The latest Business Deal Records Project!!! The goal is to promote the formation of new sounds, songs, friends and bands. Here’s how it worked: We gathered a group of friends, acquaintances and strangers and putting all of their names in a hat. We drew those names out of the hat. The first four will be assigned to be Band 1. The second four will be Band 2. The third four, oddly enough, will be Band 3. This exercise will continue until everyone had been assigned to a band. Next, we will spin a large “prize wheel” type of device to determine what instruments everyone will be required to play in their bands. The wedges of this wheel will have words such as guitar, drums, bass, etc written on them. You must play the designated instrument even if your band members have all been assigned the same one. That will make your song even more interesting. We will then put another handful of paper into a hat. These slips of paper will have many random topics written on them such as Canada, Dogs, Sadness, Temperature, Cube, Purple, etch. Those aren’t the actual topics I just made those up. We will then draw one slip of paper out of the hat and every group must write a song about that topic. They will also be required to write an additional song that does not have to be about the topic. Once everyone has written and recorded their two songs we shall distribute them to everyone to be voted on and then we shall release a CD featuring all of the songs in the order from favorite to least favorite.

The songs are finished and the cd is complete, stay tuned on how you can get one!!!!

Check it out on myspace!!!!!

The first review!!

Phases & Stages

Texas Platters

Business Deal Band Lotto

(Business Deal)

Business Deal’s 2005 compilation followed a Top 40 format. Now, the local label’s Lotto goes to the next level with the luck of the draw. Thirty-three names were placed in a hat, along with random instruments, out of which nine bands were formed. Each act wrote two songs based on topics also placed in a hat. The result is a diverse collection of weirdo pop culled from members of River City scenesters Cavedweller, Finally Punk, Shapes Have Fangs, Total Abuse, Pataphysics, Belaire, and more. Mystic Chainsaw serves up a lo-fi chunk of booty bass about baby fat, P.O.T.’s “Service the Eagle” is a delirious mash of dreamy pop, and Glowstick Mountain’s “Grandma” is a sweet, kazoo-filled ode to the sexual preference of a member of the greatest generation. Closer “Suicide, the Band” proves the most unlistenable track here, but once again, Business Deal proves thinking outside the box can win the Lotto.

Popularity: 31% [?]

Popularity: 15% [?]

Popularity: 15% [?]

Popularity: 10% [?]

Cavedweller

“quiet ramshackley lo fi psychedelic fulk loud echoey psychedelic rock danceparty or quiet and lovely acapella with knee slaps other times just clapping with some breathing sounds and birds in the background maybe an organ dirge or whistle solo mostly songs are about some movie or food newspaper say it sound like wadded up paper and a girl the other night said he sound like THE JUDYS.” -Roger Roll

Popularity: 10% [?]

Popularity: 9% [?]

Popularity: 27% [?]

Business Deal, Shun the Handshake

“We’re not business people. In fact, we don’t really know what we’re doing.”

Dirk Michener had no real intention of starting a label. When he and longtime friend Smokey Farris formed their first band at age 12 in Cypress, Texas, just outside of Houston, it was two friends jamming. The name Business Deal came about in 1993, and it grew as Michener went to school in Denton, Farris went to school in Austin, and more folks were drafted in. Over the last 10 years, it’s grown into a collective of many friends jamming that’s included anywhere from 10 to 20 members. That strength-in-numbers mentality remains at the core of Business Deal’s quirky success.

“There’s ended up being about 50 different bands from, like, 15 combinations of people,” the 31-year-old Michener says. “It’s a very tight-knit group. We don’t let just anyone in … unless we need a drummer.”

Business Deal’s groupthink is more a democracy than a label, which helps to explain its idiosyncrasies. There’s the ironic name, a riff on the sweaty power-handshake types; then there’s the gnarled Business Deal family tree, a tangle of local acts that’s included (past and presently) Cavedweller (Michener’s band), Zom Zoms, Teenage Dog, Gene Defcon, the Charles Potts Magic Windmill Band, Fishboy, Count Dracula’s Weed Smuggling Jam Engine, Yellow Fever, the Carrots, Pataphysics, the Old-Timerz, the Prima Donnas, and, very tangentially, Vietnam and Trail of Dead, among many others.

“I actually drew a family tree once, and it got really ridiculous,” Michener laughs.

He describes democracy thusly: “We propose ideas and gather consensus upon which we review the funds at hand and distribute the various tasks to members of the collective.” Bands put out albums, then hand the reins over to the next group ready to record or play out or promote. Screen-printing T-shirts and posters, making stickers, and recording are done by various BD associates, so the circle is self-sufficient. Parallel to the egalitarian vibe of the label is a sense of humor.

Take 2005′s Business Deal Top 40 (see “Texas Platters,” July 2005), which featured 40 associates of the label – the songs counted down in a Top 40 format, complete with jingles and featuring one-off groups like La Junta High School. It’s a perfect example of BD’s reproduction cycle. Accordingly, Michener jests that Business Deal is a “money-losing venture” but stresses that the important part is “getting together and writing a song with people you wouldn’t normally get together with. And then it’s like, ‘That band’s called this, and that’s it.’” And so the tree continues growing.

“There’s a right- and left-hand way of looking at Business Deal,” explains Michener, pointing out the label’s balance of pop and psych with the more dancey punk and comparing the collective’s map to the shape of a pentagram. “We’re a democracy, but we’re also like a gang. There’s no ‘Fuck you; I’m going over your head.’”

And everyone’s usually cool with that?

“No. But then we have to remember not to take it so seriously.”

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Established: 1988
Kingpins: Dirk Michener (owner) with rotating members of the collective
Number of releases: “I suppose this century we’ve released and co-released with other labels about 30 recordings.”
Notable releases: The Prima Donnas; Gene Defcon, Come Party With Me; Fishboy, Little D; Zom Zoms, Yellow Rainbow; the Telephone Company, The King’s Surprise, The First Annual Business Deal Company Picnic; Cavedweller, The Best Version of “Gloria” Ever There Was
New & upcoming: The Charles Potts Magic Windmill Band, Pataphysics, Cavedweller, The Carrots
Average print run: 1,000-2,000 pressed CDs, 100-500 CD-Rs, 50-100 cassettes, 300-500 vinyl 45s.
Distribution: Crystal Clear, K Records, Kill Rock Stars, Happy Happy Birthday to Me

Popularity: 23% [?]

Cavedweller plays Club Deville with Doug Gillard of Guided by Voices. Also playing is Zest of Yore. Tuesday, November 25th. Small cover charge. Great show to check out.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Preston Dukes, Pataphysics, Shapes Have Fangs @ Hole in the Wall on Guadalupe Street in Austin, TX! Saturday, November 22nd @ 10pm. $2 cover charge.

Popularity: 58% [?]