After years of threatening to do so, I quietly launched a record label in early 2023. I say “record label” colloquially. More accurately, it’s a cassette and digital label. It’s called the University of Space Recording Company, and it’s the first element to emerge publicly of the broader interdisciplinary University of Space organization. I know this sounds cryptic and odd, but I can explain.

First, though: The University of Space Recording Company is something I’d been working on gradually behind the scenes since the pandemic shutdowns in 2020. Through that time, I’d been editing and prepping a handful of solo recordings I’d made in the past, but hadn’t released. So when my own jangle-garage band, Safe Houses, needed to release a digital double-A-side single – “Someday Is Starting Now (Julia)”/”I Don’t Feel Like Dancing” – it felt intuitive to roll it out under the University of Space banner and give it a promotional push. That’s the label’s first proper release. There’ll be more to come in 2024, as we bring more acts onto the label, and explore new channels and partnerships to bring the music to a wider audience.

So – about the “broader interdisciplinary University of Space organization.” The goals of University of Space extend beyond releasing and promoting new music. However that plays out is still an open question. In spirit, USpace follows similar principles to Pet Rescue, the DIY performance and exhibition space I managed (“managed”) from 2013 to 2019. Pet Rescue had been described as a “multimedia utopian punk” space, and it was committed to consistency, quality control, nurturing emerging artists, and financial self-sustainability. Pet Rescue also serves as an example of how to explore new practices using the resources at hand. It started as a private art studio where it was possible to perform, rehearse, and record music. Its programming eventually expanded into independent film screenings, literary readings, art exhibits, and video and photo shoots. Similarly, we’re leaving room for USpace to become whatever it’s well-suited to become, with other folks who have the skills and willingness to lift relevant new initiatives and concepts off the ground.

Like Pet Rescue, the University of Space Recording Company intends to focus on melodic, high-energy music – in particular, garage rock, powerpop, punk, and indiepop. Next up on the release calendar are four EPs and an LP, all previously unreleased, that I started recording during the 2010s. These will all be digital-only releases for now. We’re talking with other local NYC bands about releasing their stuff via USpace in cassette format. At this time, we’re pulling in acts we already know personally, who are gigging at least locally. 

The gigging part is important, because hosting live showcases is the next item on the agenda for USpace. After nightlife re-approached cruising velocity in 2022, following pandemic restrictions, I found myself in a lot of conversations with a lot of NYC musicians about how we felt unmoored from the music communities we’d been integrated in before 2020. Entire scenes had fallen away, and new scenes had emerged, with a lot of new names and faces involved. New bands, new talent buyers, even new venues. While initially this was a pretty frustrating and occasionally confounding emerging landscape to navigate, soon enough it became clear that it was also an opportunity to sort of plant a flag and rally some folks around it. Why not? I’ve always leapt at the invitation to jump on someone else’s booking/promotion/record-releasing bandwagon, if it’s going moving in a direction I like and support. Might as well become one of those people who has a bandwagon. Name recognition goes a long way – so one way to approach that is to establish a label or promotional entity that other people can mentally associate with something meaningful. Talent buyers at clubs respond to the familiar (frankly, they’re often too overworked to dive deep into the unknown). Audiences respond to the familiar – people appreciate the implication of consistency and quality control. And presenting showcases allows you to draw more of the acts you want into your orbit, and create one-to-many relationships between acts, in contrast with the web of one-to-one relationships acts form when they don’t really have a home base in the music scene.

Right now, University of Space is basically a concept, a website, and a couple of spreadsheets, rather than a physical space. We’re based out of an apartment in New York City. It’s possible to imagine other functions that can get off the ground in this setting. A blog, such as a music and culture blog, feels like an intuitive step. University of Space could someday also include a publishing imprint, or a recording studio, or a vintage shop. It could become a compound in rural New Mexico, a secret bunker in the Rockaways, or a repurposed storefront in Montreal. Who knows? The University of Space brand is designed to be flexible and adaptable from the jump. 

Upcoming releases on deck for University of Space Recording Co. draw from my own unreleased music archives. Expect two EPs and an album from my indiepop project, Women’s Basketball, and two EPs recorded in “collaboration” with my (mothballed) alter ego Tyler Trudeau. All of these will be digital-only releases. Stay tuned for the physical, from other artists. Thanks for listening! See you at a show soon.