Episode 50 - Kathy Wilson, Co-Owner Suitcase Records

G’Day! Pack your bags and head down under with us! In our 50th episode we're taking a virtual trip to Australia, joined by Kathy Wilson the co-ower of Suitcase Records in Brisbane!  We chat about the differences in the vinyl market in Australia vs North America, and what it was like to leave a stable and fun corporate communications career to open a new pressing plant! What lessons have been learned, and how excited they are for the future, and that some people still really like it when you call them on the phone! 

Check out:
https://suitcaserecords.com.au/
https://womeninvinyl.com/2024/01/20/kathy-wilson-co-owner-suitcase-records/

Huge thank you to Brisbane based maker of dark and danceable electro-pop and synth-rock  Sarah Stockholm for the use of her song ‘Everything to Me’ off her album Trace of Humanity.  Buy the record at: https://sarahstockholm.bandcamp.com/album/trace-of-humanity

Big News! Our book 'Women in Vinyl, the Art of Making Vinyl' is coming out this month.  Learn more and buy a copy at: womeninvinyl.com/book

THANK YOU TO OUR SUPPORTERS! Keep your records clean and sounding great with GrooveWasher. Use WomenInVinyl10 at check out: www.groovewasher.com

Commercial-Free & High Resolution version of this podcast, along with membership options and ton of other discount codes available at: https://www.patreon.com/womeninvinyl

You can also contribute to furthering our mission by donating https://www.womeninvinyl.com/donate as a 501(c)3 all donations are tax deductible. Visit the website to check out past episodes, features, and our ever growing library of resources to further the education, demystification and diversification of the Vinyl Making Space.

We were listed as number 11 on Feedspot’s Top 25 Vinyl Records Podcasts! Don’t forget to like, subscribe and give us a review on your favorite podcast delivery method! Want to be a sponsor or just get in touch? Email us: [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Welcome to the Women in Vinyl Podcastwith Jen Dugenio, founder of Women in
Vinyl and contributor Robin Raymond. Thispodcast facilitates conversations with those working in the
vinyl record industry to educate, demystify, and diversify the vinyl community. Hi

(00:39):
boy, your song over My Skinhelps the name to blow a little wild,
old tip, use anything good orvery orange lights flash shoverhead, It's

(01:15):
light lea Yeah, drowning in Nile, The orders rise flush night with no
on my hands and I quickly beforewe jump. In an announcement, our

(01:45):
book, Women in Vinyl The Artof Making Vinyl comes out officially this week.
Find more information and order a copyat Women in Vinyl dot com slash
book. Thank you for joining uson a milestone episode, the Big five
Oh of the Women in Podcast.You Just Heard Everything to Me by Brisbane
based maker of dark and danceable electropopin synthrock, Sarah Stockholm off her album

(02:09):
Trace of Humanity. Find this inthe vinyl copy at www dot Sarah Stockholm
dot bandcamp dot com. For ourfiftieth episode, we are going International,
sitting down with Kathy Wilson, coowner of Suitcase Records in Brisbane, Australia.
We chat with Kathy about how thevinyl market looks in Australia, how

(02:30):
it differs from North America, andwhat it was like to open a pressing
plant down Under and more. Also, we were listed as number eleven on
feed Spot's top twenty five vinyl recordpodcasts on the Web. Please continue to
like, subscribe and leave us areview and thank you for being here.
Now here's the episode. Uh,could you tell our listeners a little bit

(02:52):
about you? Hih? Sure.My name's Kathy Wilson, a co owner
all Suitcase Records in Brisbane, Australia. We are the third vinyl pressing plant
in Australia and Suitcase Records is abouttwo and a half years old. Now
you're probably gonna ask why, andyour next probably question is going to be

(03:15):
do you have any industry? Didyou have any business doing this? First
answer to the why is it wasactually my husband's idea. I co owned
the business with my husband. Hehad a bit of a mid life crisis.
I guess hated what he was doingis an He was an architect working
in big construction firms, was unhappy, was looking for a new adventure.

(03:38):
He was actually the vinyl head inthe family. Loved it. Saw you
know what we all saw in thosedays. It kind of take yourself back
three four years more demand and supply, particularly in Australia, you know,
I know, you know, youguys talk a lot about it from your
perspective Australia. You might get intothat. But we've got a bit of
a different kind of dynamic here.And so so our kids were largely grown

(04:01):
up, sort of two thirds ofthem our adults now, and so we
did it sounds irrational, but weboth have a corporate business background, so
we did, you know, aplan, you know you did, and
the sons worked out, and sowe sold our house and bought the vinyl
pressing plan and then left there andhere and so it was a leap of

(04:27):
faith. And so then pretty quicklythe plan was I was going to stay
doing my very sensible corporate job,which I loved, and became very quickly
apparent that there was actually two roles, two critical roles in the business,
and he couldn't do both of them, and we looked at hiring somebody to
do the second part of that,your sort of second half of that role,
and turns out you can't hire somebodyto care as much as you do.

(04:49):
And then I started to get thebug, and so I left my
job because you know, we weren'tdidn't quite take enough risk. So I
then left my job and full timeand best decision we've ever made. It's
just I just love it so much, and so since then I'm late to
the party. But I am avinyl head. I love my vinyl.

(05:12):
I feel slightly fraudulent, but Ithink my love for it over compensate,
compensates for my lack of history.It's my working theory. Well, what
was the experience moving into starting thispressing plant? How did you decide,
like what machines and facility you needed. We researched, I guess, the
plant, the options that were onoffer at the time. We went within

(05:34):
a legro too, and you probablyyou probably familiar with that. Really happy
with it. You know, it'sI think that there's good and bad in
all. Well, you know,there's pros and cons for all of them.
One of the things that we love. We've only got one machine,
and the plan was, I guessoriginally that we were going to start with

(05:56):
one and grow. Now we're reallythinking that maybe stay with one for a
while. What we're enjoying about theAllegro is that it's got a semi way
you know, it's automatic. It'sreally producing really high quality records. But
it's also got a semi automatic function, which means we can do splatters as
well, and that's working out reallywell. So it's basically given us a

(06:17):
depth of options that maybe some ofthe other machines couldn't have done. That's
great. So are you are youpressing too mean physically? Yeah? Yes,
yeah some days? Yeah, whatI love doing splatters, I think,
yeah, we did. We didsome yesterday actually that yeah, yes,

(06:42):
we do. We sort of swapit all around. We try and
keep the roles mixed up a littlebit. But I guess mostly Neil and
Lee in the factory. I tendto be in the front end, but
we we work through both of itas well. Awesome, that's great.
I think it helps on the salesside and office side. If you know
how everything runs, like I makesure to immresse myself and know, you
know, how many records we canget off and what goes into the mixes

(07:06):
and all of the ins and outsof it, even if we're talking about
boilers. I want to be inthat conversation so that I can best direct
everything else that happened. Absolutely,I was astonished when we first started it.
I again to my naive t whichI own. I think I thought
you'd buy a pressing machine, plugit in and press go, and off

(07:29):
you'd go. And that sounds ludicrousnow to me, but it's not that
far from the truth. And theauxiliary stuff is just as critical because if
your chill is not working, particularlyyou know when Brisbane it gets really hot
here it was thirty eight or somethingdegrees yesterday. If your chill is not
working, you're not pressing good vinyl. Oh yeah, yeah. And so

(07:53):
you can have the best machine inthe whole world, you can have the
best setup and scheduling system, etcetera, and your person one on that
day. So it's all important.And I can't just walk away from it
and say, oh, I'm nottoo upid about that. It's yeah,
somebody else will worried about I wishsomebody else would worry about it. But
it's all of us. It's allthe three of us four. Sometimes it's
all hands on the deck. I'lltell you even more so when we were

(08:18):
in our early days. We hadmaybe our fifth or sixth order. We
had Glorious Band come out. Itwas the first thing who came out to
the factory. We didn't we weren'tair conditioned at that time. We were
Chad right, which is we stillare. And they came out and they
were pressing yellow and we practiced becauseyou know, we're really new to it
and it was no new So thisband came out and wanting to see that

(08:41):
they're pressing, and it started.It worked before they arrived. They arrived
about maybe eleven am or something.We tress tested about nine, everything was
fine, eleven again eleven they walkin stick stick stick. Just never seen
it before and it just happened.So so, you know, really awkward
me chatting, trying to keep everyone, everybody busy. This is fine,

(09:03):
We're not scared. Finally we gaveup and said, can you come back
tomorrow. We don't know what's goingon, and Neil spent the whole most
like eight hours cleaning the machine.We thought might have been the events or
you know, we didn't know anyway, So again we tested at eight o'clock
the next morning, fight arrived teno'clock next morning. Stuck, Stuck,
Stuck it was, and we laughabout it now they're actually now are some

(09:24):
really consistent customers. I guess becausewe were honest and because we said truly,
we don't know what's going on,because until then we hadn't hit it.
And turns out that it was inabout I guess it was beginning of
November that that was happening, andwe just hit humidity in Queensland, which
is subtropical, and because they hadn'tbeen a vinyl pressing plant in Queensland for

(09:46):
thirty years, nobody remembered that humidityis really problematic in a vinyl pressing plant.
So we had to find the moneyto put a wall in and get
their conditions like that weekend and thatthe same man came about Tuesday of the
next day. Perfect, We're great, they love us. Everything was great.
It was a happy ending. Butit was that kind of level of

(10:07):
learning that we just had to bereally open about and say, really,
sorry, we don't know what's goingon. Yeah. I feel like more
customers need to know that, Likeit's truly an adventure in record pressing,
Like one day it can be finethe next day, like you know,
and we're the same I'm in Austin, Texas, so same kind of things,
heat, humidity. Some days,you guys have a condition. We

(10:30):
have air condition yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, but that doesn't solve everything,
right because the chiller are still exposed, you know, so yep,
yeah, yep. And so youknow that there was just those learnings.
And one of the things that we'regrateful for and has helped us create a
community is that those musicians understood andlike I say, they're now, they're

(10:54):
back again. I don't know ifthis might be their third or fourth album
with us, and people want toknow that things are real, and we
never you know, and we alwaysmake sure so we don't let out anything
that we don't love. And sometimesit doesn't mean we delay, but it
means sometimes we're here till all hoursbecause we're not prepared to send anything out
that isn't awesome. But we tellpeople that and people are respecting that and

(11:18):
I think enjoying that. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. How many people
do you have in your crew?There's Neil and I as Lee who's full
time, and got June who's nearlyfull time, hopefully full time soon.
And we've also got my three kids. Our three kids, our eldest does

(11:39):
social media and the middle one isdoing he's actually just created a robotic creation
that allows us to do automatic hampouring. Yeah, he's doing robotics at
UNI. And our younger daughter isseventeen and she comes out lots and is
here to do. She's they're theon demand crowd can when we need sleeping.

(12:01):
We've got to get four thousand recordsout or something like that, so
you better get them on that part. Yeah. Yeah, you have better
get them on that patent for thecan for it's a game change up.
It's been so good, that's crazy. I mean I can already hear Heath
at Gotta grou just like his earsperking up. I can hear it.

(12:22):
Yeah, and yeah he's a crazyinventor of son so it's it's pretty great.
So yeah, yeah, that's awesome. I love that your family's so
involved. So what was your crazycorporate job that you loved that you left.
I was in corporate communication, soI was doing large scale content for
companies like Expedia and Travelosity. We'reproducing content for them to for seo purposes,

(12:48):
mostly cool, which I loved itwas great interesting crossover. In that
job, I used to manage aboutthirty people or so, somewhere between twenty
and thirty people. So one ofthe things that's been interesting to us is
we walked into the music industry notbeing part of the music industry, and
foolishly or not decided that we justkind of opened up and sort of put

(13:15):
our pash literally put out ash engleand here we were. And you could
probably argue that was a bad idea, but you could probably equal one of
the good things about it is thatwe came to the industry with no preconceptions
and so I think it's a verybit in the industry. It's been this
way because it's always been this way, and we both Neil and I I
think coming to it looking at well, okay, well this is happening now,

(13:39):
maybe this is another way of lookingat it. And I think it's
quite good to have a different Wejust don't have the baggage that or not
the baggage even, but just thehistory. And I'm curious how did the
industry support or accept you coming inand then also how was your local community
and wanting to start a pressing plantafter thirty years of none in Brisbane.

(14:01):
Yeah, do you tell you you'rein nuts? Not as much as they
should have. Really, that's great. A lot of people genuinely really respect
a leap of faith. I thinkpeople like people who are taking a chance
and having an adventure sort of separateto that we've been. We were really

(14:24):
well received by the majors. Theythey came to us. We got an
article in the national paper quite earlyon and within twenty four hours we've been
contacted by all the majors who wereinterested to know that we were here and
have been really supportive of us,and you know, game changingly supportive of
us, which has been really reallygreat. And it would have been really

(14:46):
easy for them to say, we'llstick with what we know. And it
seems to me that they've done areally good job of they've sort of expanded
the market by using everybody, notnecessarily playing favorites. I think that's been
really good. And I think it'sinteresting here because you know, we have
different dynamic. Historically, the majorstend to import a lot of the overseas

(15:11):
artists. They get pressed over Europeusually and get imported here because probably you
know, it's cheaper to get itdone over there. It's not as cheap
when you think about you have toif you have to air freight stuff over
here, certainly the price has changedand ship freighting or sea freighting is cheaper
but longer. And you've also gotissues that it can be hot, it

(15:33):
can be damaging, all that kindof stuff. So this feels, it
feels to me like a lot ofthe majors are starting to think, well,
what about if we've got these greatpressing prints in Australia, Now,
let's think about maybe we can pressfor Australia in Australia some of those international
artists. So there's kind of conversationsaround that which I'm very much looking forward
to. Yeah, I mean theregional approach always makes total sense. Yeah,

(15:56):
we've talked about that. Yeah,absolutely, And I think it makes
environmental as well. So I thinkthat's where it's going. And I think
and then what's interesting to me aswell, as you asked about the smaller
community, We've had a lot ofsmaller artists. We do minimum runs of
one hundred and artists are loving that. People we get artists come out to
the factory. We had an artistcome out to the factory a couple of

(16:19):
days ago, who tiered up,a major artist, tiered up seeing his
music on vinyl for the first time. We have a machine here that we
play it on and you can't replicatethat. Musicians were real, they're artists
and they it was beautiful. Itwas a really beautiful moment. We're at

(16:40):
a not very fancy factory near theairport, and people love to discover behind
that is. I think people thinkour lives are you know, there's more
glamorous than there as the phone call, the kids running. I think people
like it feels like it's a littlepot of magic in the middle of an

(17:02):
industrial space, which really Yeah,there's your question. Oh I was just
going to say, like, whodoes your stampers? Yeah, that's exactly
what I was wondering. Yeah.Yeah, when we get Kirk Pusher in
the UK and stamperd disc and thatwas that was an early, really early

(17:25):
hard learning for us. There's nobodydoes it commercially in Australia or those you
know. I don't know. There'sbeen talk, I don't know, and
we live or die by the qualityof our stampers. I don't know.
You guys and we in the earlydays when we had to before we landed
on where we are now, itwas really stressful because there were so many

(17:48):
Again, as you know, there'sso many variables. So if you're producing
a record with a problem, whateverthat problem is, you want to remove
the problem. You want to figureout what it was the cause the problem.
But was it within the pressing stage, was it within the stamper stage.
Was it damaged on route between thelamp, the lacquer cutter and the
stamper. And so when we foundKirk Pusher and Stamper Disc, they just

(18:14):
the QA is fantastic, and theytheir customer service is fantastic and they're a
long way away, right, butwe can sometimes get they'll they'll send us
an email to say that they've shippedstuff on a Thursday. There there Thursday.
It's not uncommon for us to getthe stampord arrival Monday. Incredible.
Yeah, that's great. We lovethem, We love yeah totally. I

(18:37):
mean, let's all take a nicerainy holiday to to Sheffield, shall we.
I mean, I love it andthere's just and and nothing's ever too
much trouble and now I mean,there's the sweetest salt of the Earth,
people like Elsie Martin, everybody.Yeah, the Gems, Yeah yeah.
I was ready to turn in myCanadian passport and hop hop the hop the

(19:00):
ocean and go over there and workfor them. I would, except for
the weather. I wouldn't accept.I mean, I'm a Canadian, so
like yeah, yeah, I meanwe have sun, but like it's cold
son, so it's yeah whatever.Yeah. And I think the other thing
is it's almost almost sometimes feel likean extension of all of us because we

(19:22):
can you know, a client willsay I don't know, they've discovered a
problem, I don't know whatever,but suddenly there's an urgency. They work
with us to solve the problem,rather than working against us to say we
have to go to the bottom ofthe queue and there's never any anyway,
enough fangirling unstepped, I mean changedthat that wire game changes. Oh that's
awesome. I mean we could doa whole call in episode about everybody that

(19:47):
loves standard disks for sure. Yeah, I'll be a contribute for sure.
Don't worry about that. I mean, okay, so, what what are
the other two pressing plants in Australia. They're both down in Melbourne. There's
one called Zenith, which has beenaround I don't know at least thirty years,
and another one called Program who maybestarted in maybe complete is for us

(20:11):
eighteen months before us or so.And the really the thing that I feel
good about, and I don't knowif they'd say that, I think they
probably would, is that it feelslike we're growing the market in Australia because
we have we're increasing the high qualitycapacity. Rather, it's not like we're
all sort of fighting for scraps.It doesn't feel like that at all.

(20:32):
It feels like certainly more people inaustry in Australia pressing and the you know,
we're all working with the labels toI guess bring more stuff on shore
to make it work better. Soif it feels fairly collaborative, no,
you know, no dramas at all. Great. Yeah, and you know

(20:52):
where a small country, so youcan imagine for our shipping is a really
big deal. So there were quitea lot of stuff we're pressed, quite
a lot of stuff with Perth whichhas a really robust live year of independent
musician music scene and so it's areally big effort for us to get We
actually had to hold stuff over summer. Occasionally we kind of look at the

(21:17):
weather forecast coming through. We actuallyjust did a country a country album for
Sarastora. Did get Sarastora over there, Yeah, and she was. We
had a whole bunch of stuff literallyready to go. But the degrees a
you're gonna have to translate for me, but full car. The forecast was

(21:37):
for forty two degrees days out nearwhere they are, which is kind of
central Australia or central Queensland, NewSouth Wales, and we just held because
we just can't ship stuff through theirvinyl as you know, we're not like
that. So they're sort of anothercomplicating factor for us, which has got
to be a bit careful shipping thingsaround. So interesting, it's one hundred
and eight thanks, I mean,yeah, you don't. You don't well,

(22:03):
And because just to give people withnon geographical minds, how long is
the driving time from Brisbane to Perth. It's forever, It's forever. And
I have no idea because I don'tthink any I think I think it's like
driving across the US. Because yeah, I was watching we were watching some

(22:25):
show in Australia and we were likegoogling the distance, like, how far
is this? What was the showmarred at First Sight? Yeah, you
guys have some great merit it firstsight drama. It's forty it's forty six
hours to drive from Yeah to Perth. Yeah, that's like yeah, and

(22:45):
did you I don't know if yousaw your map there, but there's an
awful lot of dis it between Yeahin Perth. So would you want to
maybe not? Well, you know, to give you an idea, we
can. It's not uncommon to drivefrom Brisbane to Sydney and that's a thousand
killing so that's you know, along day of driving ten hours or something
like that. Yeah. Well,and I think you know, one of
the initial conversations we had was sortof like what some of the differences are

(23:08):
we We had had a conversation aboutthe state of the industry and we were
talking about mostly North America, andwe heard from a woman in India who
will be speaking to as well,and she was just like, things are
completely different here, and so we'rereally excited to learn about how the vinyl
market looks in different areas and we'dlove to hear kind of just overall what

(23:32):
things look like there. I meanhere there's all this illuminate drama right now.
It's completely like not even not evensomething that's worried about there. So
yeah, well, k we watchit. I'm aware that we have what's
called the ARI chats here and look, it's it's tricky. So I don't
know what ARIA stands for Strain Recordingindustry, and they do a pretty good

(23:59):
job of assessing it. But youknow the same as you. I guess
what you guys have alluded to.But digital is easy to track, It's
so easy, and so the ARIAcharts are quite critical. But one of
the challenges that we have here isthat Australian music is not featured as highly

(24:22):
in the charts because we're getting youknow, international often American coming in.
It had I think the top Ithink of the top one hundred artists last
year, say albums last year,I want to say six of them were
Australian something along those lines. Soand my sort of been up there,

(24:42):
I'm sure, yeah, yeah,yeah, And I don't know if there
was heaps of tailor and you knowall those stuff that we all know.
So so the astrain industry music industryis really interesting. There is a wealth
of Australian music talent in Australia,and there's a wealth of enthusiasm and inspiration.

(25:04):
But I think the music industry isfinding its feet as to how we
help those artists make money so theycan keep making music, so that we
can have this vibrant artistic community.And I sort of what we started talking
about is I think the whole industryis in a state of flux, and
I'm not sure everybody's trying to figureout what the answer is. You know,

(25:27):
obviously streaming, we know what thatis. The big guys make a
lot of money out of streaming.I guess we just need to figure out
how can we help people survive andthrive in the music industry. Yeah.
Well, and for a reference,the population of Australia in twenty twenty one
was twenty five million, and thepopulation of Canada was thirty eight million.

(25:51):
And for everybody's reference, the populationof California was thirty nine million at that
time. So I mean, pleasetell me you're but I mean I did
know that the population of Canada wasabout thirty six million people because I always
kind we always kind of laughed becauseour entire population is California and we're like
right on top of it. SoI mean that's always significant for us,

(26:14):
Yeah, very significantly less than California. Yeah, and so that comes with
its own challenge as you had absolutelywell. And so in here in Canada
we hit we have something called canCon, which is federal legislation that mandates
that a certain amount of percentage ofartists and Canadian content, that's the what
the short form for can Con isneeds to be played on the radio as

(26:41):
like, because those royalties then goback into kind of like the federal system
to ensure that there's like a vibrantmusic, vibrant music scene. It was
put in in the in the eightiesor the seventies, I believe, and
I mean that's that's the reason thatwe have like school like technical school and
mastering programs and audio schools and stufflike that. So I wonder if there's

(27:04):
something that's like that in Australia.I think there is. So the ARIA
charts are often different to the independentmusic charts, which you know is obviously
the same for you. So there'sjust a lot of complexity around what people
are actually buying the physical music thatthey're buying, versus what either they're listening

(27:30):
to or what they're being given inthe digital space, and I personally think
that and we've also got we've alsogot challenges which I'm sure you guys do
as well with live music venues,insurance issues problematic and you know, Covid
didn't do anybody any favors. Sothere's a massive appetite here for great Australian

(27:53):
music and we're just trying to figureout how we get There's there's the fans
and then there's greatest music, andI think we're all just trying to navigate
this space in between. How dowe get this grace round music to fans
who are prepared to pay and whowant to pay, but who it's not
that easy for them to find.So one of the things that we're looking

(28:15):
at doing is offering access for fanson our website because one of my great
joys in life is that we getthis talent, this unfiltered pool of talent
walking through literally through my door,coming in to pick up their records.
And they're often independent musicians, oftenwomen. There's this group of Brisbane Australian

(28:36):
women who are amazing, who aregutsy enough to come press vinyl because that's
a big commitment. So there's somewhen they get to even small runs and
vinyl, that's still a commitment fora musician. So we're in the process
of figuring out how to work withrecord stores who are often desperate for access
to that independent music, how theycan how we can work with our dependent

(29:00):
musicians who are pressing with us totell the stores about these guys so that
they can get in the hands oftheir fans. Yeah, and I think
that's a real challenge. I don'treally have any answers to it yet.
We're literally still working it out.But we are also looking at putting pre
sales, for the ability for ourartists to put pre sales up on our
websites so we can send all ourpeople there so that we can start supporting

(29:22):
these independent musicians who are coming through. So there's new tools and new ideas,
and I think we're all just walkingthe path to try and make it
work. Yeah, I mean,and that's the funniest thing I think about
the access of regular bands that don'thave representation. Now anybody can get a

(29:44):
record meet it doesn't matter who youare. There's no like, there's no
real gatekeeper that's saying you can't makerecords. So I mean it's a cool
space, it's a weird space tonavigate, absolutely, because they're like,
oh, well I don't I don'tknow what to do with these now that
I have. And then they're like, oh right, I have to ship
them and you have to like figureout how to get them boxes. Well

(30:06):
yeah too, And to that point, I was curious because here we have
big distribution centers like AMPED and AMSand the Orchard. Do you there ship
typically to distribution centers to fulfill throughoutAustralia or are you typically shipping director record
stores combination of those things. Basically, we ship where the artists asks too,

(30:30):
which is often the distribution centers,or but often in the smaller category
where the artists are coming in here, picking it up and sitting around licking
stamps at their kitchen table at twoo'clock in the morning, which and they
shouldn't be doing that. I thinkmusicians should be out making music. So
we're looking at in this new iterationof our website, we're looking at offering

(30:52):
shipping straight for those smaller artists,well straight from here out to our customers
because we can get bug shipping ratesand just save them that step. I
just feel like drap shipping is agame changer for people, ie for records
that I make too. I thinkI think we're asking too much about musicians
and they're not supposed to be businessby definition there aretists, so let them

(31:15):
be at there. So maybe ifwe can take over some of the tin
tac stuff which we do all thetime, and take the load off them
and let them both make money andhave some more grain space, and I
think we all win. Yeah.Well, we've chatted with a few pressing
plants in Europe as well, andso my question, because Australia is very

(31:38):
similar to Canada in a lot ofways, and being that we're part of
the Commonwealth, and my question isdid the Government of Australia have like any
kind of positivity towards your endeavor.Did you approach them at all? Were
they like, this is a greatthing, We're going to support you because

(32:00):
we like to help out everybody.Or was it like so their environmental like
perks or incentives or anything like thatwith the government that is helping him.
Yeah, we've had a great dealof support from particularly the Queensland government.
They have been nothing but helpful.We hand do you guys, do you

(32:24):
know Steve Poltz. He's a Canadian. I think he's a musician. Okay,
I won't worry about that story.I was going to tell you,
we we it's great. I'll lookthem up. Well, i'll tell you
I'll summarize. It's a fairly longstory, but it's worth you know,
it's worth thinking, it's probably worthdoing. So we went back in the

(32:44):
day before when we were both corporatepeople. We used to have bands.
We used to pay to have bandsin our backyard. They called sometimes the
parlor gigs here, so we'd paymusicians to come out with all our friends
would buy tickets and we'd get musiciansout to play in about backyard. And
that were brilliant. They were brilliantfun events. And one of the first
musicians that we got at was thisCanadian I google it called Steve Poltz.

(33:07):
And he's this crazy yeah p olt Z, he's this awesome just a
song tu yeah. Yeah, hewas at book Fast last year. I
saw him last year. Yeah,he's well so you know what I'm talking
about, right, So he's oldschool. Yeah, he's brilliant. So

(33:29):
he came out to our house playedand then he said to Neil again,
so picturing this is back in ourcorporate life. He said to Neil,
Hey, I'm playing at this greatfestival in the States in a couple of
weeks. You should come out.And so a series of coincidences, Neil
turned turned. Do you know theHigh Sierra Festival, Colorado? Yeah,

(33:52):
yeah, I think so. Yeah, So Neil went. Neil ended up
there and Steve Polt saw him inthe middle of a show, stop the
whole show, said, oh mygod, as my friend Neil from Australia.
Everybody's going to look after him.So Neil said this three name.
He's basically Yacht's backstage pass, youknow, bar tickets. The whole bit
had this amazing time, and we'verun into him a couple of times over
the years. I was maybe Idon't know, six years ago, and

(34:14):
most recently he was playing at theByron Bay Blues Festival last year, which
we were at. So I wasstanding there in the crowd, you know,
I don't know, five thousand people. Suddenly Steve bolts his Neil in
the crowd, stops the whole showagain, and oh my god, it's
my friend, Neil. He andSteve's never wanted to let a story,
you know, true stand away withstory. So he said, oh my

(34:36):
god. He started a pressing plan. He used up all his kids college
fund, he's living in the caravandown the river. His wife left him,
but his pressing records. So andyou're like, I did. I'm
stating in the middle of these fivethousand people at the Byron Blues Festival,
dying of humiliation. And finally hemoved on, picked up his song,
and off he went. And abouttwo weeks after that, we were introduced

(34:59):
to the Premier of Queensland and wewere having a chat with her, and
you know, it was a itwas a political event, you know how
those conversations go. She was delightful, but you know, her partner then,
Neil was you know, we weretalking about the story and what we
were doing. Her partner said,Hey, I was at the Byron Blues
faced a couple of weeks ago andthere was this crazy guy talked about this

(35:21):
pressent play and such a weird seriesof events. The premiere is really interested,
has been really supportive. We've gotta Yeah, so possibly she would
have been anyway, but it's justsuch a It was just such a People
love music and they love the story, and yeah, so we're in the
process of applying for grants and variousthings. There's also a fair bit of

(35:45):
environmental stuff that's happening that you know, it's much better to be pressing locally
for a lot of reasons, includingenvironmentally, so there's a lot of support
there as well. Yeah, that'sgreat. Yeah, I did tell you
it was a long story. That'sa great story. Worry. I'm really
fascinated though, by how many thosekismet things happen. How often something that

(36:07):
happened years ago swings around and someconnection happens. The more I get into
having my own business, the moreI realize if you're kind of kind and
generous and operate with the best intentions, it nearly always works. Yeah,
yeah, I think part of it. Part of it as well. One
of the things I've enjoyed is educatingpeople about the process. And it's actually

(36:27):
I said this to you, Jen, I think in any email you guys
were really when things were really dark, I would be walking along with my
dog and listening to your podcast andit was really reassuring to me to know
that we weren't the only ones tryingto communicate to the rest of the world
was what goes on in the processof making wine, because it's really tricky

(36:49):
and we're not telling any lies,we're not making up stories when we tell
people this is you know, thisis what happens with the lack of cutting
and stampard cutting. And one ofthe things I'm enjoying is and I have
this conversation maybe three four times aday sometimes this is how record is made
because there's been so much lost knowledgeover in Australia. I guess where you
guys are as well, but ninetyfive percent of people I speak to have

(37:15):
no idea how a vinyl is made. And the more people we can tell
how a vinyl is made and thatit's it's a combination of artistry and machinery,
which is really it's I don't knowany other thing that combines a craft
with mechanics in a way they produce. Yeah, that's why I always call

(37:38):
it the art of making vinyl.I think it's so it's such an interesting
combination of things, and for me, coming from that artistic background, it
was a perfect kind of merging ofmy creative side with you know, my
customer service and advising, I guessoutside of things. So are you shipping

(38:00):
records to New Zealand? Yes,have we? I think once we have.
There is a pressing plant in NewZealand as well who are producing really
beautiful records. We they do someof some of the Australian market as well,
but they but they also cover offthe New Zealand market. Yeah,

(38:22):
I think New Zealand's had I thinkthey've they've got along as I understand.
I'm more comprehensive your history with vinyl, I think, and again if you
think we've got a low population,it's you know, smaller again. But
yeah, I think I think there'sthere's been more of a tradition of vinyl
over all the years in New Zealand, is my understanding. You said there

(38:43):
are other pressing plants there and nobody'sreally fighting for scraps. So what is
the demand like and are bands activelylooking to press to vinyl? Yes,
absolutely they are. We get ah, yeah, we get dozens of queries

(39:04):
every week. I think that there'sthis huge rebirth of independent music coming through
in Australia and I think we're justat the beginning of it. I don't
think we've seen I don't think we'veseen the depth of it yet because people
are coming through, as we allknow, not making any money out of
streaming, so the way they're doingit is through vinyl. So and I

(39:28):
really do feel like we're right atthe gateway of a new opening where the
maybe the labels are going to bepressing big open app the big one,
their local run of it here,which will be great. We're already seeing
we're doing some of that already andthat's going to grow. And I think
the more comfortable people get with withpressing locally, I think we all kind

(39:50):
of win. Felt like a fudgyanswer. I'm not sure that I know
what the numbers are, and Ithink that's part of the problem. I
don't think anybody knows what the problemwhat the numbers are right now, because
where do you go to find that? Sales? You know, sales of
record players are dramatically increasing. Ithink I think we're about to see a

(40:13):
hockey stick in Australia, and Ithink it's just about to take. What
do you think, what's the appetitelike? What is the appetite of like
the like the general record buyer inthe stores, like, is there is
it if you walk into a recordstore in Australia, is it like a
lot of just new records and there'snot a lot of used records or is

(40:34):
there still used records floating around inAustralia. Yes, so Yeah, it
really depends on the unique record store. Same is everywhere, I guess,
but yeah, used as very commonas is new. We also have really
popular used record store market days thatare massively that are massively popular. I

(40:59):
don't know, once a month herewhich you get excuse male still particularly the
used market, the US record market, but I think that's changing. I'm
seeing more and more female interest invinyl coming through, and I think that's
going to increase. I think boththe buying power and I think it's going

(41:20):
to change the kind of vinyl thatis being pressed as well. Mhm.
I think that the demand. Ithink that historically there's been demand for I
guess male music. I'm speaking reallybroadly, but I think and I think
that's because traditionally males have been thebuyers, but increasingly, do you guys

(41:44):
know g Flip, I don't thinkso. Glip's a big artist over here,
and they've they pressed with us andhave just done a big, big
tour and a big sellout, andI think their identity is quick Bogan and
I think that now, I justI'm familiar just because of the numerous Australians

(42:09):
that are in Canada. Yeah,and I love that so much. And
I think that that is indicative ofa move of really non traditional music lovers.
And I think Flip's popularity indicates thatthat's where we're moving, and that's
where Vinyl is moving. It's oneof the things. Also. Yeah,

(42:30):
they're a very talented drummer, butI just think them yeah, yeah,
yeah, check it. Yeah,it's yeah, it's really worth listening to
you. So I think it usedto skew mail. I think we need
to be accept the fact that there'sa new audience coming and I think we

(42:50):
all need to get ready for that. It's great globally, Yeah, that's
exactly what. Absolutely. You wouldagree with that globally, would you.
Yeah. I would really love tofind a way to survey the sort of
upcoming generation to find out what thosenumbers look like, because I do think,
especially with people in the pop scenelike Taylor putting out records, I

(43:14):
do think it's helping get that nextgeneration interested in it as much as a
lot of people kind of like feelsome kind of way about it, or
the fact that, you know,maybe she doesn't need six variants of every
single thing, but the fact thatshe's putting it out is interesting. I
mean, it's getting these thirteen fourteenyear olds buying records. That's what we

(43:37):
need for jobs. So yeah,absolutely. Our youngest is a seventeen year
old girl and we came home alittle while ago and she had just bought
the latest Boy Genius album and weliterally busted her. She just opened it.

(43:57):
She didn't think we were coming home. She's lying in front. We
all know this picture. She waslaying in front of our record player in
the sun. It was a gatefoldwith sort of like a you know the
one it's like an O skin.Yeah, yeah, And there were tattooed,
temporary tattoos, and she was justinhaling the whole experience. You know.
A dog was lying beside her.And I sometimes think that vinyl can

(44:23):
take you back to that memory ofbeing seventeen or sixteen where everything feels so
much, and even now as afifty two year old person, I can
sometimes catch or I can put Vinylon and I can feel like that seventeen
year old again whose life is readyand everything. The feelings are so intense,

(44:45):
and I think that's the magic ofvinyl and everyone deserves that. Yeah.
Absolutely, yeah, I mean that'sone of the that's one of the
reasons that I think that we arealways like that Jen felt compelled to create
women and vinyl originally, but thenfor all of us crazy people to hitch
onto her wagon and be like,no, no, let's go crusading,

(45:05):
let's do this. But that's butthat's exactly it. It's like it's like
a teleporter. It is like youare instantaneously like back when you first heard
that song or whatever. Like nowI'm getting to the point where I feel
like I have to organize my recordsand that makes me feel like a grown
up and I hate it. Butdon't do it. I don't do it.
See. See, this is thereinforcement that I need, like chaos,

(45:28):
that chaos right still, because noseventeen year old girl would organize their
records and precisely, and I youknow, I've been hanging on to that
for twenty five years and I stillhave not yeah, much to my mind,
it's so yeah, it's it's interesting. I have just been in a
documentary that the queens and Government's doingcall Women in Manufacturing, and there's a

(45:52):
there's a real move towards highlighting womenin music in manufacturing as well. And
I think there's value in that becauseI think the more people that can be
seen. I think we just needto be visible truly well, and you
need our perspective to continue to innovateit, right, Like, we can't

(46:15):
just have the people that have alwaysgiven their input. We need other people's
input, other people's ideas, andso I think that's part of the diversification
is in order to get us tothe next place with manufacturing, because we
have been doing it the same way. We do have only one lacquer manufacturer.

(46:35):
We are doing it, you know, like you said in the beginning,
we need to, you know,not look the way that it's always
been done. I can't remember ifwe were recording at that point or not.
And so how do you do that? What you bring in people like
you from who don't have a backgroundin this and who have a different opinion
to maybe find a way to doit different. And that's exciting or have
a different network and be like,oh I know a person that does that.

(47:00):
Yeah, I mean, I'm surewith with Neil's architectural background, like
he had some input on the buildingand how to put things in the building
and where to put certain structural aspectsto you know, work within your pressing
space and things. So yeah,absolutely, and we it we you know,
sort of back to the original thing. We didn't know what we didn't

(47:21):
know, so we just did stuffthat kind of made sense in our heads.
And other people sometimes walk in andit's different. Everything we do is
a little bit different, I think. And I think that's probably a strength
that we did have to make itup as we went well and weakness both
with part of that, like howwhat what was the way that you would

(47:42):
press that you approached learning how tomake a quality record that you were like,
No, this is the one,this is this is what our standard
is, this is how this iswhat our with, this is what suitcase
is like in a record, Thisis what we represent, this is how
we want to be represented and seenwhenever we have our sticker on something.
How how did you get to thatrecord? It's a great question. We

(48:07):
this might be a simplistic answer.I think, I feel like I want
to give you a better answer.But it's we knew when we played the
record on our turntable whether we lovedit or not, and if we didn't
love it, it wasn't up tostandard, and that meant sometimes having to
go back and getting new lacker anddancers cuts, or we start again and

(48:31):
press again. Maybe we came inas consumers, which is what we were.
Instead as a consumer, this isnot the best experience that I want
to have. I'm not so thereforeit's not up to our standards. And
now now we know what that soundslike. But in the old days,

(48:51):
I think we just put our consumerhats on. So we just made me
did you one to one with otherrecords that like we're from your collection?
Like like yes, yes, wellyes, And I had to get over
this. Part of my problem wasI was so obsessive about Noise in Vinal
that I put on an ancient Dylanalbum my last weekend. It was actually

(49:14):
my dad's I don't know, maybeI don't know how old it was,
and it's really noisy, and Iwas devastated. And then I thought,
that's okay, that's fine. Butyeah, just or even the kids all
know it doesn't have to be onewe press. I just can't turn off
noisy vinyl. It's problematic for me. I need to look at it,

(49:35):
assess it. Go Okay, it'snot ours. That's fine. I can
enjoy it, but I had tofor a minute. The kids would freak
out every time I put vine alot, but it's fine out peace.
Well, since we're coming up ontime, I do want to give you
an opportunity to tell us for anybodyin Australia or beyond what you're pressing processes

(49:57):
like your minimums. Do you helpwith print? Give us sort of the
rundown, give us the pit Yeahsure, yeah, so we press we
so we're based in Brisbane and welove you know, local artists. We
press up anything between one hundred andwell, we haven't hit our maximum,
but so far our biggest that we'vedone is seven and a half thousand.

(50:21):
We pride ourselves on basically doing individualjobs for everybody. So I spent we
all spend a lot of time onthe phone. Call us, talk to
us, tell us, you tellus what you're after. We've done it
enough times now we can often suggestthings that will be that will work best
for you, So it's not acookie cutter exercise we do. We handle

(50:45):
all print as well. We can. We can look at doing pre sales
if that helps. We can lookat doing director customers if we all decide
that it works. As the thing. We just want artists to get beautiful
music out and we just want tohelp do that. And you know,
sometimes sometimes people come to us andsay I want to press three hundred,
and we talk about it a bitmore, and maybe it turns out that

(51:06):
they need to do a smaller pressingto start with. We're open to the
idea of doing a bigger number ofjackets to keep the economies of scale,
and then we only do some someof it now, some of it later.
We call us and talk to usreally, and we're we deal with
everything on a case by case basis. That's what we're here for. I

(51:27):
love that. It's great. Imean, it's unusual because nobody, nobody
wants to be phone called anymore,Kathy, No, I do. I
do. It's so funny. I'mgoing to say, none of our kids
want to call anybody, just callbecause we're all humans. At the other
of the line, you don't youforget that when you're emailing people. But
if you if you talk to them, you realize everybody's just trying to do

(51:51):
the best they can and we alljust get a better outcome. Call us
that's true. Yeah, well,Robin, you get to ask the question
that shall know because she's listened tothe podcast and I loves to answer.
It's so good. I mean,so okay. Being that you are new
ish to your record collecting journey,thanks for I'm grateful. Is I mean

(52:17):
you can't be Neil's partner in lifeand in work and not be a collector
adjacent. Yeah, I mean likehe would be like, oh, I
got you this record, and you'relike, great, it goes right next
to all of the other records thatwe own collectively together. So yeah,
really fine. So if you weregoing to make yourself a seven inch record
and have anything on the A sideand anything on the B side, a

(52:39):
custom Kathy seven inch record, whatwould that record look like? We would
have Dolly Patton's Joline. She's oneof the team, all right. I
don't sabrofite that I did not wegot to go to Australia, man,
we would have Sad eyed Lady ofthe Lolads Dylan. Oh nice, that's

(53:07):
a that's a powerful single. That'sa powerful seven. It's pretty great,
isn't it. Yeah, great joband no hesitations, just went too punch.
I love it. Yeah. Andthe other thing that I've made peace
with is that I'm not very coolmusically, and that's okay. I like
it. Yeah. I just listenedto those two forever and ever, and

(53:27):
I'd be happy. That's great.I love that. It's great. So,
Kathy Wilson, this is your timeto shill. You got to shill
Suitcase records. You tell us wherewe can find you. All of your
socials. Run it down. Giveus the biggest name that's been in your
plant that you were like gob spackedover. Who's your your best band friends?

(53:49):
I want to know who's been thereso well. See, I've got
a compensate for you guy, becausea lot of them are astray and so
savage garden you guys. Yeah,truly, madly, deeply, I am
here. J Flip's another one we'resuper proud of. Done Troy Casseter,
Daily Peach psc We're just loving theWe love the big ones and we love

(54:15):
the small ones equally so do weget the how do we get the hoods
in there? That's that's that's mylike, my still that's coming. I
reckon, I'm working. I reckon. That's that's in the in the wind.
I reckon. I need I needa reissue of the calling because it
is like four hundred dollars to getit chipped from Australia. Well, you

(54:37):
need to come over here. Imean, that's the thing. Bring an
empty suitcase and suitcase records suitcase.Oh my god, that's the best idea
for merch. That is the yesidea for merch that you just came up
with. And I well, that'show we got our name because when we
used to do we used to dothe our backyard gigs. All the hands

(55:00):
used to arrive with suitcase full ofmatch at our backup. So that's where
Suitcase Records came from, including StevePots. I love that. That's so
beautiful. Well, Kathy, thankyou so much. It was so wonderful
to meet you. Oh yeah,Socials, where are you visit us?
Visit our website So Socials and SuitcaseRecords or suitcase Records dot com dot au

(55:22):
please to find us. Yeah,and we'll link your Women in Vinyl article
two. Yeah, that would bereally great, thank you. And that
seems to have spiraled out of control. That was like million hour and a
half. I don't know quite howthat happened. Please feel free to chop
try try to drop out the phonecalls in the graziness raise fantastic, Yeah,

(55:43):
race fantastic. You're fantastic. Thiswas awesome. I mean you always
go over time when we have agood time, when we're like struggling,
that's when it's like, oh,we're only at forty minutes. What else?
Yeah, I ask you, solet me ask that question again.
But that's a joy. Yeah,this is awesome. Yeah, thanks you

(56:05):
guys, have a great day.Call me to anything we can do.
But otherwise let's stay in touch becauseabsolutely, yeah, the year is young.
Yes, we got to figure outhow to get down under. Yeah
in New Zealand. All comes toNew Zealand with you come here and then
we'll go to New Zealand perfectly,all right, Marty Wilson, everybody,

(56:28):
Kathy Wilson of Suitcase Records, yourjoy. Yeah, thank you so much.
Bye, bye, thanks for listening. Don't forget to like subscribe and
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(56:52):
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(57:14):
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