Overview
Mr. Lady Records (or Mr. Lady Records and Video) was a San Francisco-based lesbian-feminist independent record label and video art distributor. Artists on the label included Le Tigre The label was founded in 1996 in Durham, North Carolina by musician Kaia Wilson and artist/UNC photography professor Tammy Rae Carland, aiming to redress what they saw as a lack of feminist record labels at the time.
Founding
Kaia Wilson was a member of lesbian punk group The Butchies, and felt their "out politics held them back." Without a record company to specifically represent the work of herself and other "out" female musicians, Wilson and her girlfriend, Tammy Rae Carland, found their opportunities limited. Subsequently, they formed Mr. Lady to redress the "lack of enough women and/or dyke run record labels," which they felt led to an "extremely limited amount of affordable and accessible means for independent artists to distribute their work." Thus, Mr. Lady Records was started with, in Wilson's words, "$35 and a lotta...faith." Wilson stated the name "Mr. Lady" came from a trip to Italy while on tour with Team Dresch: "I saw a store called Mr. Baby, and it freaked me out. Then everyone started calling me Mr. Baby. Then I became Mr. Baby onstage. I had my own theme song and everything.
I wore a little eyeliner mustache. From there it changed into Mr. Lady, which just seemed like a good name for a queer label." It also related to Ladyman, Wilson's first solo LP, produced with the aid of Melissa York after they both left lesbian "supergroup" Team Dresch.
Artists and releases
Mr. Lady Records released recordings by groups such as Kathleen Hanna's lo-fi group Le Tigre (who released their first two records – Le Tigre and Feminist Sweepstakes – with Mr. Lady), punk group The Butchies (of whom Kaia Wilson is the lead singer), British group Electrelane, Tara Jane O'Neil, spoken-word collective Sister Spit (Sini Anderson and Michelle Tea),
Growing popularity
Although initially a vehicle for Wilson to release her own albums, Mr. Lady grew into a label whose musical and political contributions gained national attention. During a review of Tami Hart's debut release with Mr. Lady, online magazine PopMatters described the label as "one of the bright spots in new music. Whether the groups or singers are punk or indie, they are all anti-mainstream hip, political, and good – really good." Discorder magazine described the label in 2004 as "lead ing the way when it came to releasing music that was as politically significant as it was danceable." Initially distributing music through mail order, the label signed a deal to distribute records nationally across the US in 2001.
The Independent Weekly described the label as having "grown from a community that perhaps needed it the most," contrasting the scarcity of a gay/lesbian-oriented label in the southern United States at the time with the many in New York.
Involvement with the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival
In 1999, Mr. Lady records (along with one of its artists, The Butchies), were involved in issues surrounding the debate as to whether transgender women should be entitled to attend the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, which had a formal stance against allowing transsexual and transgender women to attend the festival. In response to a request from transgender activists to boycott the festival, Mr. Lady released a statement which defended the festival, believing that they did not consider an event for "womyn born womyn" and the transgender community to be mutually exclusive, but backed the right of the festival to exclude those not assigned female at birth. Kaia Wilson confirmed this in a June 1999 statement: " W e strongly believe that transgender/transsexual people are an important part of the queer community and that they face an enormous amount of opposition. ...
We know that the MWMF started as a separatist event for womyn born womyn and we personally still feel the continued need for that kind of space and event. ... We don't think that our support of the trans communities and womyn born womyn communities are in direct contradiction to each other." Formally backing the festival's trans-exclusion policy led to protests and boycotts aimed towards Mr. Lady acts, Wilson and The Butchies in particular. Groups such as Camp Trans, and many participants in the queercore community, disagreed with Mr. Lady's stance and felt that the group and label exploited transgender images. The label went defunct in June 2004.
Showcases
Mr. Lady Records has sponsored numerous showcases of feminist and lesbian music, including events at the Weisman Art Museum
Artists formerly on Mr. Lady
used on Mr. Lady vinyl releases. Artists formerly on Mr. Lady include: * The Butchies * Sarah Dougher * Electrelane * The Haggard * Kiki and Herb * Le Tigre * The Moves * The Need * Tara Jane O'Neil * Gretchen Phillips * Amy Ray * Sextional * Kaia Wilson
In popular culture
The label's name appears in the lyrics of the Le Tigre song "Hot Topic."
See also
*List of record labels
External links
*Mr. Lady website on the Internet Archive (site has been defunct since January 2005) *Alternative Mr. Lady logo on Flickr