Robbie Pfeffer sits on a stoop on 5th Street, what he calls a representative epicenter of local music in downtown Phoenix. Pfeffer has started his own record label, where he plans to sign on bands locally as well as nationally. (Photo by Dominic Valente)Rubber Brother Records is the latest, greatest, weirdest thing on the Arizona music map, with recent ASU graduate Robbie Pfeffer, comparatively late, great and weird, as the all-original creator.
Ever since kick-starting Tempe Starving Artist in 2009, a local magazine and host of artistic community events, 23-year-old Pfeffer has been establishing himself as the king of local music in Phoenix and Tempe with his seemingly endless projects. He is the ultimate band man — booking bands, building bands, playing in bands, and now, officially signing bands onto his label.
“I thought it would be cool to pool resources so that interesting bands can establish themselves with (merchandise) and media and give them the chance to exist out of something more than someone’s living room or car,” Pfeffer said. “This is a very specific thing — it’s my thing — because I book all kinds of bands, but with this project, I want to get the weird, noisy and fun stuff that I like. “
The project still needs work when it comes to infrastructure, distribution of material and music releases, but Pfeffer plans to eventually incorporate old media, like VHS and cassette tapes, into the label so that the music will have a tangible, nostalgic aspect to it.
“It’s music, but it’s also like Pokémon cards, you know?” Pfeffer said.
Some bands that have signed on to the project include Wolves, Instructions, Via Maria, Mickey and the Mountains and Petty Things. Both surf-punk Mickey and Mountains and brand-spanking-new Petty Things, featuring Ladylike bassist Austin Owen and his brother Jordan Owen, started up in the last six months or less specifically because of the label’s introduction.
Release shows for the über-underground Wolves, as well at Petty Things’s debut will be happening soon, Pfeffer said, but first the label infrastructure and basics need to be fully established before Rubber Brother Records becomes the source for local artists that Pfeffer dreams of it being. However, he’s not putting too much pressure on himself.
“If it’s even just an excuse to get a bunch of people to make new stuff and get others excited about it and be a cheerleader for it, that’s all I really want,” Pfeffer said.
Pfeffer is a cheerleader for artists in general, but particularly focuses anyone looking to build their brand in Phoenix, which he calls a “unique, weird, alien city,” where nothing is seriously established music-wise.
“I like Phoenix, because with anything you want to do, you’re not really competing with a whole lot of infrastructure,” Pfeffer said. “In L.A. there’s a precedent. There’s a history. There’s a set standard. But here you just have to do it, which makes it a nice place to hone your craft.”
Pfeffer has also been working for the past year and a half on perfecting his performance as front man for his fun and scuzzy punk band, Playboy Manbaby. For any old-media fans out there, Pfeffer plans to release VHS video from Manbaby’s CD release show last month at Cartel Coffee Lab in Tempe.
Comparable to Jerry Lee Lewis and his committed, energetic, crowd-enticing style, Pfeffer knows how to get his audience to let loose and get weird.
“I could never join a band and just play bass. I would get kind of bored,” Pfeffer said. “I don’t get the rush from music as much; I get it from the crowds reaction and being able to embody something. It’s interesting.”
In fact, boredom seems to be the source for Robbie’s side projects that, amazingly enough, have all morphed from ideas to actual developments.
“I can take two days off and watch Netflix and eat hummus, but then I’m just so lividly bored that I have to do something,” Pfeffer said. “I get frustrated sometimes with all of the things I’m working on, but that’s the motivation.”
Getting things done seems to have been instilled in Pfeffer ever since he was 13 years old, when he would talk his mom into driving him to punk shows in the family minivan.
“All my friends and brothers were in punk bands, so that was the first time I really heard music,” Pfeffer said. “As long as I’ve been able to make decisions, it’s what I’ve chosen to do.”
Probably because of his inert passion for punk, Pfeffer found a way to balance building his empire while pursuing a mouthful of a degree in global studies with a focus on community development in post-conflict regions, specifically the Balkans and Bosnia.
“I could technically get a job at the state department and be in Sarajevo in a few weeks punching passports for the next five years and work my way up, but that’s a full-time thing," Pfeffer said. "I don’t have plans for doing that yet. I want to do weird art stuff.”
Pfeffer said he’s excited to really get this venture rolling, and that new involvement from ASU’s Downtown campus in the local music scene has really influenced its precedence.
“For the first time in a while, there’s a whole new group of people coming out to support the community and are excited, and that just blows my mind,” Pfeffer said.
What he calls weird, fast and fun, Pfeffer has big plans for Rubber Brother Records, but he will be splitting his time this summer representing local bands while interning for Burger Records, an L.A. label that has signed bands like the The Black Lips, Shannon and the Clams and The Go.
“Burger has a cool, weird attitude because a lot of independent stuff tries to be high brow and serious, but with Burger they just like weird stuff and booking bands that wear funny masks and are flamboyant and all that odd punk stuff,” Pfeffer said. “That’s always the stuff that has appealed to me, more of the fun stuff as opposed to the high art, super serious thing.”
Like the main line from Playboy Manbaby’s song, "Betty Blanca:" “Can’t stop now even if we knew how,” — Pfeffer is on a roll and has no plans to slow down.
Contact the reporter at kgumpert@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @cat2bekittenmee
