Introduce yourself for any readers not aware – who are you, where are you from, and over the years where has Longshot/LSM been based?

Well… I am Mike, and I am originally from Manitoba (Canada), but for the history of the label, that began when I moved to British Columbia in 1992. I was living in a small town up in the mountains and in 1997 I put out the first release on Longshot Music (“Urban Soldiers: A Tribute To The Oppressed” compilation 7” EP). The following year I moved to Vancouver where I lived for 5 years and the label really took hold with about 10-12 releases over those years in Vancouver. The big one being the “Tribute To CockSParrer” 7” EP that included an undercover Oxymoron as ’The Oxys’ as well as one of, if not the first song from Dropkick Murphys to be released with new singer Al Barr. From there I moved to Brooklyn, NY in 2003 where I stayed for 5 years and those were tough years to keep the label going. NYC was so expensive and vinyl really was in a bit of a low point, so most releases were CDs (which I have always personally hated!). But then in 2008, I had the amazing opportunity to move to San Francisco which I did in a heartbeat and it was there that Longshot Music really took off! I was in SF for nearly 10 years and probably put out 100+ releases (mostly all vinyl!). I had been splitting my time between SF and Portland starting in 2015 and in 2017 I made the move to Portland officially, only to be deported from the USA in October of 2017!!! Doh. So out of necessity, I moved back to Vancouver (which has been great!) and the Longshot Music label was retired… In 2018 I started a new off-shoot label called LSM Vinyl that is a vinyl-exclusive label AND no colour vinyl!! With LSM Vinyl, I only want to put out music on vinyl, minus all the gimmicks of colour vinyl. And that is where we are at now, in Vancouver with 20 or so releases on LSM Vinyl over the past 2 years so far. We’ll see what happens going forward with this damn COVID pandemic. Ugh.

What prompted you to start the label back in the mid-’90s? Where there any other Canadian labels at the time?

I really started the label by accident… I had been living in London for a few months and while there I had been going to some distress there to buy music directly that I could not easily buy back home in Canada. So when I got back home to Canada I hit up those distros to buy more music for myself, and they thought I wanted to do wholesale orders to distribute, so they sent me their wholesale catalogues with better pricing, etc. So I just kind of said what the hell and ordered a bunch of CDs and 7”s to try to sell to my friends. It kinda worked out, so I kept doing it and then I eventually figured that I should try to make my own record. My plan had only ever been to try it once, just to say I did it, but 20+ years later and 200+ releases later, I am still doing it… At the time, there were not really any punk specific distros or labels in Canada that I was aware of. Keeping in mind that this was WAY before the internet made it easy for people to buy all the cool records. The one guy who I knew from my days living in Winnipeg was Mark at Too North who had moved to Calgary but he always had all the best (and expensive) collectible vinyl to buy!

How would you describe the nature of the skinhead scene in Canada back then, from your own experience? How does it compare to that of today, what are the pro’s and cons? Who were your favourite bands back then, and now as far as more recent bands?

I am gonna sound like a grumpy old man here, but back in the 90’s, the scene seemed way better. It was smaller, and there were still some knuckleheads and idiots, but at least all of us involved back then were pretty sincere about it. We didn’t just see some glamorous image of a punk or a skin in some glossy fashion magazine ad, or at Hot Topic in the mall that made us jump on-line to buy all the clobber. We learned about it organically, by trading cassette tapes of music, so you had to be “deserving” of it to have a friend make a mix-tape for you. Not like today where any dumb-ass can go on-line and search for all the cool bands. And as far as the fashion, we had to search far and wide to find anything legit or passable to wear. None of us amassed a closet full of top clothing or an amazing record collection in a matter of weeks. It took us years of dedication to the lifestyle of punk and skinhead to be who we were. I am still friends with a large number of people from the 90’s who have remained loyal, whereas I can’t tell you how many people I have met in passing over the years. So for some, it really is “a way of life”.
As for the latter question about the bands, there honestly weren’t really any skinhead bands in Canada in the 90’s that I recall, or at least that I was able to see play live. Probably the closest thing was The Glory Stompers in the 90’s who I sadly never got to see play live, but definitely had some of their records. Then later in the 90’s and into the early 2000’s there were more good bands in Canada — the best thing to check out is my buddy Rob’s compilation “Oi! This Is Canada” that has 20+ amazing Canadian bands from that time in the late 90’s. As for more recently, there aren’t quite as many bands across Canada as we had in the early 2000’s I don’t think, but there are definitely some good ones! Out here on the west coast there is of course No Heart! I am admittedly a little biased about that band! haha. And probably the most well known Canadian band at the moment in the skin/Oi! scene is Bishops Green. I have also been lucky to see a few of the bands out east play now and Reckless Upstarts are great guys as are The Prowlers.

Quite often people who start labels are also in bands, you being no exception – what bands have you played in over the years? Where have the best gigs been, from your experience in both Canada and internationally?

Oh man… where do I start? I guess at the beginning in Winnipeg. My first ever band was back in 1989 called The Boi!s. Definitely kind of a silly name, but it was a life-changing band for me. I am still really good pals with Shane the guitar player from that band to this day! And our highlight was that we opened for Bad Manners one time in Winnipeg at a venue that was maybe about 1000 people? Probably more like 200 when we played of course. But the highlight of that night even more was watching Buster Bloodvessel party. It was impressive. But after the gig, some university rugby team took exception to the skins at the show, and of course skinheads never look for trouble… but they also definitely don’t run from it! So there was an epic street-battle out front. For some reason we were billed as the “Turnbull A.C.s” for that show as a side-note. After that band ended, some of us formed a new band called Frontline and we had some good songs and good shows, however sadly back then it was not so simple to record so we have no recordings from that band. At least The Boi!s have a live recording of that Bad Manners show!! After Frontline there was another shake-up with the line-up and we went a little more punk with a band called Angry Young Bastards. With all 3 of these bands, it was me and Shane that stuck together and an interesting fact about this band was that the guitar player was a snotty young punk who was the younger brother of Mitch Funk of Personality Crisis. That seemed pretty cool to me, but years later I found out that Aaron is now the world-famous EDM musician known as Venetian Snares. I have no idea WTF that means or sounds like, but still kind of a funny detail… From Winnipeg I moved to Kamloops and I played some music there, but not really bands that are too noteworthy. The first was kind of a heavy rock/almost grunge (shudder) style that I did mostly just to be able to keep playing music. The guys were fun to hang out with and it was just fun to play music. Then the other band in Kamloops was called 12 Pointbuck and back to more of a punk rock/streetpunk style and I am still good friends with those guys to this day. Then I moved to Vancouver and that is where I started to really accomplish some things with bands that I am proud of to this day. First was Subway Thugs and we were together for about 3 years and released 3 EPs and a split LP and just recently had a complete discography released as well as a one-off reunion show at a festival in Munich, Germany! We also played at a festival in Phoenix, Arizona back in the late 90’s that was fun. After that me and Nick from Subway Thugs started a band called Emergency which to this day might be my favourite band in many ways. We sadly never achieved our full potential and I think if Emergency was around now rather than 2001/2002 when we started, then we would be relatively successful and putting out records and touring Europe, etc. At this point, I moved to Brooklyn in 2003 and in 5 years of living in NYC, I never really managed to find a band. I jammed with a bunch of people and had some half-ass bands that never got past a few practices unfortunately. Next stop was San Francisco in 2008 and shortly after moving there I joined a band that was still in the early stages of forming called Sydney Ducks. This is another band that I have a lot of pride in, and I think another band that could have achieved more had we not fallen apart after our European tour in 2012. That was the first big tour for most of us, and I think that when we came back we just needed a break and never really found that momentum to get it going again. We did a couple one-off shows after the tour including opening for Dropkick Murphys in SF and playing at the last TNT festival in Hartford, CT. By that time, I had already started playing with some other guys as a “side project” and that actually has become my most important band to date as Suede Razors was formed by me and Bryan and we do the majority of the work that goes into being in a band — booking shows, planning tours, doing interviews, writing songs, planning releases, etc. That started in early 2013 and even though I have been in Canada since 2017, Suede Razors is still very active as we are currently writing for a new EP and hoping to tour Europe in 2021 assuming that this pandemic fucks off by then. There have been a lot of highlights with Suede Razors already but the hands-down obvious one is playing at the Rebellion festival in August 2019 on the Empress ballroom stage to about 1200 people!! And speaking of being deported in 2017, that led to my return to Vancouver and with that, I was able to team up with some old pals here and I joined up with Greg (Subway Thugs) to play bass in Alternate Action! We did a 15 day tour last April and the highlight of that show was definitely playing in Paris at the Bals de Vauriens II festival. Amazing. At the same time of playing with Alternate Action, I started to play 2nd guitar with No Heart for about 1-1/2 years. I was only able to practice once a month since they were in Victoria, so band practice was a 12+ hour round trip that included a ferry ride! It was super fun and I was sad when I had to step away from that project as I was not able to keep up with how prolific those guys were at writing songs!! The highlight with No Heart probably includes Alternate Action and Suede Razors as well when all 3 bands played a show here in Vancouver and I was on stage playing in all 3 bands that played that night! It was exhausting but I was surprised that it was kind of easier than I had expected… Maybe partly because I had to stay sober out of necessity! And that brings us to the present… At the moment there is not a single active band that I am in, but as mentioned before Suede Razors is still working on new material and plans for the future. And I had been playing music with some guys here before the covid lockdown, so that has been put on hold. But we have a few songs that are coming along and there is yet to be a name decided, but hopefully this project will get off the ground once the pandemic lockdown eases up…

How has doing the label changed over time, with the ebb and flow of interest in th scene aswell as the advent of the internet? Is it more enjoyable over time, or less?

This is an interesting question to answer… The grumpy old man in me will say that things suck now and were better in the old days. Which in many ways is the truth. But if I have to be honest, the internet and all the luxuries of that have made doing a label easier in many ways. So I can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and I have to admit that things are easier in many ways. There are so many amazing bands now and you are able to find them and connect with them on-line, etc. And it has been easier to connect with people to book shows and tours, etc. So yeah, the overall scene is much healthier now, but I still miss the old days… 😉
As for enjoying the label, it has been a love/hate affair for probably at least 1/2 of the past 20+ years of my life. I can wake up one day and absolutely loathe it and swear to never put out another record, but then… I hear an amazing band or I hear from some old friends and I get all excited about some new songs and I want to put out a new release and the cycle of love/hate starts all over again!! haha.

What have been your favourite releases, and has it coincided with most popular records or not necessarily? What’s one record that you didn’t shift many of that you really feel should’ve been more noticed?

I can definitely tell you that just because I really like a band, there is absolutely no guarantee that it will be a successful release. In fact, I think I kind of must have awful taste in music because it seems like I have no clue and will be super confident and excited in some bands/releases only to have them fall flat sales-wise. And then sometimes other releases just take off!! As a fan of many types of music, I did try to release some non-Oi!/skinhead bands and in general, those releases were never as “successful” for me. They were good bands/releases, but I think early on I just established that Longshot Music was more of a streetpunk/Oi! label. So I have tried to stick to “skinhead music” for the past decade or so and in that way people will know what to expect from Longshot/LSM. As for my favourite releases, I can’t pick one really. As a big fan of Bonecrusher, I have always loved to put out records by them. More recently I have been super into the new Doug & The Slugz and The Young Ones LPs. And for a little less skinhead/Oi! music, you should check out Savage Beat! They are a great rock’n’roll band and I was super happy that Suede Razors got to play a show with them in Germany last year. Along the lines of a more rock’n’roll band, I am a massive fan of Hard Evidence from St. Louis — such a great blend of punk and rock!! And I have always really liked working with the Aussies. Marching Orders and Razorcut have been a couple great bands that I have worked with and they have become really good friends to the point where I was at Doz and Al’s wedding in Melbourne a few years ago!! As for a record that I feel should have sold more… There are a few, but I think the band that I released and was most excited about but did not sell very well, that would be the band 1918. Another band from St. Louis and just a super energetic kind of rock’n’roll influenced American Oi! style that I think should have had more of an impact!

As much as anyone can say these days, what are you plans for the future with the label?

Haha. Yeah, in these upcoming post-covid days, I honestly can’t say. I am sitting on a few releases at the moment that should have been out for spring/summer and for a couple of bands that had tours planned, etc. So to be honest right now, I have no solid plans for any new releases until we are all well and clear of this pandemic. I am hoping that maybe by the fall things will be more stable and I can start to plan on some new projects then. I do have a couple of bands that I had already had agreements with, so as soon as things get back to more “normal”, hopefully those projects will get off the ground… We shall see.

Any last words, shout outs etc?

I tend to blather on a lot, so I think that I have already said enough. I’ll just wrap things up by saying thanks to you Mike for taking the time to ask me these questions. Hopefully once we are able to get out and travel again I’ll get over to Victoria or you’ll get out this way and we can hang out and have a few pints!

Take care everyone.