Skybucket Records

Skybucket Records, based in Birmingham, Alabama was formed in the summer 2002 to release a CD sampler of local music. After the success of this initial release, Skybucket continued to grow, concentrating on signing local musicians and independently releasing their recordings.

Five years after the compilation, Skybucket Records has seventeen releases under its belt, with several more planned in the near future. Thanks to considerable local and regional attention, Skybucket is slowly expanding into national markets.

Artists

Artists with releases on the Skybucket Records label include:

Dan Sartain

Dan Sartain toured with the White Stripes

Barton Carroll [http://bartoncarroll.com/]

The Dexateens [http://www.dexateens.net/]

13ghosts [http://www.13ghostsmusic.com]

[http://www.13ghostsmusic.com/ 13ghosts] , of the dirty south (Birmingham, Alabama), began as a recording project in 1998. The founders were Brad Armstrong and Buzz Russell, and Mikey Williams who had been in bands together off and on since 1990. The project came together to record some songs about their friend and bandmate Thomas Rhodes, who had killed himself earlier that year.It developed into a fulltime band a year or so later, and Sammy Boggan was added on bass. 13ghosts began performingregionally and set out to make a record with the intention of securinga label deal. They recorded We are the Sun (2001), and their friendJohn P. Strohm (Blake Babies) shopped it to the independent labelcircuit. There were no takers. They recorded a second album (YourWindow is Burning, 2002), and Strohm put it with a big timeentertainment lawyer. It was shopped. 13ghosts showcased forAtlantic. American Records was interested. Warner Bros. wasinterested. Then they weren't. 13ghosts began recording their nextrecord. During the process, Mikey Williams quit the project due to personal issues. Withthe album not even half finished, Brad and Buzz decided to finish itby recruiting all of their musician friends. They logged almost 25contributors. One of them stuck, and Jason Lucia joined on drums.Andrew Vernon, who had recorded the band since the beginning, was alsoadded as a full time member. Cicada was released in a limited editionpressing in 2004 with fledging label SkybucketRecords, then in a standard pressing in 2005. Cicada was the band'sfirst truly independent and mature effort, recorded with no labels oraudiences in mind, made purely for themselves and with no expectationsof any kind. Pitchfork took notice and gave it a good [http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/22818-cicada review] . Then alot of other publications followed suit, including PerformingSongwriter, PopMatters, Pop Culture Press, San Francisco Bay Guardian,Splendid Magazine, Skyscraper, SE Performer (cover feature), and manyothers. Cicada went to radio in early March 2006, and receivedairplay at over 100 stations nationally, going top 10 at 8 stations,top 30 at 39 stations, and spent 4 weeks on CMJ's Top 200, peaking atnumber 139. 13ghosts went on their first national tour, in support of Maria Taylor (Saddle Creek, formerly of Azure Ray). It was very successful,and they went back into the studio in June 2006 to begin work on thenext recording. They finished it six months later. It is untitled asof yet, and will be released by Skybucket in early 2008.

Through the Sparks [http://www.throughthesparks.com]

Through the Sparks was named when Birmingham musicians James Brangle and Jody Nelson began writing and recording with longtime friends and collaborators Nikolaus and Thomas Mimikakis and Greg Slamen in early 2004, but the music had been culminating for years. The band had worked together in full and partial forms with other Birmingham bands, such as Stateside and Cutgrass and as a backing band for other folks for a decade that began . . . in relative childhood.

Nelson, Brangle and the Mimikakis twins taught themselves to play music together in high school, when "Blues Before Sunrise," the Band, the Blue Oyster Cult, the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, ELO, Neil Young and Steely Dan were the soundtrack to Canadian whiskey-swilling sing-alongs in the Alabama kitchens of any out-of-town parents with unwarranted confidence in their children's judgment. However, they spent most of their time learning to play instruments rather than falling prey to the perilous Trans-Am revving years of youth (or at least living to tell about them).

Slamen, an oddly familiar face from the guitar stores and record store aisles, became a mainstay in the group early in the college days, when full-time music-making became the norm. Upon the realization that they were sitting on a library of songs and ideas, and with multiple songwriters in the band, Through the Sparks pooled their pile of beat-up pianos and organs, 8-tracks and a Protools rig, and formed Alamalibu Studios, the band's heavily fortified, though often transient, music-making space in Birmingham. The band released an EP titled Coin Toss and a limited edition collection of early recordings, AudioIotas, during the first year and a half of its existence, both released on Skybucket Records. They've recently completed their first full-length release for Skybucket, while playing as many shows as their recording schedule allowed.

Lazarus Beach is due May 1. The album was a year in the making, and hosts many Birmingham guest musicians to round out some of the instruments needed that Through the Sparks either didn't have on hand, or didn't know how to play.

Through the Sparks' upcoming release, "Lazarus Beach" will be their first official full-length recording for Skybucket Records. Release date is May1st, 2007. The collection includes the cream of a twenty-plus song crop, recorded at the band's Alamalibu Studios in the first half of 2006. While hosting several Birmingham guest musicians and utilizing the band's multi-instrumental talents, it keeps Through the Sparks' guitar-and piano-rock format at the forefront.

While there are still the noise and synth-laden marshes, horn and big-harmony choruses and crescendos loom over beds of ukulele, honky-tonk piano, funeral home organ and pedal steel. Of course, there's still a copious amount of gleaming guitars and a few signature triplet beats.

Taylor and the Puffs

Wes McDonald [http://skybucket.com/band/wes_mcdonald]

A Birmingham, AL native, Wes McDonald remains a Birmingham residentand operates out of the sleepy town that is rumored to be waking up.In the late nineties, having zero record releases under his belt,McDonald moved from Birmingham to Athens, Ga , where he did a 6 yearresidency. He released his first solo album, Alarm Clock Recordings,in 2000, and in the process, formed The Ohms with fellow formerTuscaloosa musicians, Jeff Buckley, Mark Evces and South Carolina'sAndrew "the Fidldlin' Heatwave" Heaton. The Ohms became a localfavorite in Athens, and toured all over the southeast. The Ohmsreleased 2 records, Electrical Resistance and If you don't Think ILove You.

Amidst the success of The Ohms, McDonald continued his solo work,recording two more albums, 2001's Chandelier, and Cutting Up Rocks in2002. The release of Cuttin' Up Rocks coincided with McDonald's returnto Birmingham, the end of the Ohms, and a reunion with his formerBirmingham mates from wayback, Matthew Jackson, Drew Davis and JakeWaitzman. This lineup made up the Wes McDonald Plan, and McDonald'sventure back into the Birmingham music scene had begun.

Soon after, McDonald released The Guest, on Birmingham-based indielabel, Skybucket Records. Touche, a song from this record, earned theopening slot on the Birmingham music scene double-disc compilation,Low Dose Exposure, put together by Skybucket Records chief, TravisMorgan. During this time McDonald and the Plan toured a lot,including a 2005 showcase at SouthbySouthwest. Following The Guestcame 2006's1:50 in the Furnace, a tawdry break out rock album producedby Ken Coomer (of Wilco fame) and Charlie Brocco. McDonald wouldlater call this album pivotal, and say that the experience of workingwith Coomer and Brocco greatly improved his approach to making music.As 1:50 in the Furnace sank in, Wes was busy making an ep with hisAlaskan buddy, Terry Ohms. Terry Ohms plays Wes McDonald released inOctober 2006, is an 8 song ep that comes out of nowhere and asMcDonald puts it " . . . is a taste of much more to come from TerryOhms.

All this time, McDonald was teaming up with Lester Nuby (Verbena),Jake Waitzman, and Keelan Parrish to form a band. That band is VULTUREWHALE, who's first record is due out in 2007. McDonald says of hisnew band, " I'm excited about our new record, but I'm totally stokedabout the bumper sticker."

ee also

* List of record labels

External links

* [http://www.skybucket.com Skybucket Records]