Press

antiMUSIC
Lars the record company mogul
by antiGUY

When he is not bashing the skins with his band Metallica, Lars Ulrich is moonlighting by running his own record label called simply - The Music Company.

So far the label in association with Elektra Entertainment has released two albums. The latest release came last week from the Texas alt-rockers "Goudie" with their critically acclaimed debut album, "Peep Show".

While many would expect Lars to sign bands that were Metallica clones or at least fit into the Metal mold, he has surprised onlookers with Goudie.

Musically, Goudie has more in common with Radiohead than Metallica. During a recent interview with Debbie Seagle from our sister site Rocknworld.com, Goudie's bass player Einar described the circumstances that led to their signing with Lars:

"Well, Dan McCarroll, our A&R guy, when he was actually trying to decide if he should take this job as an A&R guy, he was given a box of tapes from who ended up becoming our publisher, Kenny McPherson at Warner-Chapel. And Dan went home and listened to a bunch of stuff and liked our demo. So he talked to Lars, let him listen to it. He liked it and he sent Dan and Tim Duffy, the President of TMC (The Music Company) down to Austin to check us out. And we did, like a private sort of showcase for a bunch of really stiff people and then, we did a showcase for Tim and Dan and it went great and we just got along really well with them. We spend the week with them and they brought, or went back to Lars and gave him the news and he came about a month later and that was pretty much it. I mean there was the going through the lawyers for a little while but it was just, they liked us, they thought we were a good band. They thought, you know, I guess they got it. And they liked the way we played and that was it. It was really great."

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GOUDIE
Peep Show
COMPANY/ELEKTRA
by Andy Langer

Austin's Goudie has built a reputation for melodic pop, but its major-label debut is surprisingly rock: Peep Show wallows in thick walls of guitar and arrangements constantly on the verge of collapse. While it's not the kind of bombast you'd expect on Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich's Elektra imprint, rarely do young bands cover so much territory as confidently. There's something futuristic about the effects and loops that are used to integrate influences like Radiohead, the Cars, and Cheap Trick, yet front man Johnny Goudie offers an appreciation for the fine line between spooky and sexy. It could be just the right recipe; competitors like Limp Bizkit certainly haven't come up with anything as suggestive and fulfilling as "Made," a psychedelic-metallic freakout that sounds like Nine Inch Nails covering Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker." And sure, most of Goudie's songs are variations on the same theme, but what great rock debuts weren't all about sex?

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The Austin Chronicle: Live Shots
Steamboat, February 18
by Sean Doles

With his waif-thin physique, chiseled cheekbones, and jet-black locks, Johnny Goudie bears all the outward signs of a rock star waiting to happen. Further blessed with a silky, androgynous voice and a regular Wednesday night slot at Steamboat, you just know he's on his way. Until he can write a batch of songs as striking as his physical gifts, however, Johnny Goudie's wait will have to continue. After years in previous musical incarnations like Mr. Rocket Baby and Johnny Goudie, the new and improved just-plain-Goudie finds itself at a musical crossroads. Though tailor-made for fun, poppy rock, the more mature Goudie has the bags under his eyes and street cred to back up his fresh-faced appeal. Unfortunately, the 17 songs that followed on this night reflected more confusion over a lack of direction than personal conviction and individual style. At its best, Goudie the band unleashed a pop-glam style so sharp you could use it to cut out Nick Gilder paper dolls. Odes to cross-dressing ("Bitch"), to fame ("Superstar"), and to bacchanalian revelry ("Wasted") dared you to think Goudie's music is tightly crafted and always on target. Propelled by a wall of sound, the band made its case by ascending to a peak of pop-rock songcraft that felt dizzying in its sugary rush. But Goudie can't seem to ignore those little voices telling him that he needs to be "darker" and "edgier." Anyone who knows Johnny Goudie's back story knows he doesn't need anything in his life to be darker, so let's just leave it at that and crank up the pop quotient. Besides, now that Material Issue's Jim Ellison is out of the picture and Redd Kross continually render themselves irrelevant to a mass audience, the path is clear for Goudie to step in and claim his rightful place on the power-pop throne. Who cares if he looks like Bryan Adams' kid brother and sounds like Sweet's Brian Connolly and the London Suede's Bret Anderson rolled into one? If Goudie can concentrate on one sweet corner of the world, maybe he can find his true voice and triumph at his own game.

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Dancing About Architecture
That's Mister Rock It, Baby!
by Ken Lieck

If you were at the Austin Rehearsal Complex (or at Sugar's, for that matter) Tuesday before last, you might have noticed a strangely familiar face - if you're a metalhead, at any rate. That face belonged to Metallica's Lars Ulrich, who's been looking for bands to sign to his Elektra-distributed label, TRC (The Record Company). Jason McMaster's new act, Godzilla Motor Company, is said to have gotten a demo through to Ulrich, but the reason that the metal man was here, apparently, was to check out Johnny Goudie's band. Goudie himself has said the label is interested in him and that the last piece of the puzzle would be Ulrich appearing to see the band himself. Oddly, though, when contacted after Ulrich's visit, a cagey, double-talking Goudie would not even admit knowing that Ulrich had a label and only allowed that the two men had been in the ARC at the same time. Yeah, that's right, Johnny. Lars probably just popped his head in for directions to the nearest "gentlemen's club."

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Austin's Music Class of 1999
Expectations of Future Growth
by Andy Langer

...major label debuts from both the Damnations and Johnny Goudie seem on path towards quicker turnarounds.

"Grassroots" isn't a word you'll hear Johnny Goudie throw around in regard to Elektra's plans for his untitled band's debut for an untitled subsidiary label. That's right, at press time, neither Goudie's band nor his label have proper names, even as recording of the local rocker & roller's debut is being finished in Los Angeles with producer Fred Maher (Luna, Matthew Sweet). Names aside, label expectations for an out-of-the-box alternative radio success are high, especially since this particular subsidiary label belongs to Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, no stranger to multi-platinum albums.

"Lars wants to sell records -- with dignity," says Dan McCarroll, President of A&R for Ulrich's new imprint. "If I brought someone like 'N Sync to him, he'd fucking laugh at me, but he makes no bones about the fact that he wants to be successful as a record company guy, which ultimately means selling a lot of records. If he didn't think these guys were capable of that, he wouldn't have signed them in the first place."

Goudie, who nearly wound up with a major-label deal with local popsters Mr. Rocketbaby five years ago and has been working on demos at the Hamstein studios off and on since, was actually the first act McCarroll brought to Ulrich. After Ulrich came to Austin and saw an ARC showcase last summer, Goudie and the new label came to terms. And while being the first signing to a new label has its built-in guinea-pig hazards, McCarroll and Goudie say the beauty of Ulrich's deal is that he gets to act like an independent A&R vehicle for Elektra, with his staff picking bands, producers, and singles on their own, and Elektra's radio, publicity, and marketing departments working the finished product as they would any other release. Goudie's only concern, he says, is that Austin won't recognize his new project as a collaboration with drummer Bill Lefler, bassist Einar, and guitarist Jimmy Messer.

"This is a really collaborative record," says Goudie. "We've found a record label that understands that and wants to push what we're doing. I'm not writing and recording with radio in mind per se, but we want it to sell and are willing to work like dogs to have that happen."

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The Year in Austin, 2000
Identity Crisis
by Christopher Gray

'I Don't Hear a Single' Austin groups continued chasing major-label windmills -- when they weren't taking shots at each other. Fastball's The Harsh Light of Day, Dynamite Hack's Superfast, Goudie's Peep Show, and Vallejo's Into the New all bowed on some corporation's dime to the sound of one hand clapping, both locally and beyond. Spin magazine names the Hack's folk-damaged cover of N.W.A.'s "Boyz-N-the Hood" one of the year's Top 20 singles, an opinion not shared by the Comptonites themselves: MC Ren calls the song "fucked up" on Rolling Stone online, while Dr. Dre refuses to appear in the video.

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Fuck You Fred Durst
Metallica News Archives
5-19-00

Goudie, one of the bands signed to Lars' record label The Music Company, played a gig in Viper Room in Los Angeles this week. Goudies frontman Johhny Goudie wore a T-Shirt with the words "Fuck You Fred Durst" printed on it.

After the gig Johnny Goudie said the T-shirt reflected his hate of Durst and "his jock-rock."

Lars was at the gig.

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