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Ajax, Ont.-originated punk label Underground Operations will release an EP series to launch its new pressing and distribution deal with Universal Music Canada. The CDs from Closet Monster, Protest The Hero, Bombs Over Providence and Hostage Life will be in stores nationwide starting late-September.
"Two on one Tuesday, two on the following Tuesday," says Underground Operations president Mark "London" Spicoluk, who is also the vocalist and bassist in Closet Monster. "The idea is that we can market them all as a package, and when you buy one there are obvious connections between all of them, so it will be 'collect them all.'"
All four bands will back up the releases with the second annual Unity Tour, currently being booked by Toronto's Sarah Lutz at S.L. Feldman & Associates. The tour will tentatively run from mid-October into November. Until then, Closet Monster has scored the opening slot on Alexisonfire's upcoming national tour, September 14 to October 10.
Closet Monster and Hostage Life just played three Vans Warped Tour dates in Quebec City, Montreal, and Barrie, Ont. At the Barrie show, a core group of fans sang along to every song and the U.O. merch table rang up $5,000 worth of sales.
It was a similar sight that prompted Universal Music Canada's director of A&R, Dave Porter, to start talking with Spicoluk and then-label partner Chris Corless a year ago.
"The first time I saw all the bands was at the 360 (in Toronto) and it was one of their all-ages shows. It was like, 'Whoa! There's a lot of kids here," Porter recalls with amazement. "Wow. Okay. Punk rock exists in downtown Toronto! It was so much of a Durham, Burlington, Ajax thing, it's hard to get out there sometimes. So after seeing that, we started talking on and off, 'What exactly do you want?'"
Spicoluk and Corless didn't immediately know. For the past 18 months, Underground Operations had distribution with Quebec-based independent FAB, but were also talking with other majors and independents. "We wanted our products distributed properly in the retail chains and indie stores, and get the attention they deserve," says Spicoluk.
"But no matter what our deal consists of, I'm making sure that Underground Operations does not compromise our, and our artists, interests at any point whatsoever. It's all about us maintaining what we are and our independence and autonomy and judgement and working with people that legitimately help good music get out there."
Entertainment lawyer Chris Taylor (Sum 41, Avril Lavigne, Nelly Furtado) was now representing the label and marched them into Universal Music Canada headquarters to meet president Randy Lennox, noting that he'd come up with a fair and attractive deal.
For the next while, Spicoluk and Corless had many discussions with senior vice-president of A&R Allan Reid, Porter, Lennox, as well as A&R assistant Ted Seto.
"It was really weird because other than my experience in a certain pop world that I did for six months," Spicoluk says referring to when he played bass for Avril Lavigne at the start of her 2002 debut, "Let Go," "I had no experience with a record label on that level, which I used to my advantage. I could ask questions and bring forth ideas that weren't really of the norm. I think it was refreshing for the distributors that were coming to us."
Still, Spicoluk was uneasy. He had quit Lavigne's band so soon into her escalating success in order to go back to his true passion, running Underground Operations and re-charging Closet Monster ("We all know when we're doing something we shouldn't be doing," he explains), and wanted to make the right move.
Underground Operations and the artists on its roster were staunchly independent, many politically and socially minded and eschewed the big corporate machine, and were concerned that hooking up with a major label would compromise their vision and integrity, especially in the eyes of their teenaged fans.
"When you live in a punk rock scene, all you hear are majors are bad," says Spicoluk, "So my first concern is this going to be beneficial or is this going to hold back our artists? Is this in the artists interest and what will my artists think of this?"
As well as being a member of Closet Monster, Spicoluk co-manages the band with Against The Grain's Ewan Exall, and manages Protest The Hero alone. Corless also co-manages his band, Bombs Over Providence, with Prick Public Relations & Management's Cam Carpenter. Hostage life is a free agent. A collective decision had to be made.
How did they react? "The same as we did at first, just really confused," admits Spicoluk. "But a distribution deal is different than a band being scooped up by a major label and being developed into something. The big thing with this whole move is that nothing's really changing for us. We're just getting ready for a lot more opportunities. It's more empowering."
Spicoluk formed the label in 1994 in Ajax, Ont. with a few like-minded teenagers, who simply wanted to put out punk rock recordings, and put on live shows. For a minute, it went by the name Criminal Records until a search uncovered a business with the same name, strangely in Ajax.
Taking a reference from The Simpsons, they next selected Underground Monkey Operations, which ran for three years simply as U.M.O. -- releasing five tapes and CDs mainly by Closet Monster, and one main compilation that included the Oshawa band T.O.E. (now Cauterize on Wind-Up Records). There was talk of putting out a release by Sum 41, for which Spicoluk played bass for a couple of months in 1997, but it never materialized.
In 2000, Spicoluk restructured the label and relaunched as Underground Operations in 2001 with a 10-person collective of friends and other band members. Soon, Spicoluk discovered that its weekly brainstorming sessions over beers at Toronto's Green Room was not very productive.
"It was a big learning experience for me about too many people, not enough focus and direction," Spicoluk says. "The idea of working things as a collective is really good if you have equally motivated people, but slowly it just dwindled down and dwindled down until there were a few people left."
In 2003, Underground Operations became just Spicoluk and Corless. Closet Monster has achieved the most success to date, securing licensing deals in Japan, Europe and South Africa for its fifth release, 2002's "Killed The Radio Star" (retitled "A Fight For What Is Right" for the South African market) and "very DIY" deals in Argentina and Brazil. MuchMusic also got behind the band, playing its videos for "Mr. Holland Vs. Acceptable Behaviour" and "Corporate Media Death Squad."
Up until now, all the deals Underground Operations has had with its bands has been on a handshake. "It all been very punk rock. No need for pen and paper," says Spicoluk. "It's a family and has been from the very start. It started as a collective with more people than there ever was working on the label, but now it's moved towards a collective of bands and artists and a couple of really strong-minded, hard-willed people steering the boat."
Still, he admits, he will be getting all the acts to sign contracts now. There's also the possibility that this deal could eventually lead to a direct signing for one or more of the acts. "I can't emphasis enough that whatever moves we make just leaves doors open for our artists to go larger," says Spicoluk.
While it is just a straight P&D deal, which means the label picks up the tab for manufacturing and pressing costs, it can extend to other opportunities, says Porter, from the possibility of designing U.O. racks for retail to using Universal's promotion staff to work radio.
"If they have something that works at radio, then, yes, we will bring in a radio team, but really it's their company. All that stuff costs money, but obviously, if it makes sense, we're gonna do it," says Porter. "It's going to go through the Interscope stream here, under Sarah Norris (VP of marketing). Everybody is quite excited. Right out of the box because Closet Monster played the Warped Tour this past weekend, MuchMusic added the video ('Mamma Anti-Fascisto: Never Surrender' from "We Rebuilt This City").
"Our designated person, Celestine Caravaggio, electronic media for Interscope, goes into Much each week, so she introduced the guys to the Much crowd. The video went in two weeks ago into the meeting and they gave it a light rotation. In this day and age," adds Porter, "there's so much CanCon, and so many bigger artists, we were very pleased with that."
"The people at Universal just really get it," Spicoluk says. "They're as excited about it as we are, not that any of the other labels wouldn't have been, but I think we had to make sure that all the bands, and ourselves, felt good about what we were doing and that we weren't compromising anything and that we were getting the best that we could for all of our artists."
Between the talks and the signing, Corless ended up landing the job as creative manager at Universal Music Publishing Canada, but still remains "involved" with Underground Operations, mostly because Bombs Over Providence is on it. Ex Closet Monster tour manager/friend Dan Shaw has now stepped in as U.O.'s vice-president.
With the Universal deal, Spicoluk also moved the operation to Toronto, where he has set up the office in his house. Prick's Cam Carpenter is doing press for the label, and Spicoluk and Shaw plan to work college radio themselves in September for the whole U.O. EP series.
U.O. will celebrate this new partnership with Universal tomorrow (August 20) at Toronto's 360 with a prerelease party for Closet Monster's "We Rebuilt This City" and Hostage Life's "Sing For The Enemy." Both EPs will be available at the show, but then not again until September when the Universal distro kicks in.
Spicoluk is hoping to set up similar distribution deals outside of Canada or licensing each CD on a per release basis. He hopes Universal may help. "As soon as we set up in Canada and get a good foundation going, it's all about taking it as far as we can," he says. "The timing is right, now. That's part of the reason we decided to go with a major. The industry is ready and open to new ideas and new style of music and new things they haven't witnessed before.
"I think everybody's mind's blown, the fact that Alexisonfire can sell 20,000 records without radio play, strictly on video support and live shows because that's just the time in this day and age of music, I think it's all about live. There's a void in the industry. This section of music listeners and connoisseurs don't care what's being played on the radio. They listen to vinyl records and CDs they buy at shows, and not what's force fed to them by pop culture machines."