Ben Funke: Challenging Music with Analog Masters and Captcha Records
Nine months ago I began taking a class at Humboldt State University that was unlike anything I've ever experienced in my education. “Analog Masters” is an upper division art class that was offered for the first time in Spring 2015. Its function is to teach students about the inner workings of a record label, specifically the process of marketing and distributing an album. Professor Ben Funke is in a unique position to teach an experimental class like this, since he not only teaches sculpture at the university, but also runs Captcha Records, a successful independent record label. The Analog Masters program serves not only as a class, but as a smaller label within Captcha, which allows students to collaborate on various design and promotional aspects of an album. While many people would think that a class like this would be better categorized as a music class, or business class, Ben Funke made sure to focus on the artistic aspects of album promotion, and encourage every student to be as creative as possible, no matter their major.
On the first day, Ben began by telling the class his unusual rise to running a record label. Not so long ago he was living in Chicago working four jobs at once to get by. The label started as a small project whose success took Ben by surprise. Over the summer we had a few conversations in which he further broke down his interesting career trajectory and future plans. “Captcha always seemed like an art project to me,” he says, “Combining sound and packaging into a compelling and beautiful document. It kinda spiralled into something bigger overnight. It was when I was attending graduate school when an advisor of mine said I should merge my practice. Make Captcha a gallery of sorts. Curate it like any art gallery.” This philosophy of merging practices and finding parallels between art forms is an important part of the structure of the Analog Masters class, which is in large part what makes it so unique.
The first month or so of the class functioned like a think tank, with students working together brainstorming ideas for album artwork and layouts. The album that was used for the first semester was veteran Humboldt psychedelic group White Mana’s fourth full length album, Pan. Prior to it’s release, White Manna also put out their studio album Come Down Safari and a live album entitled Live Frequencies through Captcha Records. Months before Pan was ready for release, Ben sent out an exclusive stream to all the students in the class, and made it a homework assignment to listen to the record and visualize what kind of album design would go well with the music. As a class we decided the album had a distinctly spacey vibe, and should have a color scheme of black, pink and blue.
About a month into the class, the band came in to answer questions for the class and consult on what they wanted in terms of artwork. Unfortunately, they had decided a few days prior that they actually wanted a specific piece of art by East Coast artist, AP Shrewsbury, and thus rejected every single design the class presented them with. As they left the class, there was a palpable sense of disappointment amongst the students. Ben smiled and told us, “Well hopefully now you guys have a better understanding of what I have to do day to day. Musicians are hard to work with sometimes.” Thankfully, some of the art was repurposed later, including an amazing hand drawn piece by Trent Franks (part of the Higher Than Hilltop design crew) that was used for the record release show, and a photo of the Arcata Marsh by Monica Robinson that perfectly encapsulated the pink and blue color scheme, which was used as the inside sleeve photo for the CD version of Pan.
As of right now, the class only deals with the post-production aspects of music, but Funke hopes to change that some day. “It would be cool to have the students learn how to record drums or something. That’s a completely different side to this whole process, that’s where everything begins.” His dream is to one day have a recording studio in Arcata to use specifically for bands to record the music that the class will help release to the world. “There are a lot of things that would need to happen to get to that point. I don’t think it will happen anytime soon, especially since the school will only offer the class every other semester. Right now the best we could hope for is to use one of the spaces on campus, like KHSU or KRFH.” Although there was no studio recording done in those spaces, the class did use both of them at one point to broadcast live music from, including a KRFH takeover with DJ sets from class members and a live set from White Manna. KHSU also did a live performance and roundtable interview with me, Stefan Flores (a member of the class and also of the Lost Coast Avenger team), Ben, and Bob Bucko Jr., an avant garde folk musician from Dubuque, Iowa, who occasionally releases records through Captcha, and also runs his own independent label, Personal Archives.
Bob was a valuable asset to the class, not only playing on the radio, but giving a guest lecture to the class and playing a set at a fundraiser concert at Blondies, which served to raise travelling funds for the class to go visit San Francisco, where students saw the process of moving vinyl all the way from Pirate’s Press to Amoeba records. “[That trip] was important for students to experience three sides of the music business,” explains Ben. “Production (pressing plant), distribution (wholesale sales) and retail (direct to customer). It really puts into perspective what the label has to deal with in order to go from A to B to C.” And this is why the class deals primarily with the post-recording process for now - since there is only one semester to teach students, the most time-consuming aspects are the ones that need to be examined in detail. “I’ve always said that making a record is easy, selling it is fucking hard. You soon realize that you have to sell it 3 times in order to make some money. Pretty insane when you think about it.”
When I asked Ben why he decided to move to Humboldt and make it the new center for Captcha, he practically scoffs at me. “The land,” he says. “That’s easy.” But he does acknowledge that Humboldt seems to be on the brink of a major art and music explosion, it’s just waiting for a little push. To better demonstrate what he means by this, he dedicated a whole class period to watching the documentary Muscle Shoals, about the legendary Alabama recording studio. “I want you guys to look for parallels while you watch this,” he says to the class. “These guys opened up a studio in a little town in the middle of nowhere and it became a huge attraction for world famous musicians to come record there. My hope is that one day we can bring people to Arcata for the same reason.”
When asked about the current state of the art scene in Humboldt, he is completely honest about both its positive and negative aspects: “I’d say if anything the art scene here is already good, it just isn’t what I would consider challenging art work. I look at art to learn something about the world, to be exposed to a new idea or new form of creation. In this area, it seems pretty safe. No work is being shown that would risk being taken down.” Ben has always been one to challenge expectations and bend rules, encouraging all sorts of unorthodox methods of promotion. When “Evil”, the first single from Pan, was released, Ben printed out thousands of little pieces of cardstock, about half the size of a business card, that had codes printed on them that allowed people to download the song for free. Analog Masters students were encouraged to hand these out at the free show White Manna played in the HSU quad, but also to hide them in discreet locations on campus where unassuming people would stumble on to them. He even had students of the class hide CD copies of the album on campus in the days leading up to the record release show to try and stir up word of mouth.
Funke has no qualms with streaming services like Spotify, believing that any exposure for a band on any medium is better than no exposure. But he does remain nostalgic of a time when physical copies of albums reigned supreme. “I recall going out to buy Nirvana’s Unplugged album at Moondog Music the night it was released. Monday at midnight. That NEVER happens anymore.” In addition to learning about the vinyl production process, the class also spent an entire period dubbing tapes of Bob’s KHSU set and then coloring them in by hand with sharpies, to make them each have a unique look to them. The same approach was taken with Trent’s posters, which were originally black and white, and then colored in by hand with colored markers.
This semester Ben is not teaching anything on campus, but he is in charge of the sculpture lab in the art department. He also recently had an art showing at Arts Alive! in Eureka, and remains hard at work writing songs for his “secret” band that apparently only performs on equinoxes. “I’m also thinking of starting another group, something really heavy,” he says, grinning. Although Captcha’s most well known releases (from the likes of Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall) have mainly been garage and psychedelic rock, they have also released everything from jazz to experimental prog, and he hopes to continue that versatility throughout future releases from Analog Masters. “I’m taking applications now for musical acts for the spring semester. I would love to do something COMPLETELY different than last time. I want AM to be more diverse than I could ever fathom. We’re talking 101 piece orchestra.” Coming from a man who has also professed his love for Nicki Minaj’s “Beez in the Trap” on multiple occasions, it’s safe to say that nothing is off the table for future semesters of the class.
While he may seem like a man who has too much on his mind, who may be trying to do too much all at once, he always remains calm and collected, and always maintains the mentality that all the different tasks he is working on at any moment are interconnected. “My goal has always been to be an instructor, professor, educator. I wanted to be able to bring my background and experiences into my classroom. A place where students aren’t only there to investigate big concepts, but also learn how to apply that into a money making endeavor.” Five years from now, if Humboldt has suddenly become the coolest music hot spot in all of California, you’ll know who is responsible.
By Nicholas Hart
For more information on the first semester of Analog Masters, check out this interview I did with White Manna: http://www.wepluggoodmusic.com/2015/06/03/wpgm-interviews-white-manna-pan-psychedelic-rock-and-humboldts-music-scene/
For more information on Captcha Records and Analog Masters, check out their website here: http://www.captcha-records.com/
