Behind the scene

Independent record labels boost musicians in Madison and beyond

by

After nine years of trying to make it as a musician in New York City, Wisconsin native Nate Meng packed up and moved to Madison in 2014. He got a gig hosting the Sunday night open mic at the Tip Top Tavern, building it over the last four years into a popular local jam session known as a friendly place for up-and-comers to workshop new music. One night in 2016, Meng was watching a performance from blues singer-songwriter Andrew Christensen when he had the spark of an idea.

Meng, who fronts the indie-folk band Nate Meng and the Stolen Sea, turned to his friend and fellow musician, Ryan Lansing. “We started talking about how amazing it was and how great the songs were,” Meng says, “and what a shame it was that he didn’t have a record we could listen to.”

Lansing, who has a home studio and extensive experience recording his band, the Werewolverine, said he could help Christensen make an album. Meng loved the idea and quickly took it a step further: “We should start a record label and make everyone’s records that we want.”

The next day, Meng reached out to his friend and longtime musical collaborator, Jess Estes, who works as a graphic designer in Los Angeles, and asked her to be part of the project. The trio eventually picked the name Sunday Night Records, a nod to the label’s origin — and the artists it represents. “Every single person we work with I’ve met and signed at the [Tip Top Tavern] open mic,” Meng says. “The place, the owners, the staff, the people who hang out there, the vibe — it’s why we’re called Sunday Night Records.”

Since launching, Sunday Night Records has released three albums, put together a talented “house band” for the label, and formed relationships with a growing number of artists from the Tip Top Tavern open mic. Their first release was an album of “existential comedy” and spoken-word storytelling from Francisco Rodriguez, aka Frandu, one of Madison’s strangest and most wonderful performers. It might seem an unusual choice to debut a new label, but Meng, Lansing and Estes have a deep love for the charming Frandu and felt a need to capture his work.

Small, independent record labels like Sunday Night Records exist all over the world. Often run by individual artists or bands, creative collectives, recording studios or local record stores, they range in scope from one-person DIY operations to large companies. In 2017, such labels generated $6 billion and made up just over 38 percent of the global recorded music market share, according to a report from the Worldwide Independent Network, an industry trade group.

But the role of independent labels has changed dramatically over the years, and some argue that they could become obsolete — advancements in technology have made it easier than ever for artists to self-release their music, and streaming services like Spotify, Soundcloud and Bandcamp have disrupted the traditional distribution and revenue models. But for many — especially those running labels in Madison — these operations are passion projects. Typically running on a shoestring budget, independent record labels can’t promise fame and fortune for their artists. But they can offer guidance and financial support during the album-making process while also helping market and promote the release. And they often serve as a hub for creative collaboration and community building. Labels also lend legitimacy to an artist — even if it’s just for show.

“You don’t make money doing this, just like you don’t make money being in a band. I do it because I love music,” says Bobby Hussy, a Madison musician who runs a punk label called No Coast Records. “To me, it’s more about putting out something that has fallen through the cracks, something that I strongly believe in.”

Hussy believes the presence of independently run record labels in a city can boost local acts and raise the overall profile of the local music community. “It makes the scene legitimate, especially when people from outside the scene see that,” Hussy says. “I think they make the scene stronger — massively.”

There are dozens of independent record labels based in Madison, each with a different identity and approach to releasing music. Some focus on local artists, some work with regional acts, and others have national and even international reach. The best-known local operation is actually the newest one in town — the well-respected punk label Dirtnap Records. It’s run by Madison native Ken Cheppaikode, who moved operations to his hometown last year after nearly two decades in Portland, Oregon.

“I can run the label from anywhere at this point,” says Cheppaikode, who represents a solid roster of bands and distributes records all over the world. He is Dirtnap’s only full-time employee, but he has a network of associates spread all over the country — a licensing guy in the Bay Area, a social media specialist in Los Angeles, an accountant in Arizona, a graphic designer in Milwaukee, and an attorney and publicist in Portland.

Now 46, Cheppaikode spent his 20s bouncing between Madison and the West Coast, working in record stores and distribution warehouses and dreaming of starting his own label. While living in Seattle in the late ’90s, he launched an online radio show — “Dirtnap Radio” — where he gained a loyal following playing the obscure punk music he loved. At the urging of his listeners, he started putting out a few one-off releases as part of a mail order service, but the label took off in earnest when he signed Seattle punk band The Briefs. Cheppaikode remembers pressing 1,000 copies of their album and worrying he’d be stuck with a mountain of vinyl, but the record sold 10,000 copies almost immediately. “They were a great first band — they would tour constantly and talk up this great new Seattle label.”

Things have slowed down a bit for Dirtnap since its heydey in the mid-2000s, when it was putting out as many as 17 new releases per year, but since relocating to Madison, Dirtnap has signed two excellent Wisconsin bands — Madison power-pop outfit Proud Parents and Milwaukee punk band Fox Face. Cheppaikode doesn’t anticipate working with too many more local bands at this point, but he does have one project in the works: a Smart Studios compilation album featuring bands that recorded at the legendary Madison studio.

Cheppaikode says Dirtnap has become “bigger than [he] ever dreamed,” and he credits the success to the fact that he’s taken care to cultivate a distinctive sound and aesthetic. “From day one, establishing an identity for the label has been important,” he says. But if he had to start a label today, he isn’t sure he could replicate the outcome. “These days it’s easier than ever to put out a record,” Cheppaikode says, “but it’s harder than ever to get anyone to care.”

If there’s such a thing as a “Madison sound,” Erick Fruehling is attempting to capture it via his cassette label, Rare Plant. He jokes that it’s a “glorified tape-dubbing service,” but over the past two years he’s put out 35 releases, almost all from local bands. Rare Plant started as an avenue for Fruehling to release his own music in a physical format (he plays in local punk bands Dumb Vision and Fire Heads), but he quickly realized he could provide a valuable service for his friends and others in the music community. Some might think of cassette tapes as an outmoded medium, but for DIY musicians, they never really went away. They’re definitely still niche, but their popularity is on the rise. In 2017, cassette tape sales rose by 35 percent, according to a report from Nielsen Music. About 22 percent of that increase is probably people buying Guardians of the Galaxy mixtapes, but major artists like Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift have released albums on cassette.

Fruehling compares tapes to “business cards” for bands — they’re cheap, pocket-sized and delightfully retro. Using a rigged-together contraption made from three tape decks and a CD player, Fruehling copies all his cassettes by hand, taking care that his products are consistent.

Bands on Rare Plant run the gamut of genres — punk, synth punk, garage rock, power pop and indie pop are all represented. While some labels prefer their artists to have a more unified sound, Fruehling likes that the bands on Rare Plant reflect what’s happening in Madison — a community that’s active and varied, but small enough that it’s common to have cross-genre bills at local shows. “For people outside Madison, it’s like a curated list,” Fruehling says.

Another major chronicler of Madison music is the label Kitschy Spirit, formed in 2011 by musician Chris Joutras, who at the time was playing in the now-defunct band Dharma Dogs.

He noticed that nobody was really documenting the music that was being created in Madison. “People were playing hundreds of shows, and yeah, the people who were there remember the shows maybe, but that’s all there is,” he says. “It gets lost in our memories.”

Much of what Joutras does involves marketing and promoting the bands and the releases. He also uses the label as a “booking hub” to organize and brand local shows featuring his artists. He also pays for the tapes and vinyl, giving bands a few copies for free and then selling the rest at cost over time. It’s a financial risk, but Joutras and the bands he helps are together for the long haul. “If they’re touring and playing shows, eventually they’re going to run out of records,” he says. “Especially in punk rock, realistically it’s not like I’m looking for a band to get huge — I’m just trying to support bands that are chipping away.”

Joutras is supportive of bands that choose to self-release albums, but he says partnering with a label can help foster a sense of support and community — especially on a local level. “A lot of other cities have way better infrastructure for music labels and people helping each other,” he says. He thinks that the local community can do better to be more supportive and inclusive. “I think there’s a lot of back slapping that happens here, but when you get down to it, not as many people in town are supporting each other, and more are just working on their own thing.”

Launched in 1996, Uvulittle Records is among the older labels in town. Run by Jon Hain and Stephanie Rearick, who also own Mother Fool’s Coffeehouse, the label started as an outgrowth of the cafe’s open mic night. “When we first started, the Madison music scene was saturated with coffeehouses doing music, which was cool, but we were the only one doing something totally different,” Hain says. “We weren’t just doing ‘guy with a guitar’ — we were doing way-out-there, avant-garde jazz and traditional music from all over the world.”

Their first release was a compilation of recordings from the open mic, Live at Mother Fool’s, which ended up getting a fair bit of attention from local media. Then Uvulittle released a debut album from the contemporary klezmer band Yid Vicious. “That got a lot of national attention,” says Hain, who worked hard to promote the album on college radio stations. “We got this traditional klezmer band to chart on the [College Media Journal] chart? Wow, that’s pretty cool.”

Uvulittle has albums due out later this year from three artists: acoustic roots artist Ritt Deitz, Rearick’s rock band Ladyscissors, and a solo vibraphone player named Carrie Biolo. Hain calls Biolo a fantastic player. Her album, he adds, “is not going to be commercially successful, but it’s not going to happen unless there’s someone continually pushing her.”

After more than two decades running the label, Hain says he no longer feels pressure to push for commercial success — these days, he’s more interested in making sure things are organized properly and that money flows back to the artists on the label. “I don’t mind contracts and figuring out details,” he says. “A lot of artists just can’t do that. So I see my role as helping facilitate bringing creative energy into the actual market.”

Stone After Stone Records started as an avenue for Erik Kjelland to put out his own music — he fronts the Americana band The Mascot Theory and has played in a number of bands over the last two decades. After years of putting albums out on CD Kjelland wanted to try vinyl, which has staged a comeback in recent years, with record sales in 2017.

Kjelland reached out to legendary Wisconsin-to-L.A. producer Butch Vig (Garbage, Nirvana, etc.), and the two compiled a list of never-before-released songs from artists with Wisconsin ties. Vig contributed a song from his alt-country band, Emperors of Wyoming; other artists included Madison indie-pop duo Seasaw, Milwaukee’s Trapper Schoepp, Appleton’s Cory Chisel and Waukesha’s BoDeans. “It was really fun to get all this music from regions across the state,” Kjelland says.

With sponsors secured to cover the costs of production and profits going to charity, the first album, Wisconsin Vinyl Collective Volume 1, was distributed throughout Wisconsin and across the country as an official 2017 release for Record Store Day, an annual event aimed at boosting independent music retailers. Kjelland wasn’t sure how well it would do, but the compilation sold 400 copies before it even came out. “We knew right then we were gonna do good things,” he says. A second compilation released last year was similarly successful, featuring songs from the now-defunct Madison indie-folk band Phox, Stevens Point bluegrass group Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, and the recently rebooted Milwaukee folk-punk band Violent Femmes.

The Wisconsin Vinyl Collective is unique among compilations in that it highlights a region instead of a genre. But the two albums are surprisingly cohesive thanks to Kjelland’s careful curation. He’s in the process of gathering songs for a third compilation album and is considering bringing a video crew to document the process of manufacturing the album from start to finish. “It’s way cooler than burning a disc,” he says.

People love vinyl for many reasons — the nostalgia, the tactile sensation of handling the disc, the superior sound of analogue playback. But for producers and DJs — especially those who exclusively spin vinyl — records are essential to their art form. “The reason you press the vinyl is to give legitimacy to DJs,” says Jordan Ellerman, who spins as DJ Umi and helps run local dance music label Yügen Records. Run by a collective of DJs including Garrett Ohrt, Jared Perez, Ted Waldbillig and Max Wasinger, Yügen launched in 2015 and aims to raise the profile of the local dance music scene and foster collaboration among producers.

“The scene here has a lot of talent but not a lot of reach,” Ellerman says. “We really want Madison’s dance music community to grow, and [for the label] to be a beacon of electronic music.”

The new music venue Communication is hoping to help nurture some of that homegrown talent by offering inclusive performance spaces for music, comedy, dance and performance art. Tessa Echeverria, a musician who helps run Communication and co-owns Williamson Magnetic Recording Company, an analogue recording studio, is also a co-founder of Half-Stack Sessions, an advocacy group that aims to increase the presence of women and non-binary people in the local music scene. For now, Echeverria notes, those running music labels in Madison are mostly white men.

“Way more female and non-binary musicians are hitting the stage and making music, but most of the behind-the-scenes [aspects of] music haven’t followed yet in terms of gender diversity,” Echeverria says. “From venue owners, [to] sound engineers and label and record company owners, white men are still largely shaping what music is chosen for distribution.”

The team behind Sunday Night Records has big plans for the label. They dream of expanding its stable of artists and one day hope to launch a community music festival spearheaded by the label. Meng, Lansing and Estes are all in their late 30s and veterans of the DIY music scene, and they want to share their expertise in navigating the music industry and serve as mentors for young musicians. “We’ve all been doing this for a long time,” Lansing says. “Having to learn stuff the hard way, it sucks. People get burned out and quit. Seeing these young artists who have so much to say, part of our motivation is making sure they don’t fall into these holes.”

Estes, who has lived all over the country, says the amount of talent and collaboration within Madison’s music community is unlike anything she’s experienced elsewhere (with the exception of New York City and Nashville). “It’s not normal,” she says. “It’s so unique.”

It’s easy to be proud of Madison’s homegrown musical talent. But those working behind the scenes to support, document and promote local music play an essential and often overlooked role. The presence and proliferation of Madison’s independent record labels is evidence of an active and growing music community.

Over the years people have compared Madison to cities known for thriving music scenes like Portland and Austin — a comparison that local arts and culture website Tone Madison has called “face-smashingly irritating” — but Meng says he believes Madison is on the precipice of a creative explosion similar to what happened in those cities. And he believes Sunday Night Records is part of a creative wave that will take the city to the next level.

“There’s something happening in Madison that’s utterly incredible in 2018; it’s exactly what those cities were like before 100,000 people moved there,” he says. “There’s this community, this hype, the way everybody knows each other. It’s like we’re sitting at the edge of this thing.”