This morning we got an email from Nicholas Taplin, who recently launched Post-Consumer a website currently hosting 546 live recordings of bands that played Santa Cruz basements, living rooms, etc. Intrigued, we headed over and spotted a bunch of goodies like Frog Eyes, vintage Microphones, pre-Oh, Inverted World Shins, and Six Organs Of Admittance. We were curious how it got started, so we contacted Taplin, who’s in Portland, Oregon now, and asked him about his motivation for starting Post-Consumer:
I need to write a really descriptive biography of my time in Santa Cruz, because it completely defined who I am today. I went to UCSC for college after high school and discovered about half way through my freshman year that there was a really active indie music scene in Santa Cruz. The shows were almost entirely house shows so I wasn’t prohibited from seeing them because of being underage. Towards the end of my freshman year I got a DAT recorder and started recording all the shows I went to. Recording shows became my reason for being at the shows because I was so socially underdeveloped that I couldn’t really have a normal conversation (I’m bipolar). This turned out to be fortunate because as I got more comfortable socially I became too lazy to record shows. The goal with my recording was to document a scene that I thought was really engaging and lively. It actually shocked me that no one else had been recording the shows before me. On the site I have a pretty democratic selection of what I recorded (and I was pretty democratic about what I recorded). The 546 songs on the site are only half of my total collection of shows.
He went on to say he’s not sure when he’ll up more — it’s time-consuming and he’s doing it all without earning anything. One thing he didn’t mention in the email, but which we caught on the site, is that the songs were upped chronologically and not according to band, so it also provides an interesting time-line if you follow it 1-546. We’re on 277 right now.
You Might Also Like
 The Shins – “The Rifle’s Spiral” |  The Shins – “It’s Only Life” (Solo Acoustic) |  The Shins – “September” |  The Shins – “Simple Song” |
 |
 |
he should have recorded emily jane white, she’s the best thing to come out of the 831 in a while
Derby Park in Santa Cruz 1985. There’s a little skateboard park there and the guys from Camper Van Beethoven all lived in a house behind the park. I guess the guys in the band all liked to sleep in late because I was skating it one morning and Dave Lowery popped up from behind his fence and chucked an empty beer bottle at my head. Fucking thing missed me by inches. True story.
dennis driscoll, little wings and microphones bootleg from the same show? holy high school flashback, batman!
NICE SCAN JOB
COOL MAP
I did record a beautiful performance of Emily White’s. It’s in the other half of the recordings that I haven’t mastered yet.
Nicholas
SEAN NA NA!!
i went to college in santa cruz and vaguely know this guy. i thought his idea was great, and i’m glad to see it written about here. a lot of good music goes through santa cruz, this makes me miss it a little.