Independent Music from Olympia, WA

“This Friday, Feb. 12, Olympia’s Bicycle Records will present what should be an awe-inspiring show at The Loft on Cherry Street. Bringing Mason Lindahl, Eleanor Murray, Briana Mariela and Ellie Fortune to the stage, for lovers of great music and DIY ethics, it’s sure to be a show not to miss.

But what is Bicycle Records really all about? Sure, it’s an Oly based record label – but, these days, what does that really mean?

The Weekly Volcano caught up with Bicycle’s Ross Cowman to find out…

WEEKLY VOLCANO: First of all, talk about the creation of Bicycle Records and how it came to be. What was the original vision, and how closely have you come to it? Who’s involved, and who deserves credit?

ROSS COWMAN: Bob Schwenkler started the record label back in 2004 when he was a recording student at Evergreen. I came on board first as an artist, then as a co-owner in 2005. At the time the only thing we knew about record labels was that you put the name of the record labels somewhere on the album. We started off releasing CDRs in photocopied jackets in batches of 50 that we burned on Bob’s computer.

Originally the idea was to release music on the quieter side of things. Bob was a big fan of Portland’s HUSH records, and he wanted to do something like that.

I really admired the professionalism of Slim Moon and his label Kill Rock Stars, and also the simplicity and ethics of Plan-It-X records and Discord. For both of us it was a big priority to have close working relationships with our artists and to capture the regional sound where we lived.

VOLCANO: The job and (in general) idea of a record label seems to be ever changing these days. What exactly is it that you guys do? Is it similar to what most labels do, or is it different?… read more…

Bookmark It

Hide Sites