Music
HIGH FIVES: Doomtree
by Sam Sutherland
November 30, 2010
Every week, High Fives asks five bands five themed questions over five days. This week, we’re get jacked on the material coming out of the Dischord Records archives (Dag Nasty! Government Issue! Reptile House!) and talking about re-issues.
Doomtree is a Minneapolis-based hip-hop collective, best known as the home of crossover M.C. favourites P.O.S., Dessa, and Cecil Otter. Along with a crew of DJs and producers, Doomtree has drawn equally from the punk pedigree of their hometown, creating a unique, malleable crew that blurs genre lines in the same way that the group blurs business lines, functioning as a record label, a crew, and a larger collective ideal in the vein of Broken Social Scene, or a Midwestern hip hop Travelling Wilburys. With their first proper full-length released earlier this summer, Doomtree has finally embarked on its first tour featuring the entire crew after explosive annual live shows in Minneapolis, touching down in Montreal tonight and Toronto tomorrow. The following answers come from Cecil Otter.
Is there any one single album you’re waiting with baited breath to be reissued?
Terry Reid’s Seed of Memory, if it hasn’t already.
Should reissues always come with new material? Have you ever bought a reissue and been let down by the bonus stuff?
New material would be cool if it was something worth listening to, but if you just throw together some junk you left on the cutting room floor, it’s not a good look in my mind.
Do reissues diminish the value of a beaten-up original?
I’m not sure, but I do know that I still pay a pretty large sum of cash for original records. I think there will always be a market for the originals. Also, if a reissue is going to put some cash back in the artist’s pocket (fingers crossed), I think they should be on every record shelf in the world.
Have you ever dropped too much money on a single record? What record? How much?
Not really. I mean I’ve paid 40 – 60 bucks on some breaks (not telling you which ones), but there are some breaks that could reach ten times that. If I had the money to pay $400 for one single record that I had to have? Yes… all day long.
If one of your own records could be reissued on any format, what record and what format would you choose?
Rebel Yellow on 180 gram vinyl… Double vinyl so I could have all the instrumentals on one.
