Via: auxiliarymagazine.com
By: Elizabeth Rhodes
For the Summer 2020 Issue we met with Cleopatra Records founder Brian Perera at the label’s headquarters in Los Angeles. Saryn Christina shot images of the office as well as portraits of Brian for the feature and editor Elizabeth Rhodes conducted the interview.
A tour of the Cleopatra office revealed lots of treasures, including cheetah print vinyl pressings of Danzig Sings Elvis, vintage (can we call them “vintage” now?) compilations that put Cleopatra Records on the map for many young listeners and a sprawling warehouse of vinyl. Since the pandemic began, the office has become a shipping headquarters.
On the topic of so-called “second wave” darkwave music and Cleopatra’s music compilations that captured these bands while integrating “first wave” postpunk and what would eventually be called “goth” artists, Brian told us, “I was into that stuff. Even the Hawkwind shows they were doing in the UK, they were playing with Alien Sex Fiend. So there was even a drummer from The Cure that was in Hawkwind, Andy Anderson. The whole psychedelic goth thing in the UK really intertwined in the 90s. It really wasn’t that unusual or different.”
Read more at auxiliarymagazine.com