With his new label, Too Much Rock, Kansas City’s Sid Sowder might have the most revelatory approach to releasing music you’ve ever heard: “I used to run a label for years where I worked very hard and lost a lot of money. Now I’m just pressing the 7-inchess and giving them to the band. I lose the same amount of money and I get to say F-U to the ‘industry’ part of the record industry.”
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Schwervon!, “Landlocked” 7-inch
Sid Sowder, aka Sid from Too Much Rock has started a record label. Or rather, started a new record label. He used to run Urinine Records back in the late ’90s / early ’00s, and put out two of my favorite releases — the Believe It or Nots’ There’s A Great Future In Plastics and Namelessnumberheadman’s When We Leave, We Will Know Where We’ve Been. He’s also shot pictures of hundreds of bands, videos of dozens, and really (and forgive for saying this) repping the scene.
All of this goes to say that Sid starting a new label to release things has me very excited. The man knows good music, and he demonstrates it yet again pretty fully on the first installment of the Too Much Rock singles series. Featuring Schwervon! doing both an original and a cover, this big-hole 45 hits all my favorite things: it’s a single, first of all, and both songs are exclusive to this release. “Landlocked” is the first song the band wrote upon moving to Kansas City back in April of 2012. The B-side is a cover, as all flipsides will be for the singles series. Sowder picks the songs, and in this case it’s the Raincoats’ “Off Duty Trip,” sounding like it was written especially for this dynamic twosome.
Schwervon! has always managed to earn my undying affection by virtue of their energetic, fairly bopping live shows, and the fact that they manage to translate that enthusiasm to recordings in a way few other acts can. They play music that you could describe as firmly rooted in late-’80s / early-’90s college rock, but fairly much just rocks. It’s fun fucking music that snooty pricks in Guided By Voices t-shirts can enjoy just as much as some dudebro who listens to the Buzz.