Poor, Proud, But Independent

Frustrated, Reed moved to Houston in 1993 in search of another nightclub and, hopefully, a more tolerant attitude. He never found the perfect venue, but he did start Fuzzgun Records with a handful of cash and the desire to see his favorite Texas band, Beaumont pop-punkers Train in Vain, make it big. Train in Vain's Good Enough for You CD was Reed's first release in 1994, and he's taken it slow, putting out only a pair of 7-inch singles, 30footFALL's Divided We Stand and the strong local music compilation Nothing Is Cool since then.

Currently booking acts for Fitzgerald's nightclub on the side, Reed says he favors a hands-off approach to the indie-label business. Bands pay for their own recording and manufacturing, while Fuzzgun, which operates out of a small office on Memorial Drive, handles package design (a talented silk-screen artist, Reed often does the CD covers himself) and distribution. Reed says all of the money made in sales goes right back to the label for advertising and promotion.

Thanks in large part to the success of the 30footFALL CD (Reed says he's sold more than 700 copies), Fuzzgun is breaking even -- an unqualified success considering Reed's last business venture was practically run out of town, and the one before that, a surf shop ... well, as Reed explains it:

"I went in and opened up one summer, buying about $5,000 worth of bathing suits, not realizing that you had to be open at least six months to a year to establish yourself," Reed recalls. "I sold bathing suits for about 12 months straight. I couldn't even reorder because I had a store full of nothing but bathing suits. Here it is winter, and I got a sale going. Live and learn, I guess."

Whether there's a market out there for pure noise is not really a concern for Sean and Carol Kelly. Just the fact that pure noise is out there makes them rest a little easier at night. As CEOs of Houston's Lazy Squid Records, the couple has quietly churned out CD after CD of arresting clatter. The label is behind all releases by Sad Pygmy, a local punk band founded by the Kellys, and a newer related offshoot called Bickley. But Lazy Squid is perhaps best known for its rather large catalog of CDs and multimedia packages focusing on a cacophonous sort of aural performance art so grinding and shrill at times that it borders on maddening. The Kellys also have their own rather prolific noise project dubbed Rotten Piece.

"You're not going to hear any of this on [the radio] any time soon," says Sean Kelly, who recently quit his job as an audio-visual tech at Data Display to work full-time on the label. "For Rotten Piece, we use found sounds, tapes and heavy processing to create this sick, undulating wall of sound."

Soft-spoken and articulate, the Kellys have a hard time explaining their odd attraction to such ear-splitting stuff, which has its origins in, among other places, the work of early electronic experimentalists such as John Cage and the more brutal, punk-inspired barrages of England's Throbbing Gristle. The mere fact that most of it is so far gone from anything resembling popular music may have something to do with its appeal to the couple, who've spent much of their adult lives occupying the periphery of what's considered normal entertainment these days.

"There's always been avant-garde audio that tended toward the surrealist sort of thing," explains Sean. "Then, when punk came along, you had all these English bands that sprang up doing this modern, industrial sort of noise music. I look at it as sort of the beauty in the juxtaposition of things. Like when you're driving around in a car, and all at once you hear three radio stations from other cars and people talking. That mix of random audio is really telling."

International noise compilations have been Lazy Squid's biggest sellers, especially in Europe and Japan. The most popular of the label's 30 some releases is a hellish collage entitled Cataclastic Fracture (A Noise Collection), which assembles 51 disturbing bits with titles such as "Machine Shop Rapist," "Maggot Colony" and "Pissed Off Orgasm (Pt. 2)." Though a lot of it will make your ears bleed, there is something intriguing in its rejection of anything resembling music. Noise guru Richard Ramirez, owner of Houston's Deadline Records and also part of the Sad Pygmy family, solicited the material for the 1994 CD, which came from all over the country. Then, the Kellys put it all together locally at Deep Dot Studio, where Sad Pygmy and many other Houston bands record. So far Cataclastic Fracture has sold upward of 900 copies, mostly through the mail. That same year, Lazy Squid made its own contribution to the local compilation pool with Risk Is Just a Part of the Game, a more eclectic new-music mix that features 30footFALL, Happy Fingers Institute, Kable and others.

Sad Pygmy's base of operations is upstairs at the Kellys' Houston home, just off Richmond Avenue near the University of St. Thomas. Aging and cozy, the small rooms are cluttered with box upon box of Lazy Squid products. After four years, it's gotten to the point where the label's projects are beginning to pay for themselves, which, to the Kellys, signifies success -- seeing as they only entered into the business for the fun of it.