Debaser: Ben Schulman
Where plugging comes with a price
People are always asking us to help plug something of theirs—an upcoming show, a new record, some book they wrote. Because we’re not in the pandering business, we think there should be a trade-off. Debaser allows these folks to plug whatever they want, with one caveat: They also have to tell us something embarrassing about themselves. This week, Contraphonic Records head honcho Ben Schulman pimps his Chicago-based label and tells a tale of his encounter with the Mayan Tom Cruise.
Decider: Why did you start Contraphonic?
Ben Schulman: It was a natural evolution of what I’ve always been doing. I remember being 14 and I had Hairdo Records, which was a cassette label where I wrote letters to all these bands that I was a fan of and asked them to contribute one song to a cassette compilation. Fast forward X amount of years and I’m still doing the same thing.
D: What’s happening at the label?
BS: We’ve been really lucky to work simultaneously with some “emerging artists” from Chicago like Pillars And Tongues, an avant-garde trio who employ the same free-form idea of Pharoah Sanders. But they are not a jazz band. Also, Tobin Summerfield’s Never Enough Hope is an ensemble of over 20 people and that’s actually really orchestrated because he writes everything out. It has a big band feel--completely blown up and then deconstructed. It’s like John Zorn’s Naked City times 10 then divided by a million. At the same time, the label has been able to start working with artists that we’ve always been fans of, like Orso.
One of the main things we are doing is the Chicago Sound Series, which is a multi-faceted program where we basically are trying to document the city of Chicago sonically. It’s the present and it’s history. There are two aspects to it. There is one called Little Hell, which is the name of the neighborhood that is now Goose Island. With that aspect, we commission Chicago musicians to write a piece about a certain neighborhood or historical event in Chicago.
D: OK. Now it’s time for a humiliating story.
BS: It’s humiliating that there are so many humiliating stories. I guess the most recent and awful was when my wife and I went down to Tulum, Mexico, in the Yucatan last April. All across the Yucatan are cenotes, which are underground, freshwater caves. You get to look at all the stalagmites and stalactites. It’s beautiful and amazing. The only hitch is that I have no idea how to swim. Everyone was diving and checking it out and I was wearing gigantic “man-floaty” devices. Our guide was like the Tom Cruise of Mayan guides and my wife, Sarah, was dragging me along. The guide swam over and was like, “No, no, no. You go explore. I’ll drag him.”
So I had this total hunk dragging me through this cenote and I’m wearing these huge floaties. Everyone is checking out the stalagmites and stalactites I’m just marooned on this one rock. Sarah swims over to me, and she is like a mermaid because she just loves the water, and she hands me her snorkel. She’s like, “You’ve got to look. It is amazing.” So I put it on and put it over my glasses. Of course when I go in, my entire face fills with water. I throw the snorkel off and my glasses go with it. It was my total Woody Allen moment. I’m marooned on a rock with no glasses so I can’t see anything. Sarah has to call the Mayan hunk over and he swims to the bottom and finds my glasses. It was pretty humiliating.
Ben Schulman: It was a natural evolution of what I’ve always been doing. I remember being 14 and I had Hairdo Records, which was a cassette label where I wrote letters to all these bands that I was a fan of and asked them to contribute one song to a cassette compilation. Fast forward X amount of years and I’m still doing the same thing.
D: What’s happening at the label?
BS: We’ve been really lucky to work simultaneously with some “emerging artists” from Chicago like Pillars And Tongues, an avant-garde trio who employ the same free-form idea of Pharoah Sanders. But they are not a jazz band. Also, Tobin Summerfield’s Never Enough Hope is an ensemble of over 20 people and that’s actually really orchestrated because he writes everything out. It has a big band feel--completely blown up and then deconstructed. It’s like John Zorn’s Naked City times 10 then divided by a million. At the same time, the label has been able to start working with artists that we’ve always been fans of, like Orso.
One of the main things we are doing is the Chicago Sound Series, which is a multi-faceted program where we basically are trying to document the city of Chicago sonically. It’s the present and it’s history. There are two aspects to it. There is one called Little Hell, which is the name of the neighborhood that is now Goose Island. With that aspect, we commission Chicago musicians to write a piece about a certain neighborhood or historical event in Chicago.
D: OK. Now it’s time for a humiliating story.
BS: It’s humiliating that there are so many humiliating stories. I guess the most recent and awful was when my wife and I went down to Tulum, Mexico, in the Yucatan last April. All across the Yucatan are cenotes, which are underground, freshwater caves. You get to look at all the stalagmites and stalactites. It’s beautiful and amazing. The only hitch is that I have no idea how to swim. Everyone was diving and checking it out and I was wearing gigantic “man-floaty” devices. Our guide was like the Tom Cruise of Mayan guides and my wife, Sarah, was dragging me along. The guide swam over and was like, “No, no, no. You go explore. I’ll drag him.”
So I had this total hunk dragging me through this cenote and I’m wearing these huge floaties. Everyone is checking out the stalagmites and stalactites I’m just marooned on this one rock. Sarah swims over to me, and she is like a mermaid because she just loves the water, and she hands me her snorkel. She’s like, “You’ve got to look. It is amazing.” So I put it on and put it over my glasses. Of course when I go in, my entire face fills with water. I throw the snorkel off and my glasses go with it. It was my total Woody Allen moment. I’m marooned on a rock with no glasses so I can’t see anything. Sarah has to call the Mayan hunk over and he swims to the bottom and finds my glasses. It was pretty humiliating.
