Music Mogul Builds an Exotica Empire
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Lee Joseph may not run the world’s largest music label, but he’s made a mark with lovers of exotica, Tiki, surf, garage, and more—close to 500 LPs, 45s, and even 78s over the past 30 years. And the hits keep coming.
Recent releases from his Dionysus Records on vinyl – often colored vinyl – include work from The Martini Kings, Jason Lee and the R.I.P. Tides, and Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited. Joseph has several other related labels as well.
“I’ve kind of existed on an underground, outsider level as far as music goes,” says Joseph, who splits his time between an apartment in Burbank and a ranch-style home in Joshua Tree, both filled with records, art, vintage fashion, and mid-century modern furnishings.
“I’m a one-person record label. I pretty much put out what I like.”
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He’s excited that one of the bands on his label, Creepxotica, is about to play at the 60th anniversary of the Bali Hai, a legendary Polynesian eatery in San Diego. The event is October 30.
Joseph keeps busy. His other career is in public and press relations, handling such clients as La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles (it shows “pop surrealism”), the popular event Tiki Oasis, and Designer Con, an event all about collectible toys and urban art.
He promotes events focusing on collectible beer coasters, burlesque and other quasi-decadent aspects of mid-century living, and taxidermy art.
Joseph also plays bass in a couple of bands, the Dickless Jane and the New Confusions and The Unclaimed, the band that first attracted Joseph to Los Angeles in 1984.
On top of that, Joseph hosts a radio show, ‘Over Under Sideways Down,’ on Luxuriamusic.com, out of Glendale, every Wednesday afternoon from 3 to 5. His program is on at this writing and is doling out doo-wop.
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These are many activities indeed, though they all revolve around late 1950s, early 1960s culture of a particular, perhaps peculiar, sort.
When not doing something involved with exotica, surf, garage rock, or PR, and sometimes while doing these things, Joseph and his girlfriend enjoy their dogs, a miniature Italian greyhound in her case, a “lunatic” recently rescued terrier in his.
“Once you find something you really love and really get involved in, it becomes your universe,” Joseph says. “It surrounds you.”
“I started the label in the mid-1980s because I really hated contemporary music and wanted to release music that sounded like it was from the mid-1960s,” he says
Packaging is professional, with superb sound and graphics. Shag did some of the early covers; and Joseph, who loves the Capitol Records and Liberty cover art from the mid-century, art directs.
“I believe every one of my album covers you could frame and put it on your wall and it would look like a piece of art. It would be a piece of art.”
But, no, Dionysus Records offers no challenge to the Universal Music Group in this sad era of shrinking recorded music sales. At Dionysus, sales are down markedly from the 1990s.
“To begin with, I had a very cult, niche thing anyway so I didn’t sell a lot of records,” Joseph says, adding, “I’m lucky in that the label has a very distinctive thing, in terms of being retro.”
“It’s choosing the right project,” he says of his record business strategy. “It absolutely has to be something I love or I won’t do it.”
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