Back in the early 1990s, Mac McCaughan was a guy in a band who ran a small record label on the side. He's still got a band, Portastatic (and occasionally Superchunk). But that once-small label takes up a lot more time. By now, Merge Records is one of the most reputable record companies in America, working with some of the biggest names in the indie-rock universe. So steering that ship is a full-time job for McCaughan and Merge co-founder Laura Ballance.
"Laura and I have different things we do with Merge," McCaughan says. "For myself, a lot of it is making decisions, answering questions on the phone, e-mail -- like most jobs, you know. It also involves conceptualizing things. We don't tend to do things too far in advance, there's no five-year plan. But we do have to look into the future: What do we want next year to look like? Who's working on records now? Who will be done when and how do we space them out? What do we want to do that's bigger than individual releases?"
One of those larger projects is a 20-year-anniversary box set drawn from Merge's catalog, curated by a wide range of friends and peers including David Byrne, author Jonathan Lethem, comedian Zach Galifianakis and chef David Chang. Meantime, Portastatic will play Saturday in Raleigh, opening for Magnetic Fields.
For more, see this interview with McCaughan.
