It seems like culture has accidentally run amok. There’s not center. There’s no commodity – unless we’re talking about the over priced spate of low run singles and collectible garbage being spewed out by the countless independent labels that are so pervasive now. Of course, a huge part of all this mess comes as a result of mindless drones moving from the hinterlands to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin or wherever else you’re supposed to live in order to impact the larger culture.

Over the last week, I’ve heard New York denigrated – its publishing industry being figured as working through its death rattle. And while that’s probably the biased opinion of a spurned would-be artist turned educator, she still lives in a major city. And that major city is filled with the same crap as NYC. It’s all a tremendous bummer.

What opportunities – unique ones at least – remain to be discovered in these over populated, magnetic centers? Well, if it mattered, perhaps I’d discuss that here. Instead, what’s drastically more interesting is that K Records and Calvin Johnson have been able to work for the last twenty years at spreading around a vision of low rent rock stuffs

At this point in music’s dissemination, any label lasting more than a few years and issuing a record that actually maters is something of a shock. But with Johnson and his cohort camped out in Olympia, Washington – less than an south of Seattle – K Records has been on a local playing field, almost all alone, responsible only for itself and not the desires of hordes of fans.

Certainly, student turnover allows for whatever cultural injections are required to remain vibrant. But more than that, the K Records folks have been able to create culture around themselves. They decide, to a certain extent what occurs in Olympia. It’s wide open without absorbitant rents (that’s relative for West Coast destinations) and too many random hangers on.

Beyond bolstering the locals, K Recs has been able – again because of those aforementioned benefits from being outside of major media market – to define a product. It hasn’t necessarily always focused on people from the town. But Johnson, as prolific as he is, releases enough average work as to have bankrupted other outlets. But in issuing work from lesser known acts, even if those groups count some (pretend) famous folks, has helped all involved perpetuate a collective ideal. And that’s ok.