Hi Del-Fi

This summer Del-Fi will also launch the DF2K imprint, which will focus exclusively on new acts. Slated for summer release are albums by Outrageous Cherry (think alternative meets Phil Spector) and Cloud Eleven (formerly Jiffipop). Rick Gallego, the mastermind behind Cloud Eleven's light psychedelic late-1960s/early-'70s sound, says that being associated with Del-Fi has tremendous advantages.

"They're all really into the music," Gallego says. "That's what a band needs: for the label to be behind your music and to do everything they can to get it out there. If I was to sign with a major label, sure, there might be a bunch of money up front, but who knows how much they're going to promote it. You might just get shuffled to the back burner, like a lot of the pop bands do. They make one record and they get dropped. Plus the Del-Fi name has been around for so long. Ritchie Valens, the fateful plane crash. That's something that's part of rock history, and Del-Fi's part of that."

Del-Fi makes a lot of money selling reissues in Japan, where surf is still hot. For his part, Bob Keane, who is in his seventies, shows up to work every day and oversees operations. "I don't really do a lot anymore," Keane says, "because the guys here are all great, and they kind of say, 'We're going to do this,' and I say, 'Well, I'm not going to try to tell you how to because you guys are in the street and I'm sitting here.' That's one reason why we were successful, was because we were in the street. We were talking to the people that buy records. We weren't sitting on the 13th floor trying to count our money or come up with a real snazzy contract. We try to do everything. Anything that I think is going to fly, we'll record it or put it out because today all of the independent companies that are successful are tied in with majors, or the majors own a piece of them, and they're a specialist company. But our catalog is very eclectic."

Keane's philosophy, which was refreshing in the 1950s, is downright revolutionary today. You can learn a lot from a maverick.