Fin Records

Founded in the 2010's and ran by Christian Fulghum of "Attachments" and Co-Founder of "Sister Psychic", Fin Records was a great local Seattle label, following in the footsteps of Restless Records, when it comes to bringing in new upstarts to the rock generation. Quote from Fulghum in an interview, " Fin Records came about in a very small way initially. Andy Davenhall and I were talking about re-releasing the first two or three Sister Psychic records, and it kind of spiraled out from there. I founded a small record label in 1983, Art & Economix, which only ended up putting out vinyl by Attachments, my band at the time, but I felt like I had not taken that label far enough, so it was an opportunity to pick up that idea and run with it again. Two other factors were driving the creation of Fin: First, I have been a friend and business partner with Martin Feveyear in Jupiter Studios since 1994. Martin does all the production and engineering, but I am always in there listening to new music and talking with artists about their creative process. There is a lot of frustration with record labels, whether they are tiny indies or majors. I though I could do a better job of taking care of the interests of artists, by showing them more respect , allowing more creative control, and being transparent and supportive. Second, I was inspired by small publishers like Black Sparrow Press, best known for their enduring working relationship with Charles Bukowski. They really did a great job of supporting him when he was unknown and broke, and treating his writing with respect. They didn't censor it, and they packaged it in a beautiful way, like volumes of beat poetry. All those things led to the creation of Fin Records. At first it was a struggle to get artists to consider working with a new label. But once people understood what we were trying to do, and how we were going about it, it really generated a lot of interest from artists, the press, radio, and music lovers." Though not much has been documented, they have done a great deal to bring up new rising artists within the Seattle scene, with "more than one hundred vinyl LPs, EPs, CDs, and digital releases by a wide variety of artists including KAIROS, Low Hums, Lures, Tangerine, SEACATS, Gavin Guss, Red Jacket Mine, J. Pinder, Pigeonhed, The Young Evils, Jack Endino, Long Distance Poison, STAG, and dozens more, covering styles ranging from Hip Hop to Punk Rock, Electronic to Country, and Folk to Avant-Garde." Soon though in 2014, they suspended operations due to monetary issues at the time. Despite being a great local label, not many sales were made, and so it couldn't be sustained for too long. Quote from the Seattle Weakly, in “Local Label of the Year”, 2012, “This shamelessly idealist label, which gives artists complete control over their music and packaging, is still young, but its future looks bright—and so, by extension, does that of the … talent it cultivates.”- Chris Kornelis, Seattle Weekly, and quote again from Christian Fulghum, “It has never been easier to record, release, and distribute a record, but it has also never been more difficult to make money doing so.”