25th Anniversary of Blue Margins by The Blackwells - Side One

Above: Vintage Steve Everett-designed flyer. Before the internet age, this was how you promoted gigs. The line in The Deep Roots song, "Over Our Heads," references these flyers. "Hanging flyers, we'll make it big, but no one came to our list gig." (The gig was at the short-lived Riviera Lounge in Duquesne, PA.)

 

In 1995, there was great hope in the band world. Nirvana had ushered in a new era. Cool bands had gotten signed and were getting played on commercial radio stations. For example, “Drown” by Son Volt got played on WDVE, at least once. Even the Butthole Surfers got signed and written-up in Rolling Stone. 

And that’s not all. Nirvana had lifted the whole Seattle scene. Other Seattle bands got signed based on their zip code. It also made sense that some other city would soon catch fire and become the “next Seattle.” It was bound to happen. That is the way music had worked, and Pittsburgh looked like it was in the running. Rusted Root had broken into the mainstream with a new distinct sound. Bill Deasy and The Gathering Field looked like they were poised to make the big jump as well. 

And! The guitarist for The Gathering Field, Dave Brown, was a good friend of our sound man, Paul Fry. Brown had recorded the three albums released by Fry’s band, Stinging Rain. Some local music critics thought that Stinging Rain would be the next U2. 

The potential was there.

But there were two problems. First recording an album that sounded professional was expensive. Really expensive. The record companies were wise enough at that point that they would let upcoming bands foot the bill for their recording and then sign them if the album sold well. No risk on their part. And you had to have thousands of CDs made.

The second problem was that not many people came to see us play. It was that way for all of the local original bands. It was the room that drew the people. Around that time, D.O.S.E was an up and coming band. They had recently won the Graffiti Rock Challenge and released an album. We saw them at Nick’s Fat City one night and the place was jammed. A month later, we played a gig with them at Moondogs and there were only ten people there. 

If you spent $10,000 recording an album, you’d have to sell at least 1000 copies to recoup your money. Getting 1000 people to buy an album by an unknown band was a tall order. You could buy some advertising, but that would be on top of the $10,000 you already spent.

I remember reading that drugs were the “dirty little secret” of rock and roll. I disagree, the dirty little secret is musicians in massive, massive debt. 

So you have to find a way to record on the cheap, and we did....

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