Little Label Love: Burger Records
A little while after the first installment (on Italian Beach Babes, read here) I found another little label that I think deserves more attention: Burger Records from Fullerton, California.
In March, in the space of two weeks, I was confronted with Burger Records t-shirts twice. The very first time it was my friend John wearing them at fabrIQ festival and since I didn’t know anything about the label back then, he told me about it. Burger Records is a store as well as a label and mostly releases cassette tapes. A lot of the time they’ll be records that are also released on cd or vinyl and then they provide you with a tape version.
Sometimes they’re exclusive Burger Records releases though. Whatever the case, all the stuff they put out is awesome and so are the two dudes behind the label: Lee and Sean. They were so kind as to make time in their extremely busy schedule and I cannot thank them enough! Here goes…
In short: what’s the history of BRGR? How/when/why?
Lee: (spoken in a deep southern accent) burgers been on my brain for a lonnng time. I have a love for reading trashy rock bios and learning about my favourite bands history i.e. The Beatles and Apple, The Turtles and Blimp, The Kinks and Konk and The Beach Boys and Brother etc etc. We’ve been using the name for a handful of years before the first official Burger release came out in 2007. That was Thee Makeout Party!’s 2 Ez 2 Luv U 7″.
Was the store first? Can you tell me a bit more about the store? Is the label something you do next to the store?
The store came a little later, in October 2009. The store is how we live our day to day, basically juggling the label and the store balancing between the front and the back just trying to make ends meet. The store rules! It’s where we curate shows for bands, movie nights, provocative performance art, any kind of random weirdness at any given time. Elenore the shop cat is definitely in charge! A real life Garfield.
How do you manage? Doesn’t exactly seem very easy to me!
Sean’s speechless.
It’s not easy… Efficient time management is the key to succes. We’re losing our marbles every other week around here, might as well call this cuckoo town but we manage!
I’m guessing you all like eating burgers and that’s simply the reason you went for the name Burger Records? What’s your favourite burger?
Lee: my favourite burger has flame toasted buns, fresh veggies, grilled onions, bacon, some sort of cheese, avocado and an egg. I WOULD EAT THAT BURGER!
Sean: any homemade burger! Flames are best!
Do you guys have a favourite record label? One that sets the example for you?
We have a lot of favourite labels but Recess Records of San Pedro, California set an example for us by running shit on pure love, passion and fun out of a bedroom and just spreading the rock ‘n roll gospel, one show at a time, across the whole wide world!
If you could have another Burger Records store anywhere in the world, where would you most like to see one and why?
Probably San Francisco, Oakland. There’s so much Burger love in the bay. It always has rock ‘n roll, it’s always thriving. But there’s been talk of Burger town in Detroit, picking up where Motown left off. A recording studio/living quarters/store front.
Finish the next two sentences:
I would definitely release anything by a band that… has David Lee Roth fronting the band.
I would never release anything by a band that… has Sammy Hagar fronting the band. (he replaced David Lee Roth in Van Halen, ed.)
To endorse your brand, anyone in the world you’d like could be wearing a Burger Recs tee. Who would you love to see walking around in one?
Bill Clinton. Burger loves Bill Clinton! He is a nasty man, Bill Clinton is a Burger bitch. But if Prince wore a purple Fuck Burger pin that’s the ultimate, we would all get super horny!
