Chris Ashford of What/Iloki/Wondercap Records Part 4

Here’s my fourth and final installment of my interview with Chris Ashford. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here and Part 3 here.

This interview is running concurrently with my full interview with Chris Ashford at Horrorgarage.com which covers his history in the music business, from the creation of What Records to his present releases on Wondercap. You can read it here.

I definitely know what you’re saying about that. With the vinyl I have, it’s the same way.

Chris Ashford: But you’re right. The music is why we’re here in the first place. Hopefully.

Otherwise it turns into comic book collecting. Not to put down comic books…

Chris Ashford: How about psychedelic baseball card collecting?

I think a lot of record collectors buy ten of something because they know it’ll go out of print in two seconds and they’ll be able to sell it for $400 a pop to some guy who has the disease and is willing to risk his rent on it.

Chris Ashford: Absolutely. They do do that. There’s no doubt about it. Some of them don’t even open them. It’s a strange time for music, that’s for sure.

Do you see anything happening in the future or do you see it maintaining for the time being?

Chris Ashford: I guess, in truth, I can throw a negative spin on it. I think every type of music that we know today and we are accustomed to, really, truly, as a creative force has shot its wad. I think the people that do well learn to meld things and somehow give it a feel or an attitude and are just creative enough. But I think, basically, you can’t take a sax player who hasn’t played every note that John Coltrane hasn’t played already. I don’t think you can play a set of chords in rock’n’roll and make a new song that hasn’t been played already. You may not have heard it, but it hasn’t not been done. I see in every genre, whether it’s jazz or rock or pop music or even classical music, everybody is just trying to put their own spin on things, and the ones that do that well are interesting and their music is still enjoyable. I can’t quite see where someone’s going to break some new ground anymore. Part of that is communication. Up until the late ‘60s, music from all over the world was not heard by people in other parts of the world. A lot of world music went into a lot of ’60s rock. Indian music got shoved into a lot of stuff and people were pooling all that. I think, during the ‘80s, a lot of people that got tired of rock were listening to world music. Well now, I think we’ve tapped just about everything there is to be tapped musically. It’s a matter of creating something that melds something that is honest and is well done that really grasps people more than anything else. That’s what I think is interesting about Wondercap. It has elements of stuff that are jazz rock, but it has a different element, too. I’m not saying we’re breaking new ground, but I’m saying the people that are playing the jazz, if you want to call it jazz, are coming from more of a rock background originally, so it gets played a little bit differently.

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