Creation feels like standing in the middle of the ocean and trying to start a wave
Plus: a zine gets 1,000+ collectors in 28 hours (!!!)
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When you stand on the precipice of something you’ve worked hard on finally seeing the light of day, the life of the project flashes before your eyes.
In those moments the practical concerns that consumed you during the creative process fall away. Instead we retrace the emotions. The elations of discovery. The moments of doubt. The day things turned for the worse. The day things changed for the better. From the moment it first stirred in your soul to wherever you dream it might go.
As you weather the storms inside, the excitement of the impending new thing will pause. You will find yourself in the eye of the moment in a Zen state. You become the watcher. You see how it all plays out.
When I reflect on the journey of Metalabel, an immediate visual greets me: a person standing in the middle of the ocean trying to start a wave. That’s what it feels like: this totally quixotic and crazy act.
You’re trying to push off from the free-floatingness of the ocean to start a wave that grows into something bigger than you. The only solid ground is your determination. You try everything you can to get something to break.
There are moments when you feel like the only person in the ocean. It can be lonely. You feel foolish.
But in time a magical thing happens: other people show up. People who together can make the wave. In our case, everyone releasing with us. Everyone collecting work. Everyone who connects with the ideas and model we’re exploring. The Metalabel squad itself.
Now all of us — you, me, everyone here — are together in this same spot, looking out into the world in similar ways, here for similar purposes.
Wow.
What once felt indulgent now feels necessary. What once felt impossible some days feels almost inevitable. What felt like loneliness starts to feel like power.
Next week we’ll share the next step in this journey. A step that’s happening thanks to the support of many people, including you.
As we shift into this new gear, look for this email to evolve. Our own voice will still be present, but the next part of making the wave is less about us at Metalabel than the larger collective of people brought together by this dream of a new creative era.
Thanks for being here. We can’t imagine starting a wave with a better group of peers and friends.
Speaking of starting waves, here are this week’s Featured Releases.
This zine just got 1,000+ collectors in 28 hours
Train Songz
Summer 24, #4
Physical zine
On Friday morning something unexpected happened on Metalabel: the fourth edition of a zine called Train Songz launched. This on its own was not unusual. We love zines. Lots have released with us. What was unexpected was the response.
Within hours the zine had 300 collectors. In eight hours 600. Twenty-eight hours later more than 1,000 people (and counting). The fastest-collected release in Metalabel’s young history.
We spoke with the creator — known simply as The Conductor — before it launched and came away impressed. The project began as Instagram meme page dedicated to the bluegrass musician Billy Strings (this video is a classic) that built a cult following through love for a spectacular musician and people having fun on the internet with memes.
We asked The Conductor to talk about the project and they came back with a masterclass in community building. So please, allow us to present…
The Conductor’s guide to community building
METALABEL: How did this community grow?
THE CONDUCTOR: Billy Strings and his band made the larger community with their hard work and amazing talent that they share with their fans near and far by touring nearly year-round. I think of train_songz as a micro-community within a community, if you already dig Billy Strings and might want to opt in to go a bit deeper, share a laugh with a meme and maybe get an old-school fanzine in the mail to read more about the band, the music, and the history of some of the old traditional songs they're breathing new life into. So in a way, the community was built on "easy mode" because Billy has cultivated such an amazing and passionate fanbase over the years.
If we want to get into the nuts and bolts of how train_songz grew to 20,000 Instagram followers and a few thousand of that group getting a physical zine in the mail, the answer is brick by brick — or should I say meme by meme? I decided to start the account last summer after riffing on some concepts with my good friend who introduced me to Billy. (He and I still text back and forth about meme ideas, and he's the co-author of the zine. This whole community wouldn't exist without his daily vibrational guidance!)
After started the account, which I got the guts to start because I thought the "Trey Songz" pun was funny enough to give me some confidence to start a niche meme account within a community I know and love, I posted darn near close to every day for a year… sometimes multiple times a day. I was obsessed with it — still am, though I've certainly pulled back from the everyday posting as I've focused more time and energy into the zine and fulfilling orders, which is insanely time consuming, though I've gotten a lot more help over the course of the year.
I got some attention at first by commenting on other accounts' posts, which attracted a few followers, and then that base just kept growing as the small group of early followers would share posts with their friends or otherwise engaged with the content in whatever way made Mark Zuckerberg's self-interested algorithm want to spread the posts far and wide.
The zine, which is like a community within a community within a community, I started when the account had around 5,000 followers, about 550 of which I was able to convince to sign up for the "ships free, pay what you want after!" zine via a Google Form, after some incessant posting of a link on my Instagram Stories.
I think this worked because I had spent the previous five months making memes that people enjoyed, so they trusted me enough to take the risk and see what kind of physical media I could whip up.
The zine is really the heart of the "trian_songz community," and it's what I spend the bulk of my "train_songz time" (this is not my day job) thinking about. The memes are fun and I'll post something when I have an idea, but the true obsession now is leveling up the quarterly zine each time.
I believe if I keep putting out quality memes and zines, word of mouth will help this little community grow into whatever it's meant to be.
METALABEL: Were there lynchpin moments or actions?
THE CONDUCTOR: I think the obsessive daily posting definitely had something to do with it. I also got a few reshares from Billy Strings, which definitely got memes and zine content in front of the right people. (Billy pretty frequently shares content from fan accounts. It's kind of him to use his platform to bring attention to that kind of stuff.) Alhough I have to say some "viral reels" were the biggest drivers of growth, beyond the Billy reshares. So I think growing it on social media all goes back to feeding The Algorithm its daily bread, fortunately or unfortunately.
The coolest thing to see, though, and what I think helped grow the zine was how many people decided to put it on their Instagram Story when they got it. It's almost a "thing" now, like people post the zine on their stories when they get it in the mail. I never had to ask…it just happened, and it was the coolest thing, because here's this zine my friend and I spent a ton of time making and mailing, and now we're getting to see it in its home. (Which again I think is less of a testament of how much they love train_songz and more of a testament of how much they love Billy Strings.)
But truthfully, I have a hard time taking credit for "growing" any of this. I see my job as more of "channeling" an energy that Billy and his band have created. People love their shows and music so much, my content (social media or physical) gives people another avenue to be a fan beyond going to shows or listening to the music. So again…I think it's Billy and his bands' hard work and talent that made the fertile ground on which train_songz was able to grow.
METALABEL: What makes a memepage work?
THE CONDUCTOR: Specificity. "There's no such thing as too niche!" Especially in the early days of the account, I made a concerted effort to only post about songs about trains, Billy Strings, and bluegrass. In order for an account to know what it is, it also has to know what it isn't. So it wasn't a Grateful Dead meme account, it wasn't a Phish meme account, it wasn't a general jam band culture meme account…I tried to make it clear this was a niche meme page for Billy Strings fans who especially loved the bluegrassy part of his sound and the history lesson he gives on stage each show.
I also think consistency is huge. As I said before, I had to be obsessed with posting and finding my "voice" and figuring out what I wanted the account to be. I really like scrolling back in time and looking at the early memes and flipping up to the present, because I can see the actual visuals of the content change over time as I'm learning and experimenting.
Lastly I think you gotta deeply understand the niche in which you are meme-ing. Subcultures have their own inside jokes, specific knowledge, debates…you can't be a tourist, you need to genuinely love the material. I certainly couldn't make a meme-zine community about crocheting. Sure, I know what crocheting is functionally, but I don't know its idiosyncrasies, nor do I know what makes crochet-lovers tick. So even if I know my way around a meme format, I couldn't make the requisite connecting to crocheting. The true Crochet Heads would smell a phony from a mile away.
I also never post something I wouldn't want to share with a friend. That's my test for what makes the feed or not, and I think it helps a lot with quality. If I can't think of something good enough to share with a friend…I hold off.
Almost gone
Some great releases with just a few copies remaining:
“Twins” by Paul Waters and Jamie Nami Kim
Physical art print
3 editions remaining
This week 88-year-old painter Paul Waters makes his major gallery debut in a new show at the Whitney Museum that opens today celebrating great African-American artists of the 20th century.
Also this week, “Twins,” Waters’ limited edition art print with studiomate Jamie Namie Kim, is down to its last three copies on Metalabel. Collect one while you can.
Terminally Online Astrological Coloring Book for Adults by Nick Vyssotsky
Physical coloring book (artist signed)
Less than 10 copies remaining
A small run of a very online coloring book with astrological themes from the Do Not Research community. Less than ten remaining.
The Work We Need to Do by Hard Art and Jeremy Deller
Physical zine
Less than 10 copies remaining
The debut piece by Hard Art — the cultural collective from the UK — down to its last copies.
Moment of Zen
“Ideas come to us. We catch them like fish…” — David Lynch
Congratulations to train_songz, The Conductor, the Billy Strings community, Paul Waters on his Whitney show, and all of us for being here together.
See you next week!
<3
Metalabel
Grateful for David Lynch's thoughts and experience on the 'idea'. The seed and staying true to it is such an invaluable understanding to sit in. Congratulations on your achievements, Metalabel!