Since the first ever Daydream Generation compilation was haphazardly shoved into existence in March 2007, the 3 questions I’ve been asked the most are: 1. Do you want to buy some Viagra? 2. Can we be on the next compilation? and 3. What is Cozy Home Records? The answers to 1 and 2 are quite simply “no” and “probably yes” (in that very specific order, before I start getting bombarded with performance spam and the song contributions all dry up). But the answer to question 3 is not so straightforward. Since I’ve been involved with the Cozy Home for the last couple of years, I should be in a better position than most to answer it, but the truth is that even after digging all this time, some definitive answer or definition remains as elusive as it was when the spade of my brain first hit the earth of Cozy Home history. This project is a lot of things to a lot of people - even to work out something as simple as how it all began, you have to battle back through a cloud of drink and noise and musical bed-hopping and hallucinogens some thirteen years to 1995. So for all that I’d love to answer the third question with “to tell you the truth, I still don’t really know myself”, I guess that would be something of a cop-out. At the very least I’m owe you an explanation of why I still don’t know, and undoubtedly I’m owing the Cozy Home itself to make a serious attempt at straightening up and unravelling it.Let’s start with the obvious – what could anyone find out about it by digging around on the internet? You perhaps already know the iconic imagery of that house on Henry Street Utica (the actual Cozy Home), or the blue 4-track recorder that previously graced the website and MySpace page. Maybe you’ve even read their website mission statement that reads that they are:“Originally based in Utica, New York, Cozy Home Records is a collective of like minded people, places, and things functioning more as a street team for the unheard, rather than a practical conventional record label. ALL COZY HOME RECORDING ARTISTS ARE UNSIGNED. Our sole goal is to promote the artist, for there is power in numbers-depending on who is listening at any given time. Our influences come from all over the world, but most can be found in your own backyard, no not over there, over THERE! so come and hear the hiss of a dozen lost souls dying to break free while preaching to the choir…since 1997-we’ve been here, where have you been?”

But beyond that the Cozy Home is something of an enigma. Ok, so we know it’s a record collective, but really, what’s it all about? Well, like some musical jigsaw puzzle the best place to start is at the very beginning, a double-edged corner piece, and the hopefully the rest will follow from there.My understanding of the origins had always been thrown together in my imagination from snippets of virtual conversation I’d had with various Cozy Home crew members over the last two years. Something I’d been led to believe was that it had all started when a couple of teenagers (Luke Humann and Robert Levy) from Utica NY had started labelling tapes they were making with the name “Cozy Home Records” and that it had grown organically from there with friends and other local kids making music joining in. One of the recurring motifs you quickly discover when you get past the myriad mad band names is that behind it all there are actually only a couple of handfuls of individuals pulling the strings. Whether a fortuitous coincidence of geography, a product of some kind of invisible societal reaction, or simply an inevitable by-product of the idea of such a record collective being possible, these individual mavericks run like quicksilver through this story. Each individual seems to have multiple identities, and most of the bands you’ll find listed on their site are comprised of composite members – it’s perhaps this healthy and genuine collaborative element that sets what is going on here completely apart from your average coming together of bands under a record label title. But if Mr. Jones’ head would be reeling as he tries to unpick the knots, I decide to go straight for the jugular and email both Luke and Rob with the questions that most need answering. I heard nothing back from Luke, but Rob was kind enough to clarify that

“…it was really just Luke who started it, and then me and Paul (Burnout) also put the label on tapes we made, but it was really still Luke’s invention. Actually Paul intermittently put stuff out on his label “Milk and Water”. The initial projects were Arthur Rules, Bernard’s Freek Star, The Burnouts (later renamed The Real Burnouts), The Myoclonics, and Psi-Deffect.”

He goes on to list bands like Trash Can Acid, Sentic Forms, The Avant Audiophiles, and various Tim (Schram) projects as being part of this first phase in the collective’s development.In the second phase he describes how this initial cassette-orientated free-for-all between close friends developed into a more organised and self-conscious entity where the core group decided what was not and what was worthy of Cozy Home inclusion. This stage sees a whole host of new names appearing for the first time – The Fucking Flame, Nozomi, Crookedfoot/Handwithlegs, Fig Mints (Of Your Imagination), The New Wave Dirt, Travel Labyrinth, Tora Bora Cave Complex, Takashi, Allan Cook bands and others.

In the third phase – the “freewheeling” phase – he describes how people start talking like it’s a communal collective, rather than something where a core group tightly controls it, but still with trepidation of bad stuff getting in. Perhaps understandably by this point, the web is so wide and tangled that there are simply “too many projects to mention them all”. Rob describes how people are now starting to say things like “this is a collection of friends” which implies that it is not selective anymore, and that the freewheeling nature together with a few ambitious projects causes us to “get off our asses and do more of our music… so it’s a good thing”.

Rob Levy

Perhaps it’s too easy to parallel the three phases of Cozy Home Records with the technological developments of the last 11 years, but very loosely it would seem that each step mirrors the move from self-made cassettes, to self-burned CDs, and finally to the new digital age of downloads. The intimacy of the earliest manifestation gives way to a mobilised community, and finally a visible figurehead of a de-centralised international movement or “street team for the little guy”. And I guess in a roundabout way that’s where I come in…My own “band” (I use this word very loosely) The Wheelies first got involved with Cozy Home in the summer of 2006. I won’t bore you with the back-story here, except to say that it was 12 long years filled with fucked up misadventures in the desert of creation, and that our integration into the collective was pretty much the only reason why I made five records in the space of a year, instead of one. I wrote and recorded “Oh Happiness” between March and May of 2006, at the same time finally finding my feet and getting slowly sucked into the limitless vortex of artistic possibility that is the World Wide Web. For a laugh we set up a nostalgic Wheelies MySpace page and I killed the seconds between telephone calls at my lousy call centre job getting hooked on the now sadly defunct Brian Jonestown Massacre forum. In particular I took a great interest in a post entitled “Local Bands” and over the course of a few days I went through page after page of recommendations. Of all the bands mentioned the one that blew my brain clean out of my skull was The Real Burnouts. I recognised the name from the first Psylocibin Sounds CD, and somebody had posted (perhaps seriously) that “these guys scare me”. After a first fix of this uniquely low-fi brand of psychedelia, I felt inspired enough to message them to say how much I loved their songs. This in turn triggered an ongoing dialogue with Paul Burnout, and eventually culminated with him asking me if The Wheelies would be interested in becoming a part of the Cozy Home. My first impressions of it were… well, mind-boggling if I’m being honest. In fact it was probably as mind-boggling to me as the idea that anyone would be able to hear some redemptive qualities in the sounds of The Wheelies. For a start there was something deeply strange, almost alien about the names of the bands featuring in their online store – Handwithlegs, Fig Mints, Travel Labyrinth, The New Wave Dirt, Platinum Limb. After happily agreeing to sign on the dotted imaginary line, I was quickly welcomed into the fold with a message from Bobby Fig Mints that read “welcome to the Cozy Home… don’t shit in the nest”.As beautiful as it was having stumbled around in the musical wilderness for so long to finally find some people that were as weird as me, the immediate personal benefits the relationship afforded was dwarfed by the bigger picture concerning what these people had been – and were continuing – to collectively be. Here was a compound of groups and individuals existing completely independently from the capitalist machinations of the music industry as I knew it. The idea of each band voluntarily promoting and on many occasions creatively contributing to what each other were doing was like someone lighting a catherine wheel in my head. Not only was it the first time I’d heard of such a collective, but it was also the first time I’d come across the words “low-fi” being used as something to be celebrated rather than something to be ashamed of. The law of averages suggests that Cozy Home is not one of a kind, but in the context of its longetivity, and durability over the last decade adapting to the changing world of music technology, while retaining its distinct anarchic identity, I think it’s highly unlikely that you will be able to find anything quite like it out there. The reality is that irrespective of what it becomes, what it has been stands as the perfect blueprint for anyone out there who is looking for an alternative to the rat-race of flogging yourself to the highest bidder or howling in the void. Kids take note: fuck the corporation, form a collective and be a part of something – like Nietschze said “All life is a circle, therefore it is the going there, not the getting there that counts”.And so you see that without the Cozy Home there would be no Daydream Generation and I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this. The DG compilations originally were conceived as a compilation of Cozy Home bands, but for one reason or another grew arms and legs and another head, kicking the doors open to anyone who was like us, and a lot of people who are nothing at all like anyone you’ve ever met before. This open door policy might be in stark contrast to the exclusivity of the original Cozy Home concept, and both approaches have their pros and cons, but ultimately when the record plays we’re a part of the same movement and process creating an alternative road to a place where there is always someone listening. And if this really is a revolution, then the first shot was fired when some kid printed the words “COZY HOME RECORDS” on a cassette he made.So that’s how it feels to fall in with these people during the “freewheeling” phase – a time when not only have the collective been transplanted from the actual Cozy Home on Henry Street, but also have geographically relocated to an area of space that anyone can discover. The story of Cozy Home Records as a symptom and agitator of revolutionary change might be more relevant than ever in 2008, but the backbone and roots of the story can be found only in its beginnings and how it grew from there. Given my limited perspective I couldn’t think of anyone better than the guy who got me involved in all of this to begin with, Paul Burnout, and put the questions to him that I couldn’t even begin to answer myself:

Paul Burnout

Smally: How did you personally get involved and do you remember how other people came to be involved?Paul: Cozy Home Records was Luke’s creation. We were in a band called Trashcan Acid and we needed a name that sounded legit to put on our tape. Then Rob, who was previously in Bernards Freek Star had a tape of his own material called Psi-Deffect that he wanted to put out. Then soon after that came The Myoclonics and The Burnouts and Fun With Boxes, the whole thing was just really natural. We were all friends, and we weren’t out to make money or rip each other off.Smally: Can you remember much about the first few years, what it was like, who the main bands were, what you were up to?Paul: Well we would all kind of play in each other’s bands and turn up at each other’s shows. Later on we would pack up our stuff at the club at 2am and head to the famed Cozy Home studio where there would be a dozen people waiting for us drinking beer on the porch already smashed. We were our own scene. There weren’t any other bands that were in to what we were doing. They didn’t like us. We were scary. I recall there was always grass around, mushrooms, acid, beer and we were seldomly sober. At the time there was The Burnouts, Trashcan Acid, The Avant Audiophiles, and Fun With Boxes.Smally: How did it move across onto the internet?Paul: We were really big into tapes and we thought that was going to be our thing. It was easy for us to make the art and dub the tapes ourselves. We were like, “I’m never gonna burn fucking CD’s.” And then everything changed. Fucking boom boxes stopped being made with tape decks. Sound quality was becoming an issue. And we found ourselves in the situation where we had to learn how to burn CD’s. We were like old bastards trying to program a VCR, but eventually we got it. And then the next logical step was the internet. Tim and Rob helped get everything started with the cozyhomerecords.com and then the MySpace page. It was same thing as handing out our tapes at show, except the whole world could hear what we were doing, in theory. Smally: When did you start being responsible for getting other folk involved on the Net?Paul: We learned that the internet was like a giant looking glass, where not only could you hear us, but we could also see you. We were never really looking for anyone though, we were too selective, and we had our group, but sometimes fate happens, and you wind up meeting the foreign version of yourself. If it didn’t happen through the internet, it probably would have happened at the bus station.It’s weird, but it was only after I started to write this and follow the hash-cake crumbs back to the source that I realised how important a part Luke Humann played in all of this.

Luke Humann

If it’s true that there would be no Daydream Generation without the Cozy Home, then it also appears from what both Rob and Paul have said that there would be no Cozy Home without Luke. So if there’s anyone to blame, or pat on the back for this mess (depending on where you’re standing) then it’s ultimately him. And because of this I went and pulled a few strings and finally got in touch with his attorney who recounted the following responses to the questions I proposed he answer:1 When was the Cozy Home formed?Luke: 1995, with release of The Cocksuckers “demo tape,” then Trashcan Acid “live” in 1997, and then Psi-Defect “Horselessness” also in 1997. 2 Who formed it?Lucas Humann, one of the guiding lights of The Cocksuckers and later Benard’s Freek Star, Trashcan Acid, Avant Audiophiles, The Fucking Flame, etc.3 Where did the name come from?Well, we used to record at my parent’s house, and they were very supportive, which leant itself to a cozy atmosphere. (Hence the name).4 Why did it form?To promote musical terrorism through lo-fidelity recordings of myself and my friends’ psychedelic, adolescent terror trips. 5 What have been some of the highlights in the Cozy Home history?You gotta be kidding me. Riding on a Macy’s day float with Bill Worden and Vic Vetters.6 What are the plans for the future?Have everybody else take it over cause i’m too lazy to do it myself. By it i mean the world. And by everybody else, i mean the wonderful artists on the Cozy Home stable of stars.You’ll be glad to know that we’re nearly there now, but we’ve come this far and it would be impossible to spin this story without a few sentences concerning the role of Tim Schram. It’s too easy to dismiss the idea of a collective having their own website as an essentially uninspiring necessity of presenting what you do and connecting with your audience. All of the artists at Cozy Home may be unsigned, but perhaps the most important word in that sentence isn’t the most obvious one. Take it from me and a year of experience in the subject – artists are notoriously difficult to motivate and virtually impossible to co-ordinate. We travel through our lives at greatly differing speeds, some of us burn effortlessly fast, some of us plod slowly, and most of us have a tendency to disappear and resurface at apparently random junctures depending on the urgency of other life matters. As the interviews with Rob, Paul and Luke have shown, the link of a tight group of talented friends has long since been replaced by the tangled interplay of sometimes seemingly disparate projects. Instead of friends, it is now the friends of friends and sometimes even complete strangers who label their records as “Cozy Home” with pride. Throughout this fog of kaleidoscopic confusion while the key characters have drifted in and out, it’s been Tim who has sat behind the Cozy Home wheel. He hosts the site. He built a store (twice). And he kept the ship sailing at times when everyone else was hibernating – for several years. This website has never been an ordinary website – it was always an electronic pulse that signalled that there was still something there, even when fuck all was happening.

Tim Schram

And now dear reader who has indulged me this far, now we are finally back in the now. 2008 and Tim has clocked out to go and run his “Cozy Home space station” – www.transatmospheric.com, dealing with the hi-fidelity end of this cubist spectrum that was accidentally sewn. In his place is perhaps the only person who can keep the ship afloat in its present form – Bobby Rogan. Arguably the only one of us who seems to be in touch with every band who has ever been involved, for the last month he’s worked until his fingers bled and his eyes popped out of his head, filling up the shiny new Cozy Home store at www.cozyhomerecords.com.

Bobby Rogan 

It’s the digital coming of age of Cozy Home Records – the cassettes have long been consigned to the bottom of cardboard boxes, and even the discs have taken a seat on the back burner. Every one of the records you can find there are FREE for you to download and discover – from the infectious punk/pop of Fig Mints, to low-fi psychedelic legends The Real Burnouts, from the mad musical science of Dead Canaries, to folk fuck-ups The Wheelies, from Dusty Charts shoegazing masterclasses, to the anarchic pop experimentation of Tofu Delux , and from one shamanic Rob Levy recording project, to another shamanic Rob Levy recording project. It’s just about all there, and what’s not there yet will hopefully be there sometime in the not too distant future.I hope in some way this probably over-long article will have somehow lit the fuse of curiosity and you’ll take a little time to go visit the new site and download if not all, then at least some of the records there. Ask me and I’ll tell you that I still don’t really know what the Cozy Home is, but I’ll tell anyone who is still listening that the revolution has happened, and is still happening as you read this - it wasn’t televised, but it was recorded every step of the way. The future of Cozy Home is in the NOW, yet almost perversely its future is also its past, a diverse and rewarding collection of DIY records playing back to the mid 90s to be discovered and downloaded and chewed over by generations of fucked up kids to come. Perhaps they will still be digging it long after the Cozy Home itself has collectively faded from existence, and that house on Henry Street has crumbled to the ground. But it’s survived this far, and I guess you could argue that it’s been a step ahead this whole time, so it would seem that there’s no reason to believe that the universe will be any less Cozy anytime soon.To celebrate the launch of the new site and store Cozy Home Records have put together a promotional compilation featuring tracks from Tofu Delux, Platinum Limb, Dusty Charts, Fig Mints, Whoopin Cough Jonny, External World, Dead Canaries, The Utica Flower Company, Electric City Subway, Periwinkle Periscope, The Fucking Flame, The Real Burnouts and The Wheelies. You can download “IMPLIED FUTURE HISTORY” directly from the Cozy Home site for FREE –

www.cozyhomerecords.com

Or take a few clicks to befriend the Cozy Home at www.myspace.com/cozyhomerecords

CATEGORIES:COZY HOME, FEATURES