No Direction Home

One of the most interesting stories about Fifth Colvmn Records actually occurred after I had already left. About one or two short years after leaving the label I ran into DJ Yoon otherwise known as indie label retail guru and supreme schmoozer of Caroline Distribution, Bryan Mechutan. Bryan was an all around good guy but the words “mover and shaker” don’t exactly apply to him. While he had good instincts for retail and was an excellent builder of relationships he was an incredible pothead with a proclivity for smoking on the job. I’ll never forget IM-ing with him late one afternoon and the exchange went something like this:

(me) Hey what’s up?
(Yoon) not much dude
(me) busy?
(yoon) weeze getting’ high….

I can’t remember where I saw Bryan when this story was relayed to me but I started telling him about my new gig in the music industry in NYC and he, of course, knew my boss through one or two mutual acquaintances. We got to talking about the fate of FCR and what became of its players. After the label lost its distribution deal with Caroline it basically ceased to exist on a national level thereby positioning the first nail in its coffin. Without any real managerial direction to right the ship, the label was now rudderless, directionless and taking on water (sorry for the nautical imagery here). With distribution checks getting literally misplaced amongst bills and random bits of mail and never actually making it into the bank, funds were hard to come by. The label personnel remaining on board tried to rally but it was hopeless.

During this slow progression into oblivion, FCR’s primary shareholder had his attention elsewhere and left the label to flounder. With one national distribution deal dead (Caroline) and others soon to die (primarily through Bayside and Metropolis) label activity had slowed to a trickle. These distributors, with no need to support a label that wouldn’t support itself, began returning product in earnest. But where to return this product? With the label owner not in the loop and the label staff cut loose, that left FCR employee #1 and Chemlab head honcho, Jared as the man on point. According to Mechutan, after several failed attempts to reach the AWOL label head in question and get him to provide FCR’s erstwhile distributors with a shipping address, Jared stepped into the void. Mechutan told me that all of this product, thousands of CDs worth roughly a quarter of a million dollars (more or less), was sent to Jared and his tiny apartment in NYC’s lower east side. I’m not aware of whether or not this product was actually returned to its rightful owner but much of it became available through Invisible Records a label, coincidentally, distributed at the time by Caroline Distribution. It’s always been my speculation that the original owner of FCR found out about this misdirected product, wanted nothing to do with it, and basically signed it over to Jared as a final parting gift. Chemlab was a band that never made any real money while signed to FCR and this would’ve been a tidy conclusion of business between the label and the band. Not all titles originally released by FCR are available through Invisible but early releases from Haloblack, Acumen, Chemlab, Trust Obey and Death Ride 69 should be.