Just saw this added to Aaron North’s Wikipedia entry. Not sure if there is any truth to it. But I’ll let you all make up your own minds.
Aaron endured a rough childhood. He was orphaned at an early age. He rarely reveals things about his past in order to hide his shame of orphanhood. He actually lived in the same orphanage that Marilyn Monroe grew up in. Like most orphans, he struggles with depression and takes common antidepressants to deal with the loneliness. He is kind and takes time to visit other orphaned kids.He is involved with a charity that aids orphaned teens. These kids have nowhere to turn when they turn 18. These kids are so lost. They are tossed out blind into the world with no safety net, no healthcare or a place to live. You can help like Aaron. Check out www.orphan.org…send them christmas cards. They have no relatives to check up on them. They are so lost. Please help.
Elsewhere on Jubilee’s Wikipedia, there is the confirmation that a rift has occurred between Aaron and Buddyhead’s other co-founder – Travis Keller.
The estrangement between Aaron and Buddyhead, which both releases are on, would only solidify the notion that the band would prefer that these releases were unavailable.
Finally, and in news to me: it seems that Buddyhead has finally closed its doors. And so ends a highly memorable chapter for what seems to have been a never-ending episode of hi-jinks school-boy pranks played by a bunch of bored teenagers who were hell-bent on making the music industry a fun place to be. They certainly beat X-Factor in the entertainment sector, that’s for sure.
In November of 2010 Travis Keller announced via his Twitter account (@buddyhead) that he was closing the doors of Buddyhead Records and that most of the albums were returned to the bands, who have since re-released the records themselves with bonus tracks and extras. Keller also announced he would be starting a new label in 2011 called Bad Barcelona with a few friends.
Finally, there is a massive article over at LA Weekly about Buddyhead. Check it out. It’s a bit old (and out of date as a consequence of what has been announced since then), but a goodie none-the-less as it contains these really neat quotes:
“I truly believe that for labels — and Buddyhead is a label, as well as a Web site — to be successful they have to be brands. Universal’s not a brand. Even Interscope isn’t a brand — nobody buys Interscope because it’s an Interscope Record. Sub Pop, Matador, Epitaph … those labels are. If Buddyhead has had anything, it’s always had a point of view. And having a point of view is really meaningful in the future, because when people have access to everything, nobody wants middle of the road.”
Travis has the same problem an artist does. All he can do is express himself and hope that enough people care [about his art] so that he can support himself. The challenges are just doing it in a way that it can actually be a business. It’s not like someone is going to come along and build a better Buddyhead — there’s only one, that’s a fact. And he can disrupt anybody that’s out there — if people would rather read Buddyhead than Spin, it’s no harder to get to Buddyhead.com than Spin.com.”
With the Web site and record-label overhaul, it will be interesting to see how fast Buddyhead grows and how long it takes to rebuild its core audience. But, no matter what technology has been pumped into the site, much of Buddyhead’s success will depend on how much Keller writes. The same content that brought readers to the site during its peak in 2004 will likely bring them back again: unpredictable interviews and record reviews, plus Buddyhead’s merciless skewering of musicians in that notorious gossip column.