Resistance Records - History

History

The label was founded in Windsor, Ontario in December 1993 by then-white supremacist George Burdi. George Burdi went by the name "George Eric Hawthorne" at that time. In January 1994 this music label was also incorporated in Detroit, Michigan. With the launch of a new music label came the new magazine Resistance. The magazine boasted a circulation of over 13,000 in 1995. This magazine is still published and distributed by the National Alliance. Among the acts signed to Resistance was Burdi's own RAHOWA (short for "Racial Holy War"), which disbanded after Burdi renounced neo-Nazism. The label's best-selling CDs have been by Bound for Glory and Angry Aryans.

Burdi was involved in a white supremacist street march in May 1993, during which he kicked a female anti-racist protestor in the face. Burdi was charged for assault causing bodily harm in 1995, and given a 12-month sentence. He was arrested after losing appeals and served time for the assault in 1997. Burdi's Canadian business partners, Jason Snow and Joe Talic, had taken control and ownership of Resistance in 1996. American manager Mark Wilson was later replaced by Eric Davidson, (former editor of the North American edition of Blood & Honor) who had relocated from California to Michigan in January 1997.

In April 1997, Resistance Records was temporarily put out of business by a tax dispute and a prosecution for distributing materials that promoted hatred in Canada. The inventory was in the United States at that time, at a rented house in Milford, Michigan where the operations were run. The Federal Marshals, under the direction of the Internal Revenue Service, seized the company records and the entire inventory. Eventually a small fine was paid for failure to properly pay state sales tax, and the business records and inventory was returned. The label never again operated in Canada because of violations of Canadian hate speech laws. After his 1997 sentence, George Burdi renounced racism and formed an ethnically diverse band, Novacosm.

In 1998, Resistance Records was sold by its Canadian owners to Willis Carto and was incorporated in Washington DC, with Carto's agent Todd Blodgett in charge of operations. Eric Davidson gave notice after the sale and would later relocate to Minnesota to help found Panzerfaust Records. For a brief time, Resistance Records operated from California. Blogett and William Luther Pierce had bought partial ownership. Carto and Blogett later sold their shares of the company to Pierce, head of the National Alliance in 1999. In 1999, Pierce took full control of Resistance, fired Blogett and moved the entire operations to his 400-acre (1.6 km2) property in Hillsboro, WV. Also in 1999, Resistance Records bought Swedish white power label Nordland Records, doubling its roster. In 2000 it was made into an LLC in West Virginia.

Resistance Records owns several smaller labels, most notably black metal labels Cymophane Records and Unholy Records. At one time, it operated a web-based radio station, Resistance Radio, which streamed white power music across the Internet 24 hours a day. As of 2007, the CEO of Resistance Records was Erich Gliebe.