Product Code Database
K Records is an independent record label in Olympia, Washington, founded in 1982. Artists on the label included early releases by Beck, Modest Mouse and Built to Spill. The record label has been called "key to the development of independent music" since the 1980s.
The label was founded by Beat Happening frontman Calvin Johnson and managed for many years by Candice Pedersen. Many early releases were on the cassette tape format, making the label one of the longest lasting reflections of the cassette culture of the 1970s and early 1980s. Although itself releasing primarily offbeat pop music and indie rock, the DIY label is regarded as one of the pioneers of riot grrrl movement and the second wave of American punk rock in the 1990s.
K was run from Johnson's kitchen in Olympia until January 1986, when he hired Candice Pedersen for $20 a week and academic credit at Evergreen State College. Pedersen became a full partner in 1989 until selling her half of the label to Johnson in 1999. In 2016, Pedersen told The Stranger that the separation was on "bad terms," and that Calvin had reluctantly agreed to a payment plan for her share, to be paid back over 20 years.
The label's first vinyl record release was the 1984 Beat Happening 45, "Our Secret / What's Important," but the great bulk of the label's early releases were made on the medium of cassette tapes, with "about 20" cassette releases noted in a 1986 Flipside interview, in addition to "4 more in the works."
Johnson noted:
A cassette is great for a local scene like Olympia because a band can release a cassette and not have to spend their would-be savings. If they were to press 500 records, there goes their savings. But if you do a cassette you make up as many as you need, they're cheap, and if you don't sell them you just use them.
This large group of local cassette-only releases was built into a mail order distribution business, which eventually become a full-time job for Johnson and Pederson. A newsletter was put out in support of the mail order operation, which in 1986 had a circulation of about 2,000. The label also benefited from an early distribution deal with Rough Trade Records in 1985.
K's distribution roster expanded as Johnson reached out to independent acts he discovered through his radio show at KAOS-FM. Acts would receive distribution through K newsletters and cassette compilations.
Mariella Luz, a long-standing employee, is currently the general manager. In 2016, several artists on the K roster shared concerns about missed royalties from the label, with The Moldy Peaches singer and solo act Kimya Dawson describing the label as a "broken, sinking ship." Phil Elverum of the Microphones and Jared Warren of KARP also spoke on the record about late royalty payments and difficulties engaging the label. Johnson said K would liquidate its holdings to make good on its debts to artists, but stated that the label was not in jeopardy.
Over time, the series would include releases from artists including Teenage Fanclub, Mirah, The Microphones, Make-Up, Thee Headcoats, and Built to Spill.
In 1991, K Records organized the week-long International Pop Underground Convention. This event featured more than fifty independent and punk bands, including Bikini Kill, Beat Happening, Fugazi, L7, Unwound, and Jad Fair. It has been called "a remarkable testament of musical self-preservation and fierce resistance to corporate takeover." The music festival included arts and crafts, film presentations, and poetry readings, and was notable for its deliberate lack of hired security officers.
The studio was relocated to the former Olympia Knitting Mills building in the late 1990s, and added a 16-track tape machine. The extra space meant the studio could serve as offices for K Records and provide artist and musician housing. Other businesses in the mill included independent musician service companies offering services such as tour booking, promotion, and artist studio space. In 2016, Johnson acknowledged that the studio hadn't generated the income he had anticipated for the label.
Then an Evergreen State College student, Phil Elverum of the Microphones recorded his first album, Tests (1998), after being given the keys to the studio. Elverum became a fixture of the Dub Narcotic control room. Among albums recorded by Elverum at the studio were the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. The debut record by Arrington de Dionyso, an Evergreen student with an internship at K, was recorded and released on K as Old Time Relijun. Elverum also recorded Mirah Tov Zeitlyn, known as Mirah, at the studio. These acts helped define a new era of the K Records sound, which shifted its emphasis and started producing records known for their experimental production techniques while maintaining their lo-fi authenticity.
Al Larsen of the band Some Velvet Sidewalk was part of the K Roster. In 1989, he wrote an article for the Snipehunt zine which reflected and distinguished K's approach to "punk" music with an ethos he called "Love Rock," in which he wrote: "It's a scary world, but we don't need to be scared anymore. We need active visionary protest, we need to grab hold and make the transformation, from complaining that there is NO FUTURE to insisting there be a future." This manifesto, which focused on a DIY ethic, became an unofficial label philosophy.
This philosophy viewed lo-fi, homemade projects as a preferred alternative to corporate culture, (2013). 9780313398056, Praeger. ISBN 9780313398056 which maintained a philosophical link to punk. The first K Records newsletter includes the K shield as a knight, described as battling "the many-armed corporate ogre." (2025). 9780316787536, Back Bay Books. ISBN 9780316787536
Some critics have considered this philosophy to be a liability in regards to mainstream success. Author Mark Baumgarten has observed that Pitchfork Media's "Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s" included six bands with direct relationships to the label (Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Fugazi, Built to Spill, Beck, and Nirvana) but only one proper K Records release.
Critics have suggested that the "twee" label for K Records acts reflects its rejection of the hardcore punk ethos popular in the 1980s, and that K Records acts were subverting "punk" through confronting and threatening masculine sensibilities within the punk scene. (2025). 9780760346488, Voyageur Press. ISBN 9780760346488
Rock critic Michael Azerrad writes that K was "a major force in widening the idea of a punk rocker from a mohawked guy in a motorcycle jacket to a nerdy girl in a cardigan". That the label was co-owned by a woman reflected an openness to women's participation. Pedersen is quoted in Tobi Vail's Riot Grrrl zine, Jigsaw, saying "I think it's really important that people know there are women ... girls who ... do more than package up things. ... It's really important that people to know that there are girls out there making decisions and doing stuff." (2013). 9781558618220, The Feminist Press (City University of New York). ISBN 9781558618220
While Pederson was behind the scenes, acts like Mecca Normal, and Heather Lewis' presence in K's flagship band, Beat Happening, have been mentioned as an inspiration for many female-fronted bands at the time. (2013). 9781558618220, Feminist Press (CUNY). ISBN 9781558618220
The label also highlighted women in its International Pop Underground Convention's opening night at the Capitol theater, "Love Rock Revolution Girl Style Now", or "Girls Rock Night", dedicated to 15 female-led acts such as Bratmobile, Olympia's first exclusively-female group, and featuring bands with future members of Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill.
Many riot grrrl acts would release through another Olympia label, Kill Rock Stars, which launched with a compilation record at the International Pop Underground Convention. Though Kill Rock Stars would have financial conflicts with K Records over the compilation, Bikini Kill and others moved to Kill Rock Stars out of an aesthetic preference for the "grungier" sound of its releases, and there is no evidence of ill-will. Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney has said "It's not that we didn't love Calvin and love K; it's just that this new thing that was starting was going to be so exciting."
|
|
