Mike Rep & Friends – Darby Creek Drifter [LP]

"The name Mike 'Rep' Hummel means many things to different people. Many equate Rep with 70's 'Proto-Punk', 80's 'D.I.Y.' or a pioneering founder of 90's 'Lo-Fi' (Rep prefers the term 'Mega-Fi' himself). Along with his bands Mike Rep & The Quotas & the seminal (Ohio) True Believers, he was also a cohort in the 90's Columbus 'supergroup' Ego Summit among a plethora of other Ohio band involvements. Also known for recording and/or mixing ('Lovingly Fucking With') such bands of note as Guided By Voices, Times New Viking, Jim Shepard, The Gibson Brothers, Strapping Fields Hands, Mount Carmel and dozens of others, mostly in their formative garage/basement incarnations. 'I prefer deflowering to retooling. Both present worthwhile challenges but working with virgin talent won't get you an STD' he once infamously said. Still others remember him for his groundbreaking Columbus Ohio homegrown label 'New Age Records' (named before there was such a thing as New Age music) which evolved into the 80's/90's cassette pioneering signpost to new space 'Old Age/NO Age' label through the 90's. And so the name Mike Rep Hummel has a polarizing effect on many who either admire or deride his body of work. Hummel's new record Darby Creek Drifter is one that is sure to draw the line even deeper into the sand. Rep sez; 'As my pal Bob Pollard' once quipped, 'this does not rock'. But it rolls baby, it rolls."

540 Records, 2014