Mac McCaughan by Fred Mills

Mac McCaughan: Punk, as Superchunk frontman; Poet, as Portastatic tunesmith; Papa, of a nine-month-old daughter; Businessman, as half-owner of respected indie label Merge Records; and Scenester, as tireless, long-time supporter of Tarheel rock ‘n’ roll bands. McCaughan will soon toss “Master Of Ceremonies” onto his hat rack when he, along with his Merge co-founder (and Superchunk compatriotess) Laura Ballance play host at Merge’s 15th anniversary bash. The label celebrates its impressive tenure as the little North Carolina label that could across four nights’ worth of band showcases, held July 29 – August 1 on stages in Chapel Hill and Durham. It’s nothing less than Mergestock, what with 19 bands culled from the current label roster, among them Lambchop, M.Ward, Richard Buckner, Shark Quest, Spoon, Crooked Fingers, Destroyer, David Kilgour—and, of course, Superchunk and Portastatic. Prior to that, the label—which McCaughan and Ballance started in ’89 on a shoestring, a prayer and a cassette deck—will issue Merge #250, a triple-disc anniversary anthology comprising greatest hits and unreleased gems. (Technically, MRG-250 will be the 238th release, not the 250th, but due to some intriguing and otherwise unforeseen numbering snafus, 250 was the number assigned to the compilation. But hey, everyone loves nice round numbers, eh?) As the year unfolds, the label will also release titles from a number of recent signings (including Richard Buckner and the Radar Brothers) as well as a spate of Dinosaur Jr reissues. Needless to say, MAGNET could practically hear McCaughan smiling down the telephone line when we called him up in mid April at the Merge offices in Durham. The occasion was more than simply to talk Merge matters, however. Knowing McCaughan’s deep interest in music from his home state, we wanted to bat around some Tarheel-centric ideas as well. In the current issue of MAGNET (#64), our “Sound Check” column focuses on classic North Carolina albums. For reasons of space and efficiency, we necessarily had to restrict the feature’s time frame somewhat, commencing investigations in 1981 with the dB’s Stands For deciBels. At the same time, it should go without saying that in any such regional roundup, many, many artists would be worthy of discussion. No commentary on N.C. groups would be complete without namechecking, for example, Arrogance (the 1969-83 Chapel Hill group featuring songwriters Don Dixon and Robert Kirkland). The group not only performed originals when others were still doing Grand Funk and Jethro Tull covers, it prefigured the Tarheel indie milieu to come. Following in Arrogance’s footsteps were fellow pioneers such as future dB’s mainman Chris Stamey, originally from Winston-Salem, with his band Sneakers and his label Car; Chapel Hill’s H-Bombs, who issued no recordings but featured the talents of Peter Holsapple (dB’s) and Mitch Easter (Let’s Active); Raleigh’s Th’ Cigaretz, arguably the first Carolina punk band; Charlotte’s Spongetones, still-extant Merseybeat janglers; Greensboro’s iconoclastic Eugene Chadbourne, of Shockabilly and solo infamy; Charlotte’s Antiseen, heroes to hardcore, grunge and trailer-park kids alike, and also still very much alive after over 20 years of destructo rockin’; the Dolphin, Moonlight and Mammoth labels, who in the ’80s midwived scores of groups while enticing both the BBC and MTV to the state to film specials on the music scene; and of course the many indies—No Core, Moist, Jettison, Third Lock, D-Tox, etc.—that subsequently sprang up. Which is where McCaughan and Merge come in. By the mid-’90s, North Carolina’s university-heavy Triangle area was so teeming with bands—many who, like Superchunk, landed on national labels—that media mavens from Spin to Entertainment Weekly to Details were flying in reporters to find out what was spiking the water supply. McCaughan was witness to it all. The college-rock era of the ’80s that spawned the dB’s, Let’s Active, Fetchin' Bones, Southern Culture On The Skids and Connells, was “my” time, since they were all gigging and I knew a lot of them. That’s also when North Carolina began getting some national and international attention. So I’m curious to get your take on “your” era—the early ’90s, when Superchunk, Archers Of Loaf, Polvo, Small, Pipe, Picasso Trigger, etc. were all releasing records and getting press. Was that a golden era for N.C. rock? To say it was a “golden era,” well, that depends on what your tastes are. But there was certainly a lot going on. Now it seems like it was all at the same time, but it really was kind of spread out. All those bands did exist at the same time and were playing shows together. Around the time of our second record for Matador, No Pocky For Kitty (1991), there started to be national press about bands from N.C. The first Polvo record, the first Archers record, those were all from around that same time, too. No Pocky came out about the same time as Polvo’s Cor-Crane Secret. Still, a band like us could have some really good shows at small places, but we didn’t have a “big” show in Chapel Hill until some national press started happening; people didn’t pay attention to the local thing until they read about it in Spin. “Now it’s valid.” As opposed to, “just a bunch of fanzine and college kids and their silly little bands.” Were there any moments you’d characterize as watershed events around this time, either for Superchunk or Merge? Well, one thing that always stuck out in my mind was actually before Merge. It was the first time I had any experience putting out records, and that was the Evil I Do Not box (an elaborately packaged five-45 singles box from 1987, featuring five Triangle bands, including two that McCaughan was in at the time, Wwax and Slushpuppies). That was a watershed because we had all local bands and we also managed to get the attention of the local press putting out this box set and having these shows at the Cat’s Cradle (in Chapel Hill) and the Brewery (in Raleigh), both of which were pretty big successes. Of course, fairly soon after that nearly all of the bands stopped being bands. The Black Girls continued, and Angels Of Epistemology were around for a little while longer. But still, that was just an amazing time, and to me it was the predecessor to Merge. So to me that was a true watershed, and it’s easier to point to it than, say, a particular Superchunk or Polvo show. I don’t think at the time I was thinking, “Oh, we’ve got to start a bigger label after this box set now,” because it was a one-off thing. And then Merge was a couple of years later, in ’89. But when it came time to do Merge, by then Laura and I knew it wasn’t that hard to get a record made. I mean, you just sent it off and the records come back—there wasn’t any mystery anymore after that, which was good. Other people in the Triangle came along after you—labels like Todd Goss’ Jettison Records, which had similar tastes and sometimes overlapping bands as Merge. Then you get more and more press coverage, all of which serves to say, “Wow, there is some potential here on this local scene.” I remember Entertainment Weekly came down and covered a Halloween show that we played. And another time a guy from Details came down—maybe about ’92—and it was one of those things where there hadn’t been that much attention yet so nobody was really in a position to say, “No.” But it was like, “We’re going to send this writer down—and can he stay at your house?” His thing was, “I just want to get the vibe of what goes on around here!” [Laughs] So he hung around then printed the article, and in it Laura was quoted as ragging on Jonny Quest, which caused a minor scandal. While it was silly, it still left a funny taste in your mouth. I mean, it was good that people were interested, but the people who were interested nationally didn’t seem to “get it,” you know? There was a period in the mid-’80s when some national and international attention hit NC. That was when some folks like Harry Simmons (Don Dixon’s manager), Godfrey Cheshire from The Spectator (weekly Triangle paper for which Cheshire wrote music and film reviews) and the future Mammoth Records people pooled resources to put together the three-cassette Comboland N.C. sampler. That’s right. And there were also the (Durham-based) Dolphin Records’ Mondo Montage and More Mondo compilation albums from ’83 and ’85; those came out when I was in high school. At one point, the British press even got interested in Tarheel bands—I was standing outside the Brewery in Raleigh one night while a guy from the BBC was interviewing members of Fetchin’ Bones. A couple of U.K. labels picked up on several Carolina bands including the Connells. And around that time, too, there was MTV’s IRS Cutting Edge show when they came down and did one on the Bad Checks, Jonny Quest, Let’s Active, Dexter Romweber—they also talked to some friends of ours who worked at the Record Bar on Franklin Street (in Chapel Hill). Next Page >> 1 2 3