Words and photos by Rafe Arnott except where credited. Photo above: Mike Zimmer at home, working on another piece of artwork for an unsuspecting LP buyer.
Coincidences are funny things. Their quirky nature tends to denote them as less foreboding than the taglines which chance, fate or destiny can imply. So it was coincidence when I found out I work my day job with none other than Zim Zimy – Discogs art disciple and ‘Dark Jazz’ aficionado. Zimy, real name Mike Zimmer, may be a working stiff by day, but by night his artistic personae takes over, and one can find him toiling over LP shipping cartons – transforming them from mundane box to abstract, painted travelogue. Every cardboard sleeve a graphic translation of the cover art of said LP being sold. He is, as far as I know, the only person going to the trouble of illustrating his shipping boxes on Discogs.
You see, I’d been unwittingly aiding Zimmer’s cladestine artistic efforts for months by bringing him LP shipping cartons I’d received from my online vinyl purchases. I was under the impression I was contributing to the recycle circle, simply supplying Zimmer with used carboard sleeves to mail out his own LP sales, but instead I found out I’d been contributing the most basic level of visual art: supplying the canvas. I’d have continued on with this charade unabated if Zimmer hadn’t let it slip one day that a particuarly beat up LP carton would provide a “great texture to paint on…” What on earth was he going on about? Paint? Texture? I scractched my beard and cocked my head sideways until it dawned on me – he was using the cartons not just to ship out the LPs he’d been selling, but as art transmissons.
Resistor Mag: What are your thoughts on Discogs? Did you start to use it alot more during the pandemic when record stores were closed?
Mike Zimmer: “I think Discogs is a really great tool in order to catalog your collection. I actually spent the Christmas holidays at my dad's place in Saskatchewan, going through my old CDs and cataloging those. It took me a week and I still didn't get through them all. It just made me think about how much money I wasted in my teenage years and in my twenties. All those hard earned A&W dollars went straight to HMV and Records On Wheels in Regina. So I think something like their database is really unmatched. When it comes to the marketplace, I really like hunting for the exact pressing I want, and discogs makes that easy. On eBay and other places, you have to do a bit more digging to find exactly what you want.
“That's part of the reason why I started using the marketplace as a buyer during the pandemic, because I really started getting into the sound of different pressings. I had a few albums that I bought directly from the artist or label and it sounded like garbage. I started to learn, ‘oh wait, different versions of the same album can sound way different.’
“In terms of being a seller, I don't remember selling anything pre-pandemic. But definitely because of not going to shows and not traveling. Most of my expendable income went into the collection. Thus it has turned into, ‘man I got to get rid of some of this stuff, it’s gotten bloated and I’m going broke,’ ha ha. So that's kind of where I started selling. Too many late nights and rabbit holes making strange orders."
Photo Left: A mailer for the Canadian indie rockers The Besnard Lake Are The Dark Horse, released through Jagjaguwar in 2007. Photo by Mike Zimmer.
Photo below, Right: The 2013 Profound Lore Records release by Subrosa, More Constant Than The Gods, get's the Zimy translation to mailer. Photo by Mike Zimmer.
Mike Zimmer: Like pre-ordering things before they come out. You haven't even heard the album, then when it comes to your door and you're like, ‘oh, this isn't as good at all.’ Like one instance is the brand new Tomahawk album. My buddy and I got excited and pre-ordered a copy each, and it got here, before the actual release date mind you, which is cool, but we spun it and…yeah, disappointment. We tried to give it time, and tried to get into it. But, needless to say, there's two copies of Tomahawk’s new album for sale on our Discogs page. Actually the sealed one sold, but the other is still here.
I know I'm getting kind of long winded here with my history with Discogs. But I feel like I should get to some opinions on it. There's certain things, certain updates that they've made that I do like, that I haven't looked at yet. Stuff like you can bulk price your stuff. Like if you wanted to do a sale, you can give all your albums 10 per cent off type of thing or, stuff like that. I did not like when they changed to flat-rate shipping. However, it does make it easier as a buyer, but it sucked as a seller. It took us the longest time just to calibrate how expensive it was going to be to ship stuff, domestically or overseas, (I say ‘us’ because what is sold on my page is from both mine and my friend Doug Colleaux’s collections). Now we're kind of at a point now where we're not losing money on shipping.
“Anyway, with the fees going up. I mean, yeah, you got to have fees in order to run a business. I don't know. I think Discogs is just a necessary evil. It'd be nice to see a competitor so that they can't just make changes willy nilly without some sort of accountability? Plus PayPal, I feel like it's good in terms of buying and selling, you're protected. PayPal's pretty good. I found I had good experience having my payments sort of protected and feeling confident in sending money and receiving money. The service fees. Again, it's a necessary evil. I know a lot of people shit on Discogs, but I mean for the most part, there's nowhere else. There's nowhere else that has the database. It's tough. Hard times. "It's hard times for the working man." – Dusty Rhodes”
Photo below: Zimmer pondering artwork in his vinyl collection.
Resistor Mag: Do you considerself an audiophile or a music lover?
Mike Zimmer: “This is an easy one. I would say first and foremost, I'm a music lover. However, with the last few years of collecting, I've really started to appreciate more of the nuances of what records can sound like. I'm not so much of a gearhead. My set-up is pretty simple and basic, but serves many functions. Like my Edifier speakers have Bluetooth and analog inputs. I can wirelessly stream my Apple TV or hit one button to switch to my turntable.
"But there are certain records that I've sought out because someone said, ‘this is the most amazing sounding jazz record’ or ‘this is the most amazing sounding rock record’, or ‘this is the most amazing sounding metal record.’ I have a Quality Records pressing of Dave Brubeck - Time Out. It sounds so good. I like it when I have people over who don’t know much about vinyl and I'm like, ‘hey, this is what records can sound like.’ Also, really one of my ‘grails’ as people say, is an original European version of Rage Against the Machine’s self-titled album from '92. I've heard reviews and reports saying it’s the best sounding record for that style. Then when I have non jazz loving friends over they have something more relatable to listen to.”
Photo Below: Zimmer said he spends an average of about one hour on each painted mailer, and has received pictures from buyers of the mailers framed or mounted as art.
Resistor Mag: Do you have an art background, or did you just start painting?
Mike Zimmer: “I guess art was just sort of something I always enjoyed in elementary school. I thought maybe that’s what I was going to do. I was going to be an illustrator. Then in high school I thought, maybe I'll just be an architect and draw buildings. But then I realized that it was more complicated than that, and you actually had to be good at math. That didn't really seem fun to me. I’ll also add that I was never that great at drawing either. My stuff always came out more abstract – ha ha.
"So I have painted before, but it was always just another medium. I would have an idea and this is how to follow through with that idea, whether it's photography or film or drawing or anything like that. Paint was just another medium to facilitate an idea like a saw or a screwdriver would be. Perhaps all of this stemmed from watching my grandma when I was a toddler. She looked after me during the day while my parents were at work and we watched soap operas. And sometimes she woud go in her little office and paint, with acrylics or oil based, I can’t remember. I remember she once painted me a car, and she painted me a portrait of my pet guinea pig. I still have those somewhere. So, maybe that's where the interest in art came from.”
Resistor Mag: How did you come up with the idea to paint your LP shipping boxes?
Mike Zimmer: “So I had to do a little bit of background thinking on this one to figure out. I don't fully remember exactly how it went down, the original idea came from my girlfriend at the time – Emily. I just started getting into records near the end of 2018. Then the pandemic hits in 2020. At that time, we were living together and she stopped working and she started painting a lot to pass the time. I had some LP mailers laying around with the intention of reusing them because I bought a small box of random dollar bin records off a guy on Craigslist. I came home from work one day to find my girlfriend had painted a few of the mailers. They were fully painted with weird abstract designs and all different. So, I ended up using them for my first sales. It has since evolved into painting an abstract representation of the album art. So, those get painted as an order comes in. For instance, right now I'm working on a Miles Davis, Get Up With It order, and if you know that album cover, it's just a sepia photo of Miles with these god awful hexagon frame glasses. They're just giant. I'm not doing a good job on the painting, I hate painting people’s faces! So those ones are truly abstract. But that order just came in yesterday and will probably go out tomorrow morning. I usually spend about an hour on each mailer.Mike Zimmer: “So anyway, the idea was ultimately my ex-girlfriend's. And when she started working again, she had no time to paint. So I had to take over and do it myself. She only really did it for a few months though. I also have silly handwritten notes that go with the orders. It usually goes something like, ‘Hey, thanks for your order. Sorry I got paint all over your mailer, don't worry, the record is in good condition and hopefully arrives safe – let me know when it gets there. Thanks again.’ Usually something like that. Just kind of stream of consciousness, full of spelling mistakes and crappy grammar.”
Resistor Mag: How’s the response been? I imagine positive overall?
Mike Zimmer: “I’d say the response overall has been generally good. Some people actually even keep the box and frame it, which is pretty cool. I've gotten pictures from people having it hung on their wall. Some people you don't get any feedback from and you just think, ‘oh, they threw it away,’ which is fine. I mean, I'm not one of these people that thinks all art is meant to be appreciated. Some of it is disposable. I've had people ask me, Isn't it hard to give your artwork away like that? And I know artists who find it a very hard thing to do. But I’m not an artist."
Photo above: Zimmer's Technics SL-D2 turntable, part of a modest sound system that allows him to explore his music collection without worry.
“I’m sure some of the mailers are now in the garbage somewhere. I know of one person that was very displeased with it. Saying he would prefer the album be shipped right away, rather than having to wait for me to paint a box in which he has no interest in. Like I said, it really only takes me an hour to do then leave it overnight to dry. But, you know, some people have no patience.
“There was one buyer with over 3,000 positive reviews on Discogs. I asked him, what's the weirdest thing you ever got, like a mailer or whatever? And he's said he’s never had someone paint the box before. So, I guess I'm the only one painting the mailers. I've gotten some with little doodles on it. Some send a free record, or stickers, or a little handbills. So that's cute. But I guess according to this guy, we (I) are the only ones doing painted mailers.
“Anyway, ultimately art is for sharing. That's my point.”
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