Modular People

We recently had the opportunity to speak to Michael Tee, co-founder of seminal post punk label M Squared and asked him about what it meant to be an independent record label, then and now.

M Squared's motto is "world domination". Was the labels revolt against the music industry always envisaged on a global scale?

It was all very tongue in cheek, a little naughty and mainly an accident. When the core M Squared mob of Mitch Jones, Dru Johnson, Patrick Gibson and myself were designing our M Squared letterhead, just for fun we used a photo of the AWA tower in Sydney and inserted our logo. Make it look like it was our tower. The graphic 'effect' as such was similar to the Radio City Hall logo in NYC. i.e. it appeared that M Squared was broadcasting propaganda out to the world. It made us look big. So we started the "world domination" motto to match the logo and have something silly to put on our t-shirts. I suppose it felt a little bit like a revolution at the time, cos the mainstream Australian music industry was so unilaterally 'dumbass rock', except for a few anomalies like the Reels or Mental as Anything. We didn't want to be part of that 'industry'

It wasn't that we wanted to overthrow the music industry, but that we expected more choice and variety. We like to rock - but not all the time. So we did it ourselves. And did it in different ways. We rejected the Oz rock/pub rock formula or that awful period of Oz new wave (which was pub rock with a synth and a skinny tie and Doc Martins). Bit like the Python's Brian of Nazereth and 70's Punk DIY, our message was "think for yourselves", "do it yourself" - don't just be passive consumers, don't just 'follow'. There were lots of other people in the Sydney Inner City with similar ideas in bands like Voight 465, Wild West, Pel Mel, Slugfuckers, Nov a Bleet, Idiom Flesh, so we werent alone. Though I think until recent times we were all a part of a forgotten chapter in the history of Sydney music scene in the early eighties, overshadowed by the 'sons and sons' of the cult of Radio Birdman etc. Similarly I think the little bands in Melbourne were lost in time too.

We used to get a lot of interest from the then European block countries, France and Germany, the early days of US college radio. We'd send records out and never get any money back. We released a compilation double 10" in France on a record deal done over a public phone. It sold well, but we never heard from them again. People from overseas would send in CV's hoping to get a job with us. So the logo and motto worked in that respect. There was so much interest, that perhaps we were in the wrong country at the time.

Systematics

What was it about the music industry and it's output that motivated the creation of M Squared?

We didn't really care much about the Australian Music industry. We were outsiders. So we weren't thinking of the music industry when we started M Squared. We were just making music that we thought no-one would release, we were inspired by Roger Greirson and his independent Doublethink Label. We thought if Roger could do it so could we.

In the 'old days' the big record companies made the recording and releasing process look very expensive, so a company was doing you a favour by releasing your record and signing you up. In the late 70s it became cheaper and more accessible, new technology open possibilities. Roland, Arp and Korg had just produced budget priced synths, TEAC made the first 4 track tape recorders, Revox two tracks and metal tape cassette recorders were cheap, the photocopier had just been invented, etc. So we could do things on the cheap, and work like a cottage industry with no big overheads. It was exciting to do all the recordings ourself at the M Squared studio in Wilshire St Surry Hills, then design the art, get the covers, do the media PR, distribute the records, book our own shows, etc. We didn't need big companies, managers and big budgets. In the same way things have gone much further with digital downloads and laptop studios.

With this in mind I think we could have only done M Squared in the late 1970s early 1980s. To do the same thing in the 1960s or 1990s would have required the services of a massive con-artist to hustle money from big companies. We had a window of opportunity. I think after us the 'independent industry' has gradually morphed into a mini-me of the mainstream industry. At the time, we heard horror stories about some of the huge debt that big bands got themselves into and the huge compromises that they had to make with their music to 'fit in' with the limited vision of the Australian industry. Which we didn't. Our only concern was whether we would have enough money to buy a new multi-track reel to do our next recording on or whether we have to recycle or whether it was fish fingers or spag bol from No Names' for tea!

M Squared was said to "steal music back from the experts." This wasn't a new idea but why was it so important in 1979?

Again at the time Australia was dominated by hairy blokes playing pub rock and the twee pop universe which centred around Molly's Countdown. There was this illusion where it felt like that music could only be played by 'special people' who were expert music producers/artists or who had special showbiz 'star quality' and 'technical' ability. Perhaps, we took up Brian Eno's prompt and status as 'non-musician' and attempted to reclaim music back from the experts and the commercial interests.

So I guess our 'revolution' was a subtle revolution. Taking the music away from the experts. Again this is that punk DIY ethic which was part of the zeitgeist in 1979 (except for the big dumb pub rock bands). I think we also in a way produced a sort of post-punk 'folk music' that is down to earth and experimental and not looking for commercial success. Experimental is not genre a style, but more about adventure and risk taking and making mistakes. I think this continues through to today in other forms. Obviously, when big money is involved there are more serious consequences for making mistakes. Its more like business than creative fun, hence the tag 'independent music industry' - we didn't have one of those when I was a young'un.

If many came as amateurs to the scene why was music selected as the form with which to stage this creative revolution?

It was cheap and fun and there were lots of places to play. There was a real inner city scene as such in Darlinghurst, Surry Hills, Newtown, Chippendale because the old locals were moving out and nobody else wanted to live there, the rents were cheap so we had a melting pot of misfits and seditionaries living in the inner city, who needed a different sort of entertainment to pub rock fast food. We all had 'arts grants' from social security, supplemented by the occasional gig money. So there was also an audience of like minded souls. There was lots of goodwill and co-operation, but not like a hippy commune.

The art of not conforming, did it come naturally or did it take a lot of thought and planning?

It was easy - we knew what we didn't like - and so the rest came from there. I think we were all misfits as well, so a lot of it was about rejecting the 'normal' suburban drabness. I also reckon a lot of time we would try to copy a style and get it wrong and accidentally come up with something different. So I think we did a lot of planned accidents as such. And everything we did was 'experimental' because we hadn't done it before and therefore was experimental. We might say, "I wonder what would happen if we crossed Black Sabbath with Bossa Nova? Let's try." As we could not play Black Sabbath or Bossa Nova we would come up with something else entirely. Though there is a wonderful version of Roxy Music's "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" performed by Scattered Order that we have stored away in the archives. Experimental for us was an approach, about breaking rules, not a genre or style. It's all relative to the eyes of the observer. Every band begins their life in experimental mode.

For example I think that daggy old Paul McCartney song "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" is one of the most weirdest experimental pop songs ever, it's experimental, I love it, but to others it is just twee pop. It is interesting that later on after M Squared, carrying on this thinking, I think each of us went on to break the rules of M Squared with our respective bands and our experiments were largely misunderstood, because many people expected us to continue in what they expected as the 'experimental genre'.

The Same

Did you try hard to capture a feeling of live performance and experimentation on each record?

I think the quality of 'personality' was more important to us than creating the illusion of live performance. Sometimes, like with Scattered Order or Dead Travel Fast or Ya Ya Choral it was a live performance to tape, but also sometimes it would be an assembly of overdubs and erasure which would come up with something that was impossible to play live. But it had to have character and take you somewhere.

I think the criteria for personality we may have had in mind may have been is it: beautiful, funny or violent and can I remember it after I have heard it? Or does this sound like nothing I have heard before ?

In retrospect did the music benefit from the shoe string budget you had? Would it have had the same meaning if it was recorded any other way?

Yes and yes. If Australian producers had got hold of our material who knows what they would have done? I had some experience with a 'real producer' and a bigger budget later on and they had no idea what we were trying to do, but had a good idea about what they wanted to do. So it didn't work. We could trust what we heard coming out of our speakers in the M Squared studio, Mitchell Ross-Jones new exactly what gear to get. I have never trusted any other speakers since. I think it was also important that we had limitations, e.g. we had four tracks or eight tracks (later) to play with so we had to be inventive and push the boundaries.

For example, we would throw a snare sound out to a speaker in the garden, put another snare drum on top of the speaker and set up a few mics and see what that sounded like, or when we would be recording inside we would have a mic recording the outside world and put that quietly in the background as we recorded to get that 'air' sound.


Ya Ya Choral

What were the benefits you saw in giving each band full artistic control over their work?

They were happy as they knew what they wanted to do and could get it done without interference. And what they came up with was interesting. We'd just sit back and be their engineers rather than producers. We were not trying to make hit records. Though as far as the M Squared artwork went, Dru was responsible for most of the M Squared look. We were lucky to have her enormous talent as part of the core M Squared team. I am so happy she has done the artwork for the new M Squared Boxed Set, it looks great.

Distribution and promotion of the records was one of the most difficult tasks. Did it feel like a distraction from music production?

We were not very good business people. We couldn't even run our studio at a profit as we were always doing favours. We were just concerned with output, making records we liked, etc. There were no independent distributors back then, Shane Fahey (from the Dead Travel Fast) and I would hop in his ute and physically hassle shop owners to put them in their stores on consignment. The inner city shops like Anthem, Record Plant, Hot and White Light, Revolver, Missing Link were our bread and butter, they always sold heaps for us. For the other shops, we would put them out and forget to go back and see how they went. We were more interested in the next record by that stage and not good on paperwork. We were also lucky that Ram Magazine, On The Street and journalists like Stuart Coupe, Andrew McMillan, Mark Mordue were very supportive of us (we got lots of press-even in the Sunday papers). Also without a doubt 2JJ and 4ZZZ would always put our records on high rotation.

Now that the internet has reshaped how musicians and music labels interact with their audiences can you see communities like the one that supported M Squared still forming?

I think they exist to a degree, but I don't know about that sense of being a scene. I think that for example the internet community around Robert Fripp and King Crimson and the Discipline site is an interesting example/model of how it can work. I read his diary every day and must have downloaded over twenty KC, Fripp and Eno projects over the years. I have emailed him a few times and he has replied. It's fun. It's low maintenance. I find the Facebook/MySpace thing to be a bit more work.

Are you inspired to make changes to the independent music industry today? If so what do you think should be done?

Is there an 'independent' music 'industry' today, I don't really know how it works nowadays? I don't think anything should be done, let them do it themselves - they will find their own way. As soon as we interfere it's no longer independent and starts to become a business concern.