About the labels...

Demolition Derby was started in 1993 (shortly after I also started the Pit'sbull label) & since then it has entirely been a one man operation. From March of 1994 on I'm actually trying to make a living out of this, which ain't exactly easy if you decide to run a rock&roll singles only label in the country of techno & mediocrity, where the word "vinyl" has been removed from the dictionary.
So Demolition Derby is a rock&roll label cos that's what I'd like to call the music released on the label (now my definition might seriously differ from others you might find on the web or elsewhere), definitely not alternative or whatever other meaningless term. I've done surf, instrumental, garagerock, 60's punk, some rockabilly, punkrock, cowbilly, country ... but basically it's all just rock&roll.

Demolition Derby has artists from all over the world : USA, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, France, Germany, England, Holland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland & yes, even a couple from Belgium. In 1995 I had enough experience & know how to try my hand at a full length (+ found a couple of local bands that I thought had the potential for a good full length in them). So Sin Alley was in fact the first release on sublabel Nitro!, lp only cos I took it in licence from Count Orlok who did the Cd version. The first complete Nitro! product was the Apemen lp/cd, shortly followed by the Vice Barons 10"/Cd. All these releases got rave reviews all over & they turned out to outsell the singlesreleases, so this set the direction for the future...

At the end of 1995 it was time for the first non local band on Nitro!, New Jersey's Electric Frankenstein (who had previously done a 7" on Demolition Derby, I didn't have to hear much to realise this was a band I needed to sign for a full length right away). This record is on its way to become the biggest thing yet on Nitro! with total rave reviews all over the place & particularly in the USA (Flipside gave it a half page review, other mags have called them America's best punkrock band of the moment & though ignored by most everybody else here, it scored high with the Metalopolis radioshow on National Radio - I'll be the first to admit when there IS someone here with some good taste!).Now it's 1999 & it seems the rest of the world (including Belgium) is now finally ready for Electric Frankenstein. They signed with Victory,are touring Europe for the first time & people are still asking for their Demolition Derby album.

As you can notice I haven't really released too many 7"s lately, the main reason being that the singles market seems to have collapsed (why? maybe just cos too many people are releasing too much crap 7"s so it's getting harder & harder for you the consumer to tell what's worth it & what not). It used to be pretty easy to sell 1000 copies of about any garage or punkrock 7", these days you can consider yourself happy if you manage to get rid of 500 copies & 500 copies means barely breaking even. So to do a 7" with a band, I need a good reason, one which could be to see if the band would have the potential for a full length & to check if there'd be enough interest from the public for such an album.

update 2001
Since the previous update (1999) I have not released any new singles. Just looking at the huge stack of old singles still in stock & how slow they sell, didn't really inspire me to venture into any new 7" projects. There have been three new album releases (all vinyl-just replace 'singles' by 'cd's' in the above sentence & you know why I'm now strictly sticking with lp's) & I'm gonna try to put out at least that many this year. And yes, the Demolition Derby recordstore is still around as well. It's open on wednesdays now too, so if you find yourself in the (wide) neighbourhood (& that includes Antwerp & Brussels), feel free to drop by.

Other activities & info

Store
Well since september 1998 there's been a new activity, the Demolition Derby recordstore. I'm carrying punkrock (old & new), garage, 60's, surf/instro, rock&roll, 50's, hardcore, sXe, poppunk, exotica etc.Lotsa vinyl (lp & 7"), cd's, fanzines...new & secondhand. You'll find more stuff in the store than you will find in the mailordercatalog (secondhand stuff for instance is only sold via the store). The store is easy to reach by car & train (500 m from Nekkerspoeltrainstation) & is located 4 houses from the Toy Museum (Speelgoed-museum) for which you'll find signs all over town. Mechelen is about 20-30 km from both Brussels & Antwerp so if you're really craving for all those hard to find records,despair no longer,just drop by at the store.
The store is at : Nekkerspoelstr 29, 2800 Mechelen, Belgium t/f 32 15 55 40 63

Labels : if you'd like me to carry your stuff in the store, see the next ('trades') section.

Trades
Yes, I do trade with other labels, but here's a couple of things you should take into account when you get in touch for trades

• trades are with EEC-based labels only. Overseas postage & the nasty Belgian customs are a pain in the ass, so it's usually more interesting to buy American releases from one of the US distributors I deal with.
• trades will obviously only be for my own releases, not for other stuff out of the regular mailorderlist.
• With the opening of the store I am carrying a wider range of music, ao it now also includes hardcore, skatepunk etc, so even if your labelstuff isn't exactly similar to what I have but you might be interested in some of my releases, get in touch! I'm willing to try out almost anything that is remotely rock&roll as long as we can trade it. Finally, if we agree on a trade & you're going to send me non shrinkwrapped lp's, please take them out of their sleeves before you box them. Ever been pissed off cos that new record you just got from your favorite store/mailorder had a big split in the sleeve? Well,that was cos someone didn't follow up the above advice cos if you send non shrinkwrapped lp's & leave the vinyl inside, it's very likely that during the transport the vinyl is gonna rub against the inside of the sleeve & split it right open. There's a simple way to avoid that : take the vinyl out of the sleeve before you box!

Distribution
If you have a store/mailorder & would like to stock my releases, you can either order direct or in Europe order via Bertus & Abraxas distribution, in the USA via Subterranean or Cargo San Diego & in Canada via Scratch. Mailorder for the USA is handled by Underground Medicine, Dave Hill Distributrion & Dionysus ao. Also note that I distribute other stuff besides just the Demolition Derby label. Take a look at the general catalog, a lot of the stuff on European labels is also available at wholesale prices. If you want to get the most recent distribution updates, just mail. At the moment I'm already handling direct distribution of European releases to several Japanese accounts, so don't hesitate to contact me if you are interested in carrying European releases in your store or mailorder.

Word of warning (mainly for other people running a label) : in the 9+ years of releasing records, there have been a number of people who turned out to be dead-beats who didn't pay what they owed or suddenly went bankrupt,leaving me (& other labels) in the cold. Apparently some of them have pulled the same trick several times, magically resurfacing a couple months later under a different name or with the new business registered on their wife/girlfriend's name. So here are the names of some who still haven't paid me what they owe :