Sympathy for the Record Industry (also known as Sympathy Records or Sympathy 4 the R.I.) is a mainly independent garage rock and punk label formed in 1988 by record industry anti-mogul Long Gone John. The first Sympathy release was the Lazy Cowgirls' album "Radio Cowgirl" LP, which Long Gone John said he released as a "favor to the band." Sympathy has a catalog of more than 750 releases, and is based out of Olympia, Washington. The label's name references The Rolling Stones' song "Sympathy for the Devil".
Notable artists who started on Sympathy and went on to gain mainstream success include The White Stripes, Hole, and The Electrocutes (the first Donnas incarnation).
Long Gone John is the owner, CEO, and seemingly the only employee of Sympathy. He is an avid record collector, with more than 10,000 records in his collection. He also owns Necessaries Toy Foundation, a company that creates 18-24 inch figures. Long Gone John also operates Sympathetic Press, a book publishing company that prints books with rock 'n' roll themes.
Other Sympathy acts worthy of notice have been Jack Off Jill, Scarling., Miss Derringer, The Muffs, The (International) Noise Conspiracy, The Von Bondies, Rocket from the Crypt, Billy Childish, Turbonegro, April March, The Splatterheads, The Dwarves, Suicide, The Gun Club, Inger Lorre and Motel Shootout, Man or Astro-man?,The Red Planet Rocketts, Kim Salmon, Bored! The Waldos, The Mystreated, and Redd Kross.
On July 20, 2007 Long Gone John announced via his Myspace Blog that he was selling the label for "$625,000.00 or $700,000.00 if i don't like you".
In September 2011, John decided to start releasing records once again. He signed a distribution deal with Independent Label Distribution, then immediately put out a full length LP as well as three 7"s by The Ettes. The company now distributes new records as well as many older ones from John's catalog.
Read more about Sympathy For The Record Industry: Discography
Famous quotes containing the words sympathy for, sympathy, record and/or industry:
“What is clear is that Christianity directed increased attention to childhood. For the first time in history it seemed important to decide what the moral status of children was. In the midst of this sometimes excessive concern, a new sympathy for children was promoted. Sometimes this meant criticizing adults. . . . So far as parents were put on the defensive in this way, the beginning of the Christian era marks a revolution in the child’s status.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“With each divine impulse the mind rends the thin rinds of the visible and finite, and comes out into eternity, and inspires and expires its air. It converses with truths that have always been spoken in the world, and becomes conscious of a closer sympathy with Zeno and Arrian, than with persons in the house.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“No record ... can ... name the women of talent who were so submerged by child- bearing and its duties, and by “general housework,” that they had to leave their poems and stories all unwritten.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)
“That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)