Label Focus – Me Me Me
It’s just Me Me Me
WHAT’S THE NAME OF YOUR LABEL, AND WHO RUNS IT?
The label is called Me Me Me and it’s ran by myself (Man Power) and Gabriel Day (founder of Ape-X in Newcastle).
WHEN & WHY DID THE LABEL START?
The label started in 2016. I started it for two reasons; Firstly I was getting sent lots of demos by friends that I thought were amazing as I’d been getting a lot of attention in the wake of releasing my debut album, so I thought I could share that attention around some other people and help the success of some music I loved. Secondly I was sitting on some music of my own that I thought was great but which hadn’t been snapped up by labels, so I wanted to test my own tastes and see if they’d be received as well as I thought they would be. Some of that music went on to be the best received stuff I’ve ever put out, so it’s been a nice affirmation about trusting your own gut.
GIVE US A BRIEF SUMMARY OF WHAT YOU’VE RELEASED SINCE THEN….
I’m really very proud of how broad the label has been over the last seven years. We’ve released originals and remixes covering the broadest spectrum of 4/4 dance stuff with everything from house, techno, disco, EBM, Indie Dance, and experimental stuff from people including big names like Andrew Weatherall, DJ Tennis, Roman Flugel, Paul Woolford, Red Axes, Prins Thomas and loads more, plus we’ve been able to support newcomers like Cici, Club Tularosa, Dharma, Tony Y Not, J1Mi, Vyvyan and loads more, many of whom saw their debuts on the label.
WHAT QUALITIES ARE YOU LOOKING FOR IN THE MUSIC YOU RELEASE?
Sincerity is usually the number one condition. You can usually tell when somebody is really expressing themselves, and when people are just emulating something because they think it will be popular and help them on their planned trajectory for “pop stardom”. It also has to be a little bit uncool in a way, but only in as much as that makes it cooler in another way. Since I was a kid I’ve always really been turned off by whatever the current big thing is. I got in to clubbing as a kind of outsider community, so I naturally push back against whatever the “in” sound is. A lot of what we release has a timeless quality, but it’s still very much not the mainstream.
WHAT KIND OF VISUAL IDENTITY DOES THE LABEL HAVE (ARTWORK, VIDEOS ETC) ?
Gabriel has been a very good influence on me in this sense since joining the label. I’ve always been staunchly anti-branding in general, but Gabe has helped me realise that identity is important and another way which we can express ourselves. We started off with a very no-brand punk aesthetic, but in recent years we’ve refined that into a visual language that takes inspiration from things that excite me like Zines and DIY record releases. From 2021 to 2022 we had the amazing designer Markse making individual artwork for each release. This last year our release artwork has been created by Anya Clayton aka Girl Face design who also does all of our event posters etc. Going into this summer we’re returning back to a refined version of the 12″ Label Design we used initially to promote each release. We’re doing so for no other reason than I miss it and I thought it looked cool as fuck. It also gave me the excuse to bring our old “face” logo out of retirement, which I’ve done so mainly because I want to have it as a tattoo to be honest.
WHAT’S BEEN YOUR BIGGEST SELLING RELEASE TO DATE? TELL US A BIT ABOUT IT AND WHY YOU THINK IT WAS SO POPULAR.
This sounds like such a corny line, but I have no clue. Perhaps that attitude might be off putting to any music managers reading this, and I kind of hope it is as we do seem to ge t a lot of people approaching us to release music who are a lot more focussed on the bottom line than we are, and I’ve found out it’s never a great match in the long run. At a guess I’d say Pale Blue ‘Comes Home’, Man Power ‘Tachyon’ and Club Tularosa ‘Starlight Ceremony’ will be the three bigger ones. Also maybe Cult of Glamour ‘Make it Right’, especially due to the Weatherall Remixes after his passing.
The nice thing is I can’t tell you why they’ve been popular as they’re all completely different. The worry would be that if I could identify what makes them work then I might unconsciously keep trying to replicate that, which deep down I think would suck tbh.
NAME ONE RELEASE THAT YOU THINK DESERVED TO GET MORE ATTENTION THAN IT DID
IF YOU COULD SIGN ANY ARTIST, ALIVE OR DEAD, WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WHY? I’ve already managed to work with more people I admire than I ever imagined possible, but if Theo Parrish, Laurent Garnier, Honey Dijon, DJ Sprinkles, Roisin Murphy or Carl Craig are reading this then feel free to share my email with them if they get in touch. WHICH OTHER LABELS DO YOU ADMIRE AND WHY? I love Clone and pretty much every sub label they do. I loved everything that came out on Ene Records from Japan. I was a really big fan of Svek records out of Sweden too. Versatile has always been consistently exciting for me. Bad Passion records in London are friends who always sign stuff that pricks my ears. There’s a golden period of DFA records where I bought everything that they released. Comeme had a fantastically exciting era for me too, as well as Correspondant too who I worked with a lot when I started out. Rekids have been consistently amazing for me too and have managed the deft trick of mutating regularly but retaining their core personality. Recent labels that I’ve been finding fun and exciting include Make A Dance, Rat Life, the self released things by Hard Drive Library, La La’s ‘Brand New’ records that’s focussing only on new Scottish acts. Austin Ato’s I love your energy (cos I love his energy), Ritmo Fatale. Paradiso, which is run by REES out of North East England.
The thing these all have in common I guess is they just have a defined personality which grants them some level of self awareness and agency, rather than just being responses to what they think people want.