Specifically, unintentionally, it concentrated effort on releasing art that nearly no one was interested in. The spray-paint-&-photocopy tape releases were manually dubbed and produced in ridiculously small runs of dozens. For some, that is being generous. The first two zines were pure poetry (literally), which made the act of promotion a kind of torture infliction--a shout into the void. In 2003,
when I settled in Philadelphia permanently, the label (and myself) partnered with Natalie and things got "serious." Meaning we shelled out cash for vinyl releases that, notably, got very special treatment in the mastering phase. Read: expensive. However, BLTB's knack for releasing records by artists that would never or could never play live proved to be an insurmountable obstacle. It was also during this time that the distro catalog grew a lot, focusing on obscure twee and anarcho-punk gems, especially from women artists. Around 2006 activities pretty much ceased. BLTB went hyper-dormant, but the physical catalog was never abandoned. The stock--mostly un-screen-printed & raw--was moved around Philadelphia a few times. Then to Brooklyn. Then to Wisconsin. Which brings us to today. I was a high school teacher and never had any time. Now I'm in a PhD program and never have any time. But that's disingenuous. Time can be made if that's the priority. Another truism while I'm at it: If everything is a priority, then nothing is. To be clear, what's happening now is that I am opening old boxes, taking inventory of what is ready to be sent through the mail, and updating the Storenvy to reflect what's officially for sale and making a way to do it. Maybe there will be new things someday. But I'm trying not to look too far ahead. I'm just trying to deal with right now.
