The Vinyl District has been kind enough to let us take over this week in support of The Big Neck/Windian Mini-Fest at the Marcatus Art Market in Yards Park (10 Water Street SE, Washington, DC). This little summertime day show will be on Sunday, August 7th from noon to six featuring in no particular order: HOLLYWOOD (Baltimore MD), Stop Worrying (And Love The Bomb) (DC), Electricutions (DC), Odie Wilson, Vilent Lovers Club (NYC), and some surprise guests.
Art Whino’s Marcatus is a monthly a creative art market near the Nationals Ballpark during the spring and summertime featuring live music, food, and artist, fashion, and vendor tents. In addition to our own Big Neck/Windian Mini-Fest, there will be two other areas of sound presented by OUTSIDE (88, FORWARD DC, Lil Soso Productions) and One Love Massive. This month, the final installment of Marcatus for the year, there will also be a fashion show presented by the Greater Washington Fashion Chamber of Commerce.
Big Neck Records started out in Buffalo, NY way back in 1997. The original intent of the label was to showcase the new punk rock scene coming out of Buffalo, or at least that’s what we say now. What really happened is this: Bart Hart owned a bar at the time called Sanctuary, where a bunch of punk rockers hung out. One night they got him drunk and convinced him to put out records for them. And that is how Big Neck Records was born.
The first record Big Neck put out was The Blowtops’ “Voodoo Alley” on 7” vinyl. In Bart’s words,
“I was in my apartment staring at 500 copies of The Blowtops’ “Voodoo Alley” single. What did I let them talk me into? I kept mumbling, ‘I don’t know a damn thing about record labels. How do I sell a record? How do I get distribution? How do I get radio stations to play it? And most importantly: How do I get my money back?‘”
The Blowtops | Voodoo Alley
Through some hard work and dumb luck, The Blowtops’ single sold, and Big Neck went to work releasing its second record, The Baseball Furies’ This Is The GREATEST Rock-N-Roll Record Ever. This is still one of my favorite releases Big Neck has done.
The Baseball Furies | Coney Island U.S.A
To make a long story short, Bart was not loved by the city of Buffalo (something about drunken midget tossing, I believe it was) and decided to uproot and bring Big Neck down to DC in 1998, where it has been ever since. Fast forward 82+ releases and thirteen years, and we are still at it. Just to highlight a few of the most notable albums (at least we think so):
Lost Sounds – Memphis is Dead
Tyrades – Detonation
Ponys – Wicked City
Baseball Furies – Greater Than Ever
Mistreaters – Grab Them Cakes
HOLLYWOOD – Hits! All Time Low…
Tyrades – Detonation
Radio Beats – Ready to Shake
Red Red Red – Mind Destroyer
We have stuck to releasing vinyl as our primary format of choice. It just works better for Garage Rock and Punk Rock bands, and our fans have never stopped buying it. We did make one small change, though. To get the best of both the digital and tangible worlds, we added download cards to all the new vinyl releases. If you ask me, the vinyl/download card combo is going to be the death of the CD. Hell at this point, we are even thinking about never pressing another CD again. We just give those away as it is.
Some days I am not sure why the hell we still do this. Then I remember, there is so much good Rock-N-Roll out there that people should hear, and we want to bring it to as many people as we can. Or it could be all the beer and tequila. Either way, we keep plugging away at it. —Cory F., Big Neck Records
