Checkered Past Records is an American

indie music Independent music (also commonly known as indie music or simply indie) is music that is produced independently from commercial record labels or their subsidiaries, a process that may include an autonomous, do-it-yourself approach to recording a ...

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the prod ...

established in May 1997 in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

History

The label was founded in May 1997 by

Bloodshot Records Bloodshot Records is an independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, which specializes in alternative country. History Bloodshot Records was founded in 1994 by Nan Warshaw, Rob Miller, and Eric Babcock, who knew each other from jobs i ...

co-founder Eric Babcock, Yvonne Jones, and Larry Lipson. Babcock met Jones through their shared love of the Texas-based band Killbilly, and ran Checkered Past out of Jones' and her husband's house in Irving Park. Babcock's stated motivation for starting the label stemmed in part from his desire to release "more traditional and rootsy-sounding" music by relatively little-known artists. It was also influenced by Bloodshot's refusal to release "The Neighborhood is Changing", the debut album by Tom House. He has also recalled that while he was working at Bloodshot, he was looking through dozens of albums by such artists, and was surprised that they hadn't been released locally yet. So he decided to start his own label to do so himself, starting with Tom House's album ''The Neighborhood Is Changing''. In 1999, Babcock founded the

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and t ...

-based Catamount Records, and, as of 2004, had since left Checkered Past to run it.

Artists

Artists which have released albums on Checkered Past include, but are not limited to: *

Ass Ponys Ass Ponys was an indie rock band based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Their sound combines rock and country into an off-kilter blend of Americana music. They have gone on national tours with bands such as Pavement, Throwing Muses, and Possum Dixon. A ...

* The Great Crusades *

Johnny Dowd Johnny Dowd (born March 29, 1948, in Fort Worth, Texas) is an American alternative country musician from Ithaca, New York. Typical of his style are experimental, noisy breaks in his songs and strong gothic (in the sense of dark and gloomy) el ...

* Lonesome Bob *

Paul Burch Paul Burch is an American musician, composer, and record producer based near the Natchez Trace. Discography *''Pan-American Flash'' (1996) *''Wire to Wire'' (1998) *''Blue Notes'' (2000) *''Last of my Kind'' (2001) *''Fool for Love'' (2003) *''Ea ...

Red Star Belgrade Fudbalski klub Crvena zvezda ( sr-Cyrl, Фудбалски клуб Црвена звезда, lit=Red Star Football Club, ), commonly known as Red Star Belgrade in English-language media, is a Serbian professional football club based in ...

The Silos The Silos is an American rock band formed by Walter Salas-Humara and Bob Rupe in New York City, United States in 1985. History Prior to starting the Silos, Salas-Humara had been a member of The Vulgar Boatmen, and Bob Rupe was in Florida band ...

Souled American Souled American is an American alternative country band from Chicago that was active mostly in the late-1980s and early-1990s. The band was founded in Normal, Illinois and consists of vocalists Chris Grigoroff (also guitar) and Joe Adducci (also ...

* Spanic Boys *

Tom House Thomas Ross House (born April 29, 1947) is a former left-handed relief pitcher in Major League Baseball, as well as an author and a pitching coach. Baseball career Player House pitched at Nogales High School (La Puente, California) and the ...

* Tommy Womack

References

{{Authority control American independent record labels Record labels established in 1997 1997 establishments in Illinois American country music record labels