Tim Clapp has just sold his Fall Out Boy record on eBay for $150. Clapp is the owner, founder, and all around nice guy behind one of Vancouver’s most prominent independent record labels, so it comes as no surprise that he knows the value of early 2000’s emo. When I meet him at Neptoon Records where he works, I can almost feel his excitement.
“It’s out of print now!” he says with a knowing smile.
Kingfisher Bluez is home to some of the finest indie acts from Vancouver and beyond. Apollo Ghosts, Needles//Pins, Dirty Beaches, Mesa Luna, B-Lines, and more have all called Kingfisher Bluez home, as well as an arsenal of non-Canadian acts like Xiu Xiu and Allison Crutchfield. Ranging from weird pop to folk to punk, they are all united by a single quality: Warmth.
“If the music is really good, and its warm, then people are gonna come back to it," says Clapp. "The music that affects people is the same reason that Fall Out Boy records are $150 now. It's because people were internally changed by that when they were 18. You spend the rest of your life trying to recreate that feeling.”
After speaking with Clapp for more than 10 minutes you get the feeling that this guy is the real deal; more music fan than business man, and far removed from the grant-dependent indies that speckle our country like tattoos on Pete Wentz’ arms.
So what are the origins of this noble label?
“I used to do a radio show in Nanaimo on CHLY, and I would play bands I’d later see go on to be successful. I was thinking, man, I’ve gotten pretty good at picking what bands to play the demos of or whatever.” says Clapp, who started Kingfisher Bluez as an mp3 blog in 2008. “I thought maybe I’ll just make a website to post my music and my friends' music. After a few people started [visiting] it, I thought geez, maybe I should just start a record label! I put my first release on my credit card, sold all the copies in a few weeks and made a second press of it. I’ve been paying off the same $1800 dollars since I started.”
That’s right. It only costs $1800 to start your own label.
“I’m in the business of making DIY vinyl record releases, I make 300 records, I sell them, that’s it. Right now, its very comfortable to not be in the pocket of the government. I’m not totally above selling myself out yet, but I don’t need it right now.”
Spoken like a true man of the underground, the same man whose invoices all state “No Grants, No Hits since 2008”. This kind of punk ethos is what makes Kingfisher Bluez feel like a sanctuary to artists who just want to make music without the corporate handcuffs that come with spending other people’s money unwisely or excessively. “I’m just a guy with a credit card. I’m basically saying take $1,000 of my money to make a single and I’ll do my best to claw back that $1,000 over the next two years.” says Clapp of his business plan. “I’m not going out to dive into a Scrooge McDuck vault of money afterwards. I don’t really do any publishing, I don’t do syncs, I don’t do anything like that. Someone sends me two songs, I make the record, I give them 20 per cent of the records for free, they sell theirs, I sell mine, there’s no money ever exchanged, you know?”
This year Kingfisher Bluez gave us Philadelphia-based Allison Crutchfield of the band Swearin’s debut solo LP, Vancouver’s Dada Plan, Colin Cowan, and singles by White Poppy, Dirty Beaches, and Clapp himself, who goes under the moniker Tim The Mute, to name a few. Next year we’ll be seeing the likes of dusky songstress Jody Glenham, London UK’s The Tuts, a collaboration between Holy Hum and Alex Zhang Hungtai (formerly known as Dirty Beaches) and a “singles club” in collaboration with 12 of Clapp’s favorite labels, including Champagne, Illinois’ Polyvinyl, and the infamous Flying Nun from New Zealand. Not too shabby for a label whose website slogan reads, “Where My Money Goes To Die”.
This year will mark Kingfisher Bluez seventh annual Christmas party, a guaranteed gong show at the Hindenburg, showing off past and present alumni including The Courtneys, Shawn Mrazek Lives!, Dead Soft, and many more.
“The Christmas party is always so much fun. The first year I did it was in my friend’s living room. Last year we sold out the Cobalt, and for the last three years I’ve been doing a free single.” says Clapp. This year’s single “Santa Knows (I’ve Been Bad)" is by Vancouver’s Kim Gray. All of the money raised will go to 1-800-SUICIDE and Crisis Centre BC.
“Last year we raised over $1,000 for charity," says Clapp.
No subsidiaries, no hits and no grants. It may not get him a Fall Out Boy collaboration, but it will get him a reputation of gold. And in a scene where word of mouth has more weight than a grant deadline, well, you can’t sell that on eBay.
“I’m in this business because I love bands and I love music," he says. "It's very important to me to make good records that are timeless. I like to make warm-feeling records. It's for people like me.”
