October 31st, 2024,

Happy Halloween folks,

I am not taking anymore lathe cutting orders for the remainder of the year. This summer/fall/winter has been a difficult time. Work and other things have made it very difficult for me to keep up with orders. I was hoping to get on top of things, but I have not been able to do that. So I will concentrate on fulfilling all current orders. I will also still respond to emails (barryjames@macforcego.com) I value all your business, and hope to continue to cut records for all of you starting in the January 1st 2025.

Christmas Day 2023,

The end of the year has seen me focusing on a few things. Three events in December have made me a little manic, but grateful. This was my list: December 2nd Longview Christmas acoustic show, December 9th PDX Label Fest, Dec. 31st The Jimmies reunion NYE show (and possible a Jan. 12th Portland show) Lots of planning, rehearsing, and organizing. All the while cutting the Jenny Don’t record, and all of your records too. Let’s not forget I work a full time job, have a wife, a roof with a leak, and a dog to walk. Here are some pictures of the PDX Label Fest.

November 12th 2023,
Jenny Don’t and the Spurs Dead Mono Session will be available for the first time at PDX Label Fest.
This is an event I’ve had in my head for long time. I jus wanted to put local record labels in a room, with local musicians, and have a day of it. Think of it as a holiday record bizarre without any of the Christian trappings.
If you’re in the area it happens December 9th at The Chapel Theater annex. Doors at Noon, Dj’s playing local records till 4pm then live music from then till 10pm. The live performances are a wonderful variety culminating with experimental jazz group Blue Cranes.

February 11th 2023.

Above are some recent local releases I’ve done. Howie and Hotknives and Dagger Points releases will be available at the show they’re playing together, Friday Feb. 17th at The World Famous Kenton Club. the J. Graves is the second installment in the Gorbie Dead Mono Sessions. Copies of those will be available Valentines day at Mississippi Studio show. Any copies left over after the show will be for sale here on the 15th.

Christmas Day 2022
I find my lathe gets finicky in the cold months. There have been times I wanted to haul the whole damn thing to the highest bridge in town and chuck it into the river. Never mind that the damn thing weighs about 80 pounds, and is made of cast iron. In the first couple of years, learning how to do this, I wanted to take a sledge hammer to the thing almost every week, that has changed. I feel I’m pretty good at doing this now, and take pride in the records produced in my little production house. I think my stuff holds up to anyone making records with a similar machine. But in the winter, when it gets cold, I have thought about getting out, then something like DEAD MONO SESSIONS gets me excited, and I’m glad I have that whore of a machine.

DEAD MONO SESSIONS
This year saw the first release of the DEAD MONO SESSIONS lathe cut series. The root of this idea began with being gifted Fred Cole’s Scully mono tape deck. After doing the Dead Moon Night lathe cut Toody Cole invited me up to the house (this could take up entire page of writing, but not for today.) She took me out to a garage? storage barn? type of place. It was big enough to hold two or three of Freds old cars, and other antique collectible artifacts. The Scully was stored there, in the freezing cold, covered in dust. She told me Fred never got the deck in working order, and I could have it if I wanted it. A very generous act indeed. I loaded the tape deck into my car, and drove her home. This was in February, and it was very cold. I had to put the Scully in my garage. I cleaned it up the best I could, and turned it on. All the lights light up, and I went and got an old Jimmies 1/4 inch master tape I had. I loaded it up, and it all seemed to work fine. It obviously needed to more tuning up. I took it out to a guys house that used to maintain all the tape decks in Portland at the radio stations in the 70’s and 80’s. He gave it a professional calibration and tune up. Then I moved it all into a basement of The Chapel Theater here in Milwaukie. I rented to space by the hour, and thus began to learn the machine. I purchased a nice pre-amp/ compressor, and nice tube mic. I invited some people over to record. That’s how the Jake Kelly/ ST. EVEN DEAD MONO SESSION came to be. I used those sessions for the first addition. Now I’m looking to release more music in this way. I’ve moved into a proper studio called Chapel Recording (out of the basement and into a real space.) One mic, the Scully tape deck, and the Presto lathe. Fred Cole would approve. His machine making music in the simplest way. I’ve already got #2 recorded and ready for 2023.
Looking forward to making more records with all of you in the New Year.

March 20th 2022

I wanted to give some examples of customer creativity. I’m always happy when I get pictures back of the completed project. You can see above that DIY ethic is alive and well. I start the project by hand and you finish it. I can tell this is all done with a lot of heart and care. You can click on any of the images and find a link to the artist website, please check them out. Keep up the good work everyone.

For sure the highlight for me this year was doing the Poison Idea lathe release. Since I moved to Portland in 1985 they have been one of my favorite bands. For me the first three albums are the hight of hardcore punk. None did it better. To get to work with Jerry A and actually do a release for Poison Idea was as thrill. Needless to say the records (100) sold out in under 8 minutes.

I have signed a lease on a studio space. With my Scully mono tape deck and some good analog hardware you just might be able to come to my studio, record in mono, turn around and cut some records! More to come on that.

I’m going to be starting a spoken word series. I’m going to do these on 5 inch square records. More to come on that, so stay tuned for all these coming ventures.

November 28th 2020

One of the great things about having my own record lathe is all the cool music I get to cut. I truly enjoy making records for all you great customers and fellow musicians. Gorbie Lathe Cuts is a success, and I’m always working hard to keep up with the orders. It doesn’t leave a lot of time to fit in stuff my little label wants to do.

Getting the oportunity to do a special lathe cut for Dead Moon Night was something I’ve been setting my sites on for a while. After getting the green light from Toody, and Dead Moon guardians, Jay Martin and Eric at Mississippi Records, I went to work. I wanted to keep it simple black and white. Using the square 7 inch record as the main cover. Then just adding that iconic Dead Moon image. Toody and everyone was very happy with the final product. We did 60 copies. Jay set up shop at Mississippi Records to sell copies for the Oct.5th special date. I put the rest up on this site. Those copies on the site were gone in about 4 minutes. Jay sold the rest at the store. Wish I could have made a hundred of em, but this shit is time consuming.

THANKS JAY MARTIN, TOODY COLE, AND ERIC AT MISSISSIPPI RECORDS!

p.s if you want to do a 7 inch square let me know. I have a few white and black squares hanging around.

I teamed up with two other Portland Labels for this one. National Dust put out the first 7 inch of The Jimmies. I’ve known Dan (National Dust, Nervous Christians,) and Matt (RTTC) for years. Damn this was a lotta work. I keep trying to get out of the 10 inch business, but I keep getting dragged back in. These look and sound great! Pick one up at 2nd Ave records in Portland.

May 7th 2020
COVID 19 has not slowed the lathe business at all. The lathe is cutting better than ever. I’m trying to follow all the new rules pertaining to the pandemic. My wife says I don’t pay enough attention, and I’m disrespectful. I forget how sensitive some people are to this thing, and I’m really doing my best. I respect how others feel, even when we differ.

I just finished a cool 10 inch for Sunjea Lee. He’s in South Korea, and had a real live show for the release. Everyone had to wear masks and get tempted at the door. A real live show though, how cool.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!

I am now offering colors! I’m excited about giving these options. I’m always scouring the planet for options on colors. It’s tough to find much other than clear polycarbonate. I have tracked down a few places where I can get blue, white, black, green, and of course clear.

I also had to make the tough decision to raise my prices. I believe I still offer the best service (and customer relations) out there on the lathe market. We’re going to do great things in 2020!

I recently put together an ART/MUSIC SHOW. I cut records for all the artist. It was a ton of work, but it felt real good. We had Sean Croghan, Larry Yes, and COTTON. All performed amzing sets and also hung art in the venue. Most of the records sold out at the show. Anything left sold on the site a few days later. I do have copies of COTTON’S 10 inch, and recommend it at the top of my lungs.

I’ve also been cutting to order. This has kept me barely able to keep up. I think happy customers is a great thing. Be a lot of them lately.

I have also been trying out some colored polycarbonate. I had to spend $212.00 just to get it shipped. When it came in the mail it was 5 foot sheets rolled. This made the final blanks bowed. I had to bake them in the oven to get them to relax, but it did work.

I proud to say I think I’m honing in on a real look for the label. The stuff I’ve been doing on the label barely makes the site. Most bands can move all the records we do in one night. So that means nothing left for me. I’ll put up whatever I can when I can.

The TOWERS recored is done, and it’s a beauty. Still have to get together with the guys to hammer out a release date in this one.

Fire Red Flood is an electronic expreriment recorded by Dean Miles and Kota Kakutani. Just a couple of those are here.

Been cutting a lot for others and my cutting skills are getting quite good. Busy Busy