For the month of April, we’re giving the bands a break and turning Three Stars over to area record labels. Today, we chat with Brian Lowit of Lovitt Records. Lovitt’s longevity (sixteen years and counting!) is almost as impressive as the list of alumni. Lovitt Records’ roster also showcases Lowit’s strong ties with the musicians he grew up with, both here in D.C. and in North Carolina where he went to college.

Lowit is another product of college radio who wanted to give an outlet to what he thought were deserving bands. Some of his early releases were from local heavyweights like Frodus and Monorchid, but Lovitt’s current artists are also releasing very impressive work. Pygmy Lush’s LP Old Friends is a soothing yet intense and full-bodied work that fills your earbuds and brings literality to the “Lush” portion of their moniker. Des Ark’s Don’t Rock the Boat, Sink the F**ker is raw and emotional throughout, but sometimes displays its emotion through impressive guitar riffs and other times through quieter and breathier fare. With both bands touring off of these releases, and other bands like Bat & Mice, Regents and Frodus releasing seven-inches, Lovitt shows no signs of slowing down.

We got the chance to talk to Lowit about the label’s origins, remaining self-sufficient and the bizarre questions he’s received as a label head.

Find them online: http://www.lovitt.com and on the Facebook.

Buy the albums: At their bandcamp site, their website or at any area record store.

What prompted starting the label?

Well, I was in college at the time and I worked at the radio station. I worked at QFS and I just always loved music. It’s funny, a lot of stuff comes in there and there’s a lot of music out there, but I just kind of realized that there were bands that still weren’t being represented that should be, and that there were a lot of bands being represented that maybe shouldn’t be. Especially in D.C., where I was originally from, there were bands that for whatever reason just weren’t being documented. And on a whim, I was like, maybe I should put out some records! So I called this one band, the Monorchid — Chris Thompson who had been in the Dischord band Circus Lupus that I had always really liked, his new band had been playing out but they didn’t have anything out so I just asked him, “I’m starting this label. Would you be interested in putting anything out,” and he was like, “Sure.” I was like, “Oh, cool!” So it just sort of started like that.

The second release was by the band Frodus, who, funny enough, I just put out another 7″ of theirs, even though they’ve been broken up for awhile. I’d known Shelby from this record store that used to be in Fairfax called Record Immersion, where a bunch of people would often hang out. They’d find out about music and buy music, of course, and I knew Shelby from then and there. So I asked him and he was really interested, so that was the second release. So from there it just took off, and for a while, Shelby actually did part of the label with me. I can’t remember what release he came in on and what release he left on, but he was part of the label for a little while. But it’s kind of hard for him being in a band and doing it as well, so, he kind of just offered it back to me.

This wasn’t one of those things where I thought, “Oh, I’ll be doing it for a long time,” by any means. It just kind of happened.

Is it something that’s been self-sufficient since you started it or have you been doing Lovitt in addition to other things?

I actually also work at Dischord Records. I don’t put any more money into the label and I haven’t for a very long time, so it certainly doesn’t lose money. And working at Dischord’s great because it’s one of those things where I get to do Lovitt and Dischord stuff there ’cause a lot of the stuff kind of overlaps, which is nice. When I started there, there was a while where that’s what I was doing. Right after college, that’s what I was doing and then I got a temp job over the holidays with a government contractor and that led to them paying me an obscene amount of money for no reason, so I kind of stuck with it for a little bit, because I actually just did the record label work while I was there. And eventually, I was just like, this is ridiculous — so I left there and went on tour with the band Engine Down to Europe. Actually, that was in 2001, because we were actually over there for September 11th which was kind of crazy. It was kind of a surreal experience to be in Germany for that.

So, at some point, Dischord had been distributing my stuff and Ian was nice enough to say, “Hey, if you want to work over here part time…Dischord makes money off of Lovitt because we distribute it, so maybe we can find a way to make it all work together. You can work here and do Dischord stuff and I can help Lovitt and help Dischord.” So, I did that part time for awhile, and it moved into more of a full-time thing. So, basically, it’s like having two full-time jobs but they do overlap. I do Lovitt stuff a lot at night and on the weekends, too. But, I’m always doing something with music. I do go out with bands a decent amount, but it does backlog me further.

Were you on any of the Des Ark/Pygmy Lush tour?

I didn’t. I just went down to Chapel Hill for their show and it’s because I’ve been so busy with their releases in general, the way they were touring I would have had to pick somewhere to fly. With a six-week tour, that’s kind of hard to do. Usually if I go out with a band, it’s only for four or five days, or to Europe, or something like that. I just always found that if I was behind in something, it puts me further behind. That way rather than interrupt their work touring, I can do their work promoting from here.

Des Ark also just recently did a Daytrotter session. Do you know when that’s going to go up?

I don’t, actually. I would say it might be six weeks. They record one a day, but then it takes a little while to mix them and then they draw the picture and write the stories. It’s such a backlog of stuff that one of my other bands…it took two months to show up. But I’m really excited. I think it’s a really great opportunity. One of the things about Des Ark is that they have a good fan base. The people that like it totally love it, but then there’s just so many people that don’t even know about it, so that’s one of those things where people who go to that site will download it and be like, “Whoa!” So, I’m excited that it can get out to a bunch of new people.

How many releases have you put out this year? We mentioned the releases from Frodus, Pygmy Lush and Des Ark.

There’s a Bats & Mice 7″, too. And then we have a new band called Regents that’s about to put out a 7″ that just needs to be finished. They’ve played a couple times in D.C. It’s Jason Hamacher from Frodus, Dave and Drew who were in this band Sleepytime Trio, and then also Maximillian Colby together, and then this guy Dan who was in the band Exploder playing bass in it. It pretty much sounds like Sleepytime Trio or Maximillian Colby or Frodus…it’s cool. I really like it. So, they recorded four songs and they’ve been playing…they played with Pissed Jeans a few weeks ago at Red Palace. So that 7″ should come out by this summer. There are a couple other things that I’m kicking around, but I want to get further into the release.

Every release has its own life cycle and if the bands are touring, I don’t want to overdo it and take on more than I should. Pygmy Lush and Des Ark are touring much of this year and there’s a lot that goes into that so I don’t want to add, like, eight more releases. So, after Regents, I’m not sure but that’s definitely the next release. And Pygmy Lush has a full length and a 7″. They recorded 14 songs and the record is already long as it is. They picked two songs that they didn’t think fit as well, so, they split it up and decided to release those two in a 7″ by themselves.

You went to school in North Carolina, but you grew up here. Had you already been involved with the music scene here before college?

Yeah, definitely. I definitely grew up going to shows at the old 9:30 Club and the old Black Cat, even before it moved, and a lot of church shows, like St. Stephens’, things like that. In high school, I did at least a couple shows a week. I grew up in Falls Church, around Tysons Corner. I was always into D.C. music and punk from, I’d say, 9th grade.

Were people receptive to your love of D.C. punk in North Carolina?

Well, North Carolina has a really good music scene of its own. Greensboro had this punk house called Dick Street that was pretty amazing, and they had shows all the time there. A lot of the D.C. bands would actually come through Greensboro. But there were a lot of Greensboro bands that were really good, and of course, Chapel Hill. We would drive to Chapel Hill or Durham a fair amount to see shows. There was a lot going on, and at the radio station in North Carolina, I’d always find out about new music. It’s kind of crazy how in North Carolina, there’s probably like 20 college radio stations and they’re all pretty good and you can’t get one here. I definitely listen to internet college radio sometimes. But, yeah, since a lot of the students there were from Virginia, D.C. and North Carolina, they were into a lot of the same music.

One thing I thought was funny on the Lovitt website’s FAQ was the answer to the question, “Are Monorchid, Frodus, etc. still bands.” Do you really still get those questions?

That thing is so old. You do get a lot of strange questions, for sure. I don’t get those ones that much anymore, but I do get weird questions.

Like what?

Well, maybe not so much over e-mail, but I’ll definitely run into people that know me from the label or know me from releases; they’ll ask pretty personal stuff about the band members that kind of surprises me sometimes because I’m like, “Hm. Why does that even interest you and how did you hear that?” Even sometimes about myself, which surprises me, I’ll hear “Oh, I hear in ’96 you did this,” and I’ll be like, “I don’t even remember that.” I guess especially with the Internet now, people are more interested in people’s lives, but I definitely get people asking about anything from people’s sexuality to their personal life or things like that. But you will get sometimes, “Will this band play my house?” and it’s like, “Well that band broke up ten years ago, so, no.”

Then you get the, “What manufacturer did you use to press this record?” and really picky record collectors who ask about the process of how the record was done. They’ll ask where it was plated, where it was cut, where it was pressed and I just think it’s kind of amusing. Because it’s not like we’re putting out vinyl that’s $40 that claims to be the highest quality. I think it’s great, but it’s not a selling point. I definitely get a lot of e-mails asking for advice from people that want to start a label or their band wants to tour Europe and they know we’ve had luck in Europe: stuff like that. I get those all the time, too. Or demo requests and stuff.

Do you think it was easier to have started a label in the mid-’90s than it would be right now?

Yeah, I do. I think it’s kind of a weird thing because in one way, it’s easier to get exposure, I guess, with so many different websites streaming and get your music out there, but on the other hand, there’s so much out there to weed through that I’m not sure how people find stuff sometimes. Before, there were a couple of magazines that you’d put ads in and you’d send off to the same places for review. There was more of a set process; whereas I think it changes so much now what sites you need to be on, or which blogs are important. That seems to change every week. Distributors come and go. Every week there seems to be some new mp3 site that’s popping up that’s going to be the next big thing. Before, you just sold to distributors and they sold to stores and it was pretty straight-forward in that manner. Now, you still do that, but you also have to deal with all the digital stuff. Even with an LP, you add a download code in it. There are different steps to it.

And I kind of feel with the whole e-mail thing, people will send e-mails and expect a response right away but they wouldn’t have written a letter with the same question. That’s where I get behind a lot is things like e-mail, because you get a lot of it. And it’s nice that people care, but it gets overwhelming at times, where before there was the filter of, “Am I going to sit down and handwrite and mail this and then get a response?” For the first couple years of the label, it was more physical mail that I would get than e-mail. Whereas, now, I don’t even know the last time I got an order to the P.O. Box where someone mailed a check. It’s been so long. I guess it was a process where you’d have to go to the bank and process the check, whereas now the money just kind of appears in your PayPal account. There are tradeoffs for everything. But then I think it was a little easier to say…you’re putting out a record, here are the main distributors you want to talk to. Now it’s not as cut and dry, I think. But obviously, it’s just harder to sell a record.

And there are websites selling music where it’s an option to even pay.

We’ve actually done an experiment with bandcamp and it’s worked out pretty well with the new releases. We put it up so that people could listen to them streaming for free and then we put a minimum price on it, which is a little below, it’s seven or eight dollars, or you could pay what you want, and get the physical product. I will say, a lot of people pay more than what we set the minimum. It’s pretty interesting. I think bandcamp is really cool. But it’s one more thing to think of. “Oh, I need to update bandcamp,” or “Oh, I need Facebook and I need to update it.” It’s just hard to get all these things caught up on.

Do you do the Facebook updates, too?

Yeah. Luckily, it goes straight to Twitter so I don’t have to double do anything.

Wait, are you doing most of this yourself, or do you have people helping you out?

Yeah. I do get help. Sometimes I have interns. I don’t have one right now. But that can be really hard, too, because sometimes you’ll get a kickass intern but then they’ll have to go back to school. They’ll come in for the summer and then the next one you have might be a total clunker that doesn’t do any work. So, it’s kind of hard because it takes just as much effort to get an intern and show them what to do as doing it yourself. I definitely battle with that sometimes. But, I have a lot of friends that help out. And Shelby’s still involved. He’s the one who set up all the bandcamp stuff and he does all the graphics for me, still, actually, which is nice because that’s one thing I’m not really good at. We’re actually rebuilding the website right now and he’s been doing a lot of that. We’ll hire out for the press, the people that sends things out to magazines because that just requires a lot of follow-up with people. I still do some of it, but that and radio, I usually try to get them to do the majority of it. There’s so many different things that go into it, it just amazes me sometimes.

Is Shelby the one who designed your logo?

He isn’t, actually. He helped with that, though. Steve, who’s in that band Dead Meadow, did it. It’s pretty random. He was in the band Impossible Five who we put out, and when I was looking for a logo, Shelby was like, “Oh, you should get this guy Stevie to draw up some ideas.” He sketched out some stuff and I really liked it. It’s been tinkered with over the years, but he’s the one who came up with the original concept. I’ve been lucky, I’ve always had a couple people around who were really good at graphics and layout so I’ve never had to really worry about that.

Did you think in 1995 that you’d still be running your own label sixteen years later?

It’s funny, because if you had asked me in college how long this would have lasted, I would have said a couple of years. Because I was a Poli Sci major with an Environmental Studies background, and I thought that was what I was going to do and that this was more of a hobby — and then the hobby just kind of took a life of its own. There have been points, too, where I’ve been like, “Maybe I should stop and do something else,” but it’s almost become its own uncontrollable little thing where I’m not even sure where a stopping point would be. A lot of people that I’ve worked with will come up with a new project and of course, I’m like, “Oh, I’d like to work with you again!” In terms of entirely new people that I’ve worked with, it’s been a little while, but the people I’ve worked with just keep doing more interesting things. I’m definitely not going out of my way to find a new band, but I keep ending up with them somehow.

But it’s worked out. I guess Pygmy Lush was the last new band. I’d worked with Mike before in the band Haram but not the other guys. I’m really, really glad that worked out because I think their new record is so amazing. And then Aimee — it’s funny because we’ve been working on this record forever and it’s finally coming out. It just seems like it’s been out for five years, but it hasn’t. But, it’s definitely for the love of it and it always makes me really happy to see, like, people from all over the world ordering these records. It makes me really happy because it’s like, “Wow. How did someone in Russia hear about this?” Obviously, the Internet — but still, that’s really cool. That’s definitely the rewarding part, actually seeing the records go out and seeing people appreciate all the hard work that the bands and the label put into it.