The Obelisk Questionnaire: Jadd Shickler of Blues Funeral Recordings, Magnetic Eye Records & Ripple Music, Etc.
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Jadd Shickler of Blues Funeral Recordings, et al
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I own and operate Blues Funeral Recordings, I’m the label director for Magnetic Eye Records, and I’m the label manager for Ripple Music. If I had to define it, I guess I’d say I’m a music industry professional in the independent heavy label world, although “music industry professional” sounds like a title crafted to sound good on LinkedIn. Basically, I work with underground heavy music for independent labels. I also sing for Blue Heron, the band that original Spiritu guitarist Mike Chavez and I started in 2018.
I came to do what I do when my best friend and I started All That’s Heavy, the world’s first online heavy rock mailorder, back in 1997 at the dawn of the internet, as well as launching our record label MeteorCity. We sold All That’s Heavy about 4 years later, and then sold MeteorCity in 2008.
I was a little bit disillusioned and left the industry for about a half dozen years, but started getting slowly drawn back in 2014 or so. I did some writing for The Ripple Effect and The Doom Charts, then finally ended up falling into a role with then one-man label Magnetic Eye Records in 2016. I had a day job at the time, but as my duties with Magnetic Eye expanded, my interest in doing more grew as well.
I got the idea for what would become the PostWax series around that time, and started working on it in the background of my day job and MER work.
In the spring of 2018, a couple things happened: the prospect of releasing a record myself propelled me to create a new label of my own so that I’d have the infrastructure in place for PostWax whenever it was ready. Ironically, the release which motivated that ended up not happening, but I’d already gone through so much of the setup to get this new label (Blues Funeral) off the ground that it inspired me to give it some attention.
Around the same time, I came to realize that I wasn’t super invested in my day job. My boss realized it too, and she started getting really toxic, which is somewhat understandable given what she was paying me while I was sneakily working on Magnetic Eye stuff from the office, but it still soured me on the job.
I finally decided to quit that summer, which I find a bit funny because I’ve been fired from nearly every “real” job I ever had, but for the first time, I took the step of leaving into my own hands, even though it was the best-paying day job I’d ever had by that point. I nearly took a new day job the following month to replace, but in a moment of passion-driven risk and with support from my wife, I decided to pass on it to see if I could try to make an actual living in the music industry for the first time in my life.
We racked up debt for the next year or so, during which time I joined Ripple Music to handle production and a variety of logistical stuff, as well as launching the first PostWax series. In mid-2019, I was able to facilitate the purchase of Magnetic Eye Records by a larger label group, and part of the deal was that they’d keep me on as label director once the buyout took effect. So, after getting my start in the music industry in late 1997, it became my full-time career on January 1st, 2020, and that’s how I got where I am today, running two labels and working for a third, and not having to supplement what I do with having a traditional day job.
Describe your first musical memory.
I’ve got a few and can’t recall which one is first, but it’s one of these two:
The first record I ever asked for and got which wasn’t a kid’s record was a vinyl compilation called Hit Explosion that came out in 1983 from K-Tel. It’s got tracks from Joan Jett, Rush, REO Speedwagon, Rod Stewart, the Steve Miller Band, and Survivor (yes, “Eye of the Tiger.” Hell yes.). I saw TV ads for it and my parents got it for me, and I would play it down in this big den with high ceilings and a red brick floor where the record player was set up on this wide wooden bookcase, and I’d lay in this brown beanbag chair on the floor with light streaming in from the huge sliding glass door and listen to those songs till I knew every word to every song, even the ones I liked less than others. I think it laid the groundwork for me to appreciate compilations and the idea of someone with a certain level of musical intelligence choosing songs from different artists to put together. It was also the first music I ever found for myself, instead of just listening to whatever my parents played. By the way, I still have this record, nearly 40 years later. It’s warped as hell and beat to shit, but it’s still with me.
My other early memory is listening to my Dad’s Neil Diamond records in that same den on that same stereo and record player. When you’re a kid and before you start to develop your own tastes, you just kind of absorb whatever those around you (like your parents) care about, and my God, did my Dad love Neil Diamond. So I was just kind of always around when he’d be listening to various albums and it got in my DNA. This was obviously not the beginning of my love affair with heavy rock, but it does give me a great connection to caring about music a ton from an early age, always having it playing, always spinning records, and listening to albums from start to finish and flipping the sides. I can still visualize that den and that record player and bean bag chair perfectly, better than I can remember a lot of other stuff from the past 20 years, haha.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
It’s impossible for me to pick just one as THE BEST, but here’s one I love: At the end of my sophomore year of high school, so May of 1990, my best friend Aaron and I went to see Motley Crüe on the Dr. Feelgood tour. It was my first concert. I’d never been to a real show before, and going inside after showing our tickets, we emerged from the tunnel at the far end of Tingley Coliseum and looked longways down the huge oblong auditorium. We were up in the area with the seats above the railing because we hadn’t paid for floor tickets (not sure why, maybe they were sold out, or maybe too expensive). So we were standing basically all the way down the other end of the place looking at the stage from about as far away as we could be. Just then, within like 90 seconds of us coming up from the stairwell and trying to decide what to do, we saw a fight erupt down on the floor between a concert-goer and several of the show’s security guys. All the other security people started running toward the fight, and as soon as they did, attendees on the other side of the auditorium started jumping the railing and pouring down onto the floor and running to go mix in with the rest of the crowd. Aaron and I looked at each other, and I don’t remember saying anything, we just jumped the railing and ran straight into the crowd. That was the start of our first concert – a risk of getting our asses kicked by security and a successful upgrade of where we’d see the show. The concert itself is a bit of a blur, but the two highlights I remember are Lita Ford, who was opening the show, playing “Close My Eyes Forever” and having the crowd sing the Ozzy part, which we did, and then Tommy Lee doing a drum solo during Crüe’s set where he rode some kind of suspended cable car drum kit out over the crowd, so he was basically hanging above us doing his solo as we watched from below. I don’t really ever think about Motley Crüe as a musical influence, but that concert was a great musical memory among many many many that I’ve got.
For good measure, another great music memory is when my old band Spiritu toured as an opener with Clutch and Spiritual Beggars in Europe in 2003. We shared the opening slot with Dozer, so every night for three weeks, we played all over Europe, trading the first and second slot with Dozer each night (and then getting to go watch Dozer, which was awesome), and then I would go out into the crowd and watch Clutch DESTROY. As a Clutch fan, getting to travel to dozens of cities across Europe and watch one of the greatest live bands of all time, who also happens to be one of your favorites, who you also happen to be opening for, is just indescribable. The highlight was somewhere in Germany when, during a short pause between songs when the noise briefly dropped, this giant 6′ 6″ dude yelled out, “Like Marlon Brando, but bigger!” in an almost comically-exaggerated German accent, carrying through the whole theater and making Neil and the whole band briefly crack up, then look at each other immediately launch into playing “John Wilkes Booth.” Three weeks of that! Amazing times.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Well, I’m not sure if this fits what you’re saying, and it’s going to sound like a sales pitch for PostWax, but it’s not, this actually happened: Maybe two months ago, my creative director Peder (from Lowrider) and I were talking about filling the last couple slots on PostWax, and he mentioned a band to me that basically has an all-star lineup but who I really don’t care for. I’m not going to say who they are because I don’t want to shit on them for those who dig what they do, but PostWax (to me) is about putting together a lineup of bands that at least one of the three of us choosing artists for the project absolutely loves, and never letting our decisions be guided by how big of a name someone is or whether having them on board might help sell the project. So I basically told Peder, if YOU love them, I might consider it, but if not, let’s not do it.
I’d consider this a test of a firm belief because otherwise, why don’t we go try to lure on some huge emo-metal band to join the project just so we can blow out another 2,000 signups? I’d rather pick bands we love that satisfy the ethic of only working with bands at least one of us deeply believes in and loves musically. And by the way, this belief was established quite a few years ago when I was running MeteorCity and put out a couple things that I did mainly based on the idea that they would sell, and not because I thought there were awesome bands. I did that Hermano record, and the Gallery of Mites record, and the Orquesta del Desierto albums, all first and foremost because of the names involved. There were moments on all of them that I enjoyed musically, but I didn’t go into them feeling moved or inspired as a listener, I was thinking of who the musicians were and how their names would get people to check out the records, not about what I thought of the actual music. So yeah, I’ll never do that again, and would much sooner get behind an unknown band with a niche sound and no fans but whose music I love than ever put my money or label name on something that’s coming from a place of, “people will buy this” ever again.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Ha, probably to eventually making a record that not a ton of people besides the artist likes. Not trying to be cynical, but if you’re an artist, there are probably two paths: you make music you like and no one ever cares but you’re happy with what you’re doing, OR, you make something that some people like, and that sets an expectation for everything else you’ll ever do, and eventually, whether it’s your next album or your tenth album, you’ll be sick of trying to deliver something that lives up to what everyone else liked and just make a record you dig, and people will be like, “Too bad, I liked his old stuff better.” I think that’s inevitable, but not a bad thing really. You have to progress, even if followers and fans of your art aren’t always willing to stick with you while you go. I mean, if you just try to rehash what’s already been done, they’ll see through that as well and call you on it.
How do you define success?
Thank God you’re asking easy questions.
I’d probably say success is feeling great about what you’re doing. I’m earning less these days than in at least a couple of my previous “career” jobs, but I’m far happier with what I do and thus feel more successful. I know that being able to buy whatever you want, travel wherever you want to go, eat out every night probably feels pretty fantastic too, but I have a hard time imagining being able to do anything I didn’t love or believe in what I was doing in order to reach that point. If I could have that AND do something I feel great about, then awesome. But if they’re mutually exclusive, then for me the road to success will always need to be paved by personal and artistic satisfaction first and foremost.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Literally this morning I saw a dead dog, a pit bull, in a dumpster. It was in its crate, which means this was someone’s pet, and regardless of how it died, the idea that someone felt that the way to lay this dog to rest was to pick up the whole crate with the dog inside and drop it into a dumpster on the street is fucking revolting. Some human beings are just slime, and this world loves to remind us of that fact.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Well, I’d like to make a record with my band that I want to listen to from end to end without questioning whether it’s good or if I’m being objective or noticing the flaws. This is probably something that’s impossible for any musician, so I’m not holding my breath, but yeah. My old band only recorded and released a few things, so I’m hoping that Blue Heron is able to make a record that I can enjoy without caveats as a listener, and just dig musically and be proud of.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
I love this question, because I think about this a lot: I think art is the only value humanity actually has. When I think about all the awful shitty things we do to the planet, animals, each other, etc., it’s hard not to wish for a comet to hit the planet and reset everything. But we create art, and that to me is our only saving grace. We transcend our urges and our pettiness and our destructive tendencies and tap into something more meaningful and lasting when we create art, whether that’s music or paintings or books, and if we didn’t do that, I’d have no hope for us whatsoever. So, I guess the specific answer to your question is, the most essential function of art is justifying humanity’s existence. A bit dark, I guess, but how I feel.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
New Ghostbusters and Top Gun movies, which will probably both suck, but for the moment I’m excited. I know you said non-musical, but I have to say, being able to go to small-club shows again also. And my wife and I will be taking our first trip to Europe together later this year. She’s never been out of the country, and I haven’t been in fourteen years, so I basically haven’t been abroad as a grownup. Can’t wait.
https://www.facebook.com/bluesfuneral/
https://www.instagram.com/blues.funeral/
https://bluesfuneralrecordings.bandcamp.com/
bluesfuneral.com
http://store.merhq.com
http://magneticeyerecords.com/
https://www.facebook.com/MagneticEyeRecords
https://www.instagram.com/magneticeyerecords/
https://www.facebook.com/theripplemusic/
https://www.instagram.com/ripplemusic/
https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/
http://www.ripple-music.com/
Great answers, and that Clutch tour line-up sounds awesome!