IFFBoston Interview: I Need That Record!

Bostonist: What inspired you to create a documentary about the plight of independent record stores?

Brendan Toller: I got my first turntable and first records (early Beatles, Bowie's Space Oddity) when I was 9. Going to record stores was always something I grew up with going with my dad and at age 12,13 it started to become my own thing. Record Express was a New England chain that I had grown up with: 3 stores within a 30-mile radius I'm guessing. So there were a lot of great discoveries (Clash - London Calling, Neil Young - Tonight's the Night, Dinosaur Jr., The Damned) while mom was shopping at TJ MAX or Joann Fabrics. Around age 15, 16, and 17 I was in there almost once a week buying new releases and scouring the used section. When I went to Hampshire College in Amherst, MA I was spoiled: 6 records stores (now down to 4 I think) with great taste, selection, and prices. But when I came home Record Express was always my home away from home: a way of escaping boring suburbia for a few hours. Record Express then got down to one store in a matter of a few years and in 2006 they closed. Not only did they close but a tanning salon moved into the stores old space.

I had been reading in the press about record store closures and articles were quick to blame the Internet and digital downloads which I knew was a small slice of what was actually going on, aka corporate greed and deregulation. So I decided to pick up a camera and go from there.

Bostonist: I Need That Record! is your first full-length documentary; what work did you do previous to this film?

BT: I went to Hampshire College, which is a design-your-own major school with no grades. It was very intensive: working on smaller documentary projects, honing my skills, interning on films Where the Fuck Are the Democrats!?, Six Niggaz in a Cadillac, and Hoop: A Revolution of Sorts. The school really teaches you how to do work on your own. You make a proposal to work a on a project for your final year. My proposal was this film: I Need That Record!

Bostonist: You describe yourself as a guerrilla filmmaker. Why do you promote yourself as such, and do you feel as though it may have helped spread the word about the film?

BT: For the most part I'm a film crew of one. My buddies Jeff Slocum and Andrew Marino accompanied me cross country, producer Keith Overton helped out, and animator Matt Newman did a ton of awesome work, but for most of the interviews, editing, writing, researching it was just me. I have little to no budget. It makes me sick to think how much money Hollywood wastes on productions that will be forgotten tomorrow. They sacrifice originality and risk to put some schlock out there that suburban teens are going to go to anyways because they have nothing to do and need to get away from mom and dad. What do they do with their million dollar budgets?! I think its important for me to make that distinction that I'm not apart of that machine and more and more people are starting to appreciate that.

Bostonist: As this was your first major film, and you're pretty young for an independent filmmaker, it must have been a little tough to organize, coordinate, finance, and distribute your film. What were the major hurdles you encountered while making the documentary?

BT: It was a lot of 9am-3am days. There were certainly times where I thought this film would never be a reailty but I just kept faith in myself and the project. There's still a lot of steps left before it gets out on to DVD this Fall (fingers crossed). I do have to say the most frustrating thing has been the idea of "independent film festivals." I'm grateful for the ones I've been in to get the film seen by more people but the idea of submission fees is despicable. For the bigger fests thousands of people pay these 50, 60, 70 dollar fees just to have their film considered when the films who are getting in have connections or an agent behind their film. These submission fees prey off pride in peoples work. Independent filmmaking is extremely hard: these fests should be supportive and not exclusive and elitist. There's plenty of undiscovered amazing works out there just waiting for an audience.

Bostonist: Any other filmmakers you've come across who don't have the same access as folks with agents who you would recommend?

BT: Well like everyone else just my friends... First and foremost the work of animator Matt Newman is amazing. All hand cut stop motion animation pretty much. He did all the cut out animations in I Need That Record! He's an uber talented dude - I wish I knew how to do what he does...
Zach Ianazzi does some awesome experimental film and has a short doc To Be Regained about artificial salmon hatching.
Abraham Ravett is an incredible experimental documentary filmmaker who has been a great mentor throughout this whole process. The same could be said for filmmaker Penny Lane (yes, its her real name!).

Bostonist: You've got a number of noteworthy individuals that are interviewed in the documentary; which person provided the interview that was the most helpful for the structure, narrative, and thematic arc of your film?

BT: Hard to say: they all provided great insights. Legs McNeil provided a great realist debate: "why aren't you like making a film about the way of the old porno theaters its the same thing!" MIke Dreese, CEO of Newbury Comics, had a lot of good points to make about the state of the music industry, business, and beyond. An interview that didn't make it into the film was with Barry Blesser, an MIT professor who was one of the fathers of digital sound in the 70s; we had quite the interchange about MP3s, vinyl, big box stores. He really got me to revaluate the way I defended and structured my arguments. And of course meeting some of my heroes; Mike Watt, Noam Chomsky, and Ian MacKaye had a big impact on me.

Bostonist: Legs' argument for making a documentary about the decline of porno theaters is interesting in that, the appeal of the record store, and much of the romanticism of record stores, revolves around the connection to other music lovers, whereas porno theaters... well, that's a completely different story of what kind of relationships people were looking for when they went there... But, did you develop these types of relationships/compatriots in your own record store experiences? Did you notice these relationships in the various stores you visited while you were filming the movie?

BT: Yeah I would hope there wouldn't be too much high fiving or hand shaking going on in those theaters - yikes. I definitely looked up to the people who worked at Record Express and look up to a lot of people who work in record stores even if they look down on me or what I'm buying! These stores are an expression of independence, a place of discovery and different thinking: a bastion of American culture that sometimes appears to be getting driven even further underground as these stores disappear. It's like that question they ask in High Fidelity (the book): can you take someone who owns less than 100 albums seriously? As pretentious as that may sound- for those who eat sleep and breathe music that''s a serious question because it can define your enjoyment, feelings, sense of history, worldview, philosophy etc. This why these stores are so important to bring these people together to interact. For some music junkies it's the only human interaction they get all week. I saw this in most all stores I went to across the U.S. and certainly its there in the "Trash American Style" footage of I Need That Record!

Bostonist: Since the movie came out last year, you've gotten a lot of press from a number of popular websites/magazines (Pitchfork, Paste, The AV Club, etc). Were you at all surprised by the number of people who were eager to talk about your movie?

BT: I think it's an important issue that's on people's radar and not just record stores: local bookstores, hardware stores, coffee shops, local downtowns have been in danger of shutting down for the past 20 years since the emergence of bland homogenous big box stores not to even mention the current economy. More than just businesses these places are community centers, places where people feel comfortable, places of education and discovery. Local businesses that are run well give an added value to a community and are vested in that community. They don't truck all their money to Alabama like Walmart. I really tried to make a film that hadn't yet been made and that I really wanted to see. Certainly the cast of characters helps peak interest, as does my argument about the music industry.

Bostonist: That idea of focusing on record stores as a concept and piece of a larger issues in America has always been something that's personally appealing about art: using a creative element to talk about an issue in ways that cannot be expressed in other means. Is this an aspect that drew you to using film in the first place, and other types of art in general?

BT: I think each medium has certain strengths in expression depending upon who's behind the film slicer, paint brush, hands of a sculptor, etc. Film is a crazy intersection of images, movement, and audio. Just think about that for a minute. Some artists work in one of those areas; to use all 3, the possibilities are endless, which can make it daunting sometimes. I have a lot of narration in I Need That Record! which needed to be filled with some kind of image that I felt was in relation to the text. There was a lot of invention and creative thinking going on to try and fill that otherwise black space. I think I was drawn to film for its ability to tell a story as well as its lasting and repetitive qualities. I've done some acting and have played guitar for years and sometimes I'm envious of a performers sense of immediacy. When I screen a film I don't have that, so the crowd better like it! I also think people are starting to accept films that take risks and go places that the millionaire filmmakers won't go. We have the technology and cost keeps getting lower and lower so its an exciting medium to work in.

Bostonist: In the last year since you've begun to screen I Need That Record!, vinyl has been on a major comeback countrywide, with many independent and major music stores re-opening their stacks to the medium and numerous bands flocking to records all over again. Are you at all surprised by this trend? Would you call it a trend, or rather the strong presence of a niche market of music listeners, or something else altogether?

BT: I think music has advanced so much in terms of portability in the last ten, twenty years. First it was cassette walkmans, then CD walkmans, now its iPods. Digital files are transportable, easy to obtain, and free if you want them to be, but they lack the physicality, the soul, the sound, the ritual, warmth, and sense of history that vinyl has. Plus used vinyl is so cheap; sometimes 2, 3 dollars for an album with 12 songs. That kind of price point can make you be a bit more daring about your music selections. I would never think to pick up Alex Chilton 80s albums or some psych or soul album that has a ridiculous cover on CD the price is just too high...

Mp3s are the ultimate in portability and vinyl is the ultimate the listening experience. Plus new vinyl is priced to sell - sometimes cheaper than the CD version - and when it comes with a free digital download you can't go wrong! I think it's going to continue a bit upwards. Walmart wouldn't be saving shelf space for turntables if there wasn't profit to be made...

Bostonist: Any idea for what your next project? Something with mixtapes perhaps?

BT: I'm trying to do a documentary on my friend Danny Fields. He managed the Ramones and Stooges, signed the MC5 and Nico, press publicist of the Doors, claims to have broken up the Beatles - a legend! I just need to find some kind investor/funder I suppose. Reality, ie paying bills, having a roof over your head, eating, and finding a means to do those things can hinder the time for art making and creativity... I was editing a long lost documentary on noise trio the Magik Markers; maybe that will see the light of day sometime. Currently I've been doing a lot of short web video projects for Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! Label...

Bostonist: Any advice to inspired guerilla filmmakers?

BT: The best advice I got about documentary filmmaking was if you have an idea or project that's important and interesting you'll be surprised just who you might get to be apart of the process. I never though I'd be interviewing Ian MacKaye, Noam Chomsky, Watt, hell, anybody, everybody who's in my movie! Also filmmaking and documentary work comes with its frustrations: technical, monetary, scheduling issues, etc. if you can see it through these things which are apart of the process you will be successful. And you should determine what success is- not anybody else. You should be proud just sharing your work with a group of your friends- that's the first step. Read. Sleep. Eat organic local foods. Have faith in yourself and not fear: humans can do some amazing things...