I just found out that Wax Trax Records co-founder Dannie Flesher died of pneumonia on Sunday in his home town of Hope, Ark. He was 58. Flesher was one of the founders of Wax Trax records, which is a label that meant more to me growing up than probably any other single label on its own.
Without Wax Trax, there would never have been a real industrial music scene in the U.S. Name any industrial band, and odds are, if their primary home wasn't on Wax Trax, they had at some point taken part in one of the many Wax Trax compilation projects.
Flesher, along with his business and life partner Jim Nash, opened a Wax Trax record store in Denver in the '70s, and brought it to Chicago in 1978. It was that location, at first a retail space for punk and electronic releases from all over the world, that would expand into one of the most influential record labels in the U.S., responsible for running most of America's industrial music scene.
It was this Chicago location that created a space for Al Jourgensen and his cohorts to cut their chops, not just with Ministry, but with the many side projects that all consisted of the same handful of guys, plus a few special guests - bands like Revolting Cocks, Pailhead, 1000 Homo DJs and Programming The Psychodrill.
This Chicago store was the destination of one awesome late night road trips. We arrived in Chicago in the wee hours and drank coffee, waiting for the shop to open. Once it did, we popped in and stayed just long enough to load our arms up with a few hundred dollars worth of records before hitting the road back to Michigan. That day sticks with me, both because it was a great day and because I still listed to a lot of the music I bought that day.
TVT bought out the label in the '90s, and although they still used the name for a bit, the real Wax Trax had ceased to be. Jim Nash passed away in 1995 from AIDS-related complications, and Flesher dropped out of the music world. That essentially ended an era.
The influence of Wax Trax never went away, though. Al Jourgensen continued his work, eventually launching his own label, and (one-time Ministry drummer) Martin Atkins did the same with Invisible Records, where his work with Pigface seemed to pick up where all of the original Wax Trax collaborations had left off.
Wax Trax left an indelible mark on the musicians involved, too. When I spoke with Paul Raven shortly before his death, Raven (a member of Ministry at the time) fondly remembered his time as a member of "the Wax Pack," and of all of the amazing musicians attached to the projects. It was a nostalgic interview, reminding me of a lot of names I'd not heard in years, but also giving me a glimpse that that was an era that meant as much to the musicians involved as it did to the fans.
At any rate, it seems that the death of Flesher really caps off a period of great music, being done by a lot of guys who really just loved to record and perform. Tonight, I'll be playing some music out of my Wax Trax Black Box and remembering how devoted I was to that label, up to (and including) the day I spent my rent money to get the self-same box set that will be playing.
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