Everything Is Curation For DB Burkeman

You were a renowned DJ for many years before launching Blurring Books. Tell me about your route to where you are now. Why did you want to start a publishing house? Why books?

The simple answer is that I had been in the music business for 30 odd years. When Covid-19 hit, I lost my job doing A&R for a booking agency and I knew that I was now too old to be hired by another music company. I had already produced three successful books for Rizzoli, but I also knew that I couldn’t make a living doing that with any corporate publishing company. So I thought, if I could control the whole process, maybe I could make a living by publishing books myself. 

While we are not losing money, the jury is still out on whether Blurring Books can raise the kind of income needed to pay living wages to everyone who works with us, and to support my family in the way that they deserve and were accustomed to when I had a music business job. But we do have our first hit and that’s very exciting! THE UNBELIEVABLY FANTASTIC ARTISTS' STICKER BOOK.

Relatedly, you are or have been, a DJ, record producer, writer, curator and publisher. Do you consider yourself to be any one thing over the other? 

Even though I was a professional DJ for 30 years, and once spent a full year in the studio making an album, I’m definitely not a record producer or a musician and I don’t believe that DJs should call themselves that. I’m also barely literate, having dropped out of school at 16 with undiagnosed learning disabilities – ADHD, OCD, Dyslexia and recently discovered Dyscalculia, which is Dyslexia for numbers. There’s no way that I could be doing Blurring Books without a lot of hand-holding, input and incredible help from Elliott (Lila) Rogers and Sean Johnson, who are the infrastructure of BB. They are the ones keeping the wheels on the track. 

If I had to describe one title that ties all my various jobs together, I would say that I am a curator. 

What do you think draws you to working in different mediums like this? 

That’s not an easy question to answer. I am definitely driven to create things. However, more than that, I've always been a collector – of records, art, toys, sneakers and various types of ephemera like stickers, rave flyers and concert ticket stubs. (When she’s overwhelmed by all my stuff, my wife calls me a hoarder).

I think I’m also a compulsive archivist. That impulse has led to some successful books: STICKERS: From Punk Rock to Contemporary Art (which ran across two volumes) and ART SLEEVES. We’re currently working on the second volume of ART SLEEVES, as part of which I want to feature more interviews with important fine artists who have designed record covers for fun. 

Another of my passions is showing the origins of things. For instance, kids worldwide know the Supreme logo, but few know that this logo was a riff on the artist Barbara Kruger's 1980’s sociopolitical works. There are lots of examples of that type of thing – the inception of something that’s now become commonplace in our visual lexicon – in my books.

Do you feel creatively satisfied?

Yes and no. I wish I had more time and the bandwidth to do more. I’m like a teenager when I get an idea to make a new book. In some ways I believe that it keeps me young, mentally at least. 

What do you look for in the books that you publish? What makes you want to put something out on Blurring Books?

There’s no one factor. We have done books with people because we think it’s a good, funny, dark or economically sensible idea. 

We definitely have a real interest in preserving niche areas of culture and ephemera, spanning the histories of New York and London, stickers, drugs, flyers, and rare record covers. By representing these lost cultures, books can make them physical again: they become something that’s eternal. 

We’re also very invested in showcasing underrepresented people and histories. One forthcoming book that I’m excited about is TRiP MAGAZEEN, a collection of US rave zines from 1992-1994. These zines were rare even at the time, and of course they never existed online! They have incredible features, like the first interview in an American publication with Richard James, AKA Aphex Twin.

Blurring Books is on a mission. We want to show that there’s a way to make the publishing process more fun, inclusive, transparent, in favour of the book's creators, and potentially more profitable too! I really want to see what happens with our socialist-minded model when a big writer wants to do a book with us. I believe they will make more money than with a traditional corporate publisher. 

Of every book that you’ve put out, what project have you learned the most from?

That’s easy. The very first Sm;)e book was done using the crowdfunding website Kickstarter, which we discovered is very effective both as a litmus test of how popular an idea is, and also to raise funds to produce a book. However, once we had printed 3,000 books, we realised we could only sell 150 of them ourselves and we were stuck. It took me another two years to get a real distributor. With each book we've produced, we've learned something positive and we continue to do so. 

Is there anyone you look to in terms of publishing? 

There are so many small presses I’m a fan of. Off the top of my head, Colpa in San Francisco, Primary Information in NYC, KARMA for artist monographs, Dashwood for photography. The list goes on and one. Every time I go into Printed Matter and see all the new releases by presses I’ve never heard of, it's encouraging.

What are you reading, or rereading, currently? 

Since having kids, my ADHD has ramped up to 11. I’m actually not really able to read a book anymore, so the advent of technology like audible and other apps which read long emails and articles from magazines have really helped me. I listen to How Long Gone three times a week, it’s a podcast by two cynical guys in New York and LA that keeps me somewhat in touch with current affairs in pop culture. I love both Adam Buxton and Louis Theroux’s podcasts too. I also recently went down a crazy rabbit hole, listening to Joshua Citarella and his Memes as Politics show. In terms of books, recently I’ve been listening to Michael Lewis. I’ve also learnt some things from my son Max’s very good magazine, SAP.

Where do you feel most at home, and why?

At home with my wife, Wini, eating her chicken soup and watching reruns of Seinfeld.