News

Hey! You! Here's your chance to advertise your band/company/radio show/stuff in our fancy Mint fanzine!

If you haven't seen it yet, we've been printing Fresh Breath of Mint for two years now and our Fall '07 issue (number 7 to be precise) is coming out soon. Now, Why would I want to be involved, you may ask yourself...

Well, in Johnny Cusack's High Fidelity fashion, here are our top 5 reasons:

5) Fresh Breath of Mint is Fun! Who wouldn't want their ad sitting next to Carolyn Mark's recipe for potato salad?

4) We work really really hard to get FBOM to you, the music fan! And so do our record shop friends, distributors, non-music store pals, touring bands, campus radio stations, and our lovely street teamers across the country.

3) And, FBOM is consumed rapidly by music fans across the country. Just ask our friend Aaron, at KMA.

2) And, it is not just in consumed rapidly in our country, FBOM has been sighted in other countries too! We've previously distributed copies at SXSW (12,000 copies!!) and other conferences and events (such as Mint shows).

1) We've got big plans for our next issue! Along with our regular mail-outs, 6,000 copies shall be released into the wild at CMJ.

Fresh Breath of Mint #7 is due out on October 1, 2007, and we are anticipating a split run for this 64-pager: a minimum of 9,000 copies in the USA and 9,000 copies in Canada. (Interestingly, for Issue #6, we had intended to make 4,000 copies of a 40 page issue, but demand was such that we made 12,000 and expanded it to 56 pages!)

Here are some ad rates for our Fall Issue (number 7):

full page (5.5" wide x 8.5" high) CAD $250 + gst
1/2 page (5.5" wide x 4.125" high) CAD $150 + gst
1/4 page (2.625" wide x 4.125" high) CAD $100 + gst
1/8 page (2.625" wide x 1.937" high) CAD $50 + gst

booking deadline: August 25, 2007
artwork/payment deadline: August 31, 2007

format:

PDF, EPS, TIF, or JPEG
Illustrator AI or EPS
300 dpi greyscale -- please allow for newsprint dot gain

If you have any questions, please email Shena.

The Pack AD are sending out postcards from their upcoming USA tour. If you like seeing things other than bills in the mail, send your name and address to info@mintrecs.com (preferably before March 8th) and Becky or Maya will personally write you a postcard from their tour. After their big Canadian tour last summer, Becky and Maya learned that touring results in many hours of driving. And, to help relieve the boredom that comes with traveling long long distances, Becky and Maya plan on embracing the lost art that is letter writing, packing an archaic typewriter in their tour van and updating their friends with handwritten postcards. Neat!

As of today, only 42 more days remain until Bella's Mint debut, No One Will Know, is out. Yes, we can't wait for September 18th to come, and to share that warm and fuzzy feeling, we're going to let you in on a little secret.

You can download "Give it a Night" (the first single) from No One Will Know here!

For the past 13+ years, Mint Records has been headquartered in the Dominion Building in Vancouver. In other words, for the past 13+ years, Mint Records has been neighbours with what is commonly known as the Downtown Eastside, or also recognized as the poorest postal code in Canada. We've long considered the fact that we are mere visitors to the area (in more ways than one), there to do work, then eventually vacating the area until the next day, and have often wondered about all the hundreds of people who call the DTES home, and who can't leave like we can, and who face a daily at-risk reality whose depths we can only fathom to imagine.

It was with this in mind that we thought that we should put our money where our mouth is, and contribute in some fashion to the PHS Community Services Society -- namely by turning the Mint Records Xmas nights at the Railway into PHS benefits.

The PHS Community Services Society is a nonprofit society that manages a number of social housing projects in the Downtown Eastside, including the Portland Hotel, where several members of local musical groups have worked and work, providing support, services, and resources to its residents and other high-risk individuals in the community.

Coco Culbertson of Mint Records' The Choir Practice was a key figure in the Portland Hotel Society, and she had this to say: "The PHS has done incredible amounts of good for the community. I could go on and on about the groundbreaking, tireless and innovative accomplishments for the most voiceless and marginal that the PHS is fiercely committed to....but i will just say PHS rocks. Good choice."