February.01-2008

A letter from Martin:

Hello!
I’m excited to start delivering some great new content and ideas - again!
I love it all and am thrilled to welcome you to our new site.

As other labels have come and gone (and total respect to anyone that can do this for more than two years) I’m proud of the fact that we haven’t changed our core ideas much. I was going to say direction but I’m not sure about that. I look around at the gallery, the book, the free seminars we do, the music, and the broad scope of it all seems perfectly natural to me because, I guess, I’m in the middle, plate spinning and gluing it together. It’s all stuff I’m proud to have made or been involved in. It feels good to still be here and send you this at the start of our 20th year.

The office and the archives here are huge - if you could wander around this place and stumble across the things that I do on a daily basis you would absolutely SHIT your pants with delight. The depth of Pigface, PiL, Killing Joke, Brian Brain, Damage Manual, Murder Inc., and label memorabilia is simply staggering. We are uploading, tagging, and looking forward to a long year of much more all underlining what this has always been about: new discoveries, excitement...

I’ve found a bunch of alternative artwork for some of the releases, videos, some supercool shirts we forgot about (or grew out of?), and posters that were designed but never made. There are essays, diaries, all kinds of junk to some, gold dust to others. Think of it as a kind of CSI Industrial except, this ain’t no fucking autopsy! The patient is alive and well, just A.D.D.’ing on three cups of coffee and an over abundance of really stimulating stuff flashing in front of my eyes and ears.

In the 20-year tradition of not doing anything by halves, we’ll be starting off by just giving away a bunch of CDs. I know some of you out there are grimacing right now waiting for the list of albums you had forgotten we ever released or wish you had never heard. I’m proud to say actually, that looking back through 300+ releases they’ve been pretty fucking stellar and always personal in some way for me... But have no fear fuckheads... The first free album will be: Pigface "Easy Listening."

We have Invisible Radio that’s growing each week, invisible TV is kicking ass and my SG Tour:Smart band advice column is now a bi-weekly thing here for FREE! (There aren’t any naked girls... just the naked truth... so I apologise for that'll see what I can do...)

There’s great new music. There are more dubs and more access (like a live camera in the studio coming soon). For you Pigface fans check out China Dub Soundsystem. It’s me in the studio with 30 other musicians making up some supercool music which is actually the very essence of Pigface... and yes – I am working on a new album! It has just been severely sidetracked by my trip to China and my book... but its in the can maaaaan, its coming soon. It’d be nice to have it out by the anniversary wouldn’t it? For those of you who are wondering - its prettyfuckingcoolpigface - Chris Connelly's track is still bouncing around in my head... it’s called“Electric Knives Club" and check out Snapline - one of my favourite bands in a long long time.........they ROCK!

The "16 days in China" documentary is almost done. Wow, what a 14 month lesson – documentaries are way more work than an album! Duh! There are trailers already up and more bits and pieces will crop up soon.

The gallery is up too. You can start to see how broad and culturally diversified we really are.

I find myself wondering why on earth didn?t we put up the radio station five years ago??? It’s cool as fuck! Here’s what Greg Z had to say:

"I'm really getting into the Inv. Radio. I kinda thought that I would hear stuff that I all ready have. What I'm hearing is stuff I haven't heard but need to, tracks I forgot I have, and hell, just a bunch of stuff." - gregZ

There has been a debate here about the mail order. Thanks to Merch Squad for handling this for us while we re-tooled. Our new store has weight-based shipping and some choices of services for you. This will be a switch from our previous shipping method which I describe as more of as “faith based.”
There are new shirts, new versions of old shirts and soon some stuff for your kids.
There’s a Beat Fetish section with some free beat loops and samples, over 100 free, full length downloads, and all kinds of shit to keep you busy without having to send us any money at all! (Brilliant! I've gone and completely fucked myself!)

There’s photos, art, books, music, did I mention free music, advice maaaaaan, what’s next? Recipes??
Take 12 lunatics
Throw them in a bus and marinate in their own succulent creative juices
Throw on the fires of hell, desperation and a need to explode nightly
Remove when crisp
Shake, don?t stir
Drop at the same time and
Voila
Peace, Pot, Microdot!
Pigface.

We're going to need some help, but this time around, the web store will be available to all of you as compensation - you can use your invisible cash to buy some shit - not just CDs, DVDs and shirts - but there are great deals in the studio section too - a basic mastering session (we'll just make it fucking SLAM!) and a longer deeper experience where we'll turn on all the brainpower for a short while and get you some solutions that can really help (mastering, editing, advice and t-shirts to start with). That feels good to me – a bit of help where some of you could really use it, right?

So, welcome to the next part of the journey. It’s one that combines thoughtful, gleeful examination of the evidence and making our archives available to you. It’ll be like we are sitting together while we pore through a pile of photographs. ....waiting for the pizza to arrive.

Having been through part one, you gotta stick around for part two. What’s next, is this lunatic going to start a school or something????
With the same entrepreneurial REAL WORLD approach to all of it? .....that would be fucking crazy right?

Peace, much Love and total Respect
Martin Atkins