The story on Doom Town Records

Have you heard of Doom Town Records? Maybe. Maybe not.

If you follow local music, you may have heard of Perry H. Matthews (that's a band, not a guy), Baby Tears and Church of Gravitron, all of which will have releases on the label.

The label is run by Ethan Jones and Justin O'Connor, both of whom have been in several local groups. As O'Connor put it in an e-mail, "In a time when recorded music is worthless and live music is nothing more than a excuse to see and be seen, Ethan Jones and I decided to end 2009 with #15 on Newsweek's Top 100 Ways to Waste Your Money and Your Time: Start your own record label."

Basically, the label is a vehicle to put out small run releases with cool, unique, special packaging. Every release will be between 100 and 200 copies and will be hand printed and packaged for "maximum textile pleasure," they said.

Jones also explained where they had the idea for the label: "Over the years some of our favorite recordings have been DIY/handmade releases from bands that we purchased at shows or mailorder underground music distros. Justin and I have both been heavily influenced by the '80s do it yourself punk and hardcore movement and have been reading books like: Our Band Could Be Your Life, American Hardcore and Rip It Up and Start Again. Those books definitely had something to do with starting the fire under Doom Town."

They started out by releasing their own music, Baby Tears' EP (Jones) and some out-of-print recordings by Church of Gravitron (O'Connor). Both are available now.

They're following those up with Perry H. Matthew's CD, which will be out soon. This weekend, they'll be screen printing the CD covers, inserts and CDRs and assembling them. They're making them using an Arigato Pak, which is basically a cardboard sleeve that you can screen print and assemble into a CD package. If you haven't seen one before, they're pretty cool. Last year's release by locals Race For Titles spring to mind.

Head to Doom Town Records to check out and download music from each band (click "Media") and purchase a copy for yourself (click "Releases").