Bifocal Media
Bifocal Media is a music label & video production company that specializes in promoting edgy underground artists. Their label roster includes striking bands of past & present: Braid, Des Ark and The Cherry Valance, as well as print projects like Brian Walsby’s “Manchild” comics. In addition, they produce multimedia content for more main-stream clients like The Independent Film Channel and ESPN2, among others.
Tell us more about Bifocal Media:
Bifocal Media began in 1997 when Brad Scott and I began working on The Actuality of Thought video compilation. Brad and I had both done independently produced video projects on our own and we ended up working at the same video production company in Greenville, NC. I was booking and promoting shows for bands and I ended up filming a lot of the performances, as they were some of my favorite bands at the time. Our initial intent was to give the video away with a zine I was working on. Little did we know; our little video full of bands playing in my living room would be wildly popular. We ended up with a record label and our own production company.
How has the label & business evolved from it’s inception through now?
When we started Bifocal Media, there was no real club scene for the kind of bands we were interested in covering. Bands like Sleepytime Trio, Braid, Spazz (All of which were in our first video release) would do 40 city tours playing house parties, practice spaces, restaurants… wherever they could get booked. Funny thing is, these bands could also sell 30,000 albums this way. There was this weird energy around this “new” artsy-fartsy punk thing that folks were rabid about. The most topical elements of this scene eventually filtered into the mainstream. A few of the bands that stuck around ended up famous. Lots of bands that they spawned ended up on the pop charts…yada yada hey.
Our output as a label peaked around 2004 right as lots of folks were deciding that they didn’t want to buy records/ CDs anymore. We did a sold out CMJ showcase in NYC and we thought, “OK, this is as good as it can possibly get”. We started concentrating more on the film and video production services that we had been offering to other labels as that is what was paying the bills. We’ve worked on tons of music videos, TV shows, etc since then. We even threw in the towel and worked for Donny Osmond for a few weeks. He’s a real back slapper. We continue to publish project-based releases on Bifocal such as books by comic artist Brian Walsby as well as some audio releases for bands like the Melvins and Goner.
What North Carolina bands do you like that aren’t on your label?
Double Negative, Bowerbirds, Birds of Avalon, Caltrop, Valient Thorr, Superchunk… My radar is pretty limited as I’m an old man of 34 now and I don’t get out much.
I know you like to cook, have any recipes to share?
I like stuffing mushrooms with this stuffing I make out of bread crumbs, garlic, cream cheese, and a little lemon juice. I put a little bit of any good cheese on top, add a little olive oil and white wine to the pan, bake until they’re screamin’ and BATABING! Serve over rice… OR… OH MAN CHECK THIS OUT!
Wrap those big sea scallops in smoked salmon, put a little bit of chevre on top, and drizzle some raspberry preserves on top of that. Bake that in a pan with a little white wine and lemon juice for 5- 10 min. Holy cow! this is probably my fave at the moment.
What future projects are on the horizon?
We’re doing another Valient Thorr video for Volcom in May. Right now I’m just dealing with this Book/ CD for Brian Walsby and the Melvins.
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