Party Like It's The Late 60s Through Early 70s with Brown Acid & Permanent Records' Lance Barresi

Lance Barresi of the Brown Acid line of records, and also of the store Permanent Records and Roadhouse in LA joined our Tower Livestream with Whitney Moore to talk about recent and upcoming releases from this important imprint.

Asked about his quarantine experience, Barresi said that it’s been “busy” since his shop pivoted quickly to mail order. Their new five-month-old Roadhouse was open at the time, as well as the record store, and both have been “shuttered”. Mail order is a lot of extra work, and they’re using fewer staff to do it, but it’s keeping them going.

Moore asked about Barresi’s use of the Permanent Records Instagram to sell vintage records during quarantine, where putting up a record then urges viewers to comment on the photo to make a bid. They’ve continued to do that and have sold their “wall” records from the store and now they have replenished. Instagram is essentially their “new storefront” and it’s been working for them.

The only difficult thing is to sell each record separately by handling it, writing captions, and taking photos, but after “dibs” have been called, the organization, payment, and shipping is extra work too. So the hardest part is “staying organized” record by record.

Moore asked about the Brown Acid line of vinyl that Barresi runs, having released ten collections so far. Barresi explained that he’s been running his store for 14 years now, and he’s been a collector for many years. This put him in the “mind set” to organize things. There have been plenty of compilations of different types of music around, “historically”, Barresi said, but as he started getting into the “heavy rock 45s”, it became clear to him that this sub-genre was not getting as much love as things like Garage. Some of the “heavier” stuff got put on random records if it was put out there at all. That was an “impetus” for him.

Barresi was also a DJ at a bar with a lot of Rock ‘n Roll and Heavy music, and he started making mix tapes of the music he and others were using. People asked if they could buy the mix tapes from him, but he never felt right about it, taking “liberties” in that way. He thinks that bootlegs are part of the music world, but it wasn’t what he wanted to do. RidingEasy Records were into the tracks he was compiling, and together they tracked down the bands to get permission to reissue this music.

Barresi agreed with Moore’s observations that most of these bands aren’t around anymore, though “1 in 50” suddenly appears to have a website, and he will definitely contact bands that way if possible for re-release. Many of the people in bands in the late 60s and early 70s are older folks now, and aren’t “savvy” with technology. Many don’t even have cellphones. He cold-calls people using WhitePages.com if needed. Some of the people haven’t even thought about their bands since they broke up in 1971, Barresi said!

Moore asked if Brown Acid mainly looks at the “sweet spot” between the late 60s and early 70s and wondered why the era is “overlooked”. Barresi said that it’s an “in between the cracks kind of subgenre” that isn’t easy to define. People call those records things like Heavy Metal or Hard Rock and Hard Rock can mean a lot of different things. That can mean Van Halen or Guns ‘n Roses, Barressi explained.

Things like Garage and Punk Rock are easier to define, but the stuff that’s in between hasn’t appealed to curators until recently, Barresi said. Psych has a lot of wide interpretation, but there are many different possible subgenres, he pointed out, and the same problem can apply here.

Brown Acid isn’t a “perfect” name, but it helps to put things into context and under the same umbrella. Moore asked how Barresi decides what makes it onto a compilation and what doesn’t. He said that it is difficult because there’s a “fine line” by a 1975 record that’s Heavy versus one that came out in 1976. That’s a wide gulf in some ways.

Barresi has also noticed that “rural areas can be behind the times” and release styles later that nevertheless fit into an earlier genre. Sometimes he’ll find a song written in 1972 and it didn’t come out until 1977, even, which explains why it still fits.

Does rarity influence Barresi? Actually no, he said. One song called “Steel Rail Blues” is available on Discogs, but it’s not common either. It’s just not rare. It’s on the late side, but it fits the vibe.

When he can find things that work, even if they aren’t rare, he’ll, include them. Rarity is a “factor” because they are speaking about “private press” records, small record labels, or runs that were given to promoters, almost like demos.

Therefore, if something was released in a run of 500 or less, those have gotten harder to find than a needle in a haystack now. If 501 people want that, it becomes collectible, Barresi explained.

Moore brought up Barresi’s commitment to accessibility and the absence of gatekeeping in his work, praising that. Barresi said that even though he has been a DJ, he hasn’t been as protective as some DJs can be about keeping records to himself. This is an age of “information sharing”, he feels, and to “hide things” from people makes no sense. To be that way now doesn’t fit with the times, where Youtube channels have hundreds or thousands of tracks where you can locate music you might be looking for.

The difference for Barresi is that he’s putting in the work to contact artists and make sure they get compensated for their work, even if it’s a small amount. Sometimes being famous is a case of “luck” and being in the right place at the right time, so some of this music is incredible solid, it just never got attention.

Barresi says that he doesn’t have a favorite Brown Acid compilations, since he’s the one who has to track the bands down. He only picks tracks and bands that he loves if he’s going to put in that kind of work. For every one that does get released, there are “dozens” where they can’t find enough information to track band members. Also, he sometimes hears from band members who don’t want rerelease because they now have religious views that are different from their psychedelic youth. That’s the “hardest part” of doing this series, getting permission and only using tracks they’ve gotten the rights to.

Will Barresi’s Roadhouse and Bar play music that doesn’t end up on compilations? He said that yes, since he runs sound for most of the shows, and DJs there before bands and between band performances. Those are just records he “likes” whether he’s been able to use their content on compilations or now. One of the worst things for him about quarantine is not being able to have live shows and not being able to share records with friends.

Asked if he’d like to do streams or live DJ stuff online, Barresi said that he’s been so busy keeping Permanent running that DJ work has taken the back seat. However, another guy from Permanent has been doing a DJ stream on their Instagram.

Talking about the musical guests at the Roadhouse, Barresi said that he was looking forward to a show with Earthless in May, but that’s been pushed. It takes a while to get a show like that booked where they are a smaller venue, at only 100 people. It would have been a special event. But Barresi said they’ve had some “awesome shows” like Zig Zags and Flatworms.

On top of record stores and Brown Acid, Barresi also manages the Permanent Records label. They started the label almost as soon as they opened their store in Chicago in 2006. They put out a record by Warhammer 48K, one of the best local bands in Columbia. The band later split up, but that got them rolling. The band hadn’t done vinyl yet, so they pressed 1000 copies right before the band broke up, but they did “sell through” the vinyls eventually.

Sometimes, however, when a band breaks up, they end up in other bands, and one of the bands that rose from the ashes was Cave. Asked about the Chicago music scene in comparison to LA, Barresi said that he left in 2011, but back then, the scene is really centered about small, DIY, loft-space venues. In LA, more of the venues are bars and businesses.

The Chicago venues were more “lawless” and occasionally a little “dangerous” but that allowed for more experimentation and weirdness. There’s a more “aggressive” and “intense” side to music in Chicago, because that’s how the place is, to Barresi. Also different genres of music might appear at the same venue on the same night, based on friendships and connections instead of planning things out by style.

When Barresi first moved to LA, he was a little disappointed by the music scene, and the “sprawl is real” in LA. Also things in LA require more travel by cars and multiple shows are harder to take in in one night. Since 2011, he feels that LA has gained artists from other towns, like the Bay Area, though, and that’s been improving the scene. Now it’s “incredible” in his opinion. He loves the venue Zebulon, which brings new stuff in. He thinks it’s getting “better and better all the time”.

Moore asked Barresi what his “most treasured records” are. He has so many that it’s hard to pick, he said. He changed the question to some that are hard to find instead. He owns a Seompi 45, which he couldn’t license to Brown Acid because another label owns the rights. They are early 70s Hard Rock and have been deemed “The Black Sabbath from Texas”. Rockadelic Records did a compilation of their work, Barresi explained. That’s one of his prized possessions “for sure”, he said.arHard

Asked about the Tower Records motto, “No Music, No Life”, Barresi said that his whole day is filled with music from morning until night, and in his dreams. He wouldn’t want to live a life without music since “silence feels like death” to him. He’s worked at his own record store for 15 years and many before that, but when he goes home, he wants to immediately put on a record. It “makes good and bad times better”.

Moore asked Barresi whether he listens to music to enhance or change his mood. He said that he doesn’t really need to change his mental state since he’s “stoked” about what he does each day, so instead it’s an “enhancement”. It’s a well of great “depth” that makes him get up every single day. To know “you will never be able to hear all the music, but it’s an adventure to try” keeps him going, Barresi said.