LOGAN SQUARE — Cole Brice, the one-man band who nearly single-handedly runs his namesake Logan Square bar, always dreamed of working at a record label.
The 34-year-old wrote that off as an impossible fantasy around the time he graduated college. It was the height of the Napster-era and supposed doom of the industry.
But, roughly 15 years later, Brice is preparing to launch his own record label, Cole's Recorded Rarities.
"I've been kicking it around in my head for a couple years," Brice said. "I'm just getting to the place right now with the bar business where I'm at the emotional capacity to invest some energy into something else."
The new label, which will be based out of the bar, specializes in re-releasing ephemera from music scenes that got passed up over time, mainly due to the prevalence of major labels' control over the market and sounds.
"I've been inspired lately by all these little micro-labels and re-issue labels that are popping up," Brice said. "I see other people doing it. I was like, I can do that. Let's just try it out and see what happens."
The first release and only project in the pipeline so far is from a group called the Semitropics who put out a single album in 1984 while thriving, albeit underground, in Bakersfield, Calif., as high schoolers.
Two of those former band members who are now in their mid-to-late 40s regularly play with a honky-tonk group at Cole's. One night, they mentioned the old band to Cole and passed him a record to check out.
"I was like, this is a gem," Brice said. "It just kind of fell into my lap that way."
That gem launched the label.
A 300-record press of the Semitropics is currently underway at Gotta Groove Records. The band will be re-uniting for a pre-release party at Cole's, 2338 N. Milwaukee Ave., April 1.
"Who would have thought," said Tommy Kimball, an original member of the Semitropics. "I hadn't thought about [the band] in a long time and it's all come as kind of a surprise. All thanks to Cole."
The record release show will be the first time the group has played together in an "awful long time," according to Kimball
"Everybody has kept their chops up," he said. "We are going to have to bust out the old fuzz box. It's gonna be interesting."
Where the label will go from the original 300-record release is up in the air, but for now it's still about achieving the dream for Brice.
If the records sell, Cole's Recorded Rarities can move onto the next project. That could mean continuing to focus on re-issues, but if the years of running Cole's the bar have taught him anything., Brice doesn't want to count out the possibility of originals.
The first press will be available at local record stores, at Cole's and on the web.
"Honestly, I didn’t even think I would take it this far," Brice said. "I was just hoping that I would get the chance to start my own business and fail at it and that would be enough for me at the time. I’ve just been boggled that it's worked out and that I'm still here and pushing things forward and working on new projects."
A million years old
When Brice describes the timing being right in terms of his emotionally capacity to launch a label, he fails to mention his current issues with getting enough sleep.
He and his wife have a 2-year-old girl and a 4-month-old boy at home in Avondale.
While business at Cole's has gotten much steadier recently than it was on Milwaukee back in 2009 when Brice opened his bar, he can still be found behind the bar most nights of the week.
Or in the bathrooms fixing toilets, or repairing the floors, or booking bands, comedy acts and other performance nights nearly seven days a week.
"You might see me cleaning a urinal or plunging a toilet or something like that. I do it all, man," Brice said. "The people aspect is great. I love to meet people. Weird people, crazy people, cool people, whatever. It’s really fun.”
Growing up, Brice always knew he wanted to get into the music industry. After interning with a number of record labels and recording studios in the late '90s and early 2000s, he realized the only way he would be successful in the industry was to go at it alone.
He obtained an undergraduate in music business, went back to school and got a masters degree in accounting at DePaul University.
Brice spent a handful of years working in corporate accounting until he had stashed away enough money to open up Cole's.
"I realized no one's going to give you a job in the music industry anymore, but if you do it yourself you could make a lifestyle," Brice said.
The idea was to open that filled the gap between, in Brice's words, Chicago's worst venues and the actual good ones.
"There were really sh---- places to play, like crappy dive bars, and then you make the step up and you’d be at Empty Bottle or Subterranean on a Tuesday night and you’d bring 50 people out," Brice said. "There was just nowhere in between."
Times have changed and a number of venues fitting that middle-of-the-road scene have opened while the nightlife surrounding Cole's has gotten busier and busier.
The steady business has been a good thing, but there is also a level of uncertainty with rising rents and new businesses moving in. Brice says he has a great relationship with his landlord, but nothing is set in stone.
"There's still that risk there," he said. "It's nice to be able to make more sales. I think there's a lot of people who have been marginalized by the process and I don’t really know how to handle that sort of contradiction between business development and some people being left behind.”
The plan is to keep helping the independent music scene to grow while creating a space in the neighborhood for everybody, according to Brice.
"I feel like a million years old, but I know that I'm not," Brice said. "I feel like I've lived so many lives."
Kimball, whose Semitropics are about to be given a second life, sees Brice's spirit of helping musicians on a regular basis.
"I just want to say this about Cole. He is one of the coolest dudes that I have met," Kimball said. "You talk to the guy and you’re like how did you end up with this bar."
The answer is the same, it was always his dream and he stuck to the plan.
"Damn if he didn’t go ahead and just do exactly that," Kimball said. "We will see whatever else he comes up with that comes out of the woodwork like this. Hats off to Cole."
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