postmates is a logistics company that operates a network of couriers who deliver goods locally .

postmates is closely compared to uber because of its use of mobile phones to receive orders and dispatch delivery drivers .

as of december 2014 , postmates operates in 18 u.s. cities .

as of october 2015 their website lists more than 100 metropolitan areas .

the service is part of a category of businesses that rely on mobile phone applications and their global positioning system capabilities to quickly match inventories and consumer demand .

postmates is an example of an on-demand company .

postmates co-founder bastian lehmann calls the company anti-amazon , saying " amazon comes along and builds a warehouse outside a city .

we like to say the city 's our warehouse .

we try to understand the inventory available , hacking the city , and having a fleet of delivery people that distribute these inventories . "

postmates

postmates employs independent contractors around the u . s . to deliver food and other items ( photo : postmates )
postmates is the largest , most reliable on - demand delivery and pickup platform .
never miss a story from postmates , when you sign up for medium . learn more
the app has been updated now works well postmates gave me a full refund for my incorrect order . i’d order from them again , thanks postmates for resolving my problem .
but , perhaps more importantly , it’s now possible to search and browse postmates merchants by category . i have a number of friends who didn’t know postmates is capable of delivering more than just food . postmates couriers also pick up and deliver anything from computer chargers to prescriptions .
local businesses stand to gain the most from a quick local delivery app . postmates wants to open a store front where local businesses can store their goods for postmates couriers to deliver .
postmates is now principally constrained by its number of couriers , rather than customers , says mr lehmann .
download the free postmates fleet app for ios or android and come online whenever you want to make money .
amazon would not have been possible without fedex or ups . imagine what can be built on top of postmates .
on - demand delivery startup postmates launched five years ago and it took two years to do one million cumulative deliveries . now postmates is facilitating twice that many deliveries each month—and it ' s starting to rake in sales too .
so we have a decent understanding of how postmates operates financially and how quickly it’s growing . all we need now is an average order size , and we can run the numbers on how much revenue postmates is currently racking up .
by default , postmates was designed to be open and without strict categories . the idea that you can enter any store or address , specify an item and have it not only delivered but also purchased at the pick - up allowed our customers to tailor postmates to their needs and to come up with creative ideas for applying postmates to their businesses .
postmates offers on - demand delivery from every restaurant & store in your city , 24 / 7 . stay up - to - date on company news , announcements , promos , recommendations and more by following along on the postmates blog .
by clicking next , i represent that i have read , understand , and agree to the postmates fleet agreement and privacy policy .
with more and more pieces of our original vision for postmates now a reality , we’re excited to announce that postmates has raised $ 80m in new funding . the round , which will allow us to grow the company even faster , was led by tiger global management .
in addition to providing customers with timely information , one of the reasons why postmates added estimated delivery times is to adjust customers’ expectations .
/ month ( billed annually ) for a year of free delivery with postmates unlimited . that’s 30 % off our regular monthly plan .
postmates just raised an extra $ 800 , 000 from paige craig , the founder of betterworks , and crosslink capital to expand in san francisco . we chatted with the founders of postmates to find out where the company is headed — here ' s what we learned :
emailed @ postmates founder / ceo @ basti to communicate my poor order history . he told me to
fuck off
. urltoken
phones are at the heart of the service offered by postmates , one of several start - ups that are working with retailers and helping to change shopping experiences . “everything that we’re doing is anti - amazon , ” said bastian lehmann , the co - founder of postmates .
postmates recently completed 4 million deliveries and launched in 10 additional cities last week , bringing the total number of major cities it operates in up to 40 . postmates also recently announced a partnership with walgreens to offer on - demand delivery of its full catalog of items . to date , postmates has raised $ 138 million from investors like tiger global , spark capital , harmony partners , founders fund and crosslink capital .
this gets at why postmates has defied its naysayers . the people who have discovered this aspect of the app have become loyalists , shunning grubhub and the legion of postmates copycats . the reality , though , was that many of those also - rans were undercutting postmates’ “anywhere” delivery fee of $ 9 . 99 . so the company got creative about how to match them on price without burning through the money it had raised .
even as its transaction volume increases , postmates has so far been unable to reach profitability , something lehmann has been talking about since 2015 . he now predicts that if internal trends on customer acquisition and quality control continue , postmates should hit that goal by december 2017 or early 2018 .
bastian lehmann moved to silicon valley from london to begin postmates , a gps delivery service he describes as an
anti - amazon system
.
no fees , just fast service . order takeout with postmates pickup and we’ll let you know when it’s ready . no wallet . no wait .
@ dsb @ postmates thank you for the honest feedback david . i will do what i can to improve this experience . without repeating mistakes .
by sharing delivery costs with merchants , postmates was able to grow revenue without weighing down its gross profit margin . that made it less reliant on recurring rounds of fundraising . according to crunchbase , postmates has raised $ 138 million in total , with the most recent round occurring a year ago .
postmates is transforming the way local goods move around a city by enabling anyone to get any product delivered in under one hour . postmates ' revolutionary urban logistics & on - demand delivery platform connects customers with local couriers , who purchase and deliver goods from any restaurant or store in a city .
mr lehmann had the idea for postmates in 2005 , but , like mr waldman , says boom in smartphones
made all of this possible
.
by partnering with postmates , third - party sellers will be able to improve customer service by offering instant gratification when a local customer is buying from them . rather than having to wait two days for a package to be delivered via post , postmates can have their goods to customers within an hour .
founder & ceo at postmates bastian lehmann during techcrunch disrupt london 2015 - day 1 at copper box arena on december 7 , 2015 in london , england .
today , many people lump postmates in with food - delivery companies like grubhub . but that’s not necessarily how postmates sees itself . “food is for us what books were for amazon , ” lehmann says . “if we didn’t need food deliveries , postmates would probably provide only commerce , because that’s the idea down the road . we’ve built the largest on - demand logistics platform , while a lot of people looked at us and thought we were an overpriced food delivery company . ”
in new york city , where postmates is far behind grubhub ' s ubiquitous seamless brand , lehmann is turning to wall street . postmates wants to integrate into the expense systems at big banks like goldman sachs or morgan stanley to acquire new big - spending customers . meanwhile , postmates is taking a page from the uber and lyft playbook by financing vehicles for couriers . delivery workers in new york city will soon be able to rent a postmates - branded scooter for free as long as they complete 10 deliveries per month . lehmann hopes the program will encourage more of their bicycle - based workforce to upgrade to something speedier , increasing delivery efficiency .
every member of postmates plays a part in the company ' s success , which is why we value passionate , curious , collaborative spirits and creative problem solvers .
we fixed a crash some of you were experiencing when interacting with google maps inside postmates . we also made the popular items at merchants into a side scrollable carousel .
postmates is a facilitator between couriers and consumers . you use its app to request an order , and then a courier accepts the delivery and executes it . the delivery denizens are not postmates employees . instead , they are independent contractors , a model that is currently in vogue with startups seeking to control labor costs as they scale .
postmates collects 20 percent of the delivery fee that it charges . the other 80 percent , along with all additional tips , goes to the courier . that’s simple enough . postmates also collects a 9 percent fee of the cost of goods . the 9 percent fee doesn’t have a cap , i confirmed with the company . the startup doesn’t mark up goods that it sells , so its cut of the delivery fee , and its own fee , are how postmates collects the bulk of its revenue .
to calculate an estimate of postmates’ revenue 1 , we select an average order size , average delivery fee , and crank . for example , if we guessed that the average postmates order is $ 30 , before other fees and the like , and that the average delivery fee charged is $ 8 , we can do the following :
rather than being one more on - demand startup burning through venture capital , postmates resembles the kind of young company investors want delivered to their portfolios : a fast - growing firm that can make a credible case for imminent profitability . to understand why , it helps to look at postmates’ history — as well as its plans for growth .
that’s all correct for 94 percent of postmates orders , at current pace . the remaining 6 percent are monetized through the company’s preferred merchant program , which it recently announced . the company partners with restaurants in that model and charges a lower delivery fee . i presume postmates collects a cut from the restaurants that are part of the program .
in a wide - ranging interview , postmates cofounder and ceo bastian lehmann told forbes that in the first quarter of 2017 the company has already achieved an annualized run rate of $ 1 billion gross merchandise volume ( gmv ) , or the total sales volume of food and other goods ordered on the postmates platform projected over a full year . postmates ' corresponding revenue run rate for the same time period is $ 250 million , made up of delivery fees paid by customers plus commission percentages paid by some restaurants .
80 % of items sold through postmates are prepared food , but groceries and other items are increasingly important . like doordash , postmates believes that delivering food is only a half - step to the ultimate endpoint of a complete last - mile logistics provider .
we internally like to say that food is for us as books was for amazon—the one category that we really wanted to work and master before we move on to other categories ,
lehmann says . postmates couriers also currently deliver items from apple stores .
postmates has expanded quickly to cover 44 cities in the u . s . , where it pays independent contractors ( like uber and lyft ) to pick up orders from restaurants and deliver directly to customers . postmates now employs about 500 people on staff , with 180 in its new nashville support center and most of the rest in downtown san francisco .
earlier this month , postmates launched a flower shop for instant flower deliveries . now , the startup is diving further into retail through partnerships with six local brands : betabrand , curbside , everlane , l . , meundies , and threadflip . but unlike the flower shop option that exists inside the app , this time postmates has opened up its application programming interface ( api ) to merchants .
the postmates api allows any developer to integrate fast and scalable local , on - demand delivery into their products , websites and apps ,
postmates explains via its blog .
it also gives developers access to a delivery fleet of 6 , 000 drivers and riders in 18 u . s . markets .
today we’re excited to announce the launch of our postmates api , featuring an initial group of six partners . the postmates api allows any developer to integrate fast and scalable local , on - demand delivery into their products , websites and apps . it also gives developers access to a delivery fleet of 6 , 000 drivers and riders in 18 us markets .
today , postmates relies on 25 , 000 couriers to make 1 . 3 million deliveries a month in 40 cities . and as you enjoy the chipotle burrito that a postmates courier just delivered , you might also chew on lehmann’s view of what the company really is : a node connecting the mobile economy and old school brick - and - mortar commerce .
from the product side , postmates will have to be careful in how it chooses to integrate new options alongside the traditional restaurant delivery service customers expect . postmates ' service is already complicated by its legacy service that allows customers to send a courier to pick up nearly any item from nearly any store—even those not partnered with postmates ( for a higher fee ) . this option gives customers many more choices outside of the current 7 , 000 merchant partners , but also gives the company headaches , since the likelihood of a mistake rises exponentially .
postmates’ plan is to continue growth that doesn’t turn those gross margins negative . in the coming weeks , lehmann says , the postmates app will introduce a new ( non - food ) segment that users have indicated interest in . he won’t specify what it is , but hints it is related to the health - care and beauty segment of the consumer market .
so , it’s in there . what matters more to postmates is that its revenue run rate is quickly expanding . presuming that its average order size did not decline in the last 10 weeks , when the company saw quick growth , postmates has doubled its run rate in the last 10 weeks from the pace it set in the preceding 20 . not bad .
today at its soma office in san francisco , postmates announced an api that will allow other firms to leverage its network of courier . techcrunch reported yesterday that the news was forthcoming .
doing the mostmates 25 / 8
- twitter user grace - marie . on - demand delivery of anything , anywhere , anytime . need help ? @ postmates _ help .
returning to the original graph , postmates most recently executed 500 , 000 deliveries in 10 weeks . that’s 50 , 000 per week or an average of 7 , 143 per day .
“most of our deliveries are not just under an hour . they’re significantly under an hour , ” postmates director of product sara mauskopf told me . “for whatever reason , the branding with postmates has always been under an hour , which is kind of selling ourselves short because if you want something in 35 minutes , you can actually get that from the grilled cheese kitchen . ”
of course , postmates ' users had other ideas . as excited as merchants were to see the app created , the expected demand never appeared when the app did . in fact , no one used the app — except rebellious lifehackers who decided postmates would deliver them food rather than furniture . these early users entered their current location , the address of their favorite restaurant or grocery store , and a shopping list . the postmates team as stubborn as confused , canceling food orders . still , some orders were getting filled — and these clever customers kept coming back every week .
@ jeffrey @ drew @ andrewhyde @ postmates i ' ve made a mistake . i ' ve let the team and our customers down . i really wish i hadn ' t done this .
postmates runs a network of couriers who , like uber drivers , are dispatched by phones to deliver food , apparel , toothpaste and other goods from local stores in 18 american cities . the company recently announced a plan for retailers to build postmates’ technology into their own technology systems , a way to give small stores the kind of logistical efficiencies that were previously available only to giants like amazon .
in january , postmates launched alcohol delivery in los angeles and san francisco , partnering with nearly 50 local liquor stores . ( doordash started a similar service last year , and announced a deal with the chain bevmo ! on tuesday . ) postmates will be building on that model with groceries , where lehmann wants to work with corner shops to maintain a deliverable grocery inventory of about 200 basic items .
so , unsurprisingly , food is the most popular delivery category on postmates . but now that categories are in place , that could change . there’s also now a special section to view all the merchants that offer delivery for just $ 4 . 99 . postmates doesn’t have flat delivery fees , but instead charges based on demand and the distance between the pick - up and drop - off location .
able to deliver anything from anywhere , postmates is the food delivery , grocery delivery , whatever - you - can - think - of delivery service to bring what you crave right to your door .
at postmates , you ' re not an employee ; you ' re family . we work hard to build community with weekly all - hands meetings , group lunches , and company - sponsored events .
each brand is using postmates in a slightly different way . for example , everlane has made its everlane now a more permanent option ( currently in sf and nyc ) while threadflip leans on the delivery startup to transport clothes from sf sellers to its dogpatch fulfillment center . who will be next to integrate ? postmates is looking for partners in specific fields and will give $ 100 , 000 in delivery credits to the most innovative applications of its delivery model . just when we think same - day delivery in the city can ' t get more heated , a move like this shifts the game in a new direction . · postmates launches delivery api , announces partnerships with everlane , threadflip , betabrand , & more [ venturebeat ] · skip the checkout lines with postmates ' new flower delivery [ racked sf ]
postmates runs a network of couriers who are dispatched by phones to deliver food , apparel , toothpaste and other goods from local stores in 18 american cities . ashlie gudmundsen manages the fleet in san francisco .
at postmates , we constantly challenge ourselves to think outside the box , break the rules , and rewrite the status quo . we ' re seeking talented free - thinkers who want to learn and grow .
postmates was founded five years ago , but the idea originated another five years before that : a logistics company for the mobile age , a courier service that connects local retailers and their customers in a way that never existed before . but it wasn’t until the smartphone arrived that the idea gained traction . “postmates needed the penetration of the iphone and the technology it unlocked to be successful , ” says lehmann .
you can make an extra $ 20 , 000 a year if you are a courier . postmates gives couriers a way to pick up additional jobs in a large queue and run more deliveries each day .
in 2015 , postmates introduced its plus feature , a flat $ 3 . 99 delivery fee for “preferred merchants , ” that is , merchants who agreed to cover a portion of the delivery fee in exchange for prominent screen placement whenever a user opened up the app . anywhere users come to postmates knowing what they’re looking for . plus users want some suggestions . and that $ 6 discount on delivery is appealing .
unlimited is the kind of strategic left turn that make potential investors uneasy . in 2012 , investors were skeptical about postmates’ unproven business model . back then , its only historical antecedent was urltoken , a mascot of the dot - com bust . three years later , postmates’ space was so crowded it was figured to be a goner . it has survived , in part , by placing bets on what’s coming next .
it will be interesting to see if postmates’ api users actually come up with options that are separate from the usual food and alcohol deliveries that it has become known for . if so , the company could become much larger . as a luxury service , its current scale could be blunted by a weak economy and the like . whether postmates could , via partners , take on instacart and homejoy is a different question .
the opportunity was good — postmates was actually becoming the infrastructure play bastian and his team were hoping for . the cheeky masses of users wanted food , and the postmates team had to oblige . they ran a # getitnow campaign within the app , allowing users to order anything from anywhere and get it delivered , usually same - day . too bad , then , that the team had no payments infrastructure for couriers to make purchases .
correctly predict the winner of the big soccer tournament™ & we ' ll waive your delivery fees thru labor day . just enter one of these flags in the promo code field in your postmates app before 7 / 6 :
postmates has been on a tear , mostly driven by word of mouth and press . referrals have driven the business , but as competition heats up , the company has gone to paid acquisition to stay ahead of rivals .
before postmates , lehmann worked for mobile companies like 12snap , which pioneered consumer marketing campaigns on older , simpler mobile phones . lehmann , along with co - founders sean plaice and sam street , initially designed the app for merchants to deliver , say , furniture or bikes to customers . to grow its audience , postmates began to build an interface for consumers as well . it soon became clear consumers were using it to order food from restaurants .
postmates is built by a passionate team of engineers , designers , operations and growth specialists , and is headquartered in san francisco . the company was co - founded by sam street , sean plaice and bastian lehmann in 2011 .
need a break from feeds full of coachella photos ? open postmates and check out our latest hit . postmates pickup is now live in san francisco . that means that whenever you’re in the foggy city you can switch over to pickup mode at the top of the screen and browse takeout restaurants near you . order through the app as usual , but avoid the line and all the fees too . give them your name and walk out with fresh food . easy . if you’re not in san francisco , don’t worry . we’re working double time to get postmates pickup live in your city . still reading this ? here’s a code good for 1 free delivery from any partner restaurant for the first 100 new customers : beychella
for postmates , however , delivery is a core competency and right now it looks like the largest player in the market . and by offering up delivery outside its own apps and website through its api , the company could become even bigger .
2 . this is simply the number of orders placed per day , multiplied by an average order size , and then reduced to postmates’ cut of that figure , summed with the company’s cut of the delivery fees tied to that order quantity .
such a shakeout in the on - demand delivery space may indeed be coming . but it’s looking more like postmates is among those positioned to survive — and even benefit . in april , the ( private ) company’s financials were leaked , showing revenues grew sixfold last year and would rise 450 % this year . even better , gross margins will double to 24 % this year from 12 % in 2014 . the numbers bolstered ceo bastian lehmann’s view that postmates would be profitable by 2017 .
postmates ' current sales make it a major player , if still an underdog , in the race to capture the food delivery dollars of diners around the country . postmates competes with public companies like grubhub and yelp , other startups like doordash , and looming behemoths like uber and amazon . while comparable metrics for other competitors are unknown , grubhub leads the industry with just under $ 3 billion gross merchandise volume and $ 500 million revenue in 2016 , on more than 8 million average monthly orders .
almost three years ago , postmates started with the simple idea of offering deliveries from restaurants that didn’t deliver themselves . but delivery of food is only the beginning of our journey , and our vision has always been to power on - demand deliveries for all retailers and merchants in a city . food is for postmates , what books were for amazon . the universal demand , a low price point , and unlimited inventory of food allowed us to reach scale quickly — similar to amazon’s approach with books .
our initial partners for the api launch include everlane , curbside , meundies , l . , threadflip and betabrand , with many more to be announced in the coming weeks . all of our partners are using the postmates api to solve individual logistical challenges .
in short , postmates is betting that its platform is better than its own offering of that platform , which it jokingly noted is mostly used for delivering food . a slide , shown during its event , listed healthcare , office supplies , catering and fashion as potential verticals . more simply , postmates has partnered with a number of people willing to do odd jobs in 18 cities across the united states , and is going to help other companies that want a same - day delivery system utilize its crew .
the company ' s delivery people operate on bicycles , motorcycles , and in cars , and its fleet has become the largest on - demand delivery service in the us . postmates does more than 25 , 000 deliveries a week , covering 17 cities .
as they added merchants and eventually even courted buyers , their courier partners flopped . whether due to miscommunication , perceptions of competition , or guardedness , the suddenly bitter courier companies forced postmates to do the grueling work of building their own crowd of couriers .
the postmates app has cliches . i double checked to make sure my order included the special instructions , but once i tapped order now i noticed the special instructions were not on my order . when i tried tracking my order delivery the app wasn’t refreshing in real time & the gps map was blank it didn’t show any roads . i couldn’t tell where the driver was or how long til he’d arrive . i’ve been a loyal & frequent customer of postmates , & i feel that my issue wasn’t addressed properly , i don’t eat guacamole , i can’t eat beans & salsa that makes me sick . i don’t have money to waste on food that i don’t like or can’t eat . i don’t believe that it’s fair that i have to pay for food that i had to mostly throw away ! i ended up having food delivered from another business . since they didn’t listen to my requests & are charging me for more than i think is fair . i’m immediately deleting the postmates app , writing a review about their unfair treatment of customers complaints , & warning everyone i can not to do business with this company ! —————————————————————————————— the app has been updated now works well postmates gave me a full refund for my incorrect order . i’d order from them again , thanks postmates for resolving my problem .
since the launch of postmates over two years ago , it has been our vision to provide a reliable infrastructure for on - demand deliveries in every major metropolitan area in the world . and while we stayed focused on food delivery as a vehicle for growth , we’ve always been fascinated by how our customers use postmates to hack their cities . we’re hackers ourselves , so observing the ways in which other people hacked our product gave us great satisfaction and added to the belief that cities would benefit from an open delivery infrastructure .
think of postmates as the amazon prime for the ‘now’ sort of delivery . two days is just fine on books and socks , but less good when you need an iphone 5 charger , three tacos , and ibuprofen delivered to your office in about an hour .
enter postmates , a new startup from incubator angelpad — a y combinator rival — that wants to blow up the local delivery business . the company launched at techcrunch disrupt earlier this year and just launched its app on the apple app store after a closed beta .
given our lack of a firm average order estimate , our revenue results are annoyingly broad . however , given that range , we can cap , to an extent , postmates’ current top line . given that a $ 10 per - order average is likely quite low , we know that postmates has a revenue run rate clearly north of $ 7 million . and as the average order size is likely not north of $ 40 , the company is likely not generating revenue at a run rate of greater than $ 14 million .
last october , postmates filed to raise up to $ 190 million . led by previous investor founders fund and with participation from fontinalis partners and existing investors , the series e valued the startup ' s shares flat from the prior round , for a post - money valuation of about $ 800 million . like rival doordash , which raised $ 127 million in 2016 , postmates met a tough fundraising environment as enthusiasm waned in silicon valley for the massive losses incurred by a multitude of uber - for - everything on - demand startups .
the partner initiative is being run by holger luedorf , who joined postmates to run business development over the summer . luedorf had previously served as head of business development at foursquare , where he worked with local merchants as well as national retailers on partnerships for that startup .
the company’s contrarian streak may be what preserves it . rather than an uber - like strategy of spending to grow in all markets at all costs , postmates saw its rivals spending on delivery discounts and found a way to get its merchants to share in the discounts .
postmates declined to comment on its cashflow status , and its relationship with profitability . most private companies decline to share data of that sort , so we won’t take it personally . however , the company did indicate that its gross margins are improving as its scale expands .
not long ago , it seemed like this was the fate facing postmates . the san francisco - based company built an app that wants to be nothing less than a remote control for your city , with food and other goods delivered to your doorstep an hour after you ordered them from your phone . other similar startups quickly appeared . just as quickly , some of them began to shut down ( spoonrocket ) or face funding problems ( doordash ) . venture capital luminaries like bill gurley predicted a shakeout , with postmates among the likely casualties .
having just completed over 1 million deliveries and learning a lot from our early partners , we believe that this is the right time to invite developers to build on top of the postmates platform . not only because we have much greater capacity to handle additional demand , but also because there are too many good ideas out there that require an infrastructure like postmates . we simply can’t build them all ourselves , but others may find it useful to have access to both our infrastructure and our fleet , on top of which they can build their apps .
of course , postmates isn’t the only on - demand logistics company that’s looking to become a sort of api for local delivery . doordash , which also got started in the food vertical , is pitching itself as a delivery and logistics company , not just a food delivery startup .
postmates has a daily
bad delivery review
meeting , which lehmann says is designed to be the most miserable possible meeting for everyone . employees go through the worst deliveries of the last day and try to categorize them into quick fix solutions and long term priorities . but when you ' re zooming along with a $ 1 billion gmv run rate , it ' s dangerous to be fixing problems on the fly—especially when you have profitability , let alone a future ipo , in your sights . lehmann believes it ' s the only way to ultimately get postmates right .
as postmates aims for 50 cities and beyond , hitting profitability with 2 million deliveries per month by 2016 , and builds out a workforce that’s making more part - time than a san francisco barista would make full - time , bastian left the crowd of entrepreneurs with some parting wisdoms .
postmates has high gross margins on a per - order basis but has other costs , including software work and support . it isn’t clear that at its current revenue pace the firm is profitable , but if it can keep growing as it has , the idea doesn’t seem too implausible .
the storefront will be in the postmates app or a variation of it . it will allow you to search and buy local products and get them shipped the same day . but instead of having the products we enable retail stores to put their inventory online . think of it as a decentralized
on sunday , bastian lehmann , ceo and founder of delivery app postmates , sent an email regarding a complaint from a customer . that email said :
someone also please tell her to fuck off ,
and was accidentally sent to the
her
in question , erin boudreau .
the api , which we’ve been told will be announced at a meeting for press and “special guests” at postmates’ new san francisco headquarters , will mark the next step in the evolution of a company by allowing third - party partners to offer local deliveries to customers through their own apps and websites .
it would be just months later , with the founder’s fund investment legitimizing the industry , that competitors doordash and instacart would close their 7 - figure seed or a rounds , respectively . the space has heat up dramatically since postmates was first scooting around on hope , will , and cash gift cards .
at postmates we stand for the american promise , that we’re all worthy of protection , we’re all equal , and we all count . as we mark a year of partnership with the @ aclu to stand up against the ban , today we also stand undeterred that we are a nation of immigrants . don’t be silent !
the solution : prepaid debit cards . the postmates team literally bought out the san francisco area of all $ 100 cash cards , buying $ 10 , 000 at a time in every store that stocked them in the city . explaining this to the bank , bastian said , was a separate story . gift cards in hand , couriers could buy groceries , apparel , electronics , and more for users , who were charged in - app . it was be postmates’ most profitable day since its founding - until the service was officially launched , to today serving almost one million orders each month , in the past peaking near 4 million in a single month .
postmates is transforming the way goods move around cities by enabling anyone to have anything delivered on - demand . our revolutionary urban logistics platform connects customers with local couriers who can deliver anything from any store or restaurant in minutes . we empower communities to shop local with no waiting , and empower businesses through our api to offer delivery .
bl : we want to blow san francisco and the bay area out of the water . we ' re looking at rolling out some other things as well . mainly , one , a store front where all these retails stores to have their inventory available through postmates . we ' re working on an ipad and android application now .
the total food and grocery market in the u . s . is $ 1 . 4 trillion . currently addressed from that market on mobile : 1 . 4 % . less than 2 % ,
lehmann says .
i believe there will be companies in the food space bigger than postmates or instacart or seamless and they don’t exist today .
as far as postmates ' aspirations go , the vision hasn’t changed much : the team would like to become the real - world api for logistics . on ordering any product , be it a meal or a tv , postmates wants to act as a transactional service layer to get goods delivered quickly and cheaply . in looking at the industry , however , with amazon , google , and uber making similar plays , bastian can see the possible centralization of the on - demand industry , whether in a single dominant player or an aggregated platform of numerous delivery services working together . the final goal of the on - demand industry : instant delivery that’s so common , it functions no different than a utility like water or power .
with the official launch of the api , postmates is expected to announce new partners who will unlock local delivery in markets where the company operates . that includes the san francisco bay area , los angeles , new york , chicago , philadelphia , boston , austin , miami , orange county , san diego , seattle , las vegas , denver , washington d . c .
the postmates app has cliches . i double checked to make sure my order included the special instructions , but once i tapped order now i noticed the special instructions were not on my order . when i tried tracking my order delivery the app wasn’t refreshing in real time & the gps map was blank it didn’t show any roads . i couldn’t tell where the driver was or how long til he’d arrive . i’ve been a loyal & frequent customer of postmates , & i feel that my issue wasn’t addressed properly , i don’t eat guacamole , i can’t eat beans & salsa that makes me sick . i don’t have money to waste on food that i don’t like or can’t eat . i don’t believe that it’s fair that i have to pay for food that i had to mostly throw away ! i ended up having food delivered from another business . since they didn’t listen to my requests & are charging me for more than i think is fair . i’m immediately deleting the postmates app , writing a review about their unfair treatment of customers complaints , & warning everyone i can not to do business with this company !
what finally tipped the scale was lighting some fire under the feet of investors with a competing term sheet . though the terms weren’t great , investors saw the offer to invest as a good sign , and eventually founder’s fund led the a round . brian singerman would be their hero , convincing peter thiel and the rest of the partners to take postmates to the next level .
we first saw postmates offer this type of functionality through a partnership with everlane that allowed local buyers in san francisco to choose from a limited selection of goods and have them delivered within an hour . while it was originally supposed to be a one - month trial in just that city , everlane now is still going strong and has been expanded to new york city as well .
“we wanted to make sure that postmates is an anywhere product . you can literally point this at any place you can imagine in your city and we would get that item , even a very difficult product to fulfill , ” lehmann says . “and this fits 100 % with my experience with how much of a personal device the smartphone is and how much customers are attached to it . ”
in startup grind’s home in silicon valley , i can grab a plate of steam dim sum , add a sprinkles cupcake , and wash it down with a microbrew 6 pack . but just an hour north in san francisco - and in many of the 30 cities served by postmates - you can also shop for electronics at best buy if you have a charger emergency , get your groceries at trader joe ' s , or pick up special local offerings like 4505 bbq . postmates is now leading the on - demand revolution among competitors like google express , instacart , gobutler , fluc , and many others as the industry heats up . but ask bastian about his industry in the early days , and you’ll hear the story of a battle - hardened veteran who has fought to pave the way .
everlane has created an entirely new shopping experience called everlane now , offering access to basic items in new york and san francisco within minutes and with great success . threadflip is using postmates to have clothing delivered from their sellers to their fulfillment center , while curbside is extending their existing local pick - up business with an option to have shopping items from partners such as target delivered on the same day .
just how urltoken became postmates , though , is a bumpy ride . like many entrepreneurs , bastian has a secret ledger of ideas — schemes and companies he’d like to build during his lifetime — but one kept haunting him , pulled from his time living in europe . german students like himself , blessed with close proximity to gorgeous and diverse countries with open borders , would frequently vacation in different countries on weekends and holidays . bastian remembers loading up his car with his friends and driving or taking the train out of copenhagen to france or more exotic locations , but rarely having the space for a surf board or snowboard . postmates was his solution : he would recruit friends or strangers going in the same direction as you , but with more space , to carry your excess crap . the world would be your courier system .
bastian and his team set to building the most terrifying of startups : a three sided market , with buyers , merchants , and a network of couriers ( the namesake postmates ) . they needed infrastructure , so they started by signing up every existing messenger company in san francisco , seducing them to be part of the supposed on - demand revolution that was so totally juuust around the corner , according to bastian .
after 5 years in the trenches , ceo bastian lehmann and his cofounders sean plaice and sam street have finally become an overnight success , on track to reach one million monthly deliveries handled by 14 , 000 postmates - couriers like you or me who hit the road to deliver goods from almost any retailer and restaurant , creating a sort of hidden city shipping infrastructure . and what are they delivering ? well , everything .
more boldly , postmates has introduced unlimited , an amazon prime - like subscription service that , for $ 9 . 99 a month , will make as many deliveries as you like from its plus merchants , as long as each order exceeds $ 30 . this is a high - risk , high - reward bet . amazon prime cut into profits for years , but over time amazon won a larger share of its loyal users’ wallets .
to keep driving growth in 2017 , lehmann is introducing a plethora of new initiatives . in los angeles , postmates ' biggest market , the company will open four commissary kitchens in the second half of this year to rent to some of its most popular restaurants . in exchange for a higher commission—up to 40 % instead of the usual 20 % —restaurants will be able to operate essentially a new delivery - only location without any upfront capital costs .
one of the early use cases we discovered — and one that we were most surprised by — was presented by local bike shop mission bicycle . they started using postmates to deliver bike frames to and from their paint shop in south san francisco , many times a week . as a result , mission bicycle was able enhance their supply chain — an otherwise costly and staff - intensive project — with the touch of a button . they were clearly onto something .
with instacart , you can get groceries delivered instantly from big and small supermarkets . with google’s express delivery service , you can get household goods from big - box stores delivered on the same day you order . the app curbside lets users order items from target , and have them ready when they drive up to a store . and with postmates , it is possible to order takeout , and pretty much anything else , and have it delivered directly very quickly .
with the support of naval and a number of silicon valley angel investors , postmates had become a poster child for on - demand . angel investors need only know that the founders are smart and committed , and that the industry is on an upward trajectory . so bastian didn’t expect raising a series a would be the brutal uphill slog he encountered . he visited every leading fund in the bay area , only to receive a silicon valley no - “that’s really interesting , please keep us updated . ” he didn’t come with tens of thousands of deliveries , millions in sales , or huge strategic partners , he said , making it hard to craft the only argument institutional investors wanted to hear : postmates could be seen winning this entire industry vertical . “sometimes you can be a little too early , ” added bastian , “there were no competitors and few data points . you have to believe in these guys when it’s institutional money . ”
on closing down the venture , bastian met his future postmates cofounders sam and sean when he lived in europe . catching the attention of thomas korte’s team at angelpad , bastian’s team was stellar enough to place in one of the earliest batches of the incubator program . their idea , however , didn’t get the same love . called curated . by , the startup would crowdsource and edit content around user interests - or something like that . the concept was confusing enough that their early fundraising meetings are stories unto themselves .
when postmates was first introduced , i was amazed . food delivery from any restaurant ? and quickly ? that was a lazy man like me’s dream . i would order multiple times a week and could enjoy bret food whenever i wanted . now , though , things are very , very different . ever since the $ 3 . 99 delivery was introduced , it has all gone downhill . real restaurants were less emphasized than ones that have no seating , that only exist in a hub for the sole purpose of postmates . now this would be fine except for the fact that they have removed the feature allowing you to order from any restaurant for a little more than $ 3 . 99 , and have even gone so far as to pretend unapproved restaurants don’t exist , so there’s no way to order from them . the second thing that will kill postmates is the new small cart fee - of your order is under $ 12 you are forced to pay a 2 dollar fee . this would be sensible except for the fact that the food item prices are designed to make it as difficult as possible for you to get right up on the limit - they have started to make things cost - . 29 instead of - . 99 and generally use sneaky pricing to make it more difficult . overall , what used to be my favorite app got too greedy and became and overpriced , limited delivery service that forces you to pay extra for food from their list of approved restaurants . but hey , i knew it was too good to be true from the start , so i guess i shouldn’t feel too bad deactivating and uninstalling my account .


asphodel ltd ( a.k.a. asphodel records ) was a san francisco-based independent record label founded by musician mitzi johnson and naut humon in 1992 .

the label is named after the mythological flower that grows along the banks of the river styx in hades .

the label had shut down as of january 2011 .

asphodel has a diverse catalog of releases with a prominent experimental thread in the genres of turntablism , electronica , ambient , illbient , electroacoustic , trip hop , spoken word , noise , techno , and lounge .

asphodel records

incredibly strange music : the untold story of asphodel records laurent fintoni looks back at cult label asphodel records . urltoken
guide to peterborough county ancestry , family history and genealogy : birth records , marriage records , death records , census records , parish registers , and military records .
use census records and voter lists to see where families with the asphodel surname lived . within census records , you can often find information like name of household members , ages , birthplaces , residences , and occupations .
serviceontario , marriage records offers a marriage search option and a historical certificate option .
ontario births and baptisms , 1779 - 1899 collection includes indexed ontario church records .
ontario , roman catholic church records , 1760 - 1923 . , images only .
a limited edition release of campires was relased on tape via locust amber records in january .
going back to asphodel for a minute . you set up a distribution network ?
census records can tell you a lot of little known facts about your asphodel ancestors , such as occupation . occupation can tell you about your ancestor ' s social and economic status .
that was one of asphodel’s main things , giving technical power over to the artist .
census records can give you a fascinating window into the day - to - day lives of your asphodel ancestors - like hours worked per week , level of education , veteran status , employers , and more .
sound records next release comes in the form of samfeel , jf & br - hallo membraan . including original mix .
church records can include baptisms , marriages , burials , membership lists , financial business , and other records for a particular congregation . they may be available online or on microfilm , but frequently they are still with the local church or in centralized archives by religion . the canadian census records asked for the religion of those listed , so you will be able to narrow down which archives to consult . for help with writing a letter requesting copies of records , see letter writing guide for genealogy .
. this will take you to a list of towns in the counties , which are links to records for the specific town .
one of the crucial voices missing from the oral history of illbient i put together in 2014 was naut humon , founder and a & r of asphodel records . the label had been a cornerstone of the short - lived scene , home to releases from dj spooky , wetm , sub dub , badawi , and byzar . to many illbient and asphodel were inseparable .
richard devine has remixed top warp artists like aphex twin and mike patton ( faith no more ) . he has released 5 full - length albums on schematic , warp , asphodel , sublight records , and detroit underground and has performed his own ear - tearing music mayhem worldwide .
asphodel 763 brannan st . san francisco , ca . 94103 usa tele : ( 415 ) 863 - 3068 fax : ( 415 ) 863 - 4973 e - mail : hello @ urltoken ( valid in june 1998 : ) asphodel records po box 51 , chelsea station new york , ny 10113 - 0051 usa fax : ( 212 ) 965 - 0959 tel : ( 212 ) 965 - 0953 erik @ urltoken
serviceontario , death records offers a death search option and a historical certificate option . also official death certificates are available to a wider range of relatives than birth and marriage certificates .
some of the church / civil records have been microfilmed by familysearch . these microfilms may be available for viewing at family history centers around the world . to find a microfilm :
old corpse road signed to legendary cacophonous records and released their second album ' of campfires and evening mists ' on 27th may , which was was positivly received by critics and fans alike .
the compound , asphodel’s studio in the bay area , was central to asphodel’s artistic nervous system throughout its life . outfitted with both old and new technology — pro tools alongside vintage synthesisers and outboard effects — it was used for recordings , experiments , and artist residencies . gregor asch remembers it as “a wild laboratory out on some abandoned airbase . ”
asphodel records , a label founded in san francisco in the early 1990s , was part of the illbient story . it championed the music with physical releases , alongside early turntablist recordings . i wasn’t able to speak with naut humon , co - founder and a & r of the label , for the illbient story but he’d long been on my list for other reasons . thanks to raz mesinai i was able to finally get in contact with him earlier this year and sit down for an extended conversation about asphodel , another blip on the historical radar that has gone largely unexplored .
“that place still makes me drool , ” he says . “i used to have dreams of naut’s old classic lxp42’s . ” based on humon’s experience with the compound , asphodel decided to also outfit a studio in new york . “the idea was to give artists resources , that was one of asphodel’s main things : to give technical power over to the artist . ”
. centered on peterborough ( city ) , was founded from the historic newcastle district in a new colborne district in 1838 . curiously , census records don ' t use colborne as a district label , instead lumping the townships created under newcastle .
since homer’s first description of the meadows , the asphodel’s connection to the afterlife has captured the imagination of authors through the ages . in the early 1990s , san francisco - based musician mitzi johnson had recorded a debut for her band , the self - titled blue rubies , but she needed a name for a label . taking inspiration from the flower’s mythological roots , she named it asphodel . blue rubies came out in 1992 , but asphodel the label wouldn’t fully come into being until 1995 . its logo depicted a flame rising from five petals , reflecting the flower’s symbolic juxtaposition of life and death .
in greek mythology , ordinary souls went to live after death in the asphodel meadows , a field of flowers located , according to homer’s odyssey , at the gateway to the underworld , where the sun never shines .
and some of those cities were more electronic minded , some were grimier and downtempo . i guess asphodel dealt with all those things . and soundtracks too . we had a genuine interest to help the scenes out .
our conversation became the basis for a feature i recently wrote for fact magazine , detailing the history and importance of asphodel . alongside my interview with naut it includes insights from artists and others who worked at the label .
in telling the evolution , and ultimate death , of asphodel records , the feature also looks at naut’s work behind the scenes and the production work he brought to projects like mixmaster mike’s debut album . coming from a different era , naut remained closer to the traditional producer role – in the back , orchestrating , facilitating – yet he also saw the value in using old practices to refine new ones , and in the process help to push along the evolution of the producer as artist .
over little more than a decade , asphodel became a mythological place of its own , remembered fondly by artists and fans . yet its place and significance has been lost in the sands of a pre - internet time . the story of asphodel is the story of what was possible before the world changed , before planes crashed into the towers of the world trade center , and before napster pushed the music industry kicking and screaming into the 21st century .
what follows is a largely unedited extract of my conversation with naut , touching on his background , the birth of the label , the ties with the nyc underground and more . consider it additional color to the asphodel feature .
naut humon is the founder and artistic director of recombinant media labs , and during the last decades was curating av content for asphodel records in new york and sf and for select portions of the annual ars electronica festival in austria where he also helped coordinate their digital music category for ten years . having performed in the past with the avant - garde music group rhythm & noise . he later formed the surround traffic control network , the aural optic incubator that gave birth to today ' s cinechamber apparatus .
one of xenakis’s primary “polytope” multimedia pieces “persepolis” was chosen for re - interpretation with customized remixes . the composer was aware about its soon to be release by asphodel records in 2001 when he passed away . the interlacing of the remix pieces by various composers draws largely from the original work , emphasizing its noisy sonorities and overlapping waves of intensity . naut humon who curated the customized reworkings applied to those remix sources other outside electronics from frankenstein symphony , for this dedication tribute remix to the future memory of iannis xenakis .
the impetus for asphodel’s existence was a favour to the couple’s friend v . vale , the japanese - american writer and publisher responsible for the counterculture zine re / search . in 1993 , re / search had released incredibly strange music vol . 1 through caroline records , a compilation of leftfield rock and early electronic music from vale’s collection . asphodel released the compilation’s second volume in 1995 , featuring music from ken nordine , jean - jacques perrey , and les baxter among others . “the release got some notice and after a period of time we were getting better exposure for it than the previous volume , ” humon explains over the phone in a soft yet energetic west coast accent . “that’s what got us on the tracks and inspired us to keep things going . ”
may saw the release of the limited 7
split with the infernal sea on three swords records along with a mini tour supporting finnish symphonic death metallers whorion . we played a few of these shows with box head as a final send off and a thanks for his time with the band .
they gathered under the same leitmotiv : producing a strong and heavy , industrial music . “traces to nowhere” ( backspin records ) , their debut ep released in spring 2016 , found huge support from all around the world , and their forthcoming releases on dead cert . and vielspass will finish to convince .
serviceontario , birth records is the only government - authorized source for obtaining birth certificates . go to the section entitled
order a birth search
. this is the most economical , searches the widest time period , and allows searches for people not immediately related . a letter of information is provided rather than a certificate .
from droned - out ambience and densely layered field recordings , right through to distorted beats and industrial - edged basslines , swarm intelligence has honed his sound over releases on invisible agent , stasis , acroplane , acre , ad noiseam , and most recently voitax records , where he just released his latest 12” called “the lighthouse” .
an unusually short lifespan might indicate that your asphodel ancestors lived in harsh conditions . a short lifespan might also indicate health problems that were once prevalent in your family . the ssdi is a searchable database of more than 70 million names . you can find birthdates , death dates , addresses and more .
on friday 13th march 2009 old corpse road unleashed their first demo
the echoes of tales once told
in a limited 1st edition of 1000 hand numbered copies . reviews of the demo were outstanding ( click here to view them ) and we gained much support including a slot on the zero tolerance covermount cd . on the strength of the demo the band were offered the chance to record a split ep with the meads of asphodel to be released on godreah records . the old corpse once again entered the studio to record three more songs for the split ep which are hob headless rises , the witch of wookey hole and the devil’s footprints . in addition the band featured on the uk black metal vol . 2 compilation with the unreleased demo track “hell’s kettles” and also contributed guest vocals on the meads of asphodel xmas special track for terrorizer magazine “the song of a thousand roars” . during the later half of 2009 the band played several successful live dates , including the well renowned gathering of the clans festival .
hey , i came across this in a newsgroup , and thought bay area loopers may be interested . if i wasn ' t in the middle of a work crunch right now , i ' d be pretty tempted to check this out myself . . . > > + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + > > asphodel records presents > > recombinant ' 96 > > a convergence of audio / visual mixology > > - - - > visit > < - - - - > - - - >
she enabled the label ( laughs ) . in other words she had resources , we met and became involved and in 1994 we got married . so during that time… asphodel had already begun . she had a group called blue rubbies , which used luth , hand drum , and vocals , much more in the dark folk vein of what she was already doing at the time i met her back in 1989 , 1990 . that’s when we first ran into each other . her idea of the label was to… first is the word asphodel . the flower that grows on the river styx in hell . the flower and the flame . beauty and the beast , or beauty in the… juxtaposition of forms . that was her ideas .
the excursions in illbient compilation , released in 1996 and partly responsible for cementing the fateful naming of new york’s experimental scene , was recorded at this new studio . raz mesinai , one half of sub dub , remembers jumping at the chance to work in a professional studio after years of home recording . “for me the greatest records of the so - called illbient era are the first wave by wetm , byzar , and spooky . and that’s all due to asphodel , ” he told me last year . humon’s philosophy of empowering artists with knowledge and equipment paid off . recalling the recording debuts of his band , asch remembers how “wetm had made do for so long with so little , entering the compound was like walking out of a post - apocalyptic junkyard onto the bridge of the starship enterprise . our first album , as is , was born in that experience . ”
well i wouldn’t call it parties . it’s interesting you bring that up . to me that’s more like what techno and house grew into . recombinant was more about design . we did one in 1999 for 9 hours , 9 minutes and 9 seconds . these were more designed… performances . rather than just here’s different artists on at different times we’d design the shows so that different things would happen . put on a spectacle , organised in a certain way . maybe over different nights . sometimes stretching far beyond… it wasn’t really an asphodel showcase either , it was a supporter of it but it wasn’t just about asphodel artists . so with the dj things we had x - men and the piklz but we’d also have the beat junkies from l . a . it was a wider cast so to speak .
i always felt my role wasn’t just that of a musician , someone who played in a band , but someone who’s a sound traffic controller , who conducts and conveys… dealing with sound traffic as it moves through various spaces . audio and visual and with groups . that led to the iso orchestra , which were on early asphodel records . the audience would come in and see tv sets of an orchestra playing in the room . we had them at the big recombinant shows in sf . then they would come into the main room and i would be conducting an actual orchestra with guitars , electronics , strings all being amplified in the room but they would discover that was the source and we would feed it into surround systems in the other rooms . so the entire building was like a remix chamber . you could hear the orchestra in different ways in the other rooms and then when you’re in the live room you’d see the orchestra .
with a career going back to experimental theatre and performance in the ’70s , naut is a strange and fascinating character . in many ways he resembles the music the label released and championed : dark , quirky , unashamed . i wanted to know more about asphodel to better place the label in the story of a book i’m writing about beats and the producer as artist . after two hours i came out with a fair bit more .
when i call naut humon , the a & r and one of driving forces of asphodel throughout its 12 - year run , he’s in between california and the north west . since 2008 , humon has lived a nomadic life . today , he helms the recombinant media labs ( rml ) , an offshoot of asphodel , and its roving theatre project the cinechamber , going wherever the work takes him — from moscow to the mutek festival in montreal . humon has been involved in performance since his childhood in seattle , where he became an actor at the age of seven and began directing in his teens . in the early 1970s , he relocated to san francisco and , alongside like minded friends , searched for ways to transform performing arts . the result involved moving audiences through various sites , treating them to destabilising montages , and , eventually , using music and early video technology .
in march old corpse road unleashed the split ep with the meads of asphodel entitled “the bones of this land are not speechless” which received excellent reviews and press . the band toured the uk extensively playing alongside hecate enthroned , wodensthrone and many fellow uk bands with a live highlight at bloodstock open air . they also hosted their own mini festival ' fires of rebellion ' in nottingham and were aksed to return to gathering of the clans festival .
the band entered the studio to record their debut album to be released in the later part of the year . during the recording sessions they also covered the bathory classic ' equimanthorn ' for a tribute album named ' voices from valhalla release via godreah records alongside many great bands such as sigh , the meads of apshodel , nokturnal mortum and skyforger . old corpse road played a series of gigs including several headlining shows and also had a special guest slot at warhorns festival , a viking / folk / pagan / black metal gathering in york which featured bands from latvia , germany , belgium , ireland , america and of course scotland and england . in august a brand new track from the upcoming album named ' the cauld lad of hylton ' featued on terrorizer ' s secret history of extreme metal covermount cd . this served as the first chance for fans to hear the new material and was received with excellent praise . the end of the year saw the release of the debut album ' tis witching hour . . . as spectres we haunt this kingdom ' via godreah records .
within a few years asphodel’s new york outpost had moved from a “roach - infested apartment” on west 14th street to a fully functioning office further up on west 27th . around the same time , a young producer who had moved from georgia to new york by the name of guillermo scott herren , yet to become prefuse 73 , interned briefly at the office . asphodel was becoming a well - oiled machine , with new york handling the business side — product management , sales , distribution — and san francisco acting as its heart and soul . “the challenges were in building a label brand that was not entirely focused on one style of music , ” says gilbert . “this actually turned out to be what set us apart from many other labels at the time — we released great music by great artists and were known for our curation . we were more like art curators than a label . ”
the title that launched asphodel would also come to define it : this was to be a home for incredibly strange music . “there was no conscious decision to start a label , it grew out of our experiences and encounters , ” humon remembers . “mitzi brought ideas and handled the support system and i was the primary curator throughout its zones . our philosophy was driven by a desire to put out a range of music and not be stuck in any genre . ”
it’s not just “these are good artists . ” when we try to put together an event it was about being another player , another influence . each artist is different , they have their own ways of working and you want to support that but also give them options . i was… definitely on mike’s record and some others , a big player on content and how the material evolved . i also worked with the brian jonestown massacre in the early ‘90s before they became really famous . did the same thing . we had pro tools in our place , there’d be people in the studio to help them use the stuff . you provide them access to the tools to learn the skills . asphodel was trying to enable artists to learn the skills needed to be their own artist . i had a customised way that i would be a behind the scenes producer . how tracks emerged got blurred . i was involved in a lot of it , in the studio , in the recordings or sometimes it was live shows that provided ideas for records .
starting in the ‘80s we built these things called sound traffic control towers , part of a sonic airport where different sonic cargos would land , taxi and take off . and the audience were like passengers on an imaginary run way between all of these different trajectories . that was part of the idea that became recombinant . it grew out of this sensibility , big spatial sound networks… in ‘91 we were in a room with almost 800 loudspeakers . we built one of the sound towers and did the show with maryanne but also had one in sf in our studio . audiences would come and attend that . this is all before asphodel . we released with ralph’s records . it was really the idea of networking . i didn’t want to be a group , which i had for a long time with rhythm & noise . that happened in the ‘80s into the early ‘90s . we toured , released , did all that . the idea became to get into orchestration , what the orchestra of the future might become . this wider idea of recombinant . it’s beyond the group thing .
a cassette reissue of the ' echoes . . . ' demo was released through darkness shade records featuring bonus tracks form the demo recording sessions . this year also saw the band tour heavily playing with the likes of fen , alcest , winterfylleth , skyclad , hecate enthroned and also hosting another mini festival named ' witching hour festival ' . it also saw the bands first visit to scotland . towards the end of the year old corpse road participated in the great exhibition uk mini tour with the prophecy , northern oak and eibon la furies . finishing touches were made to the songs which would soon be recorded for the album .
in 1976 , humon co - founded rhythm & noise , an industrial band and multimedia ensemble that released two albums and set up the compound , a warehouse - cum - studio on the outskirts of san francisco that would become central to his work . humon left rhythm & noise in 1985 and set up sound traffic control to explore the same ideas outside of the constraints of a band format . he met mitzi johnson in the late 1980s and the two got married in 1994 . their union would lead to the birth of asphodel as a label proper .
asphodel had always enjoyed healthy sales across physical formats , like many independent labels of the time . compounding the change of mood in the country , the arrival of file - sharing programs such as napster heralded the demise of the music industry’s established modes of distribution , which would trickle down to independent institutions . in 2003 , apple announced the itunes music store and within a few years many of the distributors that had been vital to labels like asphodel folded . “we stayed independent but once the distributors were gone it became about defining what was really important to go forward , ” humon reminisces with a slightly wistful tone . “the idea became to keep the lab , and focus on that . ” discussing society’s wider shift towards digital creation and consumption , humon , who has witnessed four decades of creativity , is realistic . “to me , most people who buy music aren’t into music , they’re into it for social reasons , ” he states . “it’s a different sort of emphasis . it was more culturally integral in the previous decades . there are still great indie labels doing work but really the context has shifted . ”
anyway , re / search wanted to do cds and had already done volume 1 but were looking for another trajectory to keep the series going and asphodel became that trajectory because ironically asphodel ended up putting out incredibly strange music ( laughs ) . that was our first public release , sort of officially distributed . but when we first went into it we did it as a favour to vale . we were friends and so it became “let’s put out something . ” that was incredibly strange music vol . 2 . and it was jumping on a trajectory they’d started but we loved that whole strain of what was going on and so we wanted to pursue that and see what was going to happen . we put it out , it got some notice and became an internal launch pad for getting this thing out there . it turned out , after a period of time , we were getting better exposure for it than vol . 1 , and it was helping it as well , but that’s what got us on the tracks to start putting out material . that was again… 1995 , 1996 zone when this general premise was occurring .
speaking on the legacy of asphodel , gilbert underlined its uncompromising stance and approach : “incredible artists , incredible albums . i am honoured and proud to have been involved with them . nothing has since come close . ” for asch , without naut there would be no dj olive as we knew him and perhaps no illbient . “the label is naut’s legacy really , ” he admits . “quality sampling from emerging sounds on the meridian between the underground and the popular . a world class grasp of production and mastering while always pushing the boundaries of a surround performance experience . ”
a photo of humon , likely taken in the 1970s , shows him dressed entirely in black with long , pitch - black hair against a bank of modular synthesisers . it’s a look he’d keep throughout his career , somewhere between distinguished and eccentric . gregor asch , who performed as dj olive and was part of brooklyn’s wetm , one of asphodel’s earliest acts , remembers humon as something of a mad scientist : “he had an overall charred charcoal look and i wondered briefly where he parked his broom [ … ] he was 100 % about the music and not at all an industry type . ”
rolling stone named asphodel one of the top 10 independent labels in the world in 1998 . the accolade reflected the label’s risk - taking and its bewildering roster of artists : turntablism from bay area godfathers the invisibl skratch piklz and their new york counterpart the x - ecutioners ; contemporary classical by avant - garde composer iannis xenakis ; chinese folk from min xiao - fen ; downtempo easy listening courtesy of san francisco’s tipsy ; and the elastic beats and dubbed out vibes emanating from brooklyn and manhattan that came to be known as illbient , courtesy of dj spooky , wetm , sub dub , and byzar .
humon and johnson began making regular trips to new york at the same time as asphodel began its journey into strange music . attending shows around town , humon found himself in the midst of both illbient’s happenings — a heady mix of philosophy , art , and music spread around reclaimed spaces in a chaotic urban centre — and dj battles and showcases where scratching was evolving into turntablism , and where he also met a young dj craze from miami whose crew , the allies , debuted on the label in 1999 . “both scenes had mutual respect for each other , especially from illbient to the turntablists , ” he recalls .
one final component of the asphodel machine was its performance aspect , which fell under the umbrella of the recombinant shows . starting in 1996 , the recombinant shows were a direct extension of humon’s performance background and of his sound traffic control outfit , which debuted in japan in 1991 with a performance involving 800 speakers and a physical metaphor for a sonic airport with audience members as passengers idling on an imaginary runway while sonic cargos moved around them . for the new shows , “the idea was to recombine different strains of music and visual art over the course of a presentation to give the audience a broad range and diverse takes . ”
in a pre - digital world , the idea of curation was still rooted in the tradition of cultural institutions interpreting historical heritage . thus if humon and johnson were curators , asphodel was a temporary sonic museum . its collections included “incubated projects” — illbient , turntablism , but also musique concrete and dub — alongside license and distribution of hand - picked artists : the experimental folk of japan’s world standard ; the dub techno of rhythm & sound from berlin ; or the electronic cut - ups of atlanta’s richard devine . “we were interested in all those things , ” humon tells me , “but the content was always the most important . ”
i tried but couldn’t get a hold of naut at the time and it wasn’t until the summer of 2015 that we finally managed to make it happen , thanks to raz mesinai’s help . i decided to use the conversation with naut as a way to delve into the history of asphodel , and his own , for the book as well as for a feature on fact magazine . the idea was to tell the definitive story of a label that many knew but few had ever investigated in depth , a label that had fallen through the cracks of time yet remained important to so many scenes that are part of the book – illbient , turntablism , experimental beats .
in the late 2000s , johnson and humon divorced and with their separation came the decision to also separate the children . humon took the lab with him , which would become rml , while the label would be ended but its catalogue kept alive . “that’s the deal we made , ” he tells me . “i wanted the catalogue to survive and the rights to revert back to the artists . ” due to the circumstances of the split , humon had no real control over the agreement , and while the asphodel catalogue existed for a short while on itunes it has since disappeared , with only a handful of releases available today via artists who have exercised the rights to their catalogue .
humon continues to explore the future with the recombinant media labs , focusing on audio / visual while remaining connected to artists like mixmaster mike and richard devine . there is a sense that he will always be there , somewhere , thinking about what could be done to take things further , to shift the comfort zones . there’s an element of selfishness in wishing for asphodel’s recorded legacy to be available in today’s digital landscape , if only to show younger generations what was possible . at the same time it’s perhaps for the better , and truer to the label’s roots in that mythological flower that grows in the underworld where the sun never shines and souls are left to wander for eternity .
asphodel’s early focus on and support of micro scenes like turntablism and illbient brought it to the attention of a growing underground of hip - hop and electronic outcasts , yet the label remained impossible to pin down , unlike european counterparts like ninja tune or mo’ wax . “we were about the music , ” humon enthuses when i ask what drove him to sign such varied acts . “it was a sincerity with liking the material and also with new things happening , but on a personal level . we didn’t want to go towards a genre - ification of the music . i felt like the flavour , character , and personality of the music coming out of new york really had its own slant . ”
speaking to passion of the weiss in 2010 , mike explained just how much humon taught him : “ [ naut ] approached me and said ‘i want to help you make a record . ’ [ … ] he showed me my first steps in using the tascam da–38 digital recorder . [ … ] he took me from dirty to the nice sounding world , you know ? [ … ] he showed me how to use technology to my advantage , and i give all the glory to that guy . ” discussing the process of putting anti - theft device together , humon recalled the story behind the album’s track ‘surprize packidge’ : “i gave him a bunch of records he’d never heard before , and the track came from that . it really was a surprise , he hadn’t heard any of it before and we used it to make segments that became the final track . ” mike’s debut would go on to sell over 100 , 000 copies worldwide .
the lab has kept growing but the label didn’t want to maintain the responsibility of physical stock nor the digital distribution of the catalogue . that disappointed me . the itunes links are all dead now . of course i wrote to them about it but they didn’t want to do that , they didn’t want to deal with it anymore , it was only a couple left involved . they stopped being responsible for it . there’s still a lot of management involved in just keeping the catalogue alive . i wasn’t able to do it legally . i just wanted the artists to own it again . i never approved of the direction it took . i just tell stories of asphodel now . i have digital recordings of the label , most of it , but i’m philosophically agreeing with you . i wish it’d be done in the correct way .
but mitzi and i decided that instead of flying them out and using stuff here we could get a studio for them , pro tools , mixing board and some gear to set up their own place . so the idea became why don’t we give them resources and we can then have a few of those groups work in nyc , set this stuff up wherever they wanted it and have them run their own operation . put it into the artists’ hand . let them create it with some tools . and if they needed to master or go further with mixing , we had the facility in sf . but how about putting the power into the artists hands . give them the tools , let them manage the studio . co - ordinate between the various people of the illbient scene who were on asphodel . they made their own schedules , creating under their own auspices . so instead of the typical label approach , it was about empowering them , letting them be mobile and put stuff together . they had different technical abilities . some were learning from scratch , some of them had knowledge . like john , who worked with raz , was an engineer , and that’s how raz got more hip to working in the studio . it meant several groups had access to it . the illbient guys , soundlab and whoever wanted to work in the studio and become their own producers in a certain way . and of course different artists would take that to different levels… in terms of how they wanted to do it . that was one of asphodel’s main things , giving technical power over to the artist . some people are territorial about that . excursions in illbient was all mostly done in that studio in nyc .
in ancient greece , the afterlife consisted of three distinct realms . when one died , a coin would be placed in one ' s mouth to pay charon the ferryman to take the soul across the river styx . this coin wasn ' t
payment
exactly as much as a sign of respect between the soul and the gods - the greater the value of the coin , the better seat the soul got in charon ' s boat . once the soul was on the other side , one would pass by the three - headed dog cerberus and then stand before the three judges to give an account of the life one had lived . when the story had been told , and as the judges conferred , one would be given a cup of water from the river lethe , the waters of forgetfulness , and would forget one ' s former life on earth . the judges would then assign the soul a location : if you had been a warrior who died in battle , you went to the elysian fields which were a paradise ; if you had been a good person , you went to the plain of asphodel , also pleasant ; if you had been a bad person , then you went to the darkness of tartarus where the soul remained until it had atoned for the sins of one ' s life . no soul was
condemned to eternal damnation
. the soul in tartarus could become elevated to the plain of asphodel in time . as in the cultures of mesopotamia and egypt , souls were not expected to return to earth for any reason , but sometimes they still did . this same basic paradigm was adopted by the roman culture who held a much more deep - seated belief in ghosts than the greeks .
upon one ' s death , a spiritual entity known as a gidim was created , which maintained the personal identity of the deceased and traveled on to the land of the dead . it was this gidim that would return to haunt the living if proper attention had not been paid to funeral rites and burial or if there had been some unlawful act involved in the person ' s death . inscriptions do make clear , however , that sometimes the gidim could mischievously slip out of irkalla for visits to the earth , where they would harass the living for no good reason . these spirits would be punished by the sun god shamash by having their funerary offerings taken from them and awarded to gidim who had no one to remember them on earth , and so no one to provide them with offerings for their continued existence . although there are records of loved ones returning from the afterlife with warnings or advice , most of the ghosts of mesopotamia were unwelcome guests who were sent back to their realm through the use of charms , amulets , prayers , or exorcism .
but at the start i was going to people’s houses . mike had made all these cassettes , tons of them , racks of cassettes . i wanted to listen to it all and use some of that as sources too . going back through the archives and use a blend of that to be reflected in the record . show the voyage through all these things . i would also do spontaneous things with mike , like give him a bunch of records he’d never heard before . we were sharing how to do stuff . ‘surprize packidge’ , on mike’s record , came from that . it really was a surprise , he hadn’t heart it before and used it to make segments that became the track . we tried all these different techniques of how to put together composition , tracks , different things . i went to mike’s place in vallejo and i listened to all the tapes . i would then tell him what i thought sounded good . guiding the process as an inspirational thing . and recently i’ve gotten back in touch with a lot of these guys . it is kinda coming back after being saturated .
within a few years asphodel became bi - coastal , with its roots in san francisco and a growing outpost in new york spearheaded by erik gilbert , the label manager . gilbert was introduced to the couple by american music club’s wally brill , who suggested he’d be perfect to handle the day - to - day business of running such an operation . at the same time , gilbert had been preparing a move to the east coast . “the fact that erik went to new york and forged an office there allowed us to grow this genuine musical chemistry with the city , ” humon remembers . speaking by email , gilbert , who continues to work in the music business , explained how his initial role was “to arrange a recording agreement with the brian jonestown massacre , who had recorded their second album at naut’s studio , the compound . ” after that , he settled into new york and “set up distribution , pr , radio , and slowly begun to build the label’s infrastructure while naut and mitzi focused on a & r . ”
beyond giving artists the necessary tools , humon was also hands - on in engaging them to upgrade their music making skills . when he first began frequenting turntablist and illbient circles , he was surprised to find that most of the artists weren’t releasing music beyond homemade cassettes . he brings up the example of isp member mixmaster mike , who debuted on the label as a solo artist with 1998’s anti - theft device and joined the beastie boys as their official tour dj soon after . “i would go and visit mike at his place in vallejo and listen to all these cassettes he’d made , ” humon explains . for mike’s debut , naut got the idea to reflect this history in the recordings , by weaving elements throughout . humon became the album’s producer , in the traditional sense — guiding mike’s creativity while teaching him how to work with new technology . “asphodel was trying to enable artists to learn the skills needed to be on their own , ” says humon of his hands - on approach . “i had a customised way that i would be a behind - the - scenes producer . ”
here’s one story related to that . i already had a studio out in sf . we were using new tools back then , late ‘80s , early ‘90s . things like pro tools that enabled new ways of putting records together that was more fresh back then . now it’s standard , part of the methodology . so… being interested in all this stuff and seeing… part of it wasn’t just seeing the musical works or the sets , be it groups or dj sets or the loft thing going on . it was like… how… what’s the best way to work to achieve the best results ? you know , we could have done the thing where we invited people to come to the studio and let them use it . which is what a label might do . bill laswell had that going on in greenpoint already . he’d have people over , releases on different labels . but since our operation had begun in sf , our studio was out of a place called the compound . out on a dirt road , all this stuff going on with it for years . projects we’d do independently , artist residencies… when the nyc thing came into focus and i saw the community there , the musical community that was illbient , i thought if we’re going to work with these people they probably need some resources . they could come out , which they did a little , and work here in the studio with the board and accoutrements .
so i guess… i’d visit new york twelve times a year , seeing how things developed . there was the admin side of things but also this creative side with the studio . that was our option instead of getting them to come out to sf to work on stuff . wetm and others did come out to sf to mix and also do shows . we’d have a bunch of these groups in the show , and turntablists too . this idea of what we started in 1996 called the recombinant shows . it was about recombining different genres and things . electronic stuff from europe with illbient and turntablists . over the course of one or more evenings . asphodel presented it but not just as a label . there’d be people not involved in the label , because we liked it . my idea with recombinant was to put on a great… this idea of recombining different strains over the course of a presentation . dj , hip - hop , illbient , electronic . to give the audience a broad range and diverse takes . that was the start of the recombinant fest which became recombinant media labs , a space for residencies , expanding upon the idea of what we started in the ‘90s . a nice , higher - end studio for experimental projects .
when i refer to recombinant as a party , humon is quick to try and differentiate it from the homogenised standard the word conjures . “it was more about design , we’d design the shows so that different things would happen . putting on a spectacle but in an organised way . ” the shows would sometimes stretch over multiple nights and spaces and involve asphodel and related artists . both humon’s description of the work , heavy on metaphors , and reviews from the time hint at the shows as a meeting point between a standardised musical performance — at the time still a fairly new concept for djs and electronic musicians — and something closer to an art installation , one that is living rather than calcified inside an institution . recombinant shows took place in san francisco , los angeles , new york city and miami with guests including the beat junkies , dj craze and a - trak , as well as the austrian media art group granular synthesis . the recombinant shows would ultimately give way to the rml and cinechamber that occupies humon today . when i tell him how the description of recombinant brings to mind soundlab’s beth coleman’s use of “experiential events” to describe new york’s illbient happenings , he agrees : “today i say that recombinant media labs are experiential engineers . ”
“there was no conscious decision to start a label , it grew out of our experiences and encounters . ” naut humon
“i felt like the flavour , character , and personality of the music coming out of new york really had its own slant . ” naut humon
“i would go and visit mike at his place in vallejo and listen to all these cassettes he’d made . ” naut humon
having spent time in a group in his early years , with rhythm & noise , humon wanted to go beyond the band . “the idea became to get into orchestration , what the orchestra of the future might become , ” he remembers . “i always felt my role wasn’t just that of a musician , someone who played in a band , but of a sound traffic controller , who conducts and conveys sound traffic as it moves through various spaces . ” the january 1997 edition of the wire magazine summarised recombinant’s first san francisco show : “an open - ended work in progress , a petri dish of sonic emergences and unexpected comminglings , the event was a breath of fresh air in an often insular town . ”