July 18, 1993

Dear Jim,

Thanks for all the cool stuff, I can't write in detail just now but I enjoyed everything, and your "covers" (Inside Look at an Arshole) tape in one of the best hometapes I've ever heard....and I mean it! There's some incredible stuff on there, especially the more exotic material. The other tapes are good too.

Enclosed is the interview as it stands. I'd think it'd be ridiculous not to do a second part over the phone about SCRAPING TEETH and SPIN and meeting Guccione Jr. and all that kind of thing, so if you're up to it we should do that one of these days. For now, read over the interview, and of you have a problem with anything in it, please xerox that page and send me the corrections. Since this was not an "interview" situation, I would understand if you didn't want some of this stuff repeated - I tried to use common sense and left a bunch of the really juicy stuff out.

Hope to hear from you soon! Sorry this isn't moving any faster, but this is purely a part-time endeavor, and it competes for my music time, which is always tuff.

Your friend, Dino

MY DINNER WITH DIMTHINGSHINE 

September 1992

I've gotta know this: why did you pick vinyl to release your music?

I like records. That was the thing for me, to be on a record. All my favorite music was on records, and I thought that was the way to go, so I could have it in my collection..that was the neatest part. I figured I'd order a small amount, but then I found out you have to make at least 500 copies and all that... so I figured: at least I can sell them. Not only that, but I'd sent a cassette of some of the music to Chris Cutler at Recommended Records, and her said: "I really like the music, and I'll distribute it if you put it on vinyl. "So I looked into it locally, checked out the prices, and that's how I did it.

I thought you must have known someone in manufacturing.

No.

How much was it per album?

I spent at least a thousand dollars per single-disk record, something like that. I guess that's a good price, but at the time it seemed like a lot of money.

Did you just save up a thousand dollars each time?

Yeah, just working odds and ends jobs, saving up the money.

You once told me the first couple albums were made with "broken radio shack microphones."

A bunch of records were made like that! No, the first thing I released was actually done in an 8-track studio, a couple of tunes were stuff I'd done in the garage, which I later later added parts to in the studio. It was called HEART OF THE KLUX FLUX - this was my big seller at the time. Recommended Records distributed it, and they sold just about all of them. They wanted me to manufacture more, but I didn't have any money so I didn't even bother. I just kinda felt, "well, that's it for that record." Out of the other ones I released - the 4-track cheapos - Recommended carried the first one, then they said: "We'd rather you do better recording quality music." Then I kinda got into some arguments with them through the mail. Some of the people there were really into what I was doing, and there were some people who weren't. I was real sensitive: if I got a bad vibe or something, I just didn't feel like talking to them anymore, instead of pursuing it...so I just let it go.

And this happened after one release?

The first release was doing real well; it was on the Melody Maker charts and everything... hard to believe for the small amount of records that were made. Then I got that negative note in the mail, and I talked to them by phone a couple of times. There was one guy there named Brian who took care of a lot of the business: he was a real nice guy and really into my music. He said that people wanted to buy the records, but: "Unfortunately I have friction here, and some people feel otherwise..." He ended up getting fired right after that! Then there was another record, one of the Garage Recordings, and when that one came out, I didn't send any copies to Recommended. But they heard it from somewhere, and I got a letter saying: "We like this one, we'll carry this one." So they carried that one, and then I said: "Well, I do have this other one, and it's better quality. Do you want a copy?" And I got no response! All they did was carry the other records. I got tired of dealing with them and never dealt with them again.

So you arranged for the printing and pressing of the records yourself, and then shipped them off.

Right, so I dealt with a lot of distributors. Wayside carried some of the records in smaller amounts. There was a place in San Francisco that went out of business. "New Music Distribution" - I went through hell dealing with them: they never pay you any money and give you excuses every time.

I understand that distributors will rip you off any chance they get.

They do. These distributors I dealt with would go out of business, so they'd prolong it and say: "We'll pay you, just give us another month," and eventually I wouldn't hear from them anymore, and they'd close shop.... that happened a lot. After a while I just got tired of it, so I would record stuff at home. I knew people were putting out cassettes all the time, and I was already making cassettes for my friends. So I figured, since people are sending out cassettes, I'll do the same too. I started making copies of stuff that was really crappy quality.

You'd send these out instead of records?

Yeah, because I had musical stuff piling up at home - I was always recording. I had tons of stuff: I'd have the microphone set up with a little cassette deck for something live, plus stuff I'd do on the 4-track, even some stuff from the studio... I'd just mix it all together onto cassettes that way.

How old were you when all of this was going on?

I was fairly young, early twenties maybe. So I wasn't thinking about the music business end of it much. I was waiting for somebody to come along and help me; I figured that's the way it usually happens.

Like a Brian Epstein?

(Laughs) Yeah, somebody like that. But the music is so strange anyway, and I didn't realize it doesn't work that way all the time, especially with a different type of music. I just figured: "People are liking it, and maybe people need to hear something different..." You know, I had that attitude.

You mean you wanted to change the world a little bit, too.

Oh yeah, definitely.

It sounds like at least you made your costs back, and maybe a little profit.

I did, and with the money I made from HEART OF THE KLUX FLUX I was able to make these "garage records." It didn't cost me anything to record 'em at home, so I just released four records with the money I made. And Recommended was like: "We need you to release more of the same record! We need more, people want it!" I said, "I don't have any more money for it. Can you put
up some money for me? 'Cause I just put out these other ones." And they're
like, "Well..." I was in turmoil: "I didn't know how to deal with the business end of it,
and I figured these new records were just as good as KLUX FLUX in a different
way. My attitude was: "Somebody will like it." I just wanted to start
releasing anything I put out! I liked having my records out.

I felt the same way about vinyl, but whereas you save up a thousand dollars
and put out a record, I saved up and bought the Teac reel-to-reel 4 track.
I'd wanted one ever since they existed, and it took me 7 or 8 years of
saving up. So I always put out cassettes with the ultimate dream of doing a
record, but by the time I reached that point, records were nearly extinct! I
really fought CDs when they came out, but...

Me, too. I hated them when they came out, but now I like CDs. I don't want
records anymore!

They're so clean. I've been buying used records for two or three dollars
each, and if I really like something I can go get it on CD. Everything is on
CD now: Bret Hart & Beat Happening...

Bret Hart? Wow!

Lisa Suckdog. I also found a Master/Slave Relationship reissued CD.

It's interesting to pick up a CD with that kind of stuff - I do that, too.
It might not be something I want to listen to a lot, but just because it's
on CD, people you might know from somewhere or another... do you know Bret
Hart?

No. He's reviewed some of my stuff.

He used to send me some stuff. I know he's good friends with that guy Dick
Metcalf. That guy writes a million letters to me! I guess they were both in
Korea together.

When you did the "Garage Series", did you record on a Teac?

Yeah, all of 'em. It was a reel-to-reel, and one of the springs came off.
When you stopped the tape, it would start going backwards and the tape would
come out. I had to constantly hold it. Plus, the heads were going bad
little by little to the point where it was unusable; it was really old. I
bought it from my friend Jean Chaine, the bass player I worked with.

Where did you come up with the name "Dimthings"?

It came about partly because my name is Jim, but I had friends who called me
"Dim" based on that movie A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. And I had a dog, and I didn't
know what to name the dog, so I used to say: "It's the Thing's dog, it does
all these different things." Then people started saying: "You do the
Dimmy-thing!" The name kind of fell in there.

Later you changed it to "Dimthingshine."

I was playing gigs with this poet guy: I was doing the drums, and he was
mumbling gibberish. It was s like he was possessed and the stuff was coming
through him. He was real eccentric; he was in and out of mental
institutions. I played drums and improvised to what he was doing.
But I told him: "Man, I'm not getting anywhere in music." He goes: "Maybe
it's your name, 'cause 'Dim' is a very negative thing. Maybe you can add
something bright to it, like DIMTHINGSBRIGHT." And I said: "Nah, it should
be something else."
And then a van went by at that exact moment: "Shine Manufacturers". And I
said: "How about 'shine'? DIMTHINGSHINE? That would work!"

I noticed the name change from reading reviews of your music.

I actually started adding a whole bunch of stuff to it, onto the beginning
and the end, but it got out hand.
Whenever you & I got reviewed, you were always right above me.
I know, that's how I knew about your stuff!

In ELECTRONIC COTTAGE you said you'd been meeting a lot of home-tapers &
musicians in person, and a lot of them had an ego problem.

Yeah, there's a lot of them out there. I mean, everyone has an attitude
problem to an extent, but... they'd be so into themselves. They'd say: "A
few years ago I was doing this and that..." And I'd relate to that and say:
"Oh yeah, I was doing something similar to that." But they'd kind of brush
me off and just continue their conversation about themselves. After a while
I'd just sit back and let them talk, and they'd have the time of their life!
But that's the way they are: I realized that they don't have any interest in
what I'm doing. They just want to talk about themselves. I'm not gonna
mention any names, but some of them are still home-taping, while some have
given up music all together.
I've definitely changed my attitudes over the years, as everybody does when
they get older, grow up, or get more experience. My idea right now is to not
release anything myself. other than making a cassette for people. I want to
get my stuff on CD, but I don't want to put it out myself! I'm not pushing
to make money at it just yet; that's maybe down the road. I would just be
happy to have some stuff on CD.

What amazed me about your records was, they seemed so out of left field. I
figured you either spent a lot of money to make the records, or else you had
some benefactor or some friend with money. The records seemed so lively and
improvisational, whereas if I put out a record, I'd probably brood over it
for two or three years. Your albums seemed like the kind of thing people
were doing on cassette, yet it was on vinyl!

Well, I just had the attitude that I wanted to put them out. I worked for
it. Nobody ever financially supported me, unfortunately. That would've been
nice! Some of the people I've met who have gone onto labels... if I'd
pursued it the way they had, I'd probably be at their level of musical living
right now.

What would you have had to do differently?

Socialize more with other people who might have been interested in my
music... and not been so sensitive, thinking: "Oh, forget it. I don't like
how they said this or that to me. I'm not gonna bother."

Do you know what happened to Hal McGee and ELECTRONIC COTTAGE?

Yeah. He met this married girl, and she had a kid. She was still married,
but the guy treated her real bad. Hal was really into her, and all this
stuff happened because of it. She was a lot younger than him, and he felt
young again because of her, and after that fell apart he had to get away.

Did you live near him in Florida before he left?

No, actually about four to five hours away. He can talk for hours on the
phone. I don't know if you ever met him.

Only on the phone. Of course the next issue of EC was supposed to have a big
interview with me in it.

Oh man, that's too bad! I was supposed to be on the cover of the issue after
that.

That would have been cool. For my interview, I even warned Tom Furgas about
things I said concerning him.

Tom Furgas! We used to trade a lot of stuff. Of course, he never puts the
(plastic) cassette covers with his tapes, to save on mailing costs - which is
fine, but it would drive me nuts because I had to look for cases! But that
was okay, I kinda told him it was all right.
But once I made a criticism about something, and... he was always
critiquing my stuff, being very critical... which is fine! So I figured,
well, I should critique his stuff a little more and not hold back. When
people do that, I feel I can be more and more open with them. And...
(laughs) there was a little hostility - he really took it the wrong way. He
said: "Well, I think your album covers are U-G-L-Y!!" He wrote the word
"ugly" in big letters, real jagged and stuff. I thought it was kind of
funny.

Did he like your music?

He pretty much liked it. On certain ones he said: "This is great, my top
ten, much better than your other stuff... you should be doing more stuff like
this." So the stuff he really liked, he highly complemented. The other
stuff, he felt some of it was okay, but I could do better.
But as far as Hal McGee goes: He moved to Gainesville to try and get his act
together, getting over this emotional mess with this girl. He starts getting
the magazine back together, he says he's gonna make it happen, and he sends
out this flyer to everyone saying: "I'm sorry, but it's gonna happen real
soon, I'm just a little behind."
Next thing you know, he closed his first P.O. box in Apollo, then he closed
the other P.O. box he'd just opened in Gainesville. I didn't hear from him,
but I did have his new phone number, so I called him. He said: "Don't give
my phone number out, here's my real address, and I'm just giving it to you,
Chris Phinney, and Al Margolis."
Basically, he can't handle it anymore. He's got a job working in a hospital
now, as opposed to this Holiday Inn where he used to be a cook. He's happy,
he's learning there, there's a lot of opportunities in the hospital. He
likes the people who work in the hospital, he gets along with them, he's
meeting a lot of people and he's going out a lot, which he never really did.
A whole new social life...

And he wants nothing to do with home-taping?

Right, that's basically it. He said he will eventually get around to telling
everyone he's sorry, he'll pay back whatever he owes them, that kind of
stuff.

Has he also given up the ELECTRONIC COTTAGE cassette label?

Everything. A lot of people wrote to me saying: "Your friend Hal and the
magazine you do together..." like I'm part of the magazine! They'd say:
"What the hell's the deal here? You guys owe me money!" And I'm thinking:
wait a second, I don't owe you money... I have nothing to do with this!
Some people even got my phone number from somebody. And I'd hear from
people who'd normally never write to me, saying: "Hi! I've known about your
music for many years, and I admire you for it. By the way, whatever happened
to Hal McGee?" I got a bunch of letters like that! I'm courteous, I write
'em all back. I'll never hear from them again, but that's fine.

What do you tell these people?

"Hal doesn't want to do it anymore, he gave it up, he's tired."

That's weird because it seemed like he had so much energy doing it - it
almost screamed from the pages.

The moment he was writing was when he was really into it. Later, he'd go
through many periods of complaining about it: "I have to write back to all
these people!" Which I can understand.
That picture in ELECTRONIC COTTAGE #6 where we're all sitting at the table
eating - that was a Lebanese restaurant, and there was a belly dancer that
came around, and I got up on stage with her. I had pictures of that I was
hoping Hal would use, but he didn't.

What's on that two-hour video you advertised?

Me playing live, solo. One of the shows was in Connecticut, and the other two
in Miami.

What was your set like?

One of 'em in Miami was at the Kitchen Club. It was in the outside patio
area, and I had set up cassette tapes, electronic stuff, and a mixture of
other things, and I played along with the cassette.
The other gig in Miami was at the Chicago Club, and the last thing on there
was actually recorded in 1988 in Hartford, Connecticut. This guy videotapes
all these New Music concerts that come to town: well-known people too, like
Laurie Anderson and people like that. But he did this as a favor for me
because he liked the way I did things - he thought it was exciting or unique.
So he says: "I'll tell you what - I have this time between sets when I could
do something for you, and I'll set you up in this little room." I said
"Great." He only had one mic, so it was a mono recording... but it was nice
of him.

Did you do a percussive kind of thing when you played live?

Yeah. I sort of chanted and played the drums.

One other thing that struck me about your music is that you use speed
manipulation a lot.

When I was younger, the batteries in my cassette recorder would die down, and
depending on which way you wanted to go, you could either put the new
batteries in so it'd come up faster, or you could do the opposite and get
older batteries to make it slower. I used to like that, and as a kid I used
to experiment with cassettes all the time. I had ten years of stuff like
that that was ruined because of rain leaking through a hole in the roof.

Aaaugh! That's terrible!

Yeah, there would have been good things to go through.

I've always used speed manipulation, partly for the different instrument
sounds you can get - because it pretty much doubles your instruments - and
partly because I can't really play some of the things I write... I have to
slow the tape down to play along with my own music!

That's partly what I do, too! (Laughs) That's another reason it's good.

But I've been self-conscious about it. Zan played one of my tapes for Hal a
few years ago, and there was some speeded-up stuff, and Hal said: "Speed
manipulation is an obvious trick." And I remember being real defensive and
thinking: "Oh, and noise ISN'T?" Fucking feedback-noise is not obvious?!

I listened to a DOG AS MASTER tape once, and I'd heard a band called
WHITEHOUSE - I'd heard a couple of their records already - and I said: "Hal,
this is a complete copy of WHITEHOUSE!" And he laughed... years had gone by
since he made the tape, so he'd kind of gotten over it, and he said: "Yeah,
that was my favorite band to listen to, and that's what I wanted it to sound
like!" And that's how he got started. I mean, it was almost a complete copy
, even what he says and shouts out and everything... so that's where Hal came
from.
I could never understand this sado-masochistic self-mutilation-type
Industrial-noise attitude that certain people had; I just never related to
it. There was a whole bunch of that, it was real big in the scene... I would
get a lot of paraphernalia & promotional paperwork on it from people
everywhere.

But isn't that basically where Hal & Cause & Effect come from?

He thinks it's a bunch of crap now... when I met him, he had that attitude
already.
I've got tons of cassettes where I could not bear to listen to the whole
thing... after a while I got tired of it, there's just too much! And I could
tell what they're doing: One guy is just filling his microphone with lots of
reverb, RRRRRRRRR... and there's a record or something else going in the
background.

I think digital delay is the key to that kind of stuff. It's like a
super-sophisticated tape recorder, 'cause I used to think they were totally
clean tape loops - you'd hear something, and a couple seconds later it'd come
back around, and they'd build on it... and it would be so clean and
beautiful. No wonder: it was digital delay!

I wonder sometimes: how big is this networking thing? There's been a lot of
people who have made contact with each other like pen pals, through the mail.

It makes me think it's huge, if you've sold a lot of records.

Well, I don't feel like I've really gone anywhere... it can be done; there's
people out there who are selling several thousand CDs and stuff like that.

Like who?

I'd say Paul Lemos...

Sure, CONTROLLED BLEEDING... but they're almost on a major label.

Well, now, but this was before they were on a major label; I remember they
were doing it even back in their earlier days.
Paul Lemos would send me his first several records that came out on these
weird labels - he'd give me one of his ten copies, or whatever. Somebody
told me: "You have his first record? People are paying hundreds of dollars
for that record!"

I read a review of CONTROLLED BLEEDING recently that said they used to be
ahead of their time, but now they've fallen into the current white-hot
industrial dance thing.

They've been doing that for a few years now.

What brought about your name change from Garcia to Rite?

I felt my life was changing, and there's a couple trillion Garcia's in Miami -
I swear there's that many! - and I just wanted to stand out, a little bit
differently. But at the same time, I didn't want to come across as
"different". I already had the Dimthingshine name, so I figured I should do
something legal.
After going through the telephone book for a while, I didn't end up using
anything out of there... but I came up with the word "Rite". I like the name
"Rite": real typical and real simple, but I didn't want to spell it the
regular way... this way it's short for Ritual, and I like that aspect. I
like the simple aspect of it, too. And, nobody in the telephone book had the
name spelled R-I-T-E.

How did you decide who would get the mailing that announced your name change?
Did it go to anyone you'd ever mailed anything to?

Most everybody. To some people I sent a whole letter, with a longer reason
why: "I'm just as nuts as the rest of you assholes out there." Something
like that!

Did you get a lot of mail from your EC article where you attacked home-tapers
who don't write back or send a trade?

A few letters... not a lot. I had a lot of people write to me who said they
heard that other people were upset by it. I got a bunch like that. But a
few people actually wrote and said: "Am I included? What's the deal?"

Well, it really sounded like you were fired up.

I figured there were definitely those people out there who couldn't give a
crap, and I thought those people would feel that way it they were that way.
Zan Hoffman sent me a couple of cassettes, noisy stuff... but the thing was,
nowhere on the mailer, nowhere on the catalogue, and nowhere on the cassette
could I find his address! I had no way of sending this guy anything, so he
didn't get nothin' back! Later on, in some magazines, I'd notice his
address, but I wasn't going to go out of my way to do it because I thought he
should know better. So he might think I'm an asshole...but he should know
enough at least to do that!

Did you really get a letter from someone saying: "We did not ask for a trade,
and are not about to do so"?

Did I tell you about that?

Well, you said it in the article.

It was this French label, and they kept on sending me their catalogue all the
time. So I figured, what the heck, I'll send 'em some of my records, see if
they're interested. "I don't have the money to buy your records, but here's
some of my music if you're interested in distributing it, and if you want to
trade, I'll send you a whole bunch more."
And then they write me: "Why did you send us these records? We didn't ask
for them! We had to pay a shipment fee to pick them up - you made us pay for
this and we didn't want to, and besides, we don't like your music anyway!
It's nothing related to what we're interested in." That kind of thing.
So I looked in their catalogue and saw what they were distributing: it was
stuff like Genesis and Gentle Giant - who I like sometimes - but I said:
"Judging from your catalogue, the stuff you have in there is very
uninteresting anyway, and very of-the-norm, so I can understand why I
wouldn't fit into your category, since my music is interesting. I'm sorry
if there's a fee involved, but I'm sorry I had to waste my money sending it
to you..." I was real blunt.
Then, like a year later, they start sending me catalogues to me again! To
this day I get catalogues from them!

When I started, I took it very personally if I sent a tape to somebody
unsolicited, and then never even got a postcard back.

That happened to me a bunch of times!

It took me a very long time to get noticed in the network: at one point I was
very discouraged that I couldn't get any momentum, but Tom Furgas told me to
keep trying. And then, the inverse happened: I was a well-known home-taper
and a reviewer, and I started getting stuff all the time. I actually got to
the point where I couldn't answer every single person... or I meant to, but
three months would go by...

It got out of hand... yeah, that happened to me too.

Yeah. So by the time I saw your EC article, I figured you were talking about
me, even though I'd finally played all your records and had been formulating
a written reply to you in my head.

A lot of people probably thought that, and that's understandable: I guess
everyone can feel that way about themselves. I could even think that about
myself, if I'd been reading the article and didn't write it!

It sounds like you had quite a few people who would send you stuff.

Did you see the letter I wrote in the last issue of Sound Choice? I got a lot
of people writing to me about that one! I wrote about the whole scene, and it
got real fiery - it was a real reactionary thing. Tom Furgas wrote me
because of that: "It sounds like you've given up on the whole network scene,
you just can't stand anybody - tell me that's not true!" I got people writing
to me who would normally never write me.
A lot of people said: "Boy, I agree with what you're saying, I feel the same
way..." blah blah blah... I've got stuff at home I'm still getting, some nice
CDs I haven't even opened yet! They wanted me to have the stuff just because
they liked what I said! But I haven't had a chance to hear it: I've been
here in L. A., I've been doing a bunch of stuff... moving three times. Some
of these CDs have great covers! I'm sure there's some nice music on there...
but I got more response to that Sound Choice letter than anything I've ever
written. But then again, it had a bigger circulation than Electronic Cottage
did.

That was a strange issue: he didn't put one out for a long, long time, and
then when it came out, the writing in it just sort of assumed that everyone
knew what had been going on.

Do you want to hear some music in the car? I have a couple cassettes...

Sure, okay.

I could play you a couple things real quick; I know that Ned has to start
work at midnight tonight.

Yeah, we're all working boys.

I know.

When you hung out with Hal, did you party and stay up all night?

Oh yeah, we were drinking, smoking all night. If you haven't been smoking
for a long time, sometimes it enlightens you: you see things differently, you
look at everything you've done, and you realize that maybe you're real
stressed out...

The only time I get high now is when I visit my friend John: we both save up
all our new music, smoke a little bit, and then turn out the lights and
totally focus on the music.

Oh, that's nice... I enjoy those times too, that kind of stuff. Like when
Ned & I watched "LAWNMOWER MAN" last night...

That Stephen King movie?

Yeah, it turned out to be good! I expected the worst, but the actual concept
behind the movie - and the visual effects - I think you'd enjoy it.

I've got a computer at home now with sequencing software, and I've got a
Casio sampler and a couple of keyboards; that's what I've basically been
using for a while. I had a rock band recently that kind of folded; so I
don't know what's gonna happen. I may be moving to Charlotte, North
Carolina... that'll probably be my next step. I need to get out of Florida;
I could use a change.

What did you actually do today, for your job?

Today? I took calls for Continental Airlines - user problems - and other
airline-affiliated users who access Continental systems. Communication
problems, equipment problems, that kind of stuff. And if I don't do it, I
know the department to transfer them to; otherwise, I'll help them with their
hardware.

Oh, so what you do is sort of like the "help" number for Apple?

Exactly, that's what I do.

They call you and say: "What the hell, I can't get into this file!"

Yeah, right.

But I always think people put weird things into their computers, and unless
you can actually see their screen , how do you help them?

I kind of build an intuition up after taking calls for a while - a lot of
O.J.T. - On The Job Training. You can specialize in certain areas, so we
have a lot of different departments that help out in more efficient ways.
EDS is the company - Electronic Data Systems. A former Ross Perot company!

Dino Dimuro,  Has his own label "DimuroTapes" with many great tapes, and released his first CD entitled "The Simple Chance of Life", in 1995 that received rave reviews. This guy plays guitars, keyboards, sings and composes on the level of a Zappa meets Snakefinger. He lives out in Los Angeles, CA and is a Hollywood Movie Sound Engineer for many BIG BLOCKBUSTER MOVIES! He can be reached at: EMAIL: Recordings@aol.com