Interview: Ron Strong Productions Launch Hot Sh!t [Thursday / Club de Ville]

Hot Sh!t Summer Series (Part 1 of 4)
Thursday, June 3
Club De Ville (900 Red River St)
9 p.m. | 21+ $5; Minors $8
[info]

This Thursday, head down to Club de Ville for Hot Sh!t, a new series that aims to showcase top-notch electronica acts from Los Angeles as well as promising like-minded musicians here in Texas. The kickoff show features a whole slew of versatile artists, including L.A.’s TAKE and San Antonio’s Mexicans with Guns, and will be hosted by multi-talented Austinite Butcher Bear. The next two events are scheduled for July (9th and 10th), plus there is a fourth installment on August 21st, so plan on immersing yourself in mesmerizing beats and textured soundscapes regularly this summer. Hot Sh!t is curated by Ron Strong Productions; we caught up with Emily Strong (formerly an editor at Soundcheck Magazine) and Aaron Miller (currently an employee at de Ville) recently to learn more about their vision.

Both of you have been involved in the music business in town for a while now -- what exactly are you up to these days and what else do you plan to do under this Ron Strong umbrella?

Emily Strong: I actually left the music scene in '08 - partially because it was sucking up all my time and I just got super burned out, but partially because I wanted to work on some other, non-music-related projects (working with various animal rescue and/or welfare groups, getting my avian behavioral certification, working towards my deaf interpreting certification, and writing a couple of books) - and only just got back into it when Aaron and I started Ron Strong in March of this year, so right now RSP is my only music-related project. We're just starting out so we don't have any super-ambitious, set-in-stone plans for RSP. I think we both just want it to grow organically and see what happens.

Follow the jump for the rest of the interview.

[TAKE MySpace]
[Mexicans with Guns MySpace]
[John Gomi MySpace]
[Soundfounder MySpace]
[Reaganometry MySpace]
[Multitracker MySpace]
[Miss Manners MySpace]
[Butcher Bear MySpace]

Aaron Miller: What have I been up to? Other than playing weird music and messing up my life over the years by working in some of your favorite bars? Well, lately I've been spending the rent money on vintage drum machines. I think RSP is simply a free-form idea that we can use to get the type of entertainment we want. I have a knack for making it up, Em is good at getting it done. And, as you well know, if you book a show yourself, you can totally get in for free.

TAKE by Anthea Christensen

What was the inspiration behind Hot Sh!t? How did you settle on that title?:

ES: Whenever I hear some music that I like, I tend to call it "hot shit." I kept referring to all these hot shit artists we wanted to bring to Austin, and so we just kept calling it our hot shit series as a kind of place holder until we came up with a better name. And then it just kind of stuck. Plus, you know, it's summer, and summer is hot, so... can we just pretend that it's a clever title? Just go with us on this one.

You guys are highlighting the L.A. electronic music scene via Hot Sh!t -- did one, or both of you live in LA?

ES: Neither of us have ever lived in L.A. I've had a long-time love affair with labels like Anticon and Mush, and have worked with several artists from those labels in the past. And Aaron turned me on to Brainfeeder and Alpha Pup because he's been a long-time fan of theirs. But what ended up happening is that when we were introduced to these labels, both of us were already fans of a few artists from each label, kind of in a vacuum, without being aware of the larger communities to which they belonged. So when we opened up these worlds to each other, we were like, "Why don't more people know about this???" We think it's a pretty special thing that's happening in L.A. right now, and they deserve a lot more attention than they're getting at the moment.

AM: I have only been to L.A. twice for a total of about eight hours. Strictly tourist-on-layover-type-stuff. No personal connection to L.A other than my love of LA and Bay Area Hip-Hop.

So the series is four shows long -- why only four? And after that?

ES: Who knows! We actually just added a fifth show and details are pending on that. We didn't have a specific number in mind. We just kind of looked at our calendars and picked dates that we were free and de Ville was available, and our artists were available and went with it. There are certainly more than four (now five) artists from that scene that we would like to bring to Austin, but for now, as a new company, we're just working with what we've got. We are starting some preliminary plans for fall shows, but those plans are VERY preliminary so I don't have anything I can tell you right now. But we definitely are working on stuff 'n' things. Be on the lookout!

Thank you for speaking with Austinist and all the best for your future endeavors.

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