Back in 1983 I found myself in a situation that a lot of musicians playing independent music found themselves in—nowhere to play and no one to put out our music. I found myself in a scene that had a lot of energy but no outlets—I decided to explore a few options. <br />I started out slow using my first band, 28th Day, as the tool for my experiments. I began by putting out little handmade cassettes (K-Mart 10 for $1 cassette packs) and selling them to the friends of the band. For some reason the scene took this as something to identify themselves with, and thus the label was born in March of '83. The highlight of these years was stacking cassette decks one on top of the other and making multiple dupes. Your friends always got the dupe closest to the<br />source deck!<br /><br />I took the name Devil in the Woods from the title of the very first song ever released by one of my favorite bands of all time, the Gun Club. Jeffrey Lee Pierce and his blues/punk music built the bridge that carried me over from hardcore punk that I was head over heals into (literally) to an appreciation of other genres of music. I owe him for this (RIP).<br />Around '85 I found out that a well put together compilation is a powerful scene solidifier. I put out compilations One and Two around this time mostly made up of bands from the local scene. I also found out that money isn't an issue, it's always the issue. The highlight of these years was watching the label gain notoriety, gaining some notoriety myself as a band member, and making some lifelong friends. I was living the scene and it was living all over me.<br />Having no set release schedule I just began releasing music/bands as money allowed. If I liked a particular artist or I believed that someone needed a break, I scraped together the money. I had no real goal, no real mind set focused on a bigger picture. I just knew that for the most part the music establishment had some sort of wacky way of deciding who gets what and most of the time the music I loved was ignored. Just that simple. The highlights of these years was finally finding my niche.<br /><br />Realizing that as my own personal music collection grew and as I was attending more and more bigger shows (as indie rock grew in acceptance), the music just kept moving further and further from me. I was also coming to realize that something was wrong in the way I was "into" the music. I listened and I watched but found myself critiquing too much. I was losing the reasons why I was involved in the first place. The scene was getting in the way of the music. So I decided to take a step back. <br /><br />I decided to observe for awhile to re-evaluate and to re-energize. The highlights of these years was seeing what I was missing.<br /><br />In 1996 I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and decided to remove myself from the music business. This lasted about one week. I told myself that if I was going to creep back into music I would need to approach it differently. This time from a new angle, with a new energy and a clear head. I started with the seven inch series "alone in a room" Volumes 1-3. While putting together these records I was lucky enough to stumble into some pretty great bands and people and very quickly I found myself putting out full length records—the very releases you see on this site.<br /><br />In '98, I started my journey into independent publishing. After a short stint with short-lived Snackcake! I convinvced some truly dedeicated folks to come on board and thus the birth of DIW Magazine. Our first issue was 1000 news print copies. We grew to be quite a bit larger than that during our eight year run.<br /><br />In 2001 DNA (Distribution North America) a wing of Valley Media went bankrupt. Though not a complete surprise many were shocked and we lost a load a revenue and worse, most of our catalog floated into space unable to be sold for 18 months. Neat. I took an involuntary year off.<br /><br />From 2002-2005 we had an incredible run with the magazine and the label. A massive magazine print run with an amazing run of subscriber only seven inch records—everyone from Bright Eyes to Coldplay to Grandaddy to The Explosion to Red House Painters. Great covers—Sleater, Death Cab, Spritualized, The Shins, the top of the line in indie artists. The label enjoyed a blast of success with the likes of KaitO, Fiver, Cruiser, The Mighty Lemon Drops, and with our vinyl releases of American Music Club, Pedro the Lion, Jesse Sykes, Sparklehorse, Grandaddy and Of Montreal. The highlight of those years were enjoying the fruits of our labor.<br /><br />In late 2006 I received an offer on the magazine. The timing was perfect. I was burnt, grumpy, hating the business end of the music business so I accepted the offer and got out. I sold the magazine, I sold the house in Modesto and I moved back to San Francisco, the city that I should have never left in the first place and stopped putting out music. This time it was a voluntary year off.<br /><br />In mid 2007 I woke up from a dream, sober, with a piece of paper that I had scribbled “the lower class revolt” on sitting amongst the cans on the nightstand. It was time to get back to doing the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. But this time, more grass roots, more hands on, more lending of a hand to those who need it. So we’ve fired up Devil in the Woods records once again and we’ve launched The Lower Class Revolt. We’re doing the sounds to fill your head and now the clothes to house your body in. It just seems more honest and working class again, just like it was when DIW started 25 years ago. <br /><br />There are so many deserving artists that need to have records released, words read, styles scene, videos viewed. I doubt that Devil in the Woods, and now The Lower Class Revolt, will be slowing down anytime soon. The continuing highlight of this past year has been my renewed faith in music and art and the people who make it. <br /><br />- Mike Cloward <br />San Francisco, California 2008 http://www.imeem.com/devilinthewoods Delta 0 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Devil in the Woods Records http://www.imeem.com/devilinthewoods/music/95pwooR1/the-aimless-never-miss-the-bright-side/ Sun, 02 Nov 2008 02:51:45 -0000 <div><a href="http://www.imeem.com/devilinthewoods/music/95pwooR1/the-aimless-never-miss-the-bright-side/"><img border="0" src="http://resources-p2.imeem.com/resources/versioned/2/graphics/icons/no_album_art_100x100.png" title="Click to play this song"/></a></div> 94qLIcZ4bH Devil in the Woods Records http://www.imeem.com/devilinthewoods/music/AS2OhA5D/light-fm-the-high/ Sun, 02 Nov 2008 02:49:35 -0000 <div><a href="http://www.imeem.com/devilinthewoods/music/AS2OhA5D/light-fm-the-high/"><img border="0" src="http://resources-p2.imeem.com/resources/versioned/2/graphics/icons/no_album_art_100x100.png" title="Click to play this song"/></a></div> tKCskj1EpH Devil in the Woods Records http://www.imeem.com/devilinthewoods/music/zejUB5ss/the-sleepover-disaster-funnel-cloud/ Sun, 02 Nov 2008 02:47:27 -0000 <div><a href="http://www.imeem.com/devilinthewoods/music/zejUB5ss/the-sleepover-disaster-funnel-cloud/"><img border="0" src="http://resources-p2.imeem.com/resources/versioned/2/graphics/icons/no_album_art_100x100.png" title="Click to play this song"/></a></div> 2JfY97-cnz