by Braden Dupuis
Above a women’s clothing store in Regina’s Cathedral neighbourhood, there’s an office.
The walls are adorned with eight-by-11-inch posters advertising various punk and hardcore shows in Regina and Saskatchewan.
Two of the small room’s four corners are taken up by guitars.
This is no ordinary office — It’s the apartment-turned-workspace of Dylan Ludwig, label operator of do-it-yourself hardcore record label Harvest King Records.
Since 2008, the Regina-based label has been at the heart of Regina’s hardcore community.
“There’s always been so much talent in this city,” Ludwig said.
“This is just a different way of trying to organize it, and maybe make it more official using a label. I think that was kind of the initial intention.”
In its early days, Harvest King operated as more of a traditional record label — putting money into recording and releases.
One such investment -- a New York band that broke up shortly after recording its album -- cost the label thousands, and forced it to reexamine its business model.
“It became more of an organic, arts community sort of thing,” Ludwig said. “The business became based on relationship and communication and … less about the numbers that you’re putting up and the records you’re selling.”
The decline of record sales has forced musicians to look at other ways of doing business.
“The way you turn a profit now is you get out on the road,” Ludwig said.
“You do shows, you get people coming to your shows, and then you get them buying your cd’s and coming back to your shows. That’s really the way you do it.”
And that’s where Harvest King comes in.
The label uses its connections to help bands book tours, record albums and distribute them across Western Canada.
For young bands like The Jump Off — who released its debut album through Harvest King in November — the support is invaluable.
“What they’re doing is the perfect way to build a music scene and bring everyone together,” said Donovan Lautsch, drummer for The Jump Off.
“I could not be more happy with the arrangement we have with them, because we’re doing everything on our own in our band, we’re running everything, but we have this group that we can go to if we need to book shows. If we need help with something there’s a whole group of people that we have.”
Harvest King isn’t the only label building from the ground up in Saskatchewan.
“There’s a lot of grassroots-type, and especially co-operative labels in the province,” said Lorena Kelly, program manager for SaskMusic.
“Not what you would think of as your traditional label coming in to fund the whole deal, but more of a ‘let’s get together and share some jobs’ situation, which is kind of the trend.”
Kelly estimates there are about two-dozen labels of the sort in Saskatchewan, including 13th Ave. Records (located just down the street from Harvest King), and Hypnotic Dirge Records — an underground metal label originally formed in Swift Current.
While they come from different musical backgrounds and genres, the labels all thrive on the do-it-yourself empowerment of the digital age.
“It’s always difficult, but I mean, that’s the struggle we love,” Ludwig said.
“The bands, the labels, the people who go to the shows, we wouldn’t do it if we didn’t feel value or passion in those sort of things.”
