Recent Sockets Records press:
DCist - Three Stars: Sockets Records (Interview with Sean Peoples):
Most of the bands on Sockets are based out of D.C.. Do you think that music in this area is headed toward that experimental pop framework?
I think so. I think what's great about D.C. right now is there's a lot more sites getting calendars of things to do every single night. Which there wasn't really four or five years ago. So, there's a lot more opportunities to go out, but there's not as many people still. It's just not that big of a city sometimes. There are a lot of people who live in Virginia and Maryland who probably like this stuff, but just won't come in necessarily for a show. But, I think given the sort of excitement around D.C. being more of an arts/music/culture center is manifesting in stuff coming out. Bands are getting better. There's a lot more of a community around some of these bands, too.
Brightest Young Things - The Uneasy Story of Sockets Records:
In 2009 Sean and his friends at Sockets put everything they had into the label, and it payed off. Bands like Imperial China started making waves on blogs and in more official media outlets, the Fly Girlz project (featuring Brooklyn middle school kids rapping over moody soundscape beats crafted by remixer dudes) got massive buzz from hip hop fans and community organizers alike, and groups like Buildings and rap-rock revivalists Cornel West Theory became big local phenomenons live, with the latter totally blowing away Chuck D the last time he was in town, not to mention the OMG moment of performing with their namesake in December. All that in one mindblowing year of sleepless nights, and all without the handholding infrastructure for building a music venture that exists in other towns: no government assistance like in Sweden, no low cost of material and space like in Baltimore or Seattle, no national majors around, none of that–just a commitment to supply an outlet for musician that explore that territory Freud calls Das Unheimliche, the Uncanny, or the Uneasy.
READYSETDC - Words w/ Sean Peoples of Sockets Records:
What motivated you to start the label?
There were a lot of very weird and interesting sounds emanating from DC in 2004/2005, but so many great bands broke up around that time here in DC. And there weren’t many labels in town looking to do small run CDRs of experimental music. I thought I could fill that gap. It was an interesting time that was in danger of not being documented.
Washington, DC City Paper - Sockets Records: The Early Years:
Japanese noise-duo NA was Sockets’ first non-local release. “They were on tour, they came on the radio show I was working and did this freaky improv jam,” remembers Peoples, who dug the band’s Boredoms-style recklessness. Later on the band approached Peoples about releasing a compilation of material that didn’t make the cut for their record. Critical acclaim poured forth—the CD-R got a nice writeup in the music magazine Signal to Noise and wound up in the racks at NYC-based record store Other Music. “Those were pretty popular,” says Peoples. “It got me out of realm of just DC music.”
All Our Noise - From Independence to Community Through Music: Sockets Records:
