Hannah Judge and Michael Watson founded Club Records as a joke. “We had chemical club and fanclubwallet, which are the two bands that [we play in],” Judge tells me of the independent, queer-owned label. “We were putting out a song together. I was like, ‘Let’s put it out under Club Records, because we both have ‘club’ in the names of our bands.” From there, whenever friends in the Ottawa scene (and, before long, Ontarian cities beyond Canada’s capital) were set to release music, Judge and Watson suggested they use Club Records as a placeholder label—so that the name feeds through to the ‘Released by’ section on streaming platforms and lends clout to burgeoning music projects.
Soon the Club co-founders started supporting artists in other, more involved ways, having garnered reputations as DIY music polymaths. A producer by trade, Watson knows everything there is to know about the nuts and bolts of making a record, and has held that position for numerous Ontarian acts (as well as their own songwriting projects, e.g. chemical club). Judge, meanwhile, is an accomplished songwriter as well as an interdisciplinary artist—she did the artwork for her 2023 EP Small Songs and helps bands with everything from tape design to music videos. Despite its namesake bands, then, Club became not a private club but an altruistic operation, two music-lovers intent on giving back, and ensuring the diversity of their artists (and themselves) is celebrated.
fanclubwallet
“One of the key things that made Club Records into a real, legit thing was Hannah had the idea to put out a bunch of resources,” Watson explains. “What started happening was friends would constantly ask, ‘How do I do this? How do I do that?’ We thought, ‘What if we just put all this information in one spot?’ People will ask me something and I’ll be like, ‘Here’s the link.’” Club’s website includes a dedicated resources tab—a treasure trove for any artist, though it was curated with DIY, early-career musicians in mind. It offers guides on how to distribute music, lists of promoters organized by city to alleviate the slog of self-booking a tour, info on applying for US visas, and even a Rolodex of Canadian music lawyers and guidance on when you might need one.
“We both grew up in the music scene, so we’ve seen so many bands that are like the best band you’ve ever heard, but they don’t know how to put music out,” Judge explains. “They don’t know how to get it on streaming services or get anyone else to listen to it. And then they kind of just fizzle out and stop being a band anymore. I’ve seen so many of my favorite bands die due to a lack of resources. We just want to give bands the resources that they need to succeed, whatever succeeding means to them.”
“I’ve seen so many of my favorite bands die due to a lack of resources. We just want to give bands the resources that they need to succeed, whatever succeeding means to them.” — Hannah Judge of fanclubwallet
The only thing Club can’t help with (yet) is supplying a physical space in which Ottawa’s music community can congregate. The city’s legendary house venue Pretoria—eulogized in the song “170 pretoria ave” by Backseat Dragon—shuttered during the pandemic. The scene has been calling out for a replacement since. For Judge and Watson, the dream is a Room of Requirement–esque location: a practice studio, a recording studio, an office, somewhere they can do screen printing for bands’ merch—all in one. Crucially, it would be a home base, somewhere for like-minded artists to come together and share ideas. Maybe it sounds like a big ask, but Watson is confident they can manifest it: “I always go back to what Phoebe Bridgers says, which is, trust your joke—the wacky dream—and then the joke becomes a real thing, it [becomes] what you’re doing.”
Hey, it worked for Bridgers, and it’s worked for Judge and Watson so far. Here are five Club artists to prove it.
emmersonHALL
Released in July 2023, the mini LP from Cole Emmerson Hallman—who creates whimsical, curtains-drawn emo-pop under the portmanteau emmersonHALL—heralded a new chapter for Club. “I would say Club only became really serious when we put out this emmersonHALL release. That’s when I made the Instagram, launched the website; that was kind of the hard launch of it all,” says Judge, who sings on a few of Hallman’s tracks, including “Kindergarten,” the laughing-but-also-crying appraisal of his first day of school. It’s apt that emmersonHALL coincided with the label’s watershed moment, its creation emblematic of how Club likes to do things. Take the record’s instrumentation, which includes a Happy Apple, toy cars, and various other circuit-bent toys—yet more proof that goofing around with friends and indulging your impulses does, indeed, balloon into something special.
RIYL: confronting childhood trauma, vintage toys, Alex G
toothbrusher2000
The SEO-friendly band names continue with toothbrusher2000, a.k.a. Etta Gerrits, whose sole release is 2022’s Again & Again EP. Gerrits works with the same components that endeared me to fanclubwallet—dorky synthesizers, boxy staccato power chords, and intelligent lyrics that seek to understand the world. In only five songs, she covers more ground than most albums, from raging at careless urban planning policies (“Houses get torn down and built again lately”) to embalming relationships at their peak—all with infectious, sweet-as-pie arrangements. The EP’s highlight is the outro to “Again After,” when she reels off things that edge her toward that certain elusive feeling—warmth, love, belonging, you know the one. Ostensibly, it can only be summarized by a puddle showing your reflection, or a photo of when you were nine, or the water evaporating in the sun. It’s the apex of an EP that’s cathartic, whip-smart, and over too quickly.
RIYL: bedroom pop, dancing on the couch with your shoes on, Wallice
Sorry Snowman
Emo collective Sorry Snowman were already scene favorites when they joined forces with Club. “People just love them—so, so much,” Watson says. “Just putting out music and playing shows, they got to a really good point in their music careers where they have a solid listener base. That’s a perfect example of how we were like, ‘This is so amazing, we can just do small things to really take them to the next level.’” Those “small” things include producing the band’s new single “House on Fire” (Watson) and providing a place for them to shoot its chilling music video (Judge’s house). Elsewhere, a track such as “This Bus Is 45 Minutes Late but How Can One Man Alone Stand Up to an Entire Municipal Government,” with its sticky octave chords and constantly shuffling structure, evidences the band’s fresh take on the whole Cap’n Jazz thing.
RIYL: flanging guitars, wearing your winter coat inside, Modern Baseball
Neurotypes
Multi-instrumentalist Nathan Resi makes hypnagogic rave-pop—or “mumblewave,” as they dub it—a bath of minor-key synths and shape-shifting noise that draws on first-wave shoegaze and drone music as much as acts like Pet Shop Boys. The sound is huge and, in a way, antithetical to the principles of bedroom pop, the label’s bread and butter. Despite signing to PSNEAKY Records for their 2023 EP Spirit Photography, the project retains links to Club: an alternate version of recent single “Bringing on the Shame” featured toothbrusher2000, and the original EP version features fanclubwallet—and both were produced by Watson. They sure are one big happy family.
RIYL: darkness, dancing, Bleach Lab
Dart Trees
Reappropriating frat boy aesthetics for the nerds who listen to Silver Jews, Dart Trees describe their music as “college drunk rock for good times and bad times.” You’ll want to start with Consider Two Beers, the EP released earlier this year. Its scrappy, raw, not-exactly-in-tune jangle-punk diverts from Club’s electronic-leaning pop and emo sounds. Be warned, though: this band doesn’t take themselves seriously—like, at all. Each member is christened with a sardonic nickname (see: Nik “The Guy Writing This” Skilton), and each song sounds, well, charmingly terrible. It could be the booze. Maybe they have a healthy relationship with their blemishes. Either way, it’s pretty awesome.
RIYL: slurpin’ down suds, sweaty house shows, Beat Happening
