Douchemaster Records: Atlanta Garage Rock

by: Ben Westhoff

In the fall of 2004, Douchemaster Records co-founders Bryan Rackley and Greg King decided to release a single from King’s band, the Carbonas. Rackley says his main motivation for the project was boredom. “I’d graduated from Georgia State in 2002, and just wasn’t doing shit,” he says. “Greg needed some help. It was just something to do.”

Purveyors of melody-driven punk, the Carbonas weren’t a particularly well-known act at the time, and expectations were low for the release, entitled “Frothing at the Mouth.” Rackley and King figured 200 copies would be plenty, and their moniker for the label reflected their attitude towards the endeavor. “We didn’t think anyone was going to take the record seriously, and certainly didn’t think anyone was going to take the record label seriously,” Rackley says. “That’s why we kind of treated the name as a joke. I think Greg heard [the word ‘Douchemaster’] in an episode of The Cosby Show, which is sort of alarming.”

Still, the single sold in fits and starts, and according to Rackley’s estimate, it ended up moving nearly 1,800 copies. “We pressed the damn thing, like, six different times,” he says. “We weren’t sure if it was going to keep selling, so we kept pressing 200 or 300 at a time. But people continued to pay for them. It blew our minds.”

It’s been that way for the label ever since. Nowadays, Douchemaster boasts a national reputation for releasing quality punk, rock, and garage albums on the strength of records from bands like Baby Shakes, Beat Beat Beat, the Busy Signals, and Gentleman Jesse and His Men. Along with labels Die Slaughterhaus and Rob’s House, Douchemaster is a lynchpin of Atlanta’s increasingly hyped—and increasingly solid—underground rock scene (though Rob’s House’s owners left town not too long ago). Groups like the Black Lips, Deerhunter, and the Coathangers have put the city’s rock scene on the map, and the spillover effect has benefited Douchemaster groups like Gentleman Jesse and His Men, who perform regularly with the Black Lips.

“Atlanta definitely has a focus we’ve never had before. More and more people are paying attention to it,” says Gentleman Jesse frontman Jesse Smith, who is also a former member of the now-defunct Carbonas.

Rackley calls Douchemaster’s genre “budget rock,” which he describes as “lo-fi, simple rock ‘n’ roll” and “kind of a dirtbag genre.”

“I think of it as what people referred to as garage rock back in the ’60s,” he says. “That is, people self-recording and self-releasing—maybe not in their garage, but definitely with very little money. When we started off this label, we didn’t have any money and neither did any of the bands we were working with.”

These days, Rackley operates the imprint by himself, although King and Smith assist him in determining what bands Douchemaster will sign. “Bryan’s the brains of the operation,” says Smith, “and me and Greg are kind of the limbs that get out there and see new bands. How it traditionally worked was that, when the Carbonas were on tour, we’d see a band we liked that didn’t have a record out. We’d be like, ‘They kicked ass, let’s do something with them.’”

Profitability is not part of Rackley’s equation, Smith adds. “He just hopes to make enough money back to make another [record].” Although Douchemaster sells CDs, the focus is decidedly on vinyl. “As far as I can tell, CDs are pretty much pollution,” Rackley imparts. “They’re just something people throw away after they’ve put them onto their computer anyway.”

The label’s traditional patrons have been twenty- and thirty-something males, whom Rackley characterizes as Courtesy of Gentlemen Jesse and His Men “audiophiles and vinyl record collectors” and says they tend to live in the Midwest and on the West Coast. “We’re probably the least popular in the Southeast,” he laments. “People in Atlanta have to wait for someone else to tell them shit is cool.” Nevertheless, Douchemaster’s fans are fiercely loyal, and to reward the first 100 folks who pre-order the label’s releases, he sends out specialty printings on colored vinyl.

The label’s fanbase has expanded dramatically in recent years. After putting out the Carbonas’ single and follow-up releases from Beat Beat Beat and the Busy Signals, Douchemaster had another hit with girl group Baby Shakes’ first single “Shake Shake” in early 2006. The band—then Atlanta-based but now residents of New York—went on to win a national following due to their deliriously catchy punk sounds and the striking good looks of the group’s tattooed, high heel-clad members.

But even that success didn’t prepare Douchemaster for the thousands of new fans it acquired last fall from Gentleman Jesse’s self-titled full-length. “It sold a lot more copies than any of our other releases, and it’s still selling,” Rackley says. “A lot of our stuff will sell initially, a mail order rush, a wholesale rush, then after that it will be just a trickle.” But Gentleman Jesse and His Men’s had “a crazy initial wave” and went on to sell close to 5,000 units, which is three times as many as a successful Douchemaster release typically sells.

Rackley attributes the album’s success to a positive review on Pitchfork, which raved of the pop-influenced garage record: “By no means innovative, their self-titled debut succeeds anyway, hitting pleasure centers like Ali tapped chins: Quickly, often, and with oh so much care.”

“I really think it’s sad that that particular website can almost make or break a record,” Rackley grouses, another example of his atypical attitude towards material success. Don’t get him wrong, there are some nice things about having a big hit: “We can make things a little bit nicer, we get faster because we can purchase equipment that allows us to do things more efficiently from home. But I don’t think I want to have records that are selling 10,000 copies at a time.”

God forbid the label do well enough for him to quit his job at Decatur Belgian beer bar Brick Store Pub, which he says he enjoys. Besides, if Douchemaster got too big, he might be forced to veer from his mission. “I just don’t want to feel like we’re doing something different than what we intended to do, which was just to release simple rock ‘n’ roll records for a demographic of 700-1,500 people,” he says. “I just like the size of the label as it is.”

Listen: Various Tracks from Douchemaster Records [at myspace.com]

Tags:Douchemaster Records, Gentleman Jesse, Carbonas, Baby Shakes