Bladen County Records

About

Bladen County Records:

Joe Bowden and Matt Brown, Owners

Mike McCluskey, Project Manager

Josh Spacek, Project Manager

Casey Burns, Art Director

Here’s an article from the Willamette Week about BCR:

"When their friends’ bands needed a record label in 1993, Omaha’s Robb Nansel and Mike Mogis started Lumberjack Records. Their friends were in little-known Omaha bands with names like Bright Eyes, Cursive and The Faint, and Nansel and Mogis started soon changed their label’s name to Saddle Creek Records. And everyone got rich and famous and lived happily ever after on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Last fall, Matt Brown and Joe Bowden stepped up to fill a similar void for their friends here in Portland and around the country. “We put out a couple records, realized how difficult it is – and kept doing it,” Bowden says. Since October 2006 Bowden and Brown’s label Bladen County Records have released albums for locals The Builders And The Butchers, Kurt Hagardorn, PDX-to-SF transplant Dakota Slim, and they’re about to unveil new releases by Autopilot, Oh Captain, My Captain, New York’s Anders Parker, and a Builders And The Butchers split with local chamber pop powerhouse Loch Lomond.

Both Saddle Creek and Bladen County share geographical names – a road in Omaha and a county in Matt Brown’s native North Carolina. But beyond that, Bladen County shares a solid line-up with an indie-Americana slant with their label elder..."

Well here it is 2010 and since that article was written we’ve been busy. We’ve put out records for North Carolina’s The Love Language, Portland locals Ezra Carey and Alan Singley, a studio LP for Anders Parker, provided the American release of Sweden’s own Moneybrother and worked with tons and tons of local bands in many different capacities. We’ve also launched our Management and Radio PR departments with services to Nick Jaina. Looking ahead we’ve been focused on the future of our business in an increasingly digital world partnering with great companies like Record Code Dot Com and IODA as well as Flea Marketing, 230 Publicity, and Distiller Promo to get the most for our bands releases. At the end of the day though one of the things that we have found to be most important to us has been not being afraid to give shit tons of music away for free. In the coming year we plan to continue this oldest of BCR traditions so join our mailing list HERE and we’ll keep you steeped in great music. 

Lastly I’d like to say that Bladen County Records is a label of bartenders, laborers, writers, and musicians, never afraid to work. We have a sincere dedication to good art, ethics, and community, with a fierce indie ethos. The main reason we even thought we could do this was because of the incredible community in Portland, and that is what continues to make our business possible.    

Thanks for stopping by our site

-Joe