Hey Sound Opinions listeners, if you support us on Patreon, you get to listen to our podcast

ad-free on Patreon.

You're listening to Sound Opinions and this week we're talking with Rob Severe and Ken Shipley

of the Archival Record Label Numerow Group. I'm Jim D. Rigadas and I'm Greg Kott. We'll also

share some of our favorite numero group tracks from over the years. Let's jump in.

We are joined by the Numerow Group head honchos Ken Shipley and Rob Severe. Guys, you are on the show more than a decade ago. Welcome back.

Thanks for having us.

I'd like to highlight the fact that you are celebrating your 20th anniversary. Huge event in L.A. with the following bands performing. Unwound Codine, The Hated, Karate, Ida, Chisel. Everyone asked about you.

You, Rex and Sunami. None of these bands were on the Numerow Group radar way back when when the label was founded. So the expansion, genre expansion. Talk about that a little bit. What was the thinking there to go beyond the original scope of the label?

We figured out at a certain point we were going to run out of road. We were going to run out of octogenarians to get on the phone. So much of our business and the music that we released was made in the 60s and 70s.

We had older and older and you stopped being able to get the same people to agree to be on the label or to look at their music again. So we thought it might be interesting to just fast forward a couple of decades into an era that we both experienced at the time.

We had a sort of proprietary knowledge about the music of that era that we thought we could bring a unique perspective to. And I always felt like Numerow was more of a software than anything else. And we built a really great system and we have a great way to make records and how to promote records and that we could work on anything. And so it didn't seem that daunting to me.

Now Rob, I gather that these were bands that both you and Ken loved in your teenage years. Bands that formed you.

I was less formed by these bands. I mean, I was aware of some of them unwound and coding and a couple others that we're talking to. But this is a little bit more Ken's world.

And in fact, I mean, you know, for him is a little more full circle because he worked with Ida and whose performing at Numerow 20 and was much more part of like the simple machine scene, which is very much part of the Numerow 20 experience.

The hated Ida tsunami. We're all part of that world. Well, if you do want to explain simple machines.

Yeah, simple machines was just probably like the first DIY label to go out there and show everybody how it was done.

They published this crucial thing called the Mechanics Guide, which was basically just like, here's everywhere you can get a record press, here's where you can get your labels made, here's who does covers.

And they were really generous with that information at a time and it demystified making records from me certainly as a teenager.

I was a big fan of what Jenny and Kristen had done. And you know, we've been talking to them for years about the influence and impact that they had on our label and the way that I make records.

And it sort of felt like a natural fit to get them into the universe.

Yeah, you're talking about Jenny to me and Kristen Thompson.

...