the I Me Mines' first album is now available on LP!
The Story of OrgŌnized Records
An interview with William State, Communications Guy at ORGŌNIZED Records
What the hell is “Orgonized”? It looks like “Organized”. WTF?
“ORGŌNIZED” is pronounced with a long "o" sound, as in "bone" or "stone.”
The name refers to orgone energy, an energetic lifeforce that emanates through all living things. It was discovered by Wilhelm Reich, Sigmund Freud’s pet student and one of the first psychoanalysts.
While psychoanalysis often focused on trauma stored in memory and the unconscious mind, Reich's saw emotional pain as stored in the body in the form of clenching and tension. Tension builds in the body as a person braces against repressed emotions and drives. It is this tension blocks the flow of orgone energy and inhibits wellbeing and the experience of pleasure.
Furthermore, this repression, tension, and lack of pleasure, in Reich's view, is what allows totalitarianism to exist. People replace the missing pleasure of life with the ecstasy of exalting a fascist leader and surrendering to their mysticism.
While Reich was a complicated and flawed person, his work resonates in psychotherapy practice today. The primal screams that you once saw John and Yoko doing in a documentary derive from Reich’s work. Alexander Lowen’s “bioenergentic analysis” also derives largely from Reich’s work. So does Gestalt Therapy.
Ok, so what does a concept from an apparently defunct theory have to do with rock and roll?
We are not sure about orgone energy as a thing, and it's not for us to say whether it exists. But, we here at ORGŌNIZED believe that music is a life-affirming force. And such forces are VITALLY important the more rigid and repressive society becomes. Good music moves through us and the vibrations shake-out the tension that is stored in our bodies, allowing the lifeforce to flow more freely, resulting in PLEASURE!
We support all sounds that liberate the pelvis!
For more information on this concept, please see “I Move Therefore I am” and/or go to the next show by the I Me Mines!
Why a record label?
The label was created back in the day when Damion was in a rock and roll band in Bowling Green, Ohio, called The Orgones. The band asked their friend Dan Stutzman to design a cover for their forthcoming sophomore album, Dodge Pond. Dan created “ORGŌNIZED Records” to make it look like they were on a record label. The album got some radio play across the country in the early 2000s. Dan recorded two albums with Assignment Moongirl and used the same “ORGŌNIZED” imprint in the early 2000s.
How did a fake record label from Ohio become the label for Seattle bands?
Damion formed Autolite Strike in 2005, and when they began recording an album in 2006, Damion talked long-distance with Dan and they straightened out the catalog numbers. Damion decided to continue using the imprint, and ORGŌNIZED became the label for all three of Autolite Strike’s albums and the kILLER-dILLERs' self-titled release of 2013. Recently, Damion created this website so all this music and information could live in one place.
So ORGŌNIZED is basically a vehicle for Damion to release his own music?
Sort of. It is an homage to an earnest effort by a group of friends to make art and noise in NW Ohio at the turn of the century. ORGŌNIZED is also the home of Dan Stutzman's Assignment Moongirl, and a Solar 8 release may be coming soon!
Damion has done other stuff, too: The Gigantics, the Sweet Little Hi Fis (JOCK Records), Typical Girls, The Gods Themselves (first album), The Shaking Fists... but none of them released music on ORGŌNIZED.
So, who the hell is this "Frankie Stax" from Autolite Strike and the kILLER-dILLERs?
Frankie Stax is played by Damion Heintschel
Why did he call himself Frankie Stax?
That was his stage name in The Sweet Little Hi Fis back in 1998 in Toledo, Ohio. When he began teaching in the Seattle area and then started Autolite Strike, he went back to that name because he didn’t want his students to find him. They found him anyway. Now he doesn’t care.
Despite the story told by Johnny Volt in the documentary Birds of Fire, Frankie Stax was NOT killed in a knife fight outside of a South Toledo pool hall.
So this label mostly features Damion Heintschel’s music. So, is his music any good? Does anyone like his stuff?
Yes, it’s good! If you like rock and roll… and you like the blues… and you like garage rock… and you like guitars… and you like your music honest and raw more than processed and standardized...
Here are some notable accolades earned by ORGŌNIZED artists over the years:
In 2001, the guitar player from Man or Astroman? said that The Orgones were the best band he’d seen since the Blues Explosion.
The Orgones were #48 on the KUSF's Top 90.3 Spins of 2001.
Hannah Levin once referred to Autolite Strike as “noteworthy locals” in Seattle's only newspaper, The Stranger.
Tom Price once said that Autolite Strike reminded him of The Monks.
Toody Cole once said that the Autolite Strike song, “Cosmic Flip” was “interesting.”
Commenting on Autolite Strike, Chris Kenan of the Gloryholes once said, "I can't believe you guys aren't more popular."
After seeing the kILLER-dILLERs in Seattle’s Benbow Room, Mark Arm described them as “fun.”
Some say that Portland’s World Famous Kenton Club hasn’t been the same since the kILLER-dILLERs performed there with Thee Headliners in 2011.
Tom Price was once "mesmerized" by a kILLER-dILLERs song called, "She Won't Be Here" which is now recorded and performed by the I Me Mines.
Several people reported having deep, inner spiritual experiences during the I Me Mines’ first show at Darrell’s Tavern in March 2022, but maybe that was just the stirring of orgone energy...