Application – Roque Ruiz/Cloudberry Records/Indiepop Archives
Roque Ruiz is an indiepop enthusiast: he is a collector and blogger who runs his own record label celebrating the indiepop genre – Cloudberry Records. I’m going to focus on three components of the indiepop “archive” with an interview I had with Roque. The first component is the “researcher” or in this case, the music lover. With his current blog Cloudberry Cake Proselytism, he shares his personal stories and knowledge of indiepop. The second component looks at his record label as a source of producing music. And the last component is his involvement with the indiepop community. It’s crucial to look at the aspect of the individual or researcher of the archive, the institution who collects and preserve the archive; and the archive itself, which in this case is not only the music, but also the community built around this music genre.
In Archival Science and Postmodernism: New Formulations for Old Concepts, Terry Cook discusses an archival new paradigm shift that is challenging the archival science canon for archivists. Cook mentions, “For archivists, the paradigm shift requires moving away from identifying themselves as passive guardians of an inherited legacy to celebrating their role in actively shaping collective (or social) memory.” Although Roque is not an archivist by profession, he is one that actively plays a role of archivist and is doing so in how Cook envisions it. Roque’s blog Cloudberry Cake Proselytism is a mixture of introductions to the latest indiepop music, Roque’s own personal accounts of his life and travels to pop festivals, and discovering lost bands. What makes Cloudberry Cake Proselytism interesting is that it’s not just a blog that introduce its readers to music, but it is a collaboration with its readers. Often Roque will rediscover a song, he’ll post a song in a post and ask his readers if they have any information about the band. Sometimes his readers will comment on the post with any information they may have on the band. He usually tries to contact the band, which often leads to an interview with the band if answered, and then Roque will post the interview on blog. Through these interviews Roque hopes to rebuild the history of these bands. This sharing of information between reader and blogger is what Cook sees archives as a process, and not as an archival product.
Roque’s own collection is quite amazing. He still prefers the physical matter of music formats, and only carries a CD walkman with him. He started collecting music in 2002 and became serious of the 7” format in 2006. Roque has an Excel file of all the music he owns in which he types in the A side title, the record label, and the label’s catalogue number. Here’s a screencap of his Excel file. Notice on the different music formats on the left hand side:
Roque’s 7″collection:
Roque has a huge music collection, all in different formats. His own personal collection is reflective on the different formats he releases for his label. Through Cloudberry Records, he has released close to 200 3″ CD-R and 7″ vinyl singles, CD albums and fanzines since 2007. The 3″ CD-R and 7″ vinyls are celebrated formats for small label like Roque’s and goes hand to hand with the tradition of 3 minute pop music singles. Both 3″ and 7″s could only fit a handful of short songs, which is why indiepop often releases music in these formats.
Roque first started his label in February of 2007 focusing on releasing 3″ CD-Rs every 15th and 30th of the month. Cloudberry showcase international bands and as well international illustrators who designed the covers for music releases. Since his 100th CR-R single, Roque has focused on different releases such as: 7″ vinyls, 3″ CD-R Special EPs, 3″ CD-R Classics, 3″ CD-Rs split singles, Cloudberry Cake Kitchen Albums, and Fanzines. Each of these formats are listed in a different catalogue numbers. The original CD-Rs start in the 000s, 7″s 1000s, the other 3″s CD-Rs range from 500-800s, t-shirt in the 200s, and the Cloudberry Cake Kitchen albums starts with 1. With the Cloudberry Cake Kitchen, Roque is also refining how listeners experience the physical music storing format. He has designed the CD to look like a more like a fanzine. The shape is longer length wise instead of its usual length longer on the wide side.
The obsession of list-making and archiving in indiepop community is deep rooted in its history. In 1994 the Indiepop list archives was started in order to save the conversations happening in the Indiepop email mailing list. In my interview with Roque, I had asked him what was his thoughts on why the community had been obsessed with archiving a new technological communication so early on. He commented that he thinks it has to do with the community have jobs relating to computers science or they are librarians. The community did not wait for the Internet Archive to happen, it collectively helped its own history. The archive has gone through several servers in Eskimo North in Seattle and is available to search at Twee.net.
Roque’s ultimate dream is to have an indiepop museum. When discussing with him about this, he told me exactly how he wants it to look. The first floor a venue with a possible changing exhibition of bands and record labels. The second floor will be an interactive space where people can go through a fanzines library, listen to music, and collection of memorabilia. Roque mentioned that he knows that this museum can only exist in the UK, most likely in London for a couple of reasons. The first is because the music genre began there and therefore could have financial support from the government. Another reason and most importantly would be that its public would be supported by Europeans and could fall flat anywhere else. Here’s a clip from our interview:
Indiepop Museum by user491392145
Music itself is an ephemeral act, but through its music storing formats, blogs, fanzines, concert flyers, buttons, and whatever memorabilia that comes to mind creates a social memory for its listeners and hopefully its future listeners. Roque’s active involvement with the indiepop community is one that changes the archival science paradigm to one that sees archives like how Cook describes a “process rather than product, becoming rather than being, dynamic rather than static, context rather than text, reflecting time and place rather than universal absolutes…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05H9vJBFxng
The Pooh Sticks — Indiepop Ain’t Noise Pollution (a take on AC/DC’s song title: Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution)