This weekend Nottingham’s own Hello Thor Records celebrates its fifth birthday. Since it started, the record label has released eight singles, four EPs and two albums from Fists, We Show Up On Radar, Cantaloupe, Anxieteam and Hot Horizons and they've put on more than fifty gigs and parties.
OUR FIRST RECORD
Hello Thor originally started life in May 2008 when the three of us got some t-shirts made, put on a few gigs and started telling people that we ran a record label. It took us almost a year to actually get round to releasing a record though. We put out Cockatoo / Skit, the debut single by Fists (our favourite band and the reason we wanted to start a label in the first place) in April 2009, and celebrated at the Art Organisation. Not everything ran entirely smoothly - the records got delayed in France so we didn’t have them in time for the launch gig; for some inexplicable reason we hired a PA from Uttoxeter which we had to take back, dog rough, the next morning; and we almost scared off the headline act when Anders started chanting “Give me an F, give me an I, give me an S…etc.” before their set - but it was still an amazing, massively exciting night.
One of the brilliant things about that night – like most of our early gigs - were the bespoke visuals dreamt up for us by the creative genius that is artist Dan Toporowski. Dan went on to animate an awesome video for Cockatoo, and the song went on to be named in several lists of people’s favourite singles of 2009:
OUR FIRST ALBUM
Our initial plan for the label was to release the Fists 7”. To be honest that was the only plan - we thought if we could make that happen that would be it. But once we got going we started to enjoy it and wanted to do more.
Our next signing was Andy Wright aka We Show Up On Radar, an incredible songwriter who has soundtracked all kinds of adventures with his magical and melancholic melodies over the last five years. There’s been a WSUOR Maida Vale session, a national tour of libraries, several festivals, and singles which have been released, variously, on pink vinyl, as a zine, with hand drawn covers and with a tote bag…
Then, in 2012, we were super happy to release our first album - Sadness Defeated by We Show Up On Radar - eleven songs of brilliant, tender, woozy pop music gold. Huw Stephens called it “a thing of beauty”, which pretty much summed up how we felt about it.
The video for the last song on the album, Hands Up If You’re Lost - by the very talented Polymath Pictures - was actually chosen as “the weirdest thing on the Internet” last year one day, which is pretty cool!
THE WORLD’S FIRST POSTCARD BOOK EP (WE THINK)
We’ve always tried to make the stuff we’ve done visually and musically strong - working with brilliant artists and designers for our gig posters; making zines with fourbeatwalk; and collaborating with all kinds of photographers and artists on each record sleeve.
In 2010 we were approached by a friend of a friend, the artist Jon Burgerman, who wanted to tell us about the band he’d formed with fellow artist and musician Jim Avignon. Jon and Jim’s band (the brilliantly named Anxieteam) had already done a few gigs in New York, as well as in galleries in Germany, Italy and Brazil. We were intrigued, and after watching videos of their performances - which included masks, dancers, salad-making workshops, digital doodles and buckets of catchy pop tunes - we were IN.
To do justice to their colourful music we first released a picture disc - Let’s Eat Soya / Lonely In The Digital World. Then someone had the bright idea of creating what we think is the world’s first postcard book EP...22 postcards, four songs and one big bundle of fun.
OUR FIRST CO-RELEASE
All of our releases are collaborations - with the bands and the artists involved. But in recent years we’ve realised that a co-operative approach, working with other labels too, can help make projects even better as well. There are loads of like-minded people doing brilliant things in Nottingham, so it’s not hard to find suitable partners.
The first time we collaborated with another record label was a couple of years ago when we got together with Denizen Recordings to release the final single by Hot Horizons.
Hot Horizons was a band formed by two brothers - Jake and Rory McCarthy. We’d known Rory for some time. His hilarious and amazing teenage 8-bit punk band, Death By TV, had played one of our earliest gigs; he performed an ace solo set at the Cockatoo launch party; and the first ever Hot Horizons gig was at our Christmoustache party where you got in cheap if you had a moustache…not sure whose idea that was! We’d actually tried and failed to sign Hot Horizons before, so when the opportunity arose for us to get together with Denizen to release Ill/I Can’t Stay Awake - two songs which totally dazzled us all - on vinyl we jumped at it.
Since then we’ve also collaborated with Gringo Records to release Fists’ debut album, Phantasm, and later this year we’re getting together with our new favourite record label, I OWN YOU, to put out the new Moscow Youth Cult album.
Tragically, the Hot Horizons story had a very sad ending. In December 2012 Jake McCarthy died of an undiagnosed brain tumour. All proceeds from the sale of every single are donated to the Foundation set up in Jake's memory to raise awareness of the symptoms of brain tumours and to ensure early diagnosis.
It's a brilliant record and it's a brilliant cause, in memory of a very special, very talented, much loved guy. So please do buy it.
OUR FIRST GIG IN A SEVENTIES SHOPPING ARCADE
A few years ago we had the pleasure of doing the first “takeover” of The Music Exchange, in their old shop. The Music Exchange is our favourite record shop and a place that has been massively supportive of our label (and of the whole Nottingham music scene) over the years. We love those guys.
We put together a compilation CD-zine for the occasion, our good friends fourbeatwalk decorated the windows, we made lots of cake and we played records in the shop all day. It was mega. It got even more mega, however, when Cantaloupe turned up to play live. We decided that rather than try to cram them into the tiny shop they should perform outside the shop, in the West End Arcade itself.
What happened next was summed up best by James from Fists: “utterly surreal”. After a brief sound check the band were told by a neighbouring shopkeeper that they could play for ten minutes, maximum, or he was calling the police. So, the band charged through Teapot and Horse (which we later released on their debut EP) and Splish (which eventually turned up on another first, our first 12” single), picking up a small crowd of shoppers as they went along. It was a totally thrilling set, made all the more exciting when two Community Support Officers walked past. Everyone assumed they were there to shut us down - and, I think, collectively shit themselves a little bit - but instead they just walked past as if nothing was happening.
Thankfully, The Kneel Before Zod Video Club of Nottingham Club captured it all on film:
Hello Thor Music Exchange Takeover, Saturday 26 April, 10am - 4pm, free. There will be live music from CJ Mirra (and a very special guest), Radio Thor broadcasting for the first time, a new fourbeatwalk Thor-zine, special giveaways and plenty more cake.
The party continues with a video party (plus live performance from Moscow Youth Cult) at Broadway in the evening.
LIsten to all of Hello Thor's releases on Bandcamp
Hello Thor website
We have a favour to ask
LeftLion is Nottingham’s meeting point for information about what’s going on in our city, from the established organisations to the grassroots. We want to keep what we do free to all to access, but increasingly we are relying on revenue from our readers to continue. Can you spare a few quid each month to support us?
