{"id":1476,"date":"2011-11-16T15:52:06","date_gmt":"2011-11-16T23:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=1476"},"modified":"2011-11-16T15:52:20","modified_gmt":"2011-11-16T23:52:20","slug":"1476","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2011\/11\/16\/1476\/","title":{"rendered":"Book celebrates Mint Records"},"content":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER (CUP): In the late 1980s, Randy Iwata and Bill Baker were a pair of UBC students working at their university radio station. They liked to party, they liked good music, and they had no idea they were about to create one of the most successful and enduring record labels in Vancouver\u2019s independent music scene.<\/p>\n

But now their story has been immortalized in Fresh at Twenty: The Oral History of Mint Records.<\/em> The creative force behind such acts as the New Pornographers, Neko Case, the Evaporators, Hot Panda, the Smugglers, and The Pack A.D. finally have a chance to tell their story, in their own words.<\/p>\n

The pair are humble about how far they\u2019ve come. \u201cWe haven\u2019t had a very exciting 20 years, I think it\u2019s safe to say,\u201d Iwata says in the first interview of the book.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike, it\u2019s not the M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce book, you know?\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But their rabid fan base, including Fresh<\/em>\u2019s author Kaitlin Fontana, begs to differ. The nearly 400-page book details every step (and misstep) Iwata and Baker took along the way, and illustrates what a unique and revolutionary musical force they have become.<\/p>\n

Starting with a punk riot at Expo \u201986, Fresh<\/em> tracks the pair through their university years, and introduces us to the larger-than-life characters that helped shape the local music scene. One of those characters is Nardwuar the Human Serviette, who wrote the foreword to the book and still has a regular radio show at CiTR.<\/p>\n

\u201cMint Records never really should have stood a chance. Both Satanists and art legends alike would have found the notion to base an indie record company out of Vancouver frankly stupid,\u201d Nardwuar writes. \u201cBut Mint Records is still in the game after 20 years and 160 releases.\u201d<\/p>\n

In their first ad for the label, which appeared in Discorder <\/em>magazine, Mint advertised themselves this way: \u201cWe love trash. We\u2019re the unhappy folks at Mint Records. Anything dirty or dingy or dusty. Vancouver\u2019s newest label. Anything ragged or rotten or rusty. We\u2019re accepting demos. Yes, we love trash.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for the fans that have made Mint the musical powerhouse it is, their music is anything but trash. Whether you\u2019ve followed Mint since the early days or you\u2019ve never heard of them before, Fresh at Twenty<\/em> is a fast-paced look at a golden age of Canadian popular music that still thrives today.<\/p>\n

And if that\u2019s not enough to sell it, the book also comes with a free playlist sampling of Mint\u2019s artists.<\/p>\n

Party on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER (CUP): In the late 1980s, Randy Iwata and Bill Baker were a pair of UBC students working at their university radio station. They liked to party, they liked good music, and they had no idea they were about to create one of the most successful and enduring record labels in Vancouver\u2019s independent music scene. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-november-16-2011"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1476"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1484,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions\/1484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}