With the surge in vinyl sales over the last few years, and the increase in demand for wild, swirly-whirly editions of vinyl, we here at Cool-Tite thought it best to check in with our homie – and the closest dude we know to an expert on the topic – Cody Jones. Homie Cody is the owner and operator of local, independent label, Anchor Eighty Four Records. Now in it’s 5th year in duh biz, A84 has had almost 30 releases and boasts a roster of bands that includes Minnow, The Traditional, and What Hands Are For.
So here’s what homie Cody had to say on the process of making vinyl for the bands he works with. He let us chill with him at his home office in Atwater Village. Check it out…
~What’s a typical run look like for your recent releases?
A typical run as of late looks like…Magic, haha! Actually, this year we are doing things a little different with new artists that we sign, but typically we do a vinyl pressing of 500 units – which is really the smallest run you can do and still make a profit – and we do between 200 and 1,000 CDs depending on the artist. This is just to start, and then we’ll order more as needed. CDs are pretty darn cheap and quick to make, so we don’t stress on those too much. We also release everything digitally for all those streamers and downloaders.
~ What’s the process for attaining that fresh wax?
This might be one of my least favorite parts of putting out a record, just because it IS such a process! But it’s also still exciting because it IS the beginning of making the physical product come to life.
We have to plan a minimum of 4-6 months ahead of time to get vinyl made due to the overall high demand of vinyl records these days, and all the marketing planning that goes in to it too. With that said, the band does their thing in the studio, and then we get the vinyl masters from the engineer, we hit up our pressing plant with the general idea of what we want to do (color scheme, quantity, extras, etc…), fill out the six pages of paperwork, and send off the masters, art, paperwork… and then have a whole lot of patience.
It takes about four weeks to receive the test pressing of the album once the record goes in to production. We listen to it. 99% of the time it sounds dope and we approve it…the other 1% of the time it needs some more tweaking and we send it back for another try…which results in more waiting time.
Once the test press is approved, it takes another four to six weeks on average to receive the final product, and then we have another few weeks before it actually gets released. Unless there were major delays (which could result in us missing the street date), we just send out as many orders to customers as quickly as we can once we get the records in hand!
~ What are the big challenges lately to having an artist’s release pressed to vinyl?
I’d definitely say the amount of time it takes to press a record to vinyl, as well as the financial cost/risk involved. For sure. The price of vinyl records compared to the 70’s has increased so much! Next is convincing the fans/public to buy it, haha.
The profit margin on vinyl, at least for me, isn’t as big as I’d like it to be yet. So, making sure we capitalize on the release while it’s still fresh is super important. This way we don’t have a ton of records sitting around that we can’t sell. Something I’ve definitely learned through trial and error over the years. There is so much music being released these days, that our audience has a really short attention span on how long something stays relevant in their mind before the next thing comes along.
~ What’s the coolest, titest pressing you have done to date? Coolest, Titest pressing you’ve seen of late?
Vain & Valor’s ‘Restless’ 12” EP has to be the Titest pressing we’ve ever done! We went all out on this one. The artwork was illustrated by the talented Chad Lynn, who did the entire layout of the album. And for the actual vinyl we did a single sided 12” with a super rad mandala screen print on the B-side, and the most limited pressing was a transparent blue vinyl with Easter yellow splatter. So when you turn the record over, the B-side looked like this magical mandala spewing out an array of color everywhere! We also included a CD of the entire EP inside the album jacket too. So Cool!
Other than that, STB Records just put out split 12” between Goya and Wounded Giant that came out looking pretty damn amazing! They do some really great records.
~ Any upcoming pressing you’re excited about?
Yeah man, totally. We have a new full length from Buffalo, NY’s The Traditional titled ‘How To Live Without Blood’ that just came out in January. Our first release of 2015! They are a rad bunch of guys – which, for those wondering, is also a definite must in order to be on A84… besides good music, you gotta be a cool dude or dudette to join. The new record from The Traditional sounds like a mix of The Wonder Years, Have Mercy, and Brand New.
We have a few more releases planned for later in the year too, one of which we will be announcing in early March. The other ones are still being discussed, so we can’t say too much on those as of yet. Gotta keep some stuff on the down low.
Other than that, I’ve been pretty stoked on 6131 and Reaper Records lately. They both released some killer records from Dads, Choir Vandals, Turnstile, and Angel Dust, respectively, that I’m super in to.
Photos by Crystal Lopez
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About this Homie:
Originally from Prunedale, CA, Cody Jones now lives and works in Atwater Village with his girlfriends – Stassi and Birdy the Cat.