Dormont musician celebrates a new record and the label that she published with VfW Show

On March 15, Josh Oswald will enter the stage, the Roland drum machine and its trustworthy black and white and fender jazz master guitar in tow to make some noise in Dormont's Veterans of Foreign.

The live set celebrates the latest adventure of the musician of the area under the Nom de Guerre Spacebastard that Oswald has published alone.

But it is also another step in a musical journey that started around 30 years ago with a modest, five-time drum kit and later in Pittsburgh's South Hills.

“It was always about teaching me how to record yourself and teach me playing,” said Oswald, 44, a park from Bethel Park, born in 2004 to New York City. Then he returned to the Pittsburgh area more than a decade ago and now lives in Dormont.

“I don't think it will pick up and play a guitar in notes and whatever feels right, that's what I will rely on,” he said. “The music has always been for my entertainment. I just wanted noise that I wanted to hear. But I have the feeling that if I enjoy this thing, maybe someone else likes it. ”

Oswald's debut in full length below the new project is carved with a deep feeling of rhythm and time, but the metronome monotony is also avoided. It is a suitable timbre for a drummer who later branched into E guitars and more synthetic noises.

The technology of the day also drives Oswald's work.

Today he maintains a recording studio in a converted single car garage next to his house. There he picks up music with Reaper software on a Dell laptop and mixes. It is a guitar with both organic instruments and a bass and bass and numerous technological support for drum machines and an electronic drum kit with alesis brands to a modular synthesizer and several guitar pedals in MOOG style.

In the mid-nineties, Oswald, in contrast, recorded the old magnetic vapel of the old school band in Mr. Smalls Recording and Mastering Studio in Millvale. This studio period led to a self-produced CD, the first run of 500 copies around 1997 or 1998 met around the streets of the Pittsburgh-Straßen.

Like Oswald, Keith McCarthy grew up on old rock in Pittsburghs South Hills. He cut his teeth on the alternative ribbons of the era: Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth.

Oswald and McCarthy met in the high school. An Oswald-side project-the band was Head Q-Tip and the cotton smear-sausage even opened for one of McCarthy's bands in Peterswood Park in Washington County.

But the couple's musical conversation deepened when Oswald returned to Pennsylvania. In 2020 he gave McCarthy a cassette copy of the demo “Kill Devil Hills”. (Oswald's son Martin, then 7 or 8, the cover of the demo, to which Oswald was on the stupid hitchhiking of Dinosaur Jr. “Where you were” lp.

McCarthy has observed the new material in recent years.

“He would tell me: 'I'll build a dandruff, I'll build a studio and he … did it,” said McCarthy, 45, by Castle Shannon.

“It was just crazy, the amount of ideas that this guy has – he's just an idea machine,” said McCarthy. “He can have a fantastic working day, be a great father, then go to his scales and stretch out incredible music for three hours.”

Oswald estimates that he recorded at least 50 finished and unfinished songs in his provisional studio. He also recorded hundreds of language memos on his Samsung Galaxy cell phone, some of which were as spontaneous as he taps a new beat on his steering wheel.

Oswald was also productive in public.

He recently reissued the first two “official” recordings of the project – an unmounted couple of short EPS, which was recorded between 2021 and 2023, re -launched via Bandcamp. You can be downloaded free of charge. Secondly, the audience can name their own price.

But Oswald insists on keeping his new record completely analogously – the listeners will not find any of his songs online.

Pittsburgh offers several indie labels, from the resulting punk rock from AF Records to the more versatile wild friendly records or receive hip recordings!

There is also diversity in the media. Drive while Black Records promote his hip-hop actions with a brave online presence. Another local label shares Oswald's passion for physical media: gross sounds.

This label, which launched Indie -Represario Connor Murray 2016 in Pittsburghs South Oakland, prefers to touch the parts of media that the audience – often cassettes – can touch the gospel on countless acts such as Merce Lemon, The Zells and Gaadge.

The indie record label community from Pittsburgh also does not work in a vacuum. According to the IBIS World trade published, there were almost 1,300 independent label music production companies in the USA last year. It is expected to cheer on a market for more than 450 million US dollars in 2025.

Produce these labels a lot of records.

Vinyl sales, of which many of smaller indie outlets exceeded the CD sale about five years ago. In 2023, the reception industry association of America announced that 71% of all physical media sales were records – 43 million units sold so far with a total value of 1.4 billion US dollars.

However, streaming remains king. In 2023, compared to the income from paid streaming subscriptions -11.3 billion US dollars -were about 10 -greater than the revenue from vinyl, said the RIAA.

“The recording is here to stay,” said McCarthy, who includes the format. “I like to have this tactile experience to keep something when I hear. And it promotes patience. You have much more from listening to music when you hear a recording start. ”

Although Oswald's latest project flirts (at least a little) with the World Wide Web, he said that he had little love when it comes to sharing music.

“Remember: Music will die on the Internet,” proudly proclaims the records online.

“I had the feeling that I put my work online and see it rotting there,” said Oswald. “I just don't have the advertising energy that is necessary to be successful on the Internet.”

To be able to produce a physical product with a wasteful cover art and liner note, “gives my work more personality than pressing a button,” said Oswald.

“I had the feeling that (hearing) vinyl was a special experience that was a little intended with her day not to make everything a playlist for the AI-generated play list,” he said.

TJ Snead – who provided his own cover art for the new LP – said he was happy to master Oswald's thing.

Although he pulled in the high school, the South Hills artist began to devote more time to work when he boomed from Maryland back to his homeland Pittsburgh around 2007.

In 2022, Snead first offered art for a publication of a astronaut, which exploded from the forehead of a huge poem, consumed the entire background in a bad yellow.

“I would always rather do something digital,” said Snead. “I love the idea that Josh has thought of for very. They are physical media and more than a miniature picture. It is something fast online. So we can very busy up there. ”

Oswald hopes that the show in Dormont's VfW on March 15 will contribute to promoting a community spirit like the relationships that he has encouraged McCarthy and Snead among those in his orbit.

“With vinyl it is sometimes that I applied this Miles Davis record. Did I like every song? Maybe not, “said Oswald.” But I stayed with it. I was sitting with it. And I was with myself and with the music. ”

“Very offline will always be an outcome for me,” he added. “But I would like to work with other people and produce them in my home studio – if they'll do it.”

Open doors for the show on March 15 at McCormick Dorman VfW Post 694 in the West Liberty Avenue in Dormont at 7 p.m.