About Crashing Through

Crashing Through is a small publicity firm based in Athens, Georgia that creates and launches press campaigns for independent record labels.

Mike Turner, Owner / Publicist

Mike Turner has spent his entire life obsessed with music, starting with a childhood spent compiling data about Casey Kasem’s Top 40 countdown to his current position as record store manager, record label owner, and concert promoter. As a teenager, older siblings and fellow BMX bikers got him into underground music and he became obsessed with labels like SST, Dischord, 4AD, and Rough Trade. While still in high school, he began taking college classes just so he could work at the local college radio station WKGC.

After a brief stint studying graphic design, Mike returned home and started publishing The Bee’s Knees, an influential magazine than ran from 1995-2005 and featured some of the earliest interviews with Suede, Olivia Tremor Control, the Shins, and many others. To celebrate its 5th anniversary, Mike decided to release a compilation CD. It sold out of its initial pressing, and continued to sell so well that he decided to take all the money and start a label called Happy Happy Birthday To Me records (later shortened to the much more pleasant HHBTM). Faced with a label to promote, Mike formed Yum Yum publicity, a small firm that worked some of the earliest records for Dirty Projectors, Yacht, Bearsuit, and many more.

Since most of his friends, along with most of his label’s roster, were already living there, Mike decided to move to Athens, Georgia in 2004. To celebrate, he threw a four-day party that soon became an annual event. Athens Popfest has featured artists like Daniel Johnston, Throwing Muses, Roky Erickson, The Dead Milkmen, Mission of Burma, and of Montreal, just to name a few. Within a year, Mike became manager at Wuxtry Records, one of the top indie record stores in the country, and faced with only so many hours in the day, quit working on The Bee’s Knees and the publicity firm to focus on his label, which up until then had been more of a hobby.

In the last couple of years, HHBTM has experienced unprecedented success for a label run by a guy working out of his bedroom and doing his own publicity, particularly in the UK. Bands have been featured in NPR, Village Voice, Spin, Drowned In Sound, KEXP, Clash Music, Bust, Performer, Vice, Collapse Board, and many more.

With friends in bands and people at other labels asking for his help and advice, Mike has decided to get back into the publicity business. Still in love with music after all these years, and still in love with the underground.

PRESS CAMPAIGNS

Crashing Through creates and executes press campaigns for albums, singles, tours, books, or events. We will tailor a campaign that is appropriate for you and your project that includes getting reviews, placing news stories, getting information out about tour dates, placing tracks for streaming or download, setting up interviews and features, and anything else you might be looking for.

BIO / PRESS KIT

A writer sees your press release before they ever hear a note of your music, and so we place a premium on great writing. Crashing Through will craft a bio and press kit that emphasizes the uniqueness of your project and helps you to stand out from the crowd.