![\"Local](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/C202512-CS-Bloodshot-Records-Langford-and-Fulks-884x1024.jpg\")
Local artists who signed on early with Bloodshot included Jon Langford (above) and Robbie Fulks. Photo Illustration: Joe Darrow; Photography: (Langford) Casey Orr; (Fulks) Daniel Coston<\/p>\nIt was a golden era of indie labels. You couldn\u2019t swing a dead cat in 1990s Chicago without hitting one that was defined by idiosyncratic interests and personalities, all dogged enough to make them viable. Touch and Go, Delmark, Alligator, Wax Trax!, Thrill Jockey, Drag City, Minty Fresh, Carrot Top, Johann\u2019s Face, Atavistic, Pravda, Feel Good All Over, Kranky, and others were supporting original music. Some had stars in their eyes and future stars on their rosters. Others liked their buddy\u2019s band and thought a few hundred others might as well. They followed their ears and their hearts; if their brains, some luck, and enough fans followed, so much the better. The pioneering spirit was everywhere. Anyone, we thought, could do it.<\/p>\n
As this was happening, music and artists tarred with the \u201ccountry\u201d brush were unceremoniously consigned to the Not Interested piles at most indie labels. But taking refuge in the bars and clubs where local artists were dipping their country-curious toes into overlooked waters, we thought we were hearing music deserving of some sort of documentation. Seated along a bar rail in the winter of 1993, Old Styles in hand, we grabbed a napkin and quickly made a list of 15 to 20 names. What if, our last-call cogitation went, we brought together under one umbrella artists no one else was showing an interest in? What if\u2009\u2014\u2009our eyes gleamed\u2009\u2014\u2009we put them on a CD and released it ourselves? On our own label? It was a brilliant plan. Well, it was a plan, anyway. If nothing else, it might be a good way to cadge some guest-list spots and free drinks around town. It really was that simple, the motivation that genuine.<\/p>\n
So it came to pass that Eric Babcock, Nan Warshaw, and I started a record label. We each ponied up $2,000 from our wretched day jobs or savings accounts and\u2009\u2014\u2009poof\u2009\u2014\u2009we were a label. Punk had taught me that I could act, so I should act. Thinking about the consequences would only slow us down. The worst that might happen was we\u2019d be left with a pallet of unsold CDs, and I\u2019d go back to repairing squeaky cat doors and painting over bloodstains in cruddy apartments. It was an unexpected turn of events, considering I had moved to Chicago a couple of years prior to get away from the music industry (I had been a stage manager in Detroit, among other roles) after a decade of finding in it kinship and identity, excitement and growth, culminating in burnout and dismay. But music will always surprise you if you let it.<\/p>\n
With dewy-eyed zeal, the three of us spent the gloomy early months of 1994 approaching artists around town about giving us a song for our unnamed, untried idea that existed in a smoky, middle-earth space between abstraction and pipe dream. We sought out the kids left off the other teams, the Bad News Bears of the underground, the outsiders of the outsiders. We hung out at my apartment listening to records and cassette demos and going through the club listings in the Chicago Reader. We propositioned bands working the club circuit\u2009\u2014\u2009the Riptones, the Texas Rubies, the first-wave bluegrass\/punk\/rockabilly outfit Moonshine Willy, and the New Duncan Imperials\u2009\u2014\u2009that were somewhat established but not part of any identifiable \u201cscene,\u201d a few side projects, and a couple of groups that were never heard from again.<\/p>\n
One night we listened to an LP by the Sundowners, the cowboy trio I had seen on one of my first trips to Chicago. It had this fantastic song on it, \u201cCigarette State,\u201d a bluegrass-tinged raver with the snarky line of lines: Alabama\u2019s grand \/ the state, not the band. There was respect for form but also totally bent content. Perfect. It was credited to one \u201cRobert William Fulks.\u201d We\u2019d seen \u201cRobbie Fulks\u201d listed at clubs like Deja Vu and Lower Links\u2009\u2014\u2009it had to be the same guy. We looked up \u201cFulks, Robert\u201d in the phone book\u2009\u2014\u2009this was a time when every apartment, no matter how ill furnished, had one lying around somewhere, even if to hold up the three-legged couch\u2009\u2014\u2009and cold-called. Could we use the song? \u201cSure,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I\u2019ve got my own version.\u201d The deal was sealed.<\/p>\n
Local artists who signed on early with Bloodshot included Jon Langford (above) and Robbie Fulks. Photo Illustration: Joe Darrow; Photography: (Langford) Casey Orr; (Fulks) Daniel Coston<\/p>\n
The Mekons\u2019 Jon Langford, who had moved to the city a few years previous, walked into the original Empty Bottle, where a couple of us were busy at the bar, emptying bottles. We pitched him on participating. With his buccaneer spirit and keen eye for potential mischief, he was in. Within weeks, he delivered \u201cOver the Cliff,\u201d featuring Tony Maimone\u2009\u2014\u2009the bassist of heroes of my youth Pere Ubu\u2009\u2014\u2009which etched a sharp line from what we were doing with the label back to what had helped get me there in the first place.<\/p>\n
The Handsome Family had given us a four-song demo cassette with a drawing of a raccoon on it and a note with the caveat that they weren\u2019t very \u201cgood\u201d yet and didn\u2019t have a lot of material. But I was floored by \u201cMoving Furniture Around,\u201d a song squarely in our sought-for wheelhouse\u2009\u2014\u2009timeless country pathos updated for an urban environment. With lyrics that had parking tickets and shitty landlords taking the place of coal mines and company stores, a distorted guitar rattling like a cold wind past the semi-abandoned furniture showrooms on Milwaukee Avenue, and a knack for deep-catalog Americana weirdness, they fused the malaise of Kristofferson with the simmering rage of the Pixies. I couldn\u2019t wait to see them live. They had a show at Phyllis\u2019 Musical Inn, one of Nelson Algren\u2019s old Polish Broadway haunts, on an unfashionable stretch of Division Street. Past the well-used bar, with its dusty bottles of DeKuyper schnapps, was a \u201cstage\u201d wedged into the corner. Singer-guitarist Brett Sparks introduced himself and sheepishly told me they were going to suck\u2009\u2014\u2009but, you know, enjoy the show.<\/p>\n
I sat at the bar next to a red-haired guy who looked vaguely familiar from Lounge Ax shows. Once the Handsomes started, it was obvious that Brett wasn\u2019t being self-deprecating; they really weren\u2019t very good. Tempos changed mid-song, bass parts wandered off in different directions, and Brett was still learning how to effectively project his dark-as-a-dungeon voice. Ugh. Could I get out of this somehow? I was sitting eight feet from the stage, so it\u2019d be tough to make a stealthy exit. Worse, the guy next to me, now a bit drunk, loved them and wasn\u2019t bashful about expressing it. What a dummy, I thought. After the show, I paid vague compliments to the band, thanked them for the tape, and bolted. I\u2019d use the song, but I didn\u2019t think they had much of a future as a band.<\/p>\n
Messed that one up, didn\u2019t I? The Handsome Family spent the next 25 years putting out some of my favorite albums, exquisitely terrifying and beautiful, the way a decaying, mossy log or a half-awake-at-dawn nightmare can be. Turned out that superfan was the owner of another recently formed local label, Carrot Top Records. I think he signed them that night.<\/p>\n
Freakwater and the Bottle Rockets were bands that had already released albums, so we regarded them as seasoned giants in this little field, and they said yes as well. It was a stretch to claim the Rockets as Chicagoans since only their bass player lived here, but fuck it\u2009\u2014\u2009we were defining our parameters. Furthermore, they were on indie labels, Thrill Jockey and East Side Digital, that we looked at as role models. Having these \u201cheavy hitters\u201d on board, with their critical acclaim, outside-the-area-code tour histories, and \u201creal label\u201d support, might even lend credibility, if only through glancing association, to the project.<\/p>\n
Finally, we thought a nod to Chicago\u2019s country music history would provide a narrative arc for those who might think Chicago + Country = Absurd. We included two tracks from the Sundowners. Those guys had helped, unwittingly, coax me to Chicago in the first place, and now it was time to pay them back.<\/p>\n
\nThe bands we had gathered were glad someone\u2009\u2014\u2009anyone\u2009\u2014\u2009wanted to document what they were doing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The album was mastered on the sly in a studio in the Harold Washington Library after days of beery debate over a sequence to find a flow, to tell a story in the era before shuffling and streaming. Jon Langford lent us a painting depicting ghostly country music figures, skulls, and a protecting angel for a cover that struck a balance between unsettling and classic, unorthodox and yet somehow familiar. For a main title, we cribbed \u201cFor a Life of Sin\u201d from \u201cLost Highway,\u201d the Hank Williams honky-tonk hymn I had first heard through a cover by a band of reckless Nashville punks, Jason & the Scorchers.<\/p>\n
The bands we had gathered were glad someone\u2009\u2014\u2009anyone\u2009\u2014\u2009wanted to document what they were doing at that place in that time. There was no expectation of a career, no one was trying to \u201cmake it,\u201d and no one, but no one, ran home, kicked open the back door, and dragged their S.O. into the boudoir, yelling victoriously, \u201cPrepare for some sweet, sweet lovin\u2019 because I\u2019m on my way to the big time. I\u2019ve been signed by \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Oh right, we needed a name.<\/p>\n
When asked the origin of \u201cBloodshot,\u201d my go-to answer is that I looked in the mirror one morning and it was yawning back at me. And while a good one-liner is rooted in truth, there was more to it. We brainstormed on themes inherent to country and punk: hard living, rebellious streaks, quotidian hassles and humiliations, and the little guy getting screwed over. I was a fan of Wynonie Harris, the \u201940s and \u201950s blues shouter with too little malt shop rock and too much lascivious roll in him for the tastes of parents terrified of fledgling teenage culture and race mixing. His 1951 killer hangover song \u201cBloodshot Eyes\u201d on King Records rattled around my head: Don\u2019t roll those bloodshot eyes at me \/ I can tell you\u2019ve been out on a spree.<\/p>\n
\u201cBloodshot\u201d it was. It sounded cowboy, but not hick, more renegade.<\/p>\n
Since the rare critical language surrounding the melding of roots and punk was either discursive or dismissive, we wanted to plant our black flag and define our own message before someone else hung a horrendous tag on it. We took it for granted that launching this project into an underground rock environment using \u201ccountry\u201d as a broad characterization would have been outright idiocy. It was a loaded term that would elicit reflexive derision\u2009\u2014\u2009like a movie description that began \u201cStarring Pauly Shore\u201d\u2009\u2014\u2009from the very indie music followers, people like us, we thought would be most interested. The entire genre had been cast by many\u2009\u2014\u2009for often good reasons\u2009\u2014\u2009down an elevator shaft. We wanted a term that tapped into the kindred feelings of rebelliousness and candor that had drawn me to punk rock initially and that I was finding anew in this music.<\/p>\n
And while it is a world of uncertainty and chaos, it is a truism that where there are English majors and beer, there will also be a thesaurus and dictionary nearby. We ran through words like \u201crebel,\u201d \u201cguerrilla,\u201d \u201crevolution,\u201d and \u201cmalcontent\u201d as I dug through the trusty Roget\u2019s\u2009\u2014\u2009until \u201cinsurgent\u201d caught my eye. It had it all: conviction, purpose, and an antisocial, piratical flourish. Thus, a genre was coined: insurgent country. A British interviewer once commented that it sounded \u201ca bit Woody Guthrie and a bit Sex Pistols.\u201d I\u2019m good with that.<\/p>\n
Compilation compiled, we sent it off for the mysterious, faraway process of manufacturing. I went back to painting two-flats, drywalling a home office, stripping crown moldings in Old Town, West Town, wherever. And we waited.<\/p>\n
What were we looking to accomplish in this city known for blues, industrial music, and razory-guitar indie rock? Maybe we\u2019d sell the CDs. Maybe not. Maybe one day an eccentric Japanese or German completist would find a copy at the back of a used-record store and be thrilled the same way I was when I found a compilation on Detroit\u2019s Fortune Records that had Skeets McDonald\u2019s \u201cTattooed Lady\u201d plus, it promised, \u201cEleven Other SIZZLERS\u201d on it. The question, to the extent it was ever asked by either the artists or us, wasn\u2019t \u201cWhy do this?\u201d but \u201cWhy not?\u201d I was so excited at the prospect of shining a light on this fluky little scene in Chicago that I doubt anyone could have talked me out of it.<\/p>\n
In June 1994, a shipment of BS 001 For a Life of Sin: A Compilation of Insurgent Chicago Country CDs arrived at the \u201coffice\u201d\u2009\u2014\u2009the dining room table of one of the partners\u2009\u2014\u2009and a new independent record label launched its first (and we thought last) album. No Champagne was popped, no \u201cWe\u2019re on our way now\u201d toasts were made. There was a name, a press release, and \u2026 now what? What did a label do? Even though Eric had worked at small local indie labels before, Nan had done some freelance promotion and publicity, and I had production writing, reviewing, and college DJ experience, the next step was new and unknown. Forty boxes of plastic discs stacked in the corner? It sure didn\u2019t feel like the makings of moguldom, but it was something. We had made this.<\/p>\n
Excerpted from The Hours Are Long, But the Pay Is Low: A Curious Life in Independent Music with permission of the University of Illinois Press. \u00a9 2025 by Rob Miller.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a golden era of indie labels. You couldn\u2019t swing a dead cat in 1990s Chicago without…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":385184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[184077,184044,184072,184073,184056,184052,184081,14879,74142,184030,184038,184020,184065,184084,184028,184067,960,147879,75081,9958,184047,184064,184023,1449,184063,184026,184070,184051,184035,184032,184082,184079,184068,45522,184074,184071,5386,1818,184021,35849,184075,184029,184049,184078,184033,184058,184066,184048,184057,184027,184041,184036,2987,184061,184034,43184,184054,184060,184062,184031,2585,184037,184046,184045,125821,184080,184069,184055,184083,184050,184042,184059,184039,184043,184040,184025,184053,184022,184024,27750,102876,184076],"class_list":{"0":"post-385183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-bloodshot-eyes","9":"tag-cigarette-state","10":"tag-for-a-life-of-sin","11":"tag-lost-highway","12":"tag-moving-furniture-around","13":"tag-over-the-cliff","14":"tag-tattooed-lady","15":"tag-alligator","16":"tag-americana","17":"tag-atavistic","18":"tag-bad-news-bears","19":"tag-bloodshot-records","20":"tag-brett-sparks","21":"tag-but-the-pay-is-low-a-curious-life-in-independent-music","22":"tag-carrot-top","23":"tag-carrot-top-records","24":"tag-chicago","25":"tag-chicago-reader","26":"tag-chicago-stories","27":"tag-country","28":"tag-deja-vu","29":"tag-dekuyper","30":"tag-delmark","31":"tag-detroit","32":"tag-division-street","33":"tag-drag-city","34":"tag-east-side-digital","35":"tag-empty-bottle","36":"tag-eric-babcock","37":"tag-feel-good-all-over","38":"tag-for-a-life-of-sin-a-compilation-of-insurgent-chicago-country","39":"tag-fortune-records","40":"tag-freakwater","41":"tag-german","42":"tag-hank-williams","43":"tag-harold-washington-library","44":"tag-il","45":"tag-illinois","46":"tag-indie-labels","47":"tag-japanese","48":"tag-jason-the-scorchers","49":"tag-johanns-face","50":"tag-jon-langford","51":"tag-king-records","52":"tag-kranky","53":"tag-kristofferson","54":"tag-lounge-ax","55":"tag-lower-links","56":"tag-milwaukee-avenue","57":"tag-minty-fresh","58":"tag-moonshine-willy","59":"tag-nan-warshaw","60":"tag-nashville","61":"tag-nelson-algren","62":"tag-old-style","63":"tag-old-town","64":"tag-pere-ubu","65":"tag-phyllis-musical-inn","66":"tag-polish-broadway","67":"tag-pravda","68":"tag-punk","69":"tag-rob-miller","70":"tag-robbie-fulks","71":"tag-robert-william-fulks","72":"tag-sex-pistols","73":"tag-skeets-mcdonald","74":"tag-the-bottle-rockets","75":"tag-the-handsome-family","76":"tag-the-hours-are-long","77":"tag-the-mekons","78":"tag-the-new-duncan-imperials","79":"tag-the-pixies","80":"tag-the-riptones","81":"tag-the-sundowners","82":"tag-the-texas-rubies","83":"tag-thrill-jockey","84":"tag-tony-maimone","85":"tag-touch-and-go","86":"tag-wax-trax","87":"tag-west-town","88":"tag-woody-guthrie","89":"tag-wynonie-harris"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}