The Hustler
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March’s first project was a January 1992 compilation, Uncharted; a companion show at Metro sold out. “I think what helped us out was that we were the first CD release of unsigned bands,” Skippy says now. (Uncharted volume three has just been released.) He also hooked up early with a couple of fairly big local acts: Catherine, solidly in the “shoe-gazing” school characterized by My Bloody Valentine-ish guitar washes, and Big Hat, an ear-friendly space-rock outfit marked by the keyboard work of leader Preston Klik and the ululating vocals of Yvonne Bruner. The economics of ultraindie outfits like March are primitive, but Skippy’s gotten by. “Big Hat is the best distributor of their own CDs,” Skippy says, giving a glimpse of how his company works. “I sold them �,�ðð at close to cost, and they sell them for nine or ten bucks at their shows, and boy do they know how to do that. With Catherine, it’s a different story. If I gave them five T-shirts to sell they would just give them away.”
Catherine’s EP Sleepy is March’s single best-selling album, at 5,000 copies, though Big Hat’s done better than that with a couple of albums combined, Inamorata and Selena at My Window. Helped along by production work from Corgan, Catherine’s been picked up by TVT; Big Hat, on the other hand, recently left March and are recording a new set of songs in their search for a new and hopefully bigger label. “Skippy didn’t seem to have the money to do the things he wanted to do,” says Klik.
Schmitsville
