"We
started out as a shirt...." No Joke. Jerkrecords began in early 93 (i think)
with a dream and a few bucks by then college student and Nashville resident Jesse
Evans. We had met Jesse at a music festival (in 1992) in which his dad was performing.
I'll never forget his fresh faced, wide eyed enthusiasm. Too bad we were indirectly
involved in him getting nabbed by the festival security for stealing a CD from
the merch area that he though we would like. But I digress. Back to Jesse in college.
For some class he was taking, he had to come up with some phoney-baloney business
and develop a marketing campaign and plan of execution (or something like that)
to actually make money. His plan? To make black t-shirts that said "Jerk"
on the front and "Racism Hurts, Don't be a jerk" on the back, along
with a rather large list of fairly offensive racial slurs. A Million Dollar Idea.
Anyway, he made a few dozen shirts up (i think i own one of the LAST remaining
jerk shirts on the planet) and handed them out to bands and other pseudo-important
people in the Nashville area. Word was that one of the stage crew for Living Colour
got one and wore it on a bunch of dates. Woo Hoo. Shirt pedaling soon became passe
and gave rise to a new idea for Jess, and that was the idea to start a record
company. Jerk Records is then born.
Starting
with a few bands from Nashville (Toy Bean, Space Pants, Kingthin) and one lonely
band from New Jersey (Alternator), he sets out to change rock music forever; just
like every other 2 bit "Look! We Have A Record Company" operation in
the US being run out of bedrooms and basements. Years went by and the record company
continued with minimal bands, no distro, no contracts, no money, and few contacts
in the actual music buisness (which now that i think about it, is probably why
it went on for so long!). We moved the "office" so to speak to New Jersey
eventually when i started a small studio in Red Bank, and by that time, most,
if not all the bands were from the area anyway. We ran the label as a co-op where
all the bands helped out with bookings, putting on shows, calling people, sending
CD's out, selling each other's merch, etc. No contracts were ever needed as we
were all friends and basically swapped players around continuously. Bands came
and went and the studio gathered more and more equipment.
In
the early days it was myself, Gary Hampson (doing live sound and some recording),
The Great Scott Harrigan (aka The Can, aka Hot Scarrigan) also doing live sound
and recording, Coury Deeb and John Nilsen (photography), Jess (who did next to
nothing, but we needed someone to blame stuff on), and Matt Agresti (web world
wonder-man). After a while, Jess bowed out and i took over for the most part,
spending the majority of my time recording bands and playing in other bands. Sometimes
playing and recording at the same time. Sometimes in 4 bands at once. Seriously.
There have been a ton of bands on the Jerk label, and there is not enough time
in the day for me to go through them all here, but lets just say that Matt Agresti
and Ihave been involved in a lot of them.
I
sat down and drew a chart of all the bands and people involved since the begining
as far as I can remember, so get your reading glasses out and take a ride in the
Way Back
Machine. As I realized there's no way in the world I could continue running
a sort of "fake" label while also working a software job, AND a recording
studio job AND have a familly, I decided it was time to put jerkrecords to sleep
and continue on focusing mostly on studio work, and managing a smaller label with
just a few bands. Again, run as a co-op of sorts operating completely under all
the radars, with no money coming in from anywhere, but don't you worry, we'll
release some pretty cool recordings - promise.
-pete andrews
Starting
with a few bands from Nashville (Toy Bean, Space Pants, Kingthin) and one lonely
band from New Jersey (Alternator), he sets out to change rock music forever; just
like every other 2 bit "Look! We Have A Record Company" operation in
the US being run out of bedrooms and basements. Years went by and the record company
continued with minimal bands, no distro, no contracts, no money, and few contacts
in the actual music buisness (which now that i think about it, is probably why
it went on for so long!). We moved the "office" so to speak to New Jersey
eventually when i started a small studio in Red Bank, and by that time, most,
if not all the bands were from the area anyway. We ran the label as a co-op where
all the bands helped out with bookings, putting on shows, calling people, sending
CD's out, selling each other's merch, etc. No contracts were ever needed as we
were all friends and basically swapped players around continuously. Bands came
and went and the studio gathered more and more equipment. 
In
the early days it was myself, Gary Hampson (doing live sound and some recording),
The Great Scott Harrigan (aka The Can, aka Hot Scarrigan) also doing live sound
and recording, Coury Deeb and John Nilsen (photography), Jess (who did next to
nothing, but we needed someone to blame stuff on), and Matt Agresti (web world
wonder-man). After a while, Jess bowed out and i took over for the most part,
spending the majority of my time recording bands and playing in other bands. Sometimes
playing and recording at the same time. Sometimes in 4 bands at once. Seriously.
There have been a ton of bands on the Jerk label, and there is not enough time
in the day for me to go through them all here, but lets just say that Matt Agresti
and Ihave been involved in a lot of them.
I
sat down and drew a chart of all the bands and people involved since the begining
as far as I can remember, so get your reading glasses out and take a ride in the
Way Back
Machine. As I realized there's no way in the world I could continue running
a sort of "fake" label while also working a software job, AND a recording
studio job AND have a familly, I decided it was time to put jerkrecords to sleep
and continue on focusing mostly on studio work, and managing a smaller label with
just a few bands. Again, run as a co-op of sorts operating completely under all
the radars, with no money coming in from anywhere, but don't you worry, we'll
release some pretty cool recordings - promise.