Hefty Records is proud to join forces with the newly founded Atlanta based
label, Eastern Developments. After years of working together and releasing
music by label co-founder, Scott Herren, (Savath+Savalas), Hefty will now
directly aid Herren and co-founder Peter Rentz by manufacturing and
exclusively distributing all of their releases. Herren has also released
music as Prefuse 73 (Warp Records). The label will launch in the coming
months with records by Dabrye, Ammon Contact, The Leblase Import System,
Kopernick and Hu Vibrational already slated for release. Eastern
Developments will join the Hefty distribution family, which also includes
the Persona and Aestuarium labels.
From Guillermo Scott Herren:
"From Music to Friends, to Music to Friends"
I was still a high school kid in Decatur, GA thinking Thursday nights were
real nice. I'd make sure I was home in time to nerd out and cue up the alarm
clock/radio/tape player to record WREK 91.1 FM every single week. First was
Atlanta's premier hip-hop show, known as "The Beatbox," hosted by
"Suttle-T," who I had already been a devotee of since '86. Following that
was "The Hustler's Convention," hosted by some kid named "Pete", who in
turn, via satellite, schooled me up on old funk 45s and artists like Yusef
Lateef, Bobbi Humphrey, Donald Byrd and even Sonny Sharrock, James Chance
and the Contortions, Celluloid stuff, early 80's No Wave joints, and so on.
There are too many to mention, but my point is that those nights informed me
and got me up on so much music that changed my life forever. This was way
before "crate digging" became an epidemic, which later became a fashionable
epidemic, which is now next to impossible unless you're rolling with some
trust funds or don't want to eat.
Soon after, I randomly met that kid, "Pete," through the graff scene in
Atlanta. We bombed together for six months before I put two and two
together, realizing that he was the guy who schooled me with his radio show.
Since those days, we've continued to get up, DJ, throw parties and put on
shows. I was making beats the whole time, while Pete was doing graphic
design. We talked about starting a label that would put out my music and
allow Pete to handle the design. After jobs at Kinko's, as a bike courier,
catering, washing dishes, selling herb, studio grunting and watching every
one and their mother start a label of their very own, we are finally able to
pull our resources together to do what we had talked about from the
beginning, which was doing our own shit - Eastern Developments.
We encourage all of our friends and all of the creative people we're
surrounded by to contribute and get involved with the label in some way or
another. All we see are talented artists getting constantly slept on because
they don't have any means to get their work out. Eastern Developments is
less concerned with being "on some next shit", "blowing the fuck up", or
"changing the face of anything." We're more concerned with bringing you
music we think you'll feel and understand in the same way we do.
Eastern Developments is manufactured and distributed by our supportive
friends at Hefty Records, rather than some huge corporate death squad that
we don't know.
Peace+Respect,
From EastDev founders and partners: Peter Rentz. Carolina Chavez. Ben Loiz.
Carlos Nino. Paz Ochs. Scott Herren.