By Andy Beta – The Village Voice
William T. Burnett, a bespectacled thirtysomething with parted blond hair and a shoulder slouch befitting a drummer, pushes a handcart stacked four boxes high with vinyl records toward the back of the Thing, the monstrous Manhattan Avenue thrift store where he works part-time, dumping them in a corner already overloaded with such stacks and heading out to grab another load. Burnett is a busy man: He releases idiosyncratic analog dance music under names like Grackle, Speculator, and Galaxy Toobin’; DJs on Internet station Newtown Radio; and runs the Pentatonic Guitars shop in Greenpoint. He also operates his own record label, appropriately titled WT. Not all of these activities are making him money right now.
“Right now, I think I am a couple thousand in debt,” Burnett estimates of his label endeavor, in a drawl reflecting his South Texas upbringing. “But one day I will get back to even.” Lucrative business plan or not, like many local DJs and dance-music producers in New York City, he opted to release the music of friends and acquaintances, and in turn get them to release his own productions, rather than waiting for someone else to do it all for them. [Read More]