening hours and leisure time overall.

Why Should You Read This Book?

If you have made it this far, you are likely a person who is interested in a specific, yet growing group of musical genres and styles that have been progressing since the 1960’s avant-garde and psychedelic movements. Perhaps you knew of the bands in the zine, or were in one of them. If so, this will be an entertaining trip down memory lane, and might turn up more than a few forgotten bands. For those who may not know many of the artists in the book, I will present you with a galaxy of band profiles—from the American Analog Set to Windy & Carl—along with loads of record reviews pulled from the zine issues, that offer a glimpse into the musical era that straddled the turn of the millennium.

Maybe you’re in a band and realize that the current music environment that revolves almost exclusively around streaming is not doing it for you and you’re looking for alternative methods of getting your name out there. Learn from the musicians in these pages, who have been on the circuit before (or still are), and listen to their stories. In addition, towards the beginning of the book, I offer an overview of the past 25 years of music industry evolution and revolution, and at the end of the book give my thoughts on where this music business is heading.

You may be someone who is interested in the DIY and zine culture of the 1990s, whether part of the action at the time, or of a younger generation. Peppered throughout the book are passages, either from bands or myself, about DIY topics such as home-studio recording or running a record label (in the days before digital) that will make you glad we have better technology these days, or pine for a simpler time—when you would lose a shit-ton of money but had a 7-inch single you could hold in your hands (that were also used to copy, cut and fold the cover).

Why Am I Writing This Book?

This is a question I often asked myself while compiling this book. Because of the shifting nature of media and the Internet, I worry that the more dormant bands are at risk of being forgotten. Information is at risk of being lost forever when websites shut down that may have featured or reviewed their albums. In the pages of those Masstransfer zines was a treasure trove of material covering bands that don’t show up very much if at all in a Google search these days.

On the flip side, I’ve noticed many bands and artists from back in the day are still creating and producing—some never left the field at all. I wanted to highlight their achievements and show the arc of their careers through some turbulent times in the music business. They are the survivors and have stories to tell.

The idea for this anthology began in late 2017, at the 20-year mark of the first issue. I did a Facebook post about it, got some positive feedback, and thought about what it would take to compile all the zine content into a book. I was working on a tough project at my job (which would last another two years) so it took a while to really get going. Much like many of the other creative endeavors in my life, I vastly underestimated the scope of this undertaking.

Digging through 20-year-old digital files was no simple task. Thankfully, I still had my original copy of PageMaker 7.0 (on CD-ROM, circa 1998) so I could pull the text out of the source files. Trying to find a suitable flow for both the original content and the new material took time too, but I think it moves along pretty well.

Parts of the Book

It’s important to provide some context about the concept and history behind the zine first before diving into the music articles, then provide a post-script or coda to explain the shutting down of operations, and further evolution. To help in this regard, this book is broken down into three major parts.

Fade-In: The Editorials & Commentary

The first part (Fade-In) deals with the overall themes and topics covered in the zines. These were pulled from editorial sections at the front of each issue, and cover various topics including: DIY culture, musical genres, and the crossroads of print and digital publishing. Following each editorial is updated commentary that dives deeper into that topic.

The Zine Content

The second part is all of the music and band content pulled from the zines. Beginning with Landing, there are 38 profiles of bands that were featured in the print zine as well as an accompanying compilation CD. The ordering of the profiles was determined by how active they are currently, and many have follow-up commentary about what they have been up to since the zine days. Our English Icons is a series of profiles of bands, such as Stereolab and Broadcast, that served as inspirations to the musicians that formed the subsequent wave of space-rock and dream pop.

Following the individual band profile chapters is a rundown of the regional music scenes that generated much of the music contained in the issues. Places like: Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, Texas—areas that supported an array of record stores, college radio stations and live-music venues. Another scene (though not a local one) that got coverage was the Electronic Scene—a slightly different path than the post-rock sound that the zine covered.

And then there are the reviews. Included are the album and single reviews, along with demo reviews, live show reviews, and the other reviews that just didn’t fit anywhere else but provide ample entertainment value.

Coda

The third and final part covers the closing down of Masstransfer and subsequent reboot a few years later, along with thoughts about the future. In this section, I delve into the end days of the zine, and the ultimate decision to shut it down. A few years later, Masstransfer was re-born into a podcast which then evolved into the current incarnation—Sonixcursions.com. At the end of the section, I look to the future and try to make sense of where the music scene is heading.

Staff Bios

These were the people involved with writing and producing the zine, without whom the original run of issues would never have happened. I am eternally grateful to these folks.

Appendix

An Appendix of miscellany rounds out the edition, and includes a list of the compilation CDs, articles about the original Masstransfer website, and a listing of record labels who advertised or were mentioned in the zine.

Notes on the First Digital Edition

As I wrap up the first edition of this book, America has pulled through one of the most tumultuous election cycles ever while also mired in the worst global viral pandemic in 100 years. Music venues have been shut down; musicians are struggling to figure out what’s next. It’s an insane time.

Not long ago, when music streaming took off and direct album sales started dying off, bands were told they would make it up with touring and merch. Now, with the COVID pandemic, that option has closed for the time being. It’s not looking good for a whole class of musicians who don’t have the means or the differentiation to stand out from the masses of other bands. If you have even a semi-emotional attachment to a band, you should go check up on them, see how they’re doing, and show your support during this difficult time.

My heart goes out to the essential and frontline workers sacrificing their lives to combat this virus; we need to support them and help them do their jobs any way we can. There are also many classes of workers displaced by the effects of the lockdowns and restrictions. It’s important to think about what their world will look like on the other side of this—whenever that will be.

In September 2020, I started working on this book full-time, taking six months to compile material, do interviews, and write the new parts. It was a labor of love and a passion project I’ve wanted to finish for some time, and I’m glad the first release is done. I plan to do future editions with added material and more band interviews, along with a print version in the near future. Stay tuned and enjoy the book!

—Ryan Anderson, March 2021

A Few Words Before We Begin…

In compiling this zinethology, I’ve cleaned up some spelling mistakes, but mostly kept all of the original text—for better or worse. Remember as you read the reviews and the articles, that for most of the bands there was not much press coverage so even a mention would go a long way in terms of adequate publicity.

Issue Numbering

Original zine content is designated with a special header (e.g., [Issue:01]), and was pulled directly from the issues with minimal cleanup. I wanted to keep as much of the original voice as possible.

Band Photos

For the band photos, I used what I could find from the zine content and the old website. These photos are mainly for illustration purposes. They might be blurry, and I’m really not sure who took most of them.

Compilation CD Appearances

Intermingled amongst the chapters are references to the Installation compilation CDs that came with each issue.

When you see a block like this:

Installation:01

Track:01

The Asteroid #4

Fingerspan

…it indicates an appearance on one of the CDs. A complete listing of all the compilation CDs and tracks can be found in the Appendix.

Non-Music Articles

There were a lot of non-music articles in the issues, but most didn’t age very well. There were segments on repairing old stereo equipment, as well as assembling computers from spare parts. Since the zine was based in metro Detroit, many articles covered things such as legalizing Casino Gambling; the Hudson’s Building Demolition; and the Heidelberg Project. Featured at the end of some issues was a story about a group of young people who found their way into a mental asylum. All of this content was not included in this book, though it could appear someday in a companion edition.

Where’s my favorite band?

Your favorite band may not get the coverage you think is deserved, or got pushed further back into the book. My goal here is to first highlight the bands that were part of a specific group of musicians and bands in this scene. Larger acts like Stereolab and Flying Saucer Attack were covered here and there but weren’t a major focus of the zine content. The focus was on up-and-coming bands that I thought weren’t getting enough—or proper—exposure at the time, and I wanted to help in this regard.

…and now, on with the show…

Fade-In

What Is Masstransfer?

[Issue:01] Editorial

Welcome to the debut issue of Masstransfer, a publication that focuses on issues and music for those who look beyond the surface of current pop-culture trends. This is a strictly grass roots campaign, due to the fact that we are not owned by a major amalgamated entertainment/household products/finance corporation. I did most of my writing for this magazine in the moments between playing in a band, helping out with a record label, and working a day job. As you may know, a diamond is transformed from a lump of coal only after a lot of time and a lot of pressure. I’m not saying this zine is a diamond, but it could pass as a cubic zirconia on the Home Shopping Network.

This issue also comes bundled with a companion CD, featuring eight bands we really enjoy and hope you will, too. Some of the tracks are instrumental and some are exclusive, so take a moment to put it into your music machine and listen as you flip through the following pages. We hope Masstransfer will become your source for quality music and informative information. Enjoy!

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What exactly was Masstransfer?

Around the mid-90s, the major print magazines were Magnet, Alternative Press and CMJ, and most of their pages contained what was being hyped at the time, leaving little space for genuinely independent players—with little marketing budget—to be covered. Those magazines are heavily influenced by advertisers and publicists, so there needed to be an outlet for the more space-rock and hybrid electronic music we were discovering.

The concept for the zine emerged in late 1996. I was meeting lots of bands, usually through playing shows or even receiving demo tapes sent to the Mind Expansion record label. Talking directly to musicians, I realized there weren’t many press avenues for these bands to get exposure. I wanted to create an indie music magazine to serve as a base for a wider community of artists and fans that were already mixing and mingling on the tour trails and record stores around the US and other countries. And it didn’t take very long to take off.

Masstransfer was produced between 1997 and 2003 in a comic-book style format. Each issue included a compilation (or Installation) CD that featured some of the bands that were in the issue along with a few other bands, likely an unreleased or upcoming album track. The zine covered mostly space rock, post-rock, and dream-pop genres, along with ambient and electronic music. It also included articles that were not music-related, such as stereo-repair tips and home-studio setups. Concluding some issues was an ongoing story about a group of young people who found their way into a mental asylum.

It was my intention to create an experience where the reader could pick up the print zine, put the CD in their player, and read the articles while listening to the tracks on the compilation. At a time just before the emergence of web-based multimedia, this setup seemed to be a rather enticing option.

By January 1997, work had begun and the format was finalized: a comic-book sized zine with a CD compilation of music included. The first issue was mainly composed of Mind Expansion bands (Outrageous Cherry, Getaway Cruiser, Landis, Füxa), some of our Philly space-rock comrades (The Asteroid #4, Lenola) and assorted live reviews from Chicago, Detroit and the Toronto/Buffalo axis (thanks to Carla Pino). It was a rather thin rag, but it put a stake in the ground and laid the foundation for Issue #2, which was a tremendous leap forward.

After hiring a graphic designer to handle the layouts and design of the first issue, that work was brought in-house so we could use the extra money to expand the pages in the zine, from 32 to 48 pages. With each subsequent issue, the breadth of bands exploded and we received an influx of new writers and contributors—most of whom were musicians themselves.

The zine was produced annually until I decided to shut it down in 2004. Print publications were losing the fight against digital technologies, and independent record stores, our main distribution points, were closing for multiple reasons. It didn’t make financial sense for me to keep putting money into the magazine, and by that point I was pretty burnt out.

The Musical Playing Field

[Issue:02] Editorial

So you’ve got the second issue of Masstransfer, now what? Well, a few things have improved around here. Namely, there’s twice as much music on the companion CD than the first one. You may not recognize all the bands, but you’ll be seeing them everywhere very shortly. Also, we’ve added more pages for your reading enjoyment.

You’ll notice most of the articles inside have a do-it-yourself slant to them. This is no accident. We who are involved with this magazine have all had frustrating moments waiting for others to do something we need done, or have had to pay others to do things we don’t understand or have the time to do-—especially in the music business. This is definitely a barrier to entry for new bands. Many mysteries have existed which prohibited bands from full realization of their dreams, and forced them to be pawns of publicly traded corporations. For a long time, the American music industry has pumped crap down the throats and ears of innocent civilians.

Things are changing though, the independent label is (finally) beginning to turn the tide of the music artist exploitation. Those major labels are taking notice, and they don’t like what they see. Masstransfer is the source for those engaged in independent activities. It is our job to connect people around the world who have good ideas and stories who want to share with others to avoid costly mistakes. It is our job to even up the musical playing field.

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Extreme DIY Ethic

It’s hard to imagine, even just 25 years ago, how different the DIY environment was from today’s internet-driven methods. You literally had to do everything yourself (or have a team of volunteers), usually with your hands - which involved cutting, mailing, taping (both scotch and cassette), stuffing envelopes, telephoning, etc.

The DIY movement started in the 1970s, and grew into the 80s and early 90s as a result of new tools like the personal computer, which had significantly better page-layout and audio-production capabilities. For those with a modicum of talent, boundless energy, limited funds, and available time, it offered a foot in the (back) door of the music industry and introduced a wide range of new sounds into popular culture.

The main currency of this phase of the DIY movement was the 7-inch single and the fanzine—one for producing music and the other for promoting music. Volumes were kept to very short runs and often distributed in local areas or available through mail order.

If you were in a band or knew some bands, it was quite easy to get 500 records made. Even easier if you did a split single which doubled the potential audience for each band and divided the costs. This offered value to the listener as well, because it was better to take a chance on a new band with a $2.99 single than buy a whole album or CD for $12.99 or more.

With this basic framework, rounded out by college radio stations, and live music venues (probably the hardest to crack), dozens if not hundreds of sub-communities in cities and regions began to spring up and even thrive. Strong scenes were thrust into the main stream—-this is the same formula that fueled the Seattle grunge scene, Riot Grrl, and the Chicago post rock scene a few years after that. A few of these local scenes are covered later in the book.

Although DIY and Indie are similar, I consider DIY to be the more hands-on practice of doing all the steps yourself, whereas it’s possible to be independent of the corporate music structure, but still outsource much of the production or promotion work.

During this era, I would classify many labels as major Indies (for example, Thrill Jockey, Matador, Kranky, Warp, Drag City). Since my focus was under-exposed bands, usually the acts from those labels didn’t play a huge part in the zine. They had their own advertising budgets and worked with those bigger rags like Magnet or CMJ. I was looking for burgeoning bands that weren’t being covered elsewhere.

Most—if not all—of the bands featured in the zine either self-released their material on their own labels, or were put out by micro or super-indie labels that typically pressed between 500-1000 copies. A vast majority of the bands and labels were strictly independent, all the way from building their own recording studios to hand-folding their record covers. This approach spawned lots of collectibles but didn’t scale very well when bands would suddenly get noticed by the masses.

The Ups & Downs of DIY

There are significant benefits of doing things yourself, but the main one is the complete control and ownership of your creative output, which gives you the opportunity to build on the work that you own. Just ask Taylor Swift about her original masters, which she signed away her rights to in 2004, and have passed through various hands and recently sold for $300 million—none of which she will get.

The other crucial and most obvious benefit is basic cost savings. For many people starting out, there is more time than money. Doing things like dubbing cassette tapes (later CD-Rs) to sell at shows, putting together art for a record cover or show flyer, or even hand silk-screening band t-shirts were ways to cut down on costs and make a small amount of money in some cases.

On the other hand, the downsides can be crippling. Probably the biggest challenge doing DIY, regardless of the era, is that you end up doing some things which require time and effort—and distract you from your primary objectives. I spent a lot of time on tedious tasks, like updating the website (and HTML coding), when I might have been able to expand readership if I had simply focused more on the actual writing in the zine. In these situations, you might end up having to pay somebody to do the work, or take the time to learn those skills.

Scaling is another downside, although it’s more of a limitation. A good small, DIY operation could sustain a few releases of 7-inches in the 500-1000 copies range per year and by the late-90s, you could do that with home CD duplicators as well. Beyond that though, a label would need to scale up to the next level by outsourcing a lot of the work, mainly manufacturing and promotion. At that point, the primary limitation is financing, which isn’t possible unless a band reaches the next