Manufacture Records aka Manufacture Sound Output
Co. released a bunch of great music by some of Tallahassee’s best bands in the late
80s and early 90s including the likes of Gruel, Insect Fear, Coldwater Army,
D.V.C. (Darth Vader’s Church), Singing Spoons and Shatterposts.
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| A late 80s advertisement for Manufacture Records' first two releases: Gruel "Something In My Room" LP and Insect Fear "Must Be Destroyed" LP. |
Republished below is an early 1992 interview with Manufacture’s Wayne Gleasman from Dirt Dredge fanzine, issue #1, conducted by Lesli Baker and Kay Bozich.
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| From Dirt Dredge fanzine #1, early 1992. |
We went over to Georgia St. to interview Wayne because we felt enough had been done about the bands on this label and not enough about the guy who makes it happen. So we hid in Wayne’s closet until he had his jammies n and got all ready for bed (I, personally, was disappointed in his brand of toothpaste -L.B.) and asked him all sorts of stupid questions:
D.D.: O.K.,
let’s get this show on the road. When did you start Manufacture and why?
W.G.: About
ten minutes ago – I was inspired by those jalapenos.
D.D.: No,
really.
W.G.: Ah,
let’s see. I see Bruce beating on an oatmeal can as a drum. Bruce’s brother is
playing bass.
D.D.: That
would be Tex?
W.G.: Yea,
Tex. Ah, I guess it started with X-Band. Gruel’s former name, yea. They were
ready to put out a single – it was “Yo Mama Records”. I thought it was good to
have a band with a label attached to it even with no intention of having a
label at all.
D.D.: And
did you pay for all this yourself?
W.G.: Yea.
D.D.: And
why?
W.G.: It’s sort of an investment and it probably
won’t get done if I don’t do it.
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| X-Band "Pleasures of Life" 7", Yomamas Records, 1986. |
D.D.: OK,
so how does that work? As in once you decide to carry a band and once you do
how do you get the ball rolling?
W.G.: Well,
uh, I don’t have to particularly like the band but it helps. I have to report
that I don’t carry a band that I don’t fully believe in. Basically, a band has
to be good, recognized by those I respect my friends, those around me, um,
sometimes just by other bands, musicians. If they’re recording then we talk
about their individual project and who’s gonna finance it. If the band is
interested in making an investment in themselves, then sometimes they go ahead
and pay the pressing and I’ll do the marketing and advertising, so that can
work out pretty good – Cold Water Army went that route.
D.D.: So
this is for investment purposes only?
W.G.: No,
I could make other investments. I find the music intriguing. It’s fun to take a
really excellent, unknown band like Gruel and see if you can wedge them into
the public’s consciousness.
D.D.: Didn’t
you used to sing for X-Band at one time?
W.G.: (Laughs)
Oh yeah, back in the metal years. They needed a singer and they were all so shy
so I said dammit, I’ll do it. I sang and it was fine for awhile until they
reached the next plateau when they stumbled on Jeff Merrit, a red neck
metalhead. When he stopped being useful Gruel was born. When I sang I was Mr.
Flamboyant.
D.D.: Did
you like singing?
W.G.: Yeah,
it was fun performing. It was actually kinda stupid cause I was never that
good.
D.D.: Wayne,
why don’t you book bands here?
W.G.: Well,
because by the time I’d get the P.A. and pay the band I’d be losing money and I
don’t need to lose money on both bands and records.
D.D.: What
do you think can be done – do you think we just need someone else to book
bands?
W.G.: No,
I think places that have bands would do just fine if they did some promotion.
Most of them have scrappy or absent flyers and if they have any (promotion) at
all it’s only a flyer. And that’s really the extent of it. I don’t know, when
I’ve been busy and unaware for a couple of weeks, I grab a weekend paper to see
what’s going on and you know, if it’s in there chances are I’ll attend it. I
mean, here I am, the label guy, and I’m the last to know. Sometimes I’m sitting
at home and I’ll hear that in four hours there’s going to be a show and I’m
like, great, I guess I’ll go. I mean like, D.V.C. has had some pathetic
posters. I was terrified, that was a luck-out show, the show that they played a
couple of weeks ago. Carson (the A&R guy from STV Steamhammer label in
Germany that puts D.V.C. out over there) was here from Germany and all
afternoon I was giving my disclaimers about the lack of advertising and that I
didn’t know how many people would be there. I wanted the show to be really
successful and luckily it was. 200-250 people showed up, I was like yes, yes!!
It was completely word of mouth though. So we lucked out there but more often
than not it’s miss. Even on that night, which was pretty successful, the band
didn’t get paid shit because of some real bullshit out of town band like Meat
Locker or something comes up from Miami and gets this big guarantee. They were
a bunch of dumpy old men with gang rape songs.
D.D.: I
liked them because they were so bad.
W.G.: Well,
yeah, but they took all the money home and D.V.C. was the draw that night and
what do they get paid? 90 bucks and that was because Jeff was so happy that so
many people showed up.
D.D.: What’s
happening with D.V.C.?
W.G.: Well,
D.V.C. is working on their second album, we need to encourage them to get their
artwork done this week and their passport applications in this week, and, uh,
although the FUCKING passport application fee did soar from a mere 40 dollars
to 65…
D.D.: That’s
a lot of money.
W.G.: Yea.
D.D.: You
don’t pay for that, do you?
W.G.: What,
you think they have money? The only reason I’m paying for it is I need to make
sure it gets done and done now.
D.D.: Do
you sometimes feel like their dad or something?
W.G.: Yea.
Dad is great, I like that. They just got an invitation for a fifteen day tour,
Scandinavia, Switzerland, Austria and Germany, that will cover about three or
four weeks. That will be in April and will hopefully coincide with the release
of the album.
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| DVC "Descendent Upheaval LP and Singing Spoons "Resin Cabin" LP. |
D.D.: What’s
your sign?
W.G.: Leo.
D.D.: What
does that mean?
W.G.: I
was hoping you could tell me. I think it means I’m supposed to wear tacky
chains from K-Mart that say Leo on them.
D.D.: I
have a cousin that’s a Leo. She’s a bitch. What do you think of that new 7”
record label that Cris and Lee may be doing?
W.G.: As a
matter of fact I was just wondering Friday afternoon if it was really happing
‘cos, you know, I mean, I wanna do a box set this year, I don’t know when I’ll
do it, probably later this year, but I’d like to put out a nice box set of
maybe five singles from five different local bands, and if for some reason this
label doesn’t put it out I’d like to have a Magic Juan single in my box. And
even if the other label does put one out, with their permission I’d like to put
out a second one. So I think they should go for it but I know the expense, and
the hassle, and the headaches, and the write-off that Lee and Cris are
basically getting involved in…
D.D.: So
you don’t think it’s going to happen?
W.G.: No,
I suspect it very well might.
D.D.: Would
you welcome it?
W.G.: Well,
I think there’s room for it but I don’t see really any longevity in it, I mean
I think they wanna get some singles out of some noteworthy bands maybe to
document the moment. But I don’t think either Cris or Lee expect it to be a
long term viable thing. Maybe they do, perhaps I’m mistaken but…
D.D.: What
is that?
W.G.: No
one will let me throw that out? I’ve tried to give it away…
D.D.: It’s
a gnome! Is it a gnome?
W.G.: Yea. It’s a little elf or something. It’s this little doll my uncle Bob got me on a trip to Ireland, many, many years ago – I think I was in kindergarten or something. But see that is the efl, after G.I. Joe’s unsuccessful, many unsuccessful attempts to, that was the elf, that was the doll, who was able to mate my sister’s Barbie doll in the second grade…
And on that note we tucked ‘ole Wayne in, bid
him goodnight, and replaced his toothpaste with Sparkle Crest…Dirt Dredge
flavor. –intro and conclusion by Lesli
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| Insect Fear "Crease" 7"ep, Singing Spoons "Buzz" b/w "Colorado" 7", Gruel "Out Of Mind" CD, Coldwater Army s/t CD. |
