some quick songs:

Sorry [ 99352 ]
Herr Jazz [ Hey Merlin... ]
Your Heart Breaks [ This Place ]
Tyson Ballew [ Champion Mill ]

Dashel Schueler [ Clear & Bold & Powerful ]
Real Live Tigers [ There Is A Storm ]

1985 & Friends [ Take Me To Your Leader ]
Jonathan McIntyre [ The Path Home... ]

Go Slowpoke [ I Need You To Try... ]
Eli Moore [ Thunder Class ]
Maple Nightingale [ Stumbles ]

some old songs:

aheartlesssolution [ All Between The Two ]
Circus Of The Stars  [ Sunroof Television ]
Palisades  [ Architecture ]

B-18  [ Distraction ]

Jimes [ Robot Porno ]

Clamdust  [ Motorbike ]

Blair Harris [ I Think I Have Leprosy ]
The Sunset Riders [ song one ]

Crystal Pastures [ Dawn Treading ]

Lands Farther East [ ...Same Taste in Books ]

Sears Catalog  [ Clamps/Presses ]

Dear Nora  [ Since You Went Away (live) ]

Cardinal  [ Presidents FitnessTest ]

MASA Records [Free Internet Archive]

news 5.18.09:

hey y'alls! hope everybody is enjoying their may days! may and june are two of my favorite months here in the beautiful northwest. lots of news here in masa records camp, but not so much internet access. The Alaskas/1985 spring jaunt to Salt Lake City and back was a super fun, intense, hazy brilliant time with Kate Bush doing the soundtrack. Dillon blogged some about it at his blog and I should have some digitized words about online soon, as well. MASA has moved into the New Crompton house here in Seattle, which is also home to Lost Sound Tapes and the bands Blanket Truth and iji. rad group of peoples, kind folks and positive vibes and we are stoked. the store should hopefully be updated soon with a handful of new releases we have been talking about: Alaskas/Crystal Pastures double split cassingle (from tour), the Sorry full-length cassette, Tyson Ballews "Fruit Trees For Cassowaries" cassette, Knot Knocked Up's "Psycho Psluts" cassette (which comes with a bonus full live set) and a new 1985 offer of 5 1985 albums for 5 bucks (also a tour offer). internet should be getting settled and the site, as well. for now you can find most of these rad folks at there webspaces/myspaces:

Herr Jazz (done with high school soon, gearing up for the big summer tour!)
Sorry (back from SXSW and stoked on new songs and northwest spring!)

Your Heart Breaks (film, film, film, show, show, show!)

Knot Knocked Up (have you been to Missoula in the summer? don't miss out)

Tyson Ballew (again, Missoula in the summer: playing Total Fest this year)
Alaskas (back from tour, finishing touches on the new album on Hivefives & Handshakes)
Go Slowpoke (peter just released a new record called "Alphabet")

Maple Nightingale (...also has a really cool band called Yes We Are)
1985 (hunkering down to write new songs, focusing on a new rock band, too)
Crystal Pastures (Eli Moore from LAKE and Matt Fu from 1985, rumuored to be alive again)


enjoy the sun! see you soon!

news 4.20.09:

(April 20th - May 2nd, 2009)

news 2.13.09:

(Herr Jazz Tapes? BUY HERE! Her Jazz "Sad Trout" Tees? BUY HERE!)

well, sorry for the two month absense in news here, dearest friends! the last month in silence i can explain: after a great show that Herr Jazz played at Chop Suey on Jan 22nd, I was loading my bike and mech and gear into Jake's truck. my backpack got set down on the sidewalk as we were loading up and when we got back to my house we realized it was snatched from the sidewalk as we loaded up. In this backpack was a handful of copies of the new Herr Jazz Cassettes, my laptop (with 100's of hours of rare local NW recordings, the masa catalog, the ONLY master copy of the new 1985 album, 16 credits of school work yet to be credited, 3 years of photos/memories of my last couple years, too much more), my camera, some library books. this lose brought me probably as close as i will come to just moving into the woods and becoming a Luddite. anyways, fuck that shit. ALWAYS MOVE FORWARD!

the good news is coming:

Herr Jazz website is up and roarin'! Find it at www.masarecords.com/herrjazz.html
Herr Jazz Tapes & Shirts (avail NOW in the tunes shop and merch table)
Go Slowpoke, Dashel Schueler, 1985, Maple Nightingale SPLIT CASS (release show Bham Feb 21st -flier below-, avail online sooner!)
20+ Band "Friends Are Relatives" 10 yr MASA Anniversary Compilation (release show Bham Feb 21st -flier below-, avail online sooner!)
Tyson Ballew "Fruit Trees For Cassowaries" CASS (release show Seattle Feb 26th, avail online sooner!)
Sorry Cassette Album (release show TBA, early/mid march before their US tour)
Herr Jazz, Alaskas, 1985, Go Slowpoke and other tours are being whispered about...
ever more, ever more, ever more, ever more!!!!!

the site has been getting updated, as well, and should look up to speed in the next couple weeks. check out the shows, tuneshop, merch table, links and other sections. keep checking back! we are computerless for now, but have enough access to friends/families machines to update and PROGRESS! hope to see all uranus' at this great show:

12.20.08:

lots of great exciting news here at MASA headquarters! as you can see, the site is being revamped extensively as we are approaching our 11th Anniversary and nearing 60 releases! and on top of the releases mentioned below, you might notice some new names over on the left "song bar" who we're are in talks with about winter releases! but, for now, most immediately and gearing up for these exciting times, we are stoked to tell you about some NEW releases and artists joining the family in January and February, including a 2 CDR comp of 18 friends bands:

Various Artists "Friends Are Relatives" 2-CDR COMP
[January 2nd, 2009 release]

To celebrate our 11th anniversary we here at MASA decided to call up nearly 20 of our favorite friends and underground musicians and ask them to contribute two songs to this release.  Some of these artists are past and present MASA bands, some are new projects of old MASA bands, some are friends met along the road and others are just to awesome to not notice. Contributing to this compilation is Herr Jazz, Sorry, 1985 and Alaskas [all from Seattle, WA]; Go Slowpoke, Memes, Jonathan McIntyre and Maple Nightingale [all from Bellingham, WA]; Tyson Ballew, Friedrichs Teeth and Knot Knocked Up [from Missoula, MT], Chin Up Merriwether! and Elijah Moore [Olympia, WA]; The Solvents [Port Townsend, WA] and several more TBA! Artists will be given copies to pass out for real cheap or free and the 2 disk compilation with be available for free on this site as well!

Herr Jazz - Self-Titled CASS EP
[January 2nd, 2009 release]

Herr Jazz are an energetic, quirky and positive high school trio of indie pop-wack from Seattle, WA. The boys in the band were frequent patrons of this "hip" vintage clothing store I used to work at. One, who calls himself "Ben," was the official mascot of the store. These guys are great at sorting through multiple gaylords of used denim and will find a Big E in any giant haystack of moldy jeans. They also play thoughtful, kick-you-in-the-pants-like-green-tea sort of pop rock. The recordings have a great low-fi, reverbed out nerdiness to them. You know, smart but stinky and sitting in the back of the room with a shit-eating, know-it-all grin. Most likely to aim from the clock tower or most likely to create the internet? You Decide. 2009.

Sorry CASS EP
[February 2009 release]

Sorry like to introduce themselves at every show like this. "Hi! We're Sorry!" Ryan and Aaron have been friends of mine for a couple years, through Bellingham roots related to ex-Tri Shitties kids. Did you know that Washingotn States "Tri-Cities" have the highest doctorate degree-per-capita ratio in the country? Most people think its DC. They are wrong. I have been waiting to hear some of Ryans music for awhile now and are stoked that he finally found some buddies to play pop rock music with. The boys play fun, twee (hate to use that word these days) pop rock with clever changes, crisp guitar tones and occasional noodle-slops. This spring is the Spring of Sorry. Oh, and picnics. I can't wait to walk to Cal Anderson park with these boys on my headphones and some jacked treates from QFC.

Tyson Ballew "Fruit Trees For Cassowaries" CASS
[February 10th, 2009 release]

Tyson Ballew is a real good friend of mine. I just spent two months living in his closet in Missoula, MT while conducting "field research" on the local music scene their and setting up a local music radio show for his scene to be broadcast on Seattle-based Hollow Earth Radio. I have known Tyson for over five years and always known him to be a passionate performer, songwriter and advocate for all-ages shows and diy punk aesthetics. He always sings from his heart and he sings often of punk idealisms and small-town struggles. Though he has yet to convince me of the merits of pop-punk, its influences on him often shine through in his song-crafting and I can respect it there. I have heard much of this new album and am excited that he has finally found himself in a "professional" studio with great production and accompaniment. I am even more excited that he asked MASA to release the cassette version of this album.

1985 "Back To The Future" CASS [co-release with Brown Interiour Cassettes]
1985 "Unreleased" CD-EP
[January/February 2009 releases]

1985 is pronounced "Unifying Theories." Not quite a new MASA band and not, really, even new releases. "Back To The Future" is the full-band version of the project that was recorded near two years ago with Eli and Ashley (of Olympia band LAKE) in Langley, WA. The album has mostly been sitting on the shelf, though 150 of the rough mixes have been dispersed, and we are excited for it to get released on our friends Olympia label, Brown Interiour. Unreleased is a grab bag of loose recordings from the last six months, and features 1985 returning to low-fi, improved rambles and sentiments.