Scene & Unheard Issue #25

Indie entrepreneurs heat up the Miami music scene

By Amber Drea
Published: September 1st, 2005 | 3:10pm

Miami, Florida, isn’t all booty-bass and bikinis. Outside the here-today, gone-tomorrow club culture lies a small community of artists and musicians who strive to create something more lasting and meaningful. Venus presents two pair of business-minded individuals trying to make that happen.

RECORD LABEL: Home Tapes
FOUNDERS: Husband-and-wife team comprised of sound and graphic designer Adam Heathcott and photographer Sara Padgett
SOUNDS LIKE: The label releases range from jazz-influenced folk rock to experimental lo-fi electronic reminiscent of Stereolab, Mercury Program, and the Flaming Lips
ROSTER: Feathers, the Caribbean, Paul Duncan, and Shedding
THE LOWDOWN: Home Tapes began in 2000 with their first four releases on homemade CD-Rs, but the two Arkansas natives have been making zines, art, and music together for more than 10 years. Prompted by friends and the city’s diversity, the couple moved from Savannah, Georgia, to Miami in March 2004. The label’s imprint, Place Tapes, produces limited-edition releases that allow the art and packaging to be more prominent than regular CDs. The imprint’s first release, Nick Butcher’s The Complicated Bicycle, comes in a screen-printed 24-page hand-bound book.
MISSION: “Our goal is to combine the best music and the best artwork into something that you want to hold in your hands and something that you will love and will make your life better,” Padgett says. “It’s very idealistic. I think it’s more about the person — be they a musician or a visual artist — than about what they make. It’s really driven by relationships.”
TRIVIA: Feathers recorded with Mike Jorgensen (Wilco) and John McEntire (Tortoise) at Chicago’s Soma Studios. Home Tapes’ releases by Nick Butcher and Shedding were printed at screen-printing company The Bird Machine, which has designed posters for bands like Sonic Youth and Guided By Voices.
URL:home-tapes.com

SHOP: Sweat Records
FOUNDERS: Twenty-two-year-old Miami native Laura Reskin and 24-year-old Detroit transplant Sara Yousuf
THE LOWDOWN: After 10 months of planning, the two University of Miami graduates opened Sweat Records in Miami’s up-and-coming Overtown neighborhood in March 2005. The record store features a backyard patio, a lounge, and community turntables that are available to beginning or advanced DJs free of charge.
MISSION: The store’s distinct selection of vinyl, CDs, DVDs, magazines, accessories, Japanese toys, and local art is geared to promote independent and underground music, culture, and “305 style” (named for Miami’s area code) in South Florida. “We’re dedicated to Miami music because a lot of people give up easy and skip town for greener pastures,” Reskin says. “Miami is plenty green at the moment, and the city has a lot of new blood and potential and people with good taste in music.”
EVENTS: The Evens played an in-store performance in June 2005 to a crowd of “over 200 people sitting cross-legged and completely entranced with more spilling out the front and back doors,” Reskin says.
EXTRACURRICULAR: DJ and promoter Reskin is the grandniece of Alan Freed, who coined the phrase “rock and roll,” and plans to release a 12-inch by Miami band Awesome New Republic on her label, Subtropic, this fall. Yousuf, a first-generation Pakistani-American, is a third-year law student pursuing a career in promoting the public interest and protecting Pakistani rights.
TRIVIA: Sweat Records was voted “Best New Music Store 2005” by Miami New Times and won the Reader’s Choice for “Best Record/CD Store.”
URL:sweatrecordsmiami.com