If you like punk-infused power pop steeped in garage rock, DIG! Records should be on your radar.
The Virginia-based indie label got my attention with The Whiffs’ stellar sophomore collection, Another Whiff. The Kansas City quartet’s third album, Scratch ‘N’ Sniff, arrives March 1 and pushes even further into hooky power pop territory. (Read my interview with The Whiffs from December at Big Takeover.)
DIG! will follow that release with a fantastic new album, Real Romancer, from North Carolina’s Paint Fumes that is a perfect complement to The Whiffs. That’s a one-two punch that’s sure to grab the attention of even more punk-loving power pop fans.
I consider those two bands to be the label’s rising stars, but they’re only the latest additions to a small-but-mighty catalog encompassing garage rock, punk, power pop and glam. A few of DIG!’s standout releases include rare re-issues from The Strand and Shatterbox, in addition to recent albums and singles from Christian Blunda, Brower and Josephine Network.
I caught up with founder Tim Abbondelo (who is also the bassist for DIG! garage rockers The Ar-Kaics) to find out what inspired him to start the label, the kind of bands and music that get his attention, and his plans for the label’s future.
Can you tell us a little about the history of DIG! Records?
I moved from Baltimore, where I’d been playing with a trash rock band called Hollywood, to Richmond, where I started playing with a garage band called the Ar-Kaics, who’d already released a few 45s. I joined, played my first show and two days later was recording our first LP. We would practice once a week and play regionally, and for this brief moment it was kinda our lives.
One of the guitarists, Kev (aka Kevin Longendyke), was obsessed with finding rare records in the wild and wanted to quit his dead-end job and open a record store. Around the same time I vowed to start a record label and quit my dead-end job too.
In short order the store opened in Leesburg, VA—about two hours away from Richmond, closer to DC—and I started releasing records from wherever I was living in Richmond as a DIY, living-room operation. The record shop is Kev’s career, where as the label is just a project I do for fun, and never took the place of dead-end jobs!
Who are a few of your favorite Virginia bands of all time? What's the local rock/punk/garage scene like these days?
DIG’s first release was a reissue of a great, unsung suburban DC/Northern VA power pop band called The Strand. Their ‘82 debut Seconds Waiting is a stone cold classic of the genre.
Otherwise, the regional roots run deep in the Maryland, DC, Virginia areas I’ve orbited—it’s hard to pick an all time favorite, or maybe too easy…Link Wray, Half Japanese and Dischord Records are all in the running for hometown pride status, if you consider two formidably-sized states and the nation’s capitol to be towns.
The DIG! catalog covers a lot of musical styles, but garage rock and Ramones-style punk seem to be the core sound. Is that accurate?
I don’t think the label is genre specific per se. No two groups we work with sound alike, with the exceptions of Brower and Josephine; and Patsy’s Rats and Christian Blunda, being that they share members!
Power pop, glam, and garage are all well-represented in our catalogue. What we need is a new punk record (nudge, nudge Dangus Tarkus). My only goal for the label is to keep on keepin’ on, one album at a time.
I found DIG! through The Whiffs. How did you start working with them? How would you describe their evolution?
I loved the Whiffs from the first time I saw them at a hippie bar in Richmond. A little later Patsy’s Rats did a short tour with them. The Whiffs had started playing a lot of new material by then, and I was smitten.
The East Coast had been relatively dry for this brand of power pop since the glut of great stuff coming out of Atlanta on Douchemaster in the late aughts, so I was thrilled to see this caliber of ear-worm songwriting in action again.
The Whiffs’ new album Scratch ‘N’ Sniff is the band sounding more and more like themselves, which is very much a unit comprised of four distinct musical backgrounds and tastes.
Your next release is an incredible new Paint Fumes album called Real Romancer, a great complement to Scratch 'N' Sniff. Can fans of garage-y power pop expect more releases in this vein?
Paint Fumes’ Real Romancer is absolutely peak performance for the band! It’ll be hard to top—not that it’s a competition of course. But I’m hoping to release 1-2 more albums before the end of the year, with any luck, and not without the kind support of listeners like YOU!