History

In 1996, following the death of Patrick Daly, 500$Fine's bass player, the remainging band, singer / vocalist Gary Llama, and Drummer Matthew Dennis, realized it needed to release something to catalog the work of Patrick, and the band. The band had been recording new material in the months leading up to his passing, and the thought of releasing it now, as a demo tape, with all the impermanence that entailed, seemed wrong. The band decided to try and release a compact disc, then viewed as a more durable, and lasting format, to document the music that meant so much to Patrick. The problem them became raising the funds.

In talking with George Martin at St Edward School, a plan was made to host a benefit show to raise the funds to be able to release the CD. St Edward was a big part of the band, a place they played their first real shows, a place where underage kids could go and experience indepenent music, made by other kids their age.

So with that, a benefit show was scheduled. Honored by the support, and realizing of such value as being donated, the band realized they should make the CD itself a benefit for something, and something close to the heart of the band, Daly, and what their music was all about. One organization seemed perfect for donation, RVA Punk Nation, a group of punks looking to open an All Ages club here in Richmond, similar to 924 Gilman in Oakland, CA, and ABC No Rio, in NYC. With that, the band held the show, $3,000 was raised, and the band went about setting to press the recording.

Upon calling the pressing plant, the plant asked for a label name. As this was being self-released, there was no record label. But as Gary had been getting his hands immerssed in the mechanics of putting this release together, he realized this would probably not be the last release he put out into the world, and not the last one he would want to. So on the spot, he came up with 'One Voice, One Life, Resist!'.

Close to a year later, the CDs arrived, and band held a show to release the CD, which was simulatenously also a benefit show for the RVA Punk Nation, which sadly later folded.

Though the CD started the label in name, all of the proceeds from it's sale are donated to charity, currently to the Central Virginia Food Bank.

Over the next couple years, Gary began working at Montana Studio, recording local punk and hardcore bands. He also used these new skills to begin recording his own work. After the completion of his first recording, he decided to release it under the alias of Silence Is Suicide, put the label name on it, printed some CD-Rs and sold them to friends. A couple years later, he released a proper CD of new work, under the alias of 'F-Box', and put the label name on that as well.

Around this time, music downloading had become a big thing, and with it, technology was evolving to allow bands to share music easier. Seeing this as an opportunity to distribute, OVOLR! joined Archive.org's 'Net Label' program, a project to allow music labels that were focused more on music and less on money, to distrubte works easier, relying on the servers of the non-profit.

From that point, the label started releasing fully digital, for two reasons: One, cost to release, as with most everything done in house, from recording to art, all the music required was time. As Gary had recently begun having health issues, he found himself having a lot of time for music.

The second part of the 'digital only' philosophy was this: When music becomes a business, and releasing music requires investment, it also requires touring, and artists become machines focused on doing the things required to satisy and secure a label's interest in investing money into records. All in all, it has very little to do with the music. But worse, the music actually becomes influence by the process. Very far from the intial impetus to why we make songs. With this a conscious decision was made to only release physical media, when it could be done without expectation of a quick turnaround in sales, and to scale everything from the production, to the covers, to be sympathetic to not requiring signifigant efforts to be expended. The F-box 'EP1020' cds were thus ordered as bulk discs, with the covers being printed and folded at home, by Gary himself, a tradition that occurrs to this day, with the 2022 release of 500$fine's 'S/T' 7".

And in the process, we realized that one of the biggest issues in re-releasing this stuff, was that in some cases, MANY cases, the recordings were actually owned by record labels that were dead now. Having tied their release to the success of physical media, it was easy for labels to fold, throw in the towel, burdened with debt. Unfortunately, this meant that some records, could be legally released by the bands. Sometimes a lable contact could be found, and the band could ask to have the rights back. Other times, a contact couldnt be found, meaning that the label could not legally release it.

With this, We realized that the label should operate as a licensing entity, purely for distribution, with rights granted from the band to distribute it, and the artists fully owning those recordings. And for the label's work, a small (10%) percentage, would be taken from the records sales, with the entire relationship being based on a verbal understanding with the band, and them being free to leave the label, and distribute themselves, at any point.

In addition to expanding the artists on the label, around 2011, we also expanded our offerings, moving into the print publishing world, offering books related to the bands and artists released on the label.

Once our catalog reached a certain size, we were able to join the Libary Of Congress' archiving program, now having each book included in the Libary's collection, assigned LCCN and all.

Things worked pretty damn good for a while, until in 2021 a series of events occured. With changes in the industry around music, Major labels began buying up smaller distributors, and the independent distributor we had been using became part of a bigger distributor, and then soon after, they themselves were bought by a major label. This presented two issues: one, now all support for releases went through two different companies, in two different time zones. And two, our payouts were now being eaten up by monthly fees, that had somehow increased, drastically. After around a year of working like this, We realized we would have to close down the label.

A few months after the closing, a couple friends reached out and offered their support to try and find a way to keep the label going. Together, we were able to figure a way to keep the music available, even with lower demands, and to grow the catalog simultanseously. So we started a new business, to put new agreements with the artists under, and moved on with distributing the music.

As we have grown this label, we have made mistakes. Some in pressing things we shouldn't have because the demand was too low (physical releases), some in working with folks that were just not a good fit, either because we could not truly provide what the artist needed (and deserved), or sometimes because of personal conflicts. Labels are relationships, and like all relationships, some are good fits, some are not. With that said, the majority of what we have released has been with very good relations, and with artists that we love the music of, and they way they operate as artists. These are the best case scenarios.

The best way to run any endeavor, is to know what your strengths are, and stick to them. Simultanously, you have to not be afraid to grow, and try new things. Failure is always a part of learning, but trying to plan for and handle failure resposibly, enables things to keep existing for another day. This is where the label is at now: a labor of love, dedicated to trying to preserve the availability of the music we send out into the world, while also bringing new music, and musicians into the fold, and empowering them so they can use their time to make the music they love, all under what we consider to be a humane way of operating, that hopefully, comes through in the end product. There has never been financial profit in it, at best, we cover our costs, at worst, the individuals involved put their own money into it. But we get to share music that means something to us. This is what we do, just as we have done, since 1997.

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