The Ashton Velvet Rock Club Recording Company
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Welcome to Tapes ‘n’ Tapes, a bimonthly video series focusing on local cassette labels to help get the feel for why some people have turned to tapes for their musical medium.
As a label head, Ian D. Piirtola abides by a simple mantra for releasing music: “Obviously, if there’s something there, energy or a personality or something, I’ll put it out, I don’t care what the music is.” Piirtola started The Ashton Velvet Rock Club Recording Company back in 2004 to release CD-Rs by a two-piece noise punk trio he drummed in called Factories. Piirtola has since released a slew of cassettes (and some CD-Rs) by the likes of weirdo Kalamazoo, Michigan rapper The Wrap, lo-fi Atlanta folkie Melissa Lonely, and creepy Alabama noise act Cedro Danado.
The A.V. Club headed to Ashton Velvet’s base of action, located in Piirtola’s Logan Square apartment, to talk about making mostly everything by hand, his business plan for releasing unknown artists, and the “stupidest” label name.
