Long Gone John
Encyclopedia
Long Gone John is an American entrepreneur
who is best known for his record label Sympathy for the Record Industry
and his vinyl toy company Necessaries Toy Foundation. He lived in Long Beach, California
for 30 years, but relocated to Olympia, Washington
in 2007.
. John's passion for rock and roll
began when he was five years old and discovered radio.
When his friends, The Lazy Cowgirls couldn't find a label for their live album, John volunteered to put out the record himself. After he thought of the name for the label he started doing a bunch of 7-inch singles. Before he knew it, Sympathy for the Record Industry was a real label. A real label, but one in which the proprietor's personality was very much ingrained. A tone of irreverence was immediately set by the label's moniker, by its Margaret Keane
-style, sad-eyed waif logo, and by its motto: "We almost really care." By 2006 he had released the recordings of over 550 bands from all over the world.
Some of John’s celebrity Sympathy alumni are Courtney Love
and her band Hole
, The White Stripes
, and The Donnas
first incarnation The Electrocutes. Some of John’s less famous but yet still very notable Sympathy acts over the years have been Buck, Billy Childish
, Dwarves
, The Gun Club, The (International) Noise Conspiracy
, Inger Lorre
, Man or Astro-man?
, April March
, Motel Shootout, The Muffs
, The Mumps, The Pooh Sticks, Redd Kross
, Rocket from the Crypt
, Scarling.
, Suicide
, Turbonegro
and The Von Bondies
.
Sympathy Records continues to be one of the more successful indie labels in the US
. Many of his releases also involve commissioned artwork from well- known artists such as Mark Ryden
, Todd Schorr
, Chris "Coop" Cooper
and Robert Williams
, often involving subversive riffs on other famous works, like the album cover of The Rolling Stones
, Their Satanic Majesties Request
.
Along the way, John has compulsively amassed a vast collection of art and pop ephemera. After seeing an inferior version of the character Enid from Daniel Clowes
' Ghost World
comic, John was motivated to enter the collectible toy game. His new company, Necessaries Toy Foundation started in 2003. It allowed John to finally slow down his label in order to work and focus on manufacturing a new line of toys and publishing art-related books.
In 2006 a feature-length documentary
titled The Treasures of Long Gone John was released. The film chronicles John's eccentric
art and musical obsessions. It also explores the work of several of the artists he collects and collaborates with, including Todd Schorr, Mark Ryden, Marion Peck
, Camille Rose Garcia
and Robert Williams. It features a wall-to-wall soundtrack of over 40 Sympathy artists, original animation and time lapse photography.
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
who is best known for his record label Sympathy for the Record Industry
Sympathy for the Record Industry
Sympathy for the Record Industry is a mainly independent garage rock and punk label formed in 1988 by record industry anti-mogul Long Gone John...
and his vinyl toy company Necessaries Toy Foundation. He lived in Long Beach, California
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
for 30 years, but relocated to Olympia, Washington
Olympia, Washington
Olympia is the capital city of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat of Thurston County. It was incorporated on January 28, 1859. The population was 46,478 at the 2010 census...
in 2007.
History
Long Gone John was born John Edward Mermis in 1951 in Whittier, CaliforniaWhittier, California
Whittier is a city in Los Angeles County, California about southeast of Los Angeles. The city had a population of 85,331 at the 2010 census, up from 83,680 as of the 2000 census, and encompasses 14.7 square miles . Like nearby Montebello, the city constitutes part of the Gateway Cities...
. John's passion for rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
began when he was five years old and discovered radio.
When his friends, The Lazy Cowgirls couldn't find a label for their live album, John volunteered to put out the record himself. After he thought of the name for the label he started doing a bunch of 7-inch singles. Before he knew it, Sympathy for the Record Industry was a real label. A real label, but one in which the proprietor's personality was very much ingrained. A tone of irreverence was immediately set by the label's moniker, by its Margaret Keane
Margaret Keane
Margaret Keane is an American artist. She is an illustrator and painter, and mainly draws women and children in oil or mixed media. Her works are instantly recognizable from the doe-eyed children that are depicted in the drawings.-Biography:Margaret D. H...
-style, sad-eyed waif logo, and by its motto: "We almost really care." By 2006 he had released the recordings of over 550 bands from all over the world.
Some of John’s celebrity Sympathy alumni are Courtney Love
Courtney Love
Courtney Michelle Love is an American rock musician. Love is the lead vocalist, lyricist, and rhythm guitarist for alternative rock band Hole, which she formed in 1989, and is an actress who has moved from bit parts in Alex Cox films to significant and acclaimed roles in The People vs...
and her band Hole
Hole (band)
Hole is an American alternative rock band that originally formed in Los Angeles in 1989. The band is fronted by vocalist/songwriter and rhythm guitarist Courtney Love, who co-founded Hole with former songwriter/lead guitarist Eric Erlandson...
, The White Stripes
The White Stripes
The White Stripes was an American rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consisted of the songwriter Jack White and drummer Meg White . Jack and Meg White were previously married to each other, but are now divorced...
, and The Donnas
The Donnas
The Donnas are an American all-female rock band from Palo Alto, California. They draw inspiration from The Ramones, The Runaways, AC/DC, Bachman–Turner Overdrive and Kiss. Rolling Stone has stated that "the Donnas offer a guileless take on adolescent alienation; they traffic in kicks, not...
first incarnation The Electrocutes. Some of John’s less famous but yet still very notable Sympathy acts over the years have been Buck, Billy Childish
Billy Childish
Billy Childish is an English artist, painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist...
, Dwarves
Dwarves (band)
Dwarves is an American punk band formed in Chicago, Illinois, as The Suburban Nightmare, in the mid-1980s. They are currently based in San Francisco, California. Formed as a garage punk band, their career subsequently saw them move in a hardcore direction before settling into an eclectic punk rock...
, The Gun Club, The (International) Noise Conspiracy
The (International) Noise Conspiracy
The Noise Conspiracy is a Swedish rock band formed in Sweden in the late months of 1998. The line-up consists of Dennis Lyxzén , Inge Johansson , Lars Strömberg , and Ludwig Dahlberg . The band is known for its punk and garage rock musical influences, and its impassioned left-wing political stance...
, Inger Lorre
Inger Lorre
Inger Lorre is an American singer who is best known for her bands The Nymphs and Motel Shootout.-The Nymphs:...
, Man or Astro-man?
Man or Astro-man?
Man or Astro-man? is a surf rock group that formed in Auburn, Alabama, in the early 1990s and came to prominence over the following decade.Primarily instrumental, Man or Astro-man? blended the surf rock style of the early 1960s like that of The Spotnicks with the new wave and punk rock sounds of...
, April March
April March
April March is an American indie pop singer/songwriter who sings in English and French...
, Motel Shootout, The Muffs
The Muffs
The Muffs are a rock band based in Southern California, formed in 1991 and led by Kim Shattuck.-History:The Muffs' leader is singer-songwriter Kim Shattuck...
, The Mumps, The Pooh Sticks, Redd Kross
Redd Kross
Redd Kross, a rock band from Hawthorne, California had their roots in 1978 in a band called The Tourists begun by Jeff and Steve McDonald while the brothers were still in middle school...
, Rocket from the Crypt
Rocket from the Crypt
Rocket from the Crypt was an American rock band led by John Reis, formed in 1989 in San Diego, California and disbanded in 2005.The band gained critical praise and the attention of major record labels after the release of their 1992 album Circa: Now!, leading to a recording contract with Interscope...
, Scarling.
Scarling.
Scarling. is an American alternative rock band from Los Angeles, whose core members are Jessicka and Christian Hejnal-Addams. The band formed in 2002. They have released two albums, Sweet Heart Dealer and So Long, Scarecrow.-Name:...
, Suicide
Suicide (band)
Suicide is an American electronic protopunk musical duo, intermittently active since 1970 and composed of vocalist Alan Vega and Martin Rev on synthesizers and drum machines. They are an early synthesizer/vocal musical duo....
, Turbonegro
Turbonegro
Turbonegro is a Norwegian punk rock band that was initially active from 1989 to 1998, and later reformed in 2002. Their style combines glam rock, punk rock and hard rock into a style the band describes as "deathpunk"....
and The Von Bondies
The Von Bondies
The Von Bondies were an American alternative rock band. The group disbanded in July 2011. Its most recent members were Jason Stollsteimer on vocals and lead guitar, Christy Hunt on rhythm guitar and Leann Banks on bass guitar...
.
Sympathy Records continues to be one of the more successful indie labels in the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Many of his releases also involve commissioned artwork from well- known artists such as Mark Ryden
Mark Ryden
-Early life:Ryden is the son of Barbara and Keith Ryden, born in Medford, Oregon but raised in Southern California. He has two sisters and two brothers, one a fellow artist named Keyth Ryden....
, Todd Schorr
Todd Schorr
Todd Schorr is an American artist and one of the most prominent members of the "Lowbrow" art movement or pop surrealism...
, Chris "Coop" Cooper
Coop (artist)
Coop is a hot rod artist working from Los Angeles. He was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1968, and describes his occupation as "Insensitive Artiste". His work consists primarily of barely clothed Bettie Page-style 1950s soft pornography and/or B-movie monsters, with the female characters often taking...
and Robert Williams
Robert Williams (artist)
Robert Williams is an American painter, cartoonist, and founder of Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine.Williams was part of the Zap Collective, along with other underground cartoonists such as Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton...
, often involving subversive riffs on other famous works, like the album cover of The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
, Their Satanic Majesties Request
Their Satanic Majesties Request
Their Satanic Majesties Request is the sixth British and eighth American studio album by The Rolling Stones, released on 8 December 1967 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom and the following day in the United States by London Records...
.
Along the way, John has compulsively amassed a vast collection of art and pop ephemera. After seeing an inferior version of the character Enid from Daniel Clowes
Daniel Clowes
Daniel Gillespie Clowes is an American author, screenwriter and cartoonist of alternative comic books....
' Ghost World
Ghost World
Ghost World is a comic book written and illustrated by Daniel Clowes. It was originally serialized in issues #11 through #18 of Clowes's comic book series Eightball, and was first published in book form in 1997 by Fantagraphics Books...
comic, John was motivated to enter the collectible toy game. His new company, Necessaries Toy Foundation started in 2003. It allowed John to finally slow down his label in order to work and focus on manufacturing a new line of toys and publishing art-related books.
In 2006 a feature-length documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
titled The Treasures of Long Gone John was released. The film chronicles John's eccentric
Eccentricity (behavior)
In popular usage, eccentricity refers to unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive...
art and musical obsessions. It also explores the work of several of the artists he collects and collaborates with, including Todd Schorr, Mark Ryden, Marion Peck
Marion Peck
Marion Peck is a United States painter born on October 3, 1963 in Manila, the Philippines, while her family was on a trip around the world. She grew up in Seattle, Washington, the youngest of four children.-History:...
, Camille Rose Garcia
Camille Rose Garcia
Camille Rose Garcia is a Los Angeles-based lowbrow artist. she produces paintings, prints and sculpture in a gothic, "creepy" cartoon style. She cites as influences Walt Disney and Philip K. Dick. - Biography :...
and Robert Williams. It features a wall-to-wall soundtrack of over 40 Sympathy artists, original animation and time lapse photography.
Sources
- Article “Pop Music” The Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif.; Jan 19, 2003
- Article "A Label All His Own Long Gone John, Indie Rock's Anti-Mogul" The Washington PostThe Washington PostThe Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
; May 28, 2003