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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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2024 Records: Local Label On the Rise
Thursday 03 June @ 12:41:01 |
 by Rob van Alstyne
Nathan Roise caught the music bug early and fell hard. Spending his adolescent years in the surprisingly vibrant music scene of Mankato during the early ’90s, Roise saw plenty of quality rock ("It was really an amazing time, all of these great indie bands would skip the Cities to play Mankato—a really strong scene."). Roise, like so many other indie kids, was inspired enough by the experience to pick up an instrument and start making a racket himself, moving to the Twin Cities and playing in various bands (most notably Align, amongst various others). As time marched on Roise shifted gears away from his musician dreams (today he's a successful realtor by day), but continued to stay closely devoted to music and connected to the local scene.
 It was in late 2001 that Roise threw his hat back into the Twin Cities music scene, this time with a far different title: "upstart record label honcho." “2024 Records [the Twin Cities indie label co-founded by Roise and Todd Hansen] really happened initially just as a way to get Standbye's CD out," admits Roise. Standbye (who included Hansen among their members) had just finished recording The Coping Mechanisms, the follow-up EP to their acclaimed debut, Days Spent Waiting, and were presented with no label opportunities beyond the costly proposition of self-releasing the results.
"We were just sort of sitting around and lamenting how no one was going to get to hear this CD that we had spent so much time working on," recalls Hansen. "That's when I kind of had the idea that it would be fun to put the record out," claims Roise. "It came down to literally hours before we had to send the CD off to the manufacturers before we picked a name for the label," remembers Roise. "It was the address where a bunch of us shared a house in our early 20s and sort of went through the whole post-college ‘what the hell are we going to do’ period of our lives. There was a lot of fun had in that house and many touring bands slept on the floors, so it seemed like an appropriate name for the label."
Started with the humble goal of releasing one particular friend’s CD in mind, the label has gone on to release projects by Twin Cities music neophytes (Fitzgerald, Romantica) and more established acts (pop supergroup the Olympic Hopefuls, former all-ages scene kings now ready to rock the drinking age crowd, The Plastic Constellations, and soon the long awaited sophomore effort from Valet).
It's not just the stable of artists that makes 2024 Records noteworthy (although that's certainly a huge part of it), 2024 is also making nationwide networking and marketing efforts unprecedented in the Twin Cities indie scene. From purchasing ads in noteworthy national music magazines like Magnet, to attending industry conferences like CMJ Marathon in NYC and the South by Southwest shindig in Austin, Texas, to flying out to the West Coast in search of further distribution and publicity opportunities, it's clear that running 2024 is a nearly all-consuming labor of love for Hansen, Roise and their tiny, albeit passionate, staff.
"We really want to get the records out there and have that visibility—it's hard knowing how to use your resources and we try to be careful, but it's worth it," states Hansen. "The other day we had somebody from Belfast order a Romantica CD off our website," claims Roise. "That's incredibly exciting."
Both Hansen and Roise are detail-oriented men, with Hansen quick to talk about the fancy textured packaging of Fitzgerald's latest album ("That's the kind of packaging Fitzgerald fans will really appreciate.") and Roise delighting in updating the 2024 Records website on a ritualistic basis with plenty of fancy features (streaming audio jukebox anyone?).
The next step in 2024 Records’ evolution happened this spring when the label sprang the cash to purchase a touring van for the shared use of its client roster (and for awesome publicity photo possibilities). Though far from a cheap investment, it was a decision the founders knew they had to make. "One of the reasons so many bands have a hard time getting out there and really making the commitment to touring is just the lack of appropriate transportation," claims Roise. "Man, if [Standbye] had been able to have a band van back in the day, we would have killed for the chance to really go out there and hit the road," enthuses Hansen. "With our roster right now one of the key things is that they're all people who are really talented and committed to getting out there and playing outside of Minnesota," offers Roise. "The Plastic Constellations are getting it first," replies Hansen, "and they're going to be on the road all summer."
A van fundraiser held last month at the Turf Club drew a capacity crowd and (in addition to serving as the official coming out party of 2024 Records as a force to be reckoned with) managed to defray 19 percent of the cost of the van. Clearly bigger and better things are still on the horizon as 2024 continues its mission to get the Twin Cities music scene more recognition on the national map. "There's really no reason this scene couldn't be as big or bigger than what's happened in Omaha," states a beaming Roise. "I really believe that. The talent has been here for a long time, but as far as more nationwide recognition goes, people still tend to think of the groups from the '80s. I think that things are starting to change though. Artists like Atmosphere and Motion City Soundtrack are doing really well. There's a great scene that's sort of been incubating here for a long time and I think it's finally ready to blow up all over the place. I want to be a part of helping that happen."
For the latest in the world of 2024 Records go check them on the web at 2024records.com.
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