Tony and Carol Dale
I guess I should have been reading the updates on Caring Bridge, but I stopped doing that. I stopped doing that because it was too upsetting. Like as if somehow, if I didn’t read them, things would change but then an e-mail appeared the other day on Terrascura from Tony announcing that 30 Jun 2010 would be the day Camera Obscura would cease operations. Suddenly, it became clear that not reading those updates wasn’t going to make any difference in Tony’s fight with cancer – Tony Dale is being taken from us and we are helpless to stop it. I don’t like that equation and neither do all the people whose lives he’s made better.
Tony Dale runs a little label out of Australia called Camera Obscura. We met Tony, through Scott Grimm (The Dunlavy) and the Terrascura list. He was a big fan of the Mike Gunn and released a few Dunlavy records. He once tried to release a Mike Gunn anthology but the interview I conducted on tape for Tony was so filled with the mumbly voices of me, Scott, Tom Carter, and John Cramer talking over each other and making bad inside jokes that the tape literally traveled around the world in search of a “translator” before finally being lost between London and and Houston on its return home. Needless to say, that anthology never happened. But Tony was instrumental for my band, The Linus Pauling Quartet, on two occasions. Once I sent him a tape of some jams and he listened to the low-fi recordings and actually thought they were good enough as-is and encouraged us to release it as an album and for a while it looked like it was going to be released via Camera Obscura on vinyl but, because he didn’t want any bad blood between labels, the double LP edition was released on September Gurls instead – who, at the time, was our label in Germany. (A CD version was released in the US on Fleece records.) Long story short – Ashes in The Bong of God, my band’s double record concept album and one of my favorites, would never have happened had it not been for Tony. And more recently, we actually did have the honor of being on Camera Obscura when we released All Things Are Light in 2007. At the time, it was just this huge deal as we were on a label with artists we admire greatly like Abunai!, Green Pajamas, Joe Turner, Primordial Undermind, Sharron Kraus, United Bible Studies, and that’s just off the top of my head. When we played Terrastock VII, we felt like we were representing the team even though I was pretty humbled when I bumped into label mates like Sharon Kraus and the Abunai guys. But why wouldn’t I be? Camera Obscura was a wonderful label with a great roster and Tony was a very straight shooter – a guy who released what he liked and was very transparent with the finances on the albums.
That is I think one of the things that I was discussing about labels last week – the idea that labels express the owners and the culture that surrounds them. Camera Obscura was just that kind of label. Tony released what he liked and in doing so captured a small little section of psych music history for fans and future generations of fans. That kind of work took a lot of love, devotion, and (let’s face it) hard-earned money out of his pocket and you could see it in the releases and how they were packaged.
We actually had the good fortune of meeting Tony back in 2000 when we played Terrastock IV in Seattle and I still remember Tony and Carol having an amazing dinner with us and how funny they were and how their enthusiasm about music, travel, and life was just horribly endearing and I guess that’s the Tony Dale I will remember. One who cared about music and people. One who had an amazing wife, Carol, who cared for him equally. And one who created something unique and wonderful that only he could have made happen. So, when you see a record with the Camera Obscura label, just know that you are picking up a piece of someone’s soul and that it’s a soul that can never be replaced.
Thank you Tony,
Ramon LP4 and the Linus Pauling Quartet
Damn — I hadn’t heard about this at all; such a shame. :^( Never got to meet the guy in person, but he was one of the first people to send SCR CDs for review, and he was always an awesome person via email, at least… Crap, crap, crap.
They indeed look like a great team to work with.
Tony is a great guy, a huge supporter of my music for some reason, and also a complete gentleman. I had the pleasure of meeting him a number of years ago. Unfortunately he only got to see me fall on my ass onstage. In retrospect, I guess that’s apropos. This guy is a hero. Nice job, Ramon. You rule.
Ha ha wasn’t that at the first texas Psych Fest that I organized for Tony and Carol at Brazil and NOTSUOH when they passed by Houston that one time. You were with Project Grimm at the time, no?
I remember I stopped reading those updates when it seemed like he was going to recover. I guess I just felt a little too optimistic that he would pull through, and it was all going to be fine. He is a gentleman, and an avid supporter of the kinds of music that often seem to fall through the cracks most other places. I’m glad I met him, and I’m glad he’s been around to set the right example for other independent label owners on how to treat musicians and music fans.
hear, hear.
you said a mouthful, Ramon.
what would we all be doing without the tony??
Ramon, he was at Notsuoh, and the ass-falling was my playing drums with the ridiculously incapable local band misnamed Mastodon.
Ha Ha that was awesome! A Will Freed classic!
Thanks for the wonderful words, Ramon, and for those commenting also. I wish that giant trip across the Pacific was there so we all could have hung out more often.
In terms of my condition, I plan on being around for a while yet.
“I plan on being around for a while yet.”
Those words just made my week.
The awesome quotient would almost certainly have gone up exponentially on my end were I not participating in that completely idiotic waste of time. Fortunately, Scott Grimm’s faux pas more than made up for it.
A sad update – Tony passed away On August 1st at 3am. R.I.P.
And once again the world is a little shittier.
If this is any consolation, an extra rube in the world (me) is slightly more enlightened now and will be looking into other bands influenced and supported by Tony Dale. RIP, Mr. Dale, and many thanks for supporting LP4 [i]et Houstonia alia[/i].