Cat Jams Records

Independent label run by Channing Kennedy in Columbia, Missouri, from 2002-2008. The label's slogan was "Columbia’s Foremost Cat-Owned Rule-Based Music Label." Over the years, Columbia, MO, has been home to a smattering of small independent labels with short shelf lives, but Cat Jams was likely the most storied and influential. Founded in the years immediately preceding the rise of both SoundCloud and Bandcamp, and sui generis in Columbia for its focus on cultivating local left-of-dial talent, Cat Jams served for half a decade as the sleepy Midwestern college town's premiere propagandist for teen frenzy and sonic experimentation. Run by Kennedy from, first, a well-known flop- and party-house on West Ash Street (since torn down) and, later, a proper home just around the corner on Hubbell Street, north of downtown Columbia, Cat Jams Records drew conceptual inspiration from the imperious C-Suite demeanor of its founder's tortoise shell cat, Blanche, the label's nominal owner and CEO. Surprisingly prolific during its brief existence, Cat Jams served as the vehicle for Kennedy's avant-garde projects as well as a force that channelled dozens of punk degeneracies and artistic impulses bubbling up from the local community into forms that more often than not resembled bands. In addition to Cat Jams' flagship release, [r1509409], the first and only album by Columbia's answer to the Germs, Cat Jams also issued [r11817092], arguably Missouri's first psychedelic punk album. While The I Love You But I'm Not In Love With Yous, a group of 17-year-olds who found common ground in alcoholism and sex addiction as much as musical taste, were notorious for their unpredictable live shows—one of which resulted in their being banned from Amnesty International benefit concerts—The Pows ignited a Midwestern psych-punk revival that soon birthed better known acts Cave (5), Warhammer 48k, and Bitchin Bajas. Like many college town scenes, Cat Jams burned bright before fizzling when its founder and principal guru picked up stakes and moved elsewhere. But its example inspired other Columbia labels with a similar focus, like Painfully Midwestern Records and Apop Records, as well as far-flung Permanent Records (2), LA-by-way-of-Columbia transplants. And the Cat Jams legacy thrives today with local tape and record labels that continue to valorize all the CoMo goons with one-note tunes: Dismal Niche Tapes, Tell 'Em Tapes, and Hitt Records (6) chief among them.