WHAT’S IN A LABEL?
BRIDGING THE GAP
Egon Alapatt views the revolutionary pop music of Iran, the low-key efforts US servicemen recorded in Vietnam, the many sides of African psychedelic rock, Indian hard-rock and the wealth of small labels who produced homegrown funk and soul in the States as all belonging in and coming from the same place.
BRIAN GREENE visits this forgotten music’s spiritual home, NOW-AGAIN RECORDS E 14
othen “Egon” Alapatt’s musical coming of age saw him spending his early and teen years digging on everything from the Hair soundtrack and Tom Paxton records in his parents’ vinyl
collection, to the likes of Tom Waits, Anthrax, The Beastie Boys, and Public Enemy. When he left his home state of Connecticut to attend Vanderbilt University in Nashville in the mid-90s, he became a full-on crate digger and became interested in records you wouldn’t find on the racks at the chain shop in your local mall. Eventually he went looking to make direct contact with the people making the sounds that moved him.
“I started getting more interested in
these records that were kind of the counterparts to major label releases – things that were more obscure and homespun,” Egon relates, when describing those days of avid vinyl hunting. “I really dug that shit. I got interested in these networks of small labels and small studios and records that were released in runs of 500, and that were only distributed by one guy, in one town. After college, I started making little journeys to places like Memphis, Little Rock, Chicago, Indianapolis, and other places, just trying to get to the sources of these records. I ended up with some incredible records and some great stories.”
In 2000, Egon moved to LA and became general manager of the Stones Throw
hip-hop label, helping to transform the outfit from a specialty collective serving a niche market, to a more globally renowned entity. And while being involved in the releases of Stones Throw notables such as Madlib (in all his many guises) and J. Dilla, Egon used the treasures he’d collected on all those post-collegial road trips to unearth the Funky 16 Corners compilation on the label. The album is a rare funk and soul lover’s wet dream, and it was a breakthrough for both Stones Throw and Egon; and it was the catalyst for Egon to start his own, offshoot imprint, Now-Again. But while Egon might have liked to spend the majority of his working time dedicating himself to Now-Again projects, for the first decade over which he juggled his various roles,
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