Tabs Out Cassette Podcast - Bonus Episode - Cudighi Sampler | 7.13.20

Episode Date: July 13, 2020

Ben from Cudighi Records talks about his zany ass label and it's spicy namesake. Jams by ELMA, Yuto Ohashi, Yeti, Haunted Gauntlet, Luurel Varas, Apollo Dial, ZigZag Zone, and Toon.

Jamie, what is this tiny little microphone you have? I don't know. Can you hear me at all? No, not out of that little microphone, Junior. What the hell is this? I've been using this. Jamie, we have a guest on this episode. You can't fuck around. Get a real microphone.

This is so beautiful. Tabs out. Bonus episode. out bonus episode too spooky way too spooky Check one, two. Is that okay? That'll work, Jamie. That'll work. Who gives a fuck at this point?

Jesus Christ. Jamie, get back on camera so I can tell you what's going on. I have to explain this to you. What is he doing now? This is... Hey. Now I don't have any sound. You don hear me this is it by the way this is like i don't know if you know this is a bit but this is the interview it's just this is going to be

the entire 40 minutes or so okay are you with us jamie yeah can you hear me i'm sorry it's fine it's fine well i wouldn't expect much more okay so jamie let me explain what's going on right now do you do you remember as a kid when the summer would roll around and you'd hear that old familiar song out your window right and you knew can you hear that jamie and you knew that the kudiji man was coming by in the kudiji truck handing out those hot sandwiches that we all love. The spicy Italian sausage, the mozzarella. I can never tell what that cream was, though. It tastes like Gorgonzola.

I didn't live in your part of town. It tastes like Gorgonzola. But you knew you would always get a nice hot sandwich on a summer day. Well, we got the Kudiji man himself. He's here with us. We got him today. Go day. Well, we got the Kudiji man himself. He's here with us. We got him today. Go ahead and introduce yourself, Mr. Kudiji man. My name is Ben.

And you don't really... Go ahead. I cut you off and I apologize. You're good. Yeah, I'm from the upper peninsula of Michigan, which is like the source of Kudigi. It's really hard to pronounce. Say it again.

Yeah, you were very polite about correcting me there. Just go. Yeah, it's called Kudigi. Kudigi. That's how they pronounce it in Michigan, at least. I don't know if that's butchering it, but that's how people say it. Real quick, don't go over that. I don't know if you meant that pun, but butchering it and having it be a kudigi sandwich with the sausage on it which

does involve butchering so that was very good so don't give yourself credit so is that a town is that the name of town uh yeah marquette is the is the biggest town in the upper peninsula yeah um but you can get it all over the UP, and it's kind of, it was brought over by Italian immigrants. There's like a mining industry. So there's a lot of Italian, Cornish, and Finnish immigrants. And there's a lot of like iron ore mining.

So they eat a lot of pasties because it's like easy to eat pasties in the mines. But then for some reason, they brought over the sausage and it stuck and you can't really find it in italy or it's like like when you search it you can only find the michigan recipe you can't really find anything about italian recipes anymore it's kind of strange huh so this sandwich made like quite an impact on you you decided to name your whole tape label the whole freaking thing the whole dang thing you named after the sandwich you like it so much you're putting out what name something you started in 2018 and what kind of what have you been putting out um i've been putting stuff out well i was living in japan for a while and i started in japan and um i kind of started off

with japanese bands i was finding out about or people i was meeting in japan um my idea was to have it be sort of international different uh kind of an eclectic mix of of electronic or psych i guess hopefully there's like some some theme that comes across uh i like stuff that's a bit like childlike or experimental or kind of like curious okay speaking of curious i gotta ask what you were doing in japan i gotta know and i know the listeners listen and they want to know they said Japan he just he just went over that too what was he doing in Japan I was teaching English in a little city called Totori which uh it's the smallest uh prefecture in Japan so it's kind of like the northern Michigan or like the midwest of Japanapan it felt like that a lot so what is some of the stuff you heard while you were out in japan yeah so um i worked with some people that

lived in the same city and then just other people i i had discovered um and then ended up meeting like going to tokyo or osaka and like meeting some of the people I was releasing um and then it kind of expanded from there and just became international I think I've released more international people than American yeah who can did you put a tape out by anyone that you met while in Japan so yeah the elma tape which is like really early on he lived in the same city i it's funny because i was like teaching his daughter i didn't know that and he uh he teaches at a different school and his wife um teaches english so there's like this connection where people are telling me about him and just through this circuit of teachers and then meeting him. And he was like this prolific noise artist living in this little like, you know, remote rural city. So him and then Yuto Ohashi and then Yeti.

Those are like the ones that I met while I was still living over there Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. so Thank you. so Thank you. so Thank you. so I'm sorry. Thank you. oh oh oh Thank you. The first thing I got from you was a tune tape. Where did they land in this hole? So that's me personally. That's just my music. Oh, okay. Jamie, they always do that. They always try to sneak one in of their own.

Yeah, but this is catalog number two. Yeah. Have you noticed that, how they always try to sneak one in of their own? Ben, are you a Ludus as well? No, that's Art from Estonia. He's from Tallinn. Yeah, it's not me.

But yeah, I did sneak one in. Well, that's cool that at least you let somebody else have a chance before you stole all the fun. Yeah, I jumped in that tune tape yeah you do notice i said the tune tape was the first one i got because i got some heavy press he made he made sure that landed over here yeah it's you know it's like one uh you gotta put yourself gotta promote yourself um if you can't make it sending it someone out to someone else you gotta make it on your own this industry will swallow you whole

it's true half these tape labels are Ponzi schemes it's just experimental Ponzi schemes and I could name names one day I will Jamie knows I'll do it one day this is gotcha journalism Jamie it would be

gotcha journalism if you would be gotcha journalism If you could get yourself a microphone That worked You sound awful But I think we can play this off as You know what you should be the Kudigi man Inside the Kudigi truck Do you need me to play some of your theme music

And you can No no we're not going to get into that You're going to make me do a bit I'm on Google images right now Checking out Kudigi pictures and I'm starting to get hungry. Well, see, that's, I was going to say, those pictures might make you tempted for one. This cover, what is this cover for? I want to talk about the sampler platter volume two. What is going on?

And like, it's like, it's like a weird tater tot thing not tater tot what are they called the hash brown hash brown it's like a hash brown patty with like i don't know what that thing i don't know what that thing inside is it's rubbery what is going this isn't a kudiki is it this is this must be an artist rendering or something from like grossfood.com that's the same artist that did the logo uh my friend pete and he did this series of really gross fast food concoctions i think that one's like a breakfast sandwich which is a sausage cut in half and then hash brown uh uh kind of you know bread so is that is that canon kudigi right there i would say that's in the canon yeah yeah even with the hash brown on top huh okay all right i've seen some weird shit go through over these years so all right whatever

i don't know like double downs at kfc it's kind of a similar approach right okay yeah if they can do it oh i'm not sure if you would classify michigan as the midwest but i do know they eat some weird stuff in the midwest wait jamie stop real quick you wouldn't categorize michigan as in the midwest i don't know is it what it's like north it's super north what are you talking about it's absolutely it's absolutely the super north. What are you talking about? It's absolutely the Midwest. Okay. Okay, so would you categorize Michigan with like Ohio? Are you talking to me or Ben?

Whoever wants to field it. Whoever buzzes in first. I would categorize it more like Wisconsin, especially if he's talking about the Upper Peninsula. Listen, we can geek out about maps we only have a few minutes yeah okay i want i want to i want to play some stuff from this sampler um i wanted to say though i gotta i got a problem with it and jamie you might chime in here pal when the list inside and and ben please do not speak during this because i have i've been

holding this in for a while the list of artists and tracks in here they do it track slash artist not artist slash track oh wow is that all i get is an oh wow for the i need i need i need outrage we must be outraged about this is it worth talking about why that's done or do we just get over it and we just play it survey said did I make a mistake

again whoever wants to buzz in first is there like is there a what is there a protocol I mean I feel like it's artist then title i mean i'm an amateur like as long as it's right on the music that that i make that i release you got the um spine orientation correct so it's true and really we already know man he's focused on number one here jamie he doesn't give a shit He doesn't give a shit. How many of these are you? How many of the people on this conference?

I'd say side B is just different iterations of me. I could tell. Yeah, he doesn't give a fuck about these other people. Seriously, though, run us through this. Run us through the artist here. Do you need me to hold my copy up or do you have one? I could pull it up. Let me see.

Did you accidentally sell your copy? It'd be funny. It would be pretty funny if there was someone who ran a label who kept accidentally selling their personal copies. It's like, fuck, I did it again. I will say on the Bandcamp camp page the artist's song title is in the correct order does that make you feel any better does it make me feel any better yeah no i'm talking about this is jamie we talked physical jim we talked about this this is a cassette podcast yeah yeah okay oh shit am i recording this by the way yes okay it would be the first time i forgot should i i mean for volume three do i switch back

well what's volume one what did you do for volume one yeah i think i did so i think keeping it consistent right yeah you got to keep it consistent i'm going to go through this one real quick sylvia correct me if I get anything wrong. Sylvia, The Great Lid. Oh, see, this is why I fucked up. I started reading the track titles and not the artist. You see, this is why. This is why you don't do it that way, Ben.

This is why. This is the reason. This is the reason. I'm going to be mad. So I'll start over. Spencer Bible. Cabo Boing. ELG or Elg? Probably Elg.

Al Morantz. Danielle Dahl. Melody Sisters. Mondo Lava. Elias Krantz. Yuto Ohashi. Mart Avi. Haunted Gauntlet. Ooh, Haunted Gauntlet. That's really scary. That's super scary.

Haunted Gauntlet. Laurel Veraz. Apollo Dial. Zigzag Zone. That sounds like a good one. Actually, I would go there. Jamie. Jamie.

When the quarantine's over, you want to get all the families together and go to the Zigzag Zone? We should. We should. The kids will love it. I love that place. Tomer Baruch and Woo. It's Kudigi 21. Ben, just tell me about it.

Yeah, so the first one I think featured more friends of mine. People from back home or college friends. That sort of thing. This one's just your enemies. This one's all my enemies. This is some sort of sick revenge you're doing? Yeah, I went to my high school

burn book. So this is like a bunch of jocks. It's all the hunks from high school. Oh, the hunks that peeped the shit out of you. Is Troy on here? Is Troy on here? He's definitely there. So I just looked up international hunks,

and that kind of was like a rabbit hole on Google. Hold on, there was a slight diversion. So this is not people that bullied you in high school. This is a comp of international hunks. I mean, they had the potential. If they were in my high school, they probably would have. That's how I justified it. I've never heard of such work being put into a compilation before some a tape jesus christ people are gonna go wild over this thing the hunks are gonna love it

yeah um it's mostly just people i stumbled upon you know you you go on Spotify or band camp or searching random stuff I think when I was in Japan I had a lot of free time in front of a computer so a lot of that was just spent as my makeshift office hours looking for new bands that sort of thing but some of them I had known for a while like Cabo Boing and LG and Daniel Dahl, Woo, yeah like I'd known about them for for a while or some people I'd worked with before like Yuto Ohashi or Haunted Gauntlet and he's a friend of mine. So yes, a mix of like just friends of mine where I want to get them some exposure or kind of have them in this conversation with these other bands that I really like.

And usually like when I find someone I know like right away like this makes sense for the idea in my head of what I'm trying to do with the label. Usually there's some playfulness or some humor or some sort of zaniness. Something that you would be at the zigzag zone, maybe playing it over the piano. Yeah, exactly. Over the piano.

Yeah, during happy hour, they'd be playing this tape. It's always happy hour at the Zig Zag Zone. It says that as soon as you walk in on the banner. One that the kangaroos hold. It's always happy hour at the Zig Zag Zone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. so it'd be just like an error on my part i wouldn't be able to sleep tonight i see the acoustic guitar in the background do you want to play us a little ditty real quick can you please play us please play us a little if you a little ditty do you have any any requests a wonder wall anyway this is wonder wall is what you say and then you play a little bit please please say

it's wonder wall and then play anything say anyway this is wonder wall and it's a meme ben from the internet and we're going to perform it live it's going to be the first time so just say this is wonder wall you can do whatever you want i think i think that one's off the track. Do you like air supply? Air supply. I want Jamie to be happy. What do you want, Jamie? I would just be happy. Is that thing in tune?

I don't know. Good fucking question. Good question. It better be in tune. Check first. Mute yourself while you check okay i'm gonna tune it right here yeah i'll play the guitar on youtube a little flat are you seriously

great content it's the best way to tune a guitar ever. I actually don't know how to play it. I want to get a screenshot of that. I don't know how to play Wonderwall. You want to make a cake in the shape of a toilet bowl? Coming up, I think with quarantine and everything and the pandemic, it messed up the release schedule a bit because production companies shut down. Tell me about it.

Yeah, the silver lining is people were able to finish stuff and make some really amazing stuff so we got a lot coming up the rest of this year 2021 i'm super excited um so we got volume three in the works already you're you're sampler plan yeah it's even zanier no wait a minute stop just stop exact zone there's no way there's no way it's zanier than it can't it can't it's already off the charts so zanier it's kind of like lethal weapon three okay yeah if if you're in a camp that thinks they got better like lethal weapon got better i think they got better three idea of doing a comp is always so fun and like running it through your head of who you're gonna ask and like what order you're gonna put people in look how look how look at my

eyes when i say that what order you're gonna put people in you saw excited i got because it's such a fun idea yeah but it can also be such a pain in the ass of getting everyone together and doing all the legwork and the shipping and stuff like that. But you're on to number three. So you're enjoying these comps. Are you enjoying them more than just your standard release? Yeah, I have a different response to them or a different uh response to them or a different um

like stress reaction because it is there's like an elation or an excitement right like yeah what's the order gonna be like what's gonna go into what like to make it perfect um and then you know when people respond you're like i get to work with with this person and this person all these amazing artists but yeah it's like i'm a musician so i know how hard it is to like wrangle yes we know you are we know you are you put out the tune tape as we get it we get it was not very in tune though yeah you put the guitar right there like we like i wondered the last week about my guitar he kept jamie did you see him keep pointing at it? He kept pointing at the guitar

until I finally asked him to play it. And it's like, okay, Jesus. And then it's like, what, you got it tuned to E-flat? Come on. Thank you for checking. Jamie, thank you for fact-checking the guitar, by the way. I do appreciate that. Yeah, I guess with the full releases

there's a different excitement there and it is super stressful to get everything together and ship everything out that's the second time you used the word stress or stressful I mean it is pretty stressful are you being forced to do this label? and you're just trying

to do it the least stressful way yeah there's a gun to my back i was wondering who that guy was this whole time yeah i'm not gonna ask squatting behind me um i think it's a good stress though like i think it's a motivating stress it's the stress that gets you up in the morning because you're getting emails. Like I work with a lot of international people. So you get emails overnight. So you wake up to a bunch of emails. And I think that's, that's kind of like,

it's kind of like Christmas or something, but it's also, yeah. No, I, I see what you're saying there. It is like, it's like, it's the equivalent of kind of like watching cable news in a way I guess but way more uh creative and a way a way to build community rather than just be angry you can you can be instead of being angry at like Brian Kilmeade you can be angry at like an email that you got from someone because like a Noroco case broke. Yeah. That's also, that's also a beautiful thing, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, cause I'm still in that, in that phase of, I can't believe people are on the same page or wanting to buy this.

So you're in phase two and you're moving on to phase three and you're going to open up restaurants and indoor dining. Yeah. That's phase three. Jamie, thanks for laughing at that jamie i appreciate you laughing that's why i asked you to join us today then thanks again for talking yeah no problem uh thanks for uh liking the label and supporting it and everything Thank you. Thank you. I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure Thank you. Hello, you had said there must be someone on the other side that loves the way you do Hello, you are that person Can you take the name out to keep your thoughts together?

Now Go ahead I need someone that's right That allows for people to be together Now Go ahead I need a plan to understand Take my guilt and squish it in my head I need a plan to understand If I could just push it inside here