Salomons, Dickies and boiler suits - stamping art onto plastic at Holiday Records

by Liam Watters (he/him)

contributing writer

Illustration by Haydn Nixon (he/him)

At Holiday Records, we’ve had countless writers, interviewers and videographers through our doors to pick my bosses’ brains about the process of stamping someone’s art onto plastic. I had never intently thought of my workplace as a community as far as the word goes. But Holiday is a community at its core. It’s the flashpoint and physical manifestation of a scene and global shared interest of music as an artform.

That being said, it can be monotonous work at times. Every single record gets pressed, checked, sleeved, jacketed, boxed and shipped. On and on, sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. From the outside, it looks as if we are a group of musos cosplaying as blue collar workers. The contrast between our long haircuts, Telfar bags and Salomons, and our Dickies-sponsored workwear shirts and boiler suits is something to behold.

From the outside, it looks as if we are a group of musos cosplaying as blue collar workers. The contrast between our long haircuts, Telfar bags and Salomons; and our Dickies-sponsored workwear shirts and boiler suits is something to behold.

Much like any factory environment, there is a hierarchy. I, myself, am at the bottom of the food-chain. As a ‘Sleeving Weapon’ (as described on the job listing), it is up to me and three others to individually check, clean, trim and package up every record that passes through the machine. You’d think this type of work would be automated by now, but until robots can simultaneously check for microscopic flaws, misaligned labels and excess material while holding a beer in one hand, I’d say my job is safe.

The next rung on the Holiday community hierarchy is the fabled presser. There are currently three pressers operating within the whole of New Zealand. Their names are Tom Henderson, Tom Aitchison and Damon Arts, and they are ultimately the ones responsible for our output of high quality records. They intently monitor a range of factors, like the temperature of the raw PVC, and any flaws and imperfections that can arise while a run is underway.

You’d think this type of work would be automated by now, but until a machine can simultaneously check for microscopic flaws, misaligned labels and excess material while holding a beer in one hand, I’d say my job is safe.

I am at a loss about what they do all day. It seems to be a blend of engineering, jerry-rigging and having the expansive knowledge and immense passion required to keep a half-a-million dollar piece of machinery running smoothly. The pressers are usually separated from the sleevers by an inch-thick pane of glass. This is largely to keep out the overbearing noise of the press, while also sparing the pressers from our inane conversation. Despite this transparent barrier, we still find a way to communicate with each other. Be it the hand signal for a coffee from Cafe Mocha down the street, or a particularly dry in-joke where we try and get each other to yawn; this sense of separation between the two halves of Holiday is a barrier in the physical sense only.

Above the presser tier of the Holiday ladder are our directors, Ben Wallace and Joel Woods. Ben and Joel are the founders, owners and operators of Holiday. They started the business in 2018 as a record store before transitioning into a pressing plant, to both fill the growing demand for plastic discs and to voluntarily bring a shitload of stress into their lives. Ben personifies the duality of man. Although he’s always immersed in his work, he still manages to be an extremely personable and social leader when dealing with artists and staff. Nowhere is this patience and personability more apparent than during the conversations Ben has to endure between myself and my two sleeving partners, Sam and Fletcher. When you spend hours on end facing two other people, the conversation can spiral into some pretty dire tangents about the omnipresent ‘Joe Cool’. Ben seems to be attuned to blocking this out for the most part, although there are moments we see the headphones rise. Overall, I’d say Ben ‘tolerates’ this sense of community we nurture on a daily basis.

Joel has been living in the Netherlands for the past eleven months, getting in his OE with the J1 visa before it’s too late. Despite this, and the time zone difference, Joel is a wizard when it comes to Holiday’s design aesthetic, marketing and artist communications, and we look forward to having him back in August. The story of how Holiday started has already been told before, most eloquently by The Spinoff and Hello Zukeen, so to not flog a dead horse I implore you to read what they had to say.

Ultimately, Holiday Records is a business. And at the heart of our business is the artists, who seek us out and trust us to press their music onto wax. We see everyone - from local legends like Tom Scott and The Beths, to random small-town geezers who just want their passion project in a physical medium. It’s by far the most gratifying part of the job, where the community aspect of our work comes into play. Anyone with the means and the talent can press and produce an album at Holiday, although many smaller acts don't get the chance.

In saying that, we recently shared a competition, ‘Waxed’, with Australian cultural outfit, Monster Children, for an up-and-coming artist to win a run of 300 records pressed and printed with us free of charge. We had a staggering 800 entries from across Australasia, further highlighting how big this community really is. Vinyl sales for 2022 were 41 million units globally. Of those, approximately 300,000 units were pressed by us. This huge demand for physical titles is somewhat re-democratising the industry, especially in the age of streaming. When an artist presses an album on vinyl, it builds a community around their music. It enables them to commoditise their brand, leave a lasting impression and ultimately give them the means to pursue their vision. With this support, it creates a fantastic space where artists and their fans can feed off each other to further develop and interpret the work strenuously put out there via Holiday.

Holiday Records as a space is an industrial parody. Yet it is the nucleus of a community that manifests itself as a physical medium. It is not just the concept of music as a physical medium that I find incredible, it is how a community of music collection, celebration and consumption can be born out of a team of eight people in Tāmaki Makaurau.