Beer City Skateboards and Records
IV with Mike Beer by RealiD

D: Can I ask who you guys are?

Mike: You can ask anything you want!

D: So who are you guys? Who are the individuals that run Beer City?

Mike: It’s me, Mike Beer, I am the main guy behind it. Then there are friends that help out and contribute in various ways, but I really am the main guy that does this and everything.

D: Mike, are you a skater historically?

Mike: Yes I still skate to this day.

D: As I said, I am more a music guy, C-RAP is more a music site, although the skate culture has always been right there with the hardcore and punk music I grew up with. My question is this, records or skateboards, the steps from conceptualizing your idea for a company, quality decks without graphics to keep them affordable, but of the best quality, how did you go from the concept to producing and manufacturing and building decks.

Mike: Basically it’s just something that happened over time, I hate to give such a vague small answer, but that’s kind of it to the bone.

D: So you guys have equipment there to manufacture? You knew what materials to seek out?

Mike: We knew who to seek out and once you know who to seek out…and it took about 9 years to seek out the right person. We had 3 other outfits that made our skateboards that we had mixed results on and we finally found someone here, right in WI, that was willing to do it and knows how to make the best skateboard in the world. It took 9 years to do, but in that time, we have never had boards this good. There definitely is no skateboard in the skateboard industry this good. All of our stuff is made with CNC equipment, which is good because it’s very precise. You get one board, you go back to get another one 5 months later, you know you’re getting the exact same thing.

D: So in you tenth year, it’s on.

Mike: Yeah it really started in our 9th year, but now that we’re 10 years plus, it’s good. Hey we’ve been around 10 years, we’re stoked out about that.

D: I want to mention a few bands. I never lived in the mid west until a few years ago, but for some reason Milwaukee and WI continue to draw me in. The first record that really slammed home WI and appeared on a cover was the Crucifucks record entitled the same. Were you around then and can recall any old stories about what was going on in WI back then?

Mike: Oh yeah, I’ve been around it since I was a little kid. Back then I really remember just skating around a lot and seeing a lot of rad bands and seeing a lot of cool stuff go down, because all that stuff that people claim, like ‘oh yeah back in the day, back in the day’, it was cool because I was there to witness and be a part of a lot of it. It was real fun. It was always cool seeing the Circle Jerks. As far as clubs, the Unicorn was always good. This guy named Gus owned it. He was from Iran or Iraq and a real tough S.O.B, but he always brought cool bands in and he was a really cool guy. Intimidating to most people, but if you talked to him and got to know him, he was a cool guy. I even run into him every now and then and he’s always like, ‘ hey, how you doing? What’s going on’ and all that. That was really an especially good place, because he booked a lot of punk bands and when a lot of clubs went out of business he stuck around. Eventually he went out of business too, but he stuck it out a lot longer than the other clubs did.

D: When was the inception of the label at Beer City?

Mike: Actually it all started at the same time. The inception all started in 1992. It was a very low year for skateboarding. People were quitting skateboarding and it wasn’t good. The boards were becoming of less and less quality. I talked to a lot of other skateboard companies and explained my friends and I are going through a lot of boards, it would be really nice if you could make something more durable that would last. They didn’t. Some were even so bold as to say ‘we’re selling a lot of boards by them breaking.’ One company said, ‘if you want something done, do it yourself.’ So I did. At the same time, there weren’t too many good punk or hardcore labels around anymore. A lot of the punk and hardcore labels switched to an alternative format or a noise type format or they went out of business. A lot of the record labels around then were interested in doing the pop- punk thing and we thought ‘you know, we should try to do a label and release some stuff for some really good punk and hardcore bands that probably don’t really have to many options as far as where to go and to sign on to a label. Our original goal was ‘let’s release stuff by bands that normally wouldn’t get a chance to do it.’ We did. And 10 years later both the skate and record companies are doing fine.

D: What were a few of those first releases? The jerk-offs?

Mike: The first few releases we did, it was basically a race to see who would get the first 7-inch out on Beer City. There were 3 bands we were talking to. A band from Wildwood, IL called Lunkhead. Another band was The Bristles from NJ and the last was this band called The Pacers from Milwaukee. We pretty much talked to all 3 of them about the same time and they all said, ‘yeah we want to do a 7 inch with you’ and they all got started. Then it was just a matter of who got their stuff in first. Lunkhead came in first. The Pacers came in second and The Bristles followed with number 3. And that’s basically how we started. Lately, we’ve been having requests and people asking, ‘what about some of this old material?’ And we are basically summing up the situation, seeing what people want and we will take it from there. We might end up reissuing some of the older material if there is enough of a demand for it.

D: The website mentions some new surprises this year, some new products coming out, can you give us any details?

Mike: Well we’ve got DRI decks coming out in a few weeks. We also have a new pro on our skate team, Tim Kulas, and his board will be coming out the same time as the DRI board. There is some other bands we are talking to right now, I can’t really say anything because nothing is set in stone yet, but let’s just say we are talking and if it all goes through it will be good.

D: More to come huh? I am looking at the MDC discography, the VA collection, and the DRI Dealing with it record with 37 tracks on it, all done so well. How does that come about? You know it would be one thing to drop 7 inches by young working bands, but you guys are dropping classic originator material, the whole collection and shit. How does that happen?

Mike: Well, basically we just kept putting out stuff we liked regardless of what, I don’t want to say what other people think as it’s the people that buy our records and everything but in the beginning we faced a lot of criticism from Maximum Rock N Roll magazine who at the time was very influential in the punk community because basically at the time it was a lot of people over the whole hardcore thing. Despite the criticism we kept doing what we wanted to do. Bands like working with us, we got a reputation that it’s good to work with Beer City, they’re easy to work with and basically one day we decided we have done a ton of stuff for a ton of small bands that’s really cool, but our situation has kind of changed from when we started as a label because at that time it wasn’t quite as easy to do your own record. Now with a thousand bucks you can do your own CD, recording manufacturing and everything. So we decided a lot of these bands can help themselves out and they don’t really need us quite as much, let’s start trying to reissue some bands that we always liked and their stuff is out of print and let’s try to find some bands that are really good and really want to get out there and tour and do a lot of stuff, they just need the right label to work with. And that’s how that started to take place. Nikki Sikki from VA initially wrote us asking about another band he was in at the time called Humungus. We agreed to put out this Humungus CD, ‘cause it was an excellent recording and we said, ‘well what about VA?’ He was like, ‘you would be interested in that?’ And we were like. ‘hell yeah!’ And that’s how it came to be.

D: And the DRI stuff? Are these guys old friends?

Mike: No it was basically a matter of us…we were not able to find DRI in stores. We initially contacted them about doing some distribution of their CDs and one thing led to another and before we knew it, DRI was signed to Beer City.

D: What’s up with Milwaukee? My attitude in discovering the country is there is a lot between NY and LA; go check it out.

Mike: The Four Seasons Skate Park just came about, I think it was about 3 years ago if I am not mistaken. It’s a killer park. Our friend Neil Lavine owns it and it’s really nice. They got a really great street course and a really great bowl and on any given night you can go and skate with some really cool people that are fun to skate with. I go and skate the bowl on a regular basis. We got our own stereo system up there so we can crank what tunes we want. 99% of the time there’s other cool guys up there riding and it’s not about who’s skating the best or anything, its just purely about having a good time. We’re always cranking our tunes and Duane Pederson, from the US Bombs, used to skate for us, when they were in town, me and Duane and the rest of the guys would all go to the park and skate so that was combining it too.

D: Anything else you want to tell me about?

Mike: Milwaukee’s a great place, definitely come and visit it. One of our main clubs, the Globe, is closing up at the end of the month, which sucks, but the cool thing is every time something cool closes up usually something new pops up pretty quick. So we are all kind of in anticipation of what’s going to happen next here. We’re looking forward to that. Then of course, like I said, there’s the Four Seasons skate park here and there is some cool bands going right now and we’ll have to see what happens with them. It’s a cool place, a cool scene and you know, Milwaukee Rules! If you get chance come and visit Milwaukee.

D: Anything else you would tell kids, who just don’t see what they want to see out there?

Mike: Well as the big boys always said, ‘Now go start your own band!’

D: Anything else:

Mike: DRI. We’re gonna be reissuing most of, if not all of, their back catalogue. And every CD, is not only going to contain the original full length, but it’s gonna contain bonus tracks as well as some stuff you can throw in your computer and watch; video and everything. It’s gonna be cool and they’re going to be doing a new release on Beer City some time this year as well. Keep your eyes open and we are also reissuing the Dirty Rotten LP on vinyl and we’re going to reissue it as a CD with its original mix and its original order as well, so you don’t have to pay all those crazy high prices for all the boot legs out there that sound like shit.

http://www.dirtyrottenimbeciles.com

http://www.beercity.com