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Bloodshot Down

Ian Tennant

Try as I might in 2000 to make money off Bloodshot Records and its bands of
marauding artists, I could not.
The goal was to profile Chicago-based Bloodshot as it approached its fifth
anniversary, and take a few swipes at corporate and so-called alternative
country in a Calgary-based publication, CnW Magazine. It folded, owing me a
couple hundred clams. Holding material from interviews with Rob Miller, one
of Bloodshot's co-pilots, and Jon Langford and Sally Timms, I flogged the
story to at least 10 publications. Not one bite.
Too bad. They is articulate folks.

Born out of the fertile Chicago music scene in 1995, Bloodshot was
started by Nan Warshaw, Eric Babcock and Rob Miller to document the countri-
fied meandering of some hometown bands. Warshaw and Miller now run the
label, having parted ways with Babock.

Over a table of spilled beer at Scholz's Garten during Bloodshot's 2000
SXSW showcase, Miller recounted the early days when they heard "all these
bands touching on country music in some way or another, be it straight or
fucked up like The Waco Brothers."

The first CD, For a Life of Sin: A Compilation of Insurgent Chicago
Country, was mailed in 1994 to some press and radio outlets.

They hit a vein.

After Hell-Bent: Insurgent Country Vol. 2, came out in 1995 bands were
calling to get involved. The "Alternative Country" scene blossomed thanks to
college radio, small record labels like Bloodshot, No Depression magazine and a
vacuum left by Nash-Vegas Country.

Bloodshot "became a sort of de facto voice or clearing house," Miller
said. "Everything we do still has that subversive edge to it."

After SXSW showcases in 1996 and 1997 with the Old 97s, Whiskeytown,
Robbie Fulks, The Waco Brothers and others, "high profile industry weasels"
began sniffing around Bloodshot, Miller said. Insurgent Country was "the next
thing that was going to make the A&R (people) Christmas bonuses." They were
poised to figure out how to make money off the genre, but it didn't happen
"which suits me fine," Miller added.

By 1998, some of the "weasels" couldn't even "spell banjo," Miller

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