PropertyOfZack is stoked to welcome back David Conway for his third Contributor Blog. David works both at The Working Group (MGMT for Never Shout Never, The Ready Set) and Doghouse Records (With The Punches, A Lot Like Birds), so to say he is busy is quite the understatement. In his third blog, David dives into the topic of buying records in stores and his love for cassette tapes. David recently started a new cassette label called Mokus Tapes, and this new blog helps explains his reasoning behind it. Check it out and read up!

I was re-organzing my man-room / office / guest room the other day and realized I have released a substantial amount cassette tapes through various channels in the past 12 months and I thought I’d sit down and try and figure out why.

In the early 90s, bowl-cut-me had already begun my descent into a life of complete, nerdy, financially debilitating obsession with music. I would save up my car washing money (later popcorn scooping money) and every other week head to the Record Town at the Hanover Mall (suburban MA what’s up?!) and spend hours and hours trying to decide which cassette would get my soapy cash. I remember vividly buying releases from Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Danzig, White Zombie and Blind Melon and then waiting anxiously to get home, pop it in my Sony Boombox and spend the next many hours reading over the album credits and lyrics and letting the tape loop again and again. I knew track 10 on those records just as much as I knew track 1. The format almost forced you to listen to an album as an album; start to finish, as the process of skipping tracks or finding the beginning of a particular song would most likely cause a nervous breakdown.

I think my reasoning behind putting out tapes again (We’ve done releases with La Dispute, Get Up Kids, Hot Water Music, Kurt Travis, Into It Over It, Candy Hearts, Never Shout Never, Weatherbox, Mansions, Jowls and more in the past little bit) comes from a few different spots. On the most selfish level, there is just a warming sense of nostalgia that comes from seeing these arrive. For grumpy-old-man-me, it takes me back to maybe a more pure time in music-listening (for me) when I felt like I had to sort of show a tenderness to the music I just bought instead of the neverending flow of mp3s and mediafire links which now attack our ears all day in a constant onslaught. We are already looking for that next album leak instead of trying to see what the artist was trying to accomplish on the album we just listened to for a few minutes and then moved on. Related to that, I think a reason I love doing this is because it does encourage the listener to sit and digest the entire musical piece. I think La Dispute’s WILDLIFE is an amazing statement. For me listening to it in my room, laying on my bed, start to finish on cassette just felt like the music was at home; like it needed to be on a clunky tape to be heard like it should be.

Read More

PropertyOfZack is stoked to welcome back David Conway for his second Contributor Blog. David works both at The Working Group (MGMT for Never Shout Never, The Ready Set) and Doghouse Records (With The Punches, A Lot Like Birds), so to say he is busy is quite the understatement. In his second blog, David discusses his time in the music industry and his thoughts on music’s continual shift, among other things. Check it out and read up!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…

I’ve worked in music for a long time. It was all I every wanted to do and now it’s the only thing I can do. It has created a skill set within me that applies to basically nothing else in the world. Having an ear for what 16 year olds may want to listen to and how to present that in an intriguing way isn’t something that will put my resume at the top of any stacks in the traditional American business world. I’ve been blessed to have 13 years so far of adventure and being a part of a lot of things that would have seemed like a dream come true to 13-year-old-me-listening-to-cooleyhighharmony-and-playing-Nerf-basketball-in-my-room.

I also feel extremely lucky to be in the music business during a time of great change. The business shifts almost non-stop at this point and is in many (most?) ways unrecognizable to what it was even just ten years ago. A lot of older folks in this world complain that the business is nearing its end; with the death of music as a desirable commodity and the anatomy of this industry dated and worthless.

Read More

PropertyOfZack could not be more happy to welcome in our newest Contributor, David Conway. David works both at The Working Group (MGMT for Hellogoodbye, Never Shout Never, The Ready Set) and Doghouse Records (With The Punches, Grown Ups, A Lot Like Birds), so to say he is busy is quite the understatement. He has been kind enough though to spare some time to begin his Contributor Blog feature on the site, and we think it’s going to be great. In his first blog, David introduces himself and gives you all a look into how he views and appreciates music and how devoted he is to it. There will be much more to come in the future, so read up and check back for more!

I like talking. A lot. I love what I get to do for a living with all my heart. The fact that I get to spend most of my days talking with creative people about their music and how to build a culture around that music is everything I ever wanted. Nirvana changed my life and opened up a completely new world in front of 14-year old me. When I saw Smells Like Teen Spirit I wanted to be a part of something so bad; a magical door leading outside the suburbs appeared and I leapt through it.

4,521 mixtapes later, I feel so lucky that I get to be a small part of helping show music and artists to the world that I am proud of. If anything I have ever done has ended up on a mixtape for someone, if any artist I work with has made a kid feel 1% better if they were having a hard day, if a band’s song became the gateway for someone to want to learn more about music, if it was your first show and you felt a part of something exciting, then I’m the happiest guy on the planet.

I’ve been working in music for over a decade. From putting out records (with the wrong resolution for the cover art) from my parents basement, to working at major labels, working at independent labels, and finally to starting a management company. I’ve struggled to pay the bills for most of that time, but I wouldn’t trade any minute of it. I’ve met so many amazing people throughout this adventure. I’ve sat with total strangers in hidden little towns and had conversations that have changed the way I view the world around me. I’ve seen things succeed that I’ve put everything I have into and I’ve seen things fail that I thought deserved to be heard more than anything. I’ve learned from those failures just as much, if not more so, than the things which clicked.

Read More