Any person who has run a label for knocking on a quarter of a century is someone I want to talk to.

Ghostly International was launched in 1999 by Sam Valenti with a single by fledgling producer Matthew Dear which would go on to be sampled on a global hit by Fedde Le Grand. You know the one.

This episode is actually almost a sequel to episode 077 with Shawn Reynaldo. Of course we discuss Ghostly, and particularly the early period of the label, but I really want to pick Sam's brain on a few of the key issues which came out of that episode from a few weeks ago.

So we discuss issues including the decline of local scenes, the value of gatekeepers, the comparative lack of anthems in contemporary music, as well as his substack project Herb Sundays.

This was a good one, you're gonna enjoy it!

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features regular bonus podcasts and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation there in the public channels, so please do!

Listen to all the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

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201: Kaleb Irving on Gun Culture on the Ground Level, Repenting America