New music label, Blood Oath Slumber Party, is mainly all about kicking ass and taking names, but in, they say, a very non-aggressive, unselfish manner. They take South Florida bands to places they've only heard of in high school geography, like New England.
Label founders Chris Dougnac and Virginia de las Pozas specialize in giving music legs by first encasing it in hard plastic, and then whipping up fancy artwork.
Originally from Miami, the Bostonian transplants wish to musically bridge the gap between Massachusetts and Florida. This bridge they will forge with cassette tapes. Within the coming month, B.O.S.P. will distribute the music of local bands Cry Guy, Seductress, Ice Cream, Animal Tropical, the Gun Hoes and This Heart Electric all over Boston, Philadelphia, and South Florida.
The duo is scheduling their Miami and Fort Lauderdale release dates to coincide with Record Store Day, this April 20. They'll be representing their label at the annual RSD event Sweatstock in Miami. What follows is poetry.
New Times: Describe Blood Oath in two words, one starting with B, and the other with S. Go.
Blood Oath Slumber Party: Blue Steel. We use this for all of our tapes.
Fascinating. Can you write Haikus about why you started the label?
The power is gone,
but there is a distant light.
People want cassettes.
Perhaps you too know:
No one likes to be spit on.
Instead we will bleed. \m/
Please go cut your thumb.
It may hurt; you may feel dumb,
but, oh boy, it's fun!
\mmmmm/
\mmmmmmm/
\mmmmm/
That's how you write haikus right?
Yes. And now a tanka in response.
Best haikus ever
Tell us more about you guys
in limerick form.
What can the public expect?
What bands are yet to release?
Here is a lime-rick. We wrote it with lime in our mouths to make sure it was bitter.
A friend said to me Sweatstock 2013: This Heart Electric
"Oh boy," I said, "This could not be more perfect!"
Don't forget, Animal Tropical has got a new due,
Ice Cream and Seductress, too!
The Gun Hoes soon (although they are hairy rejects)
To be fair, only one member of the Gun Hoes is hairy, the other looks like Prince. Can you tell us a little about your favorite releases so far?
Ricardo (Guerrero of This Heart Electric) has been around since I can remember. One of the first shows I went to as a 15 year-old kid in Miami was a This Heart Electric show, when he was still doing the post-Goth thing. I was bamboozled. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. And imagine me when I saw him playing with a full band, in a completely different style. It's art, in my opinion.
The Animal Tropical tape is also exciting because of the simple fact that it's Animal Tropical. I consider them to be the Miami band. I remember reading band write-ups, and one of them describing Animal Tropical as among the most underrated bands in Miami... And it's true. They've faced a lot of hardships, one of them being the move up North and the odd attitude of betrayal from the Miami music scene that came with that. They have a new line up and an incredibly new sound that still hits the same pleasure spots that Doom Years and Committed to This did.
Why tapes?
We saw that tape labels (down South and up North) were much more self-centered than one would imagine, and that's one point we want to tackle. We don't want to be aggressive in our maneuvers, or selfish. The music industry is already aggressive and selfish enough. If we were to see success as a result of the strong-armed tactics we encounter, we would feel nowhere as fulfilled.
Also, these tapes are not just a form of musical distribution; they are just as much a piece of art as the music. Each tape is completely hand produced. Yes, we're using machines to dub, but not en masse. Each tape is made one by one. Our DNA is on these tapes. Or fingerprints. Or hair. A lot of the stuff is hand-written.
Draw us a picture on MS Paint about what Blood Oath means to you.
We actually did it on pixlr.
Check out Blood Oath Slumber Party on Bandcamp and Facebook. Sweatstock 4. With Otto Von Schirach, This Heart Electric, Holly Hunt, and others. 2 p.m., Saturday, April 20, at Sweat Records, 5505 NW Second Ave., Miami. Visit sweatrecordsmiami.com.
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