Every pressing

The Catalogue

My little record labels were never about making money, even if we came very close to something huge in China. This wall is every pressing I put out, from a cassette made in Os in 1995 to gold vinyl in 2023. Each one was a bright idea, a chance that turned up, and a reason to have fun.

83 Releases pressed

22 China compilation CDs

220,000 Free CDs across China

10 Colored-vinyl volumes

H.Y.R. OCTOBER PARTY RECORDS OPR BEIJING BERGEN ROCK CITY NORWEGIAN WOOD RED VINYL TEN VOLUMES SINCE 1995

Hate You Records

1995-1999

I started my own label for one simple reason. I had a stubborn belief that I could do this as well as any of the small labels out there, and I was tired of all the mess I ran into with other companies, not least in Germany. So I did it myself. The first thing out was the Punishment Park cassette Blendwerk in June 1995, five hundred and twelve copies with the kind of fold-out cover only a cassette can carry. Then two 7-inch singles with friends from the States, and a compilation put together with my good friend Andy Kline in London.

There was no vision and no mission. I just wanted to make my own things on my own label and answer to nobody. By the end I felt the name Hate You had gone a bit corny. I had two children in this period, both with birthdays in October, so what could fit better than October Party Records? That is how the new name was born.

The Hate You Years, record by record

October Party Records

1999-2005

The first release under the new name was the compilation Genetic Mutations Vol 2 in 1999, again made with Andy Kline in London. I was never after famous bands, only bands with tough songs that people in our scene would like and where they could discover something new. Then came my own band Punishment Park on colored 10-inch vinyl, two records pressed the same day in September 2000, and after that the Jef records. Vinyl was not cool in the year 2000, so they trickled out slowly to private collections.

To feed the CD hunger I made free promo discs and handed them out at shows, a Jef promo here, a Punk Invasion From the North there, given away all over Europe. None of this was ever about money. Getting the bands I played in and the bands my friends made out into the world, that was the water on my mill.

October Party Records Beijing

2005-2011

When Jef was going to tour China I got Kang Mao from SUBS to help me start October Party Records in Beijing. There was no plan, and we knew the authorities could shut us down before we had even begun, but we just did it. The idea for the Bergen Rock City compilations was born there in a bright moment. We struck deals with some of the biggest music magazines in China to include a free CD presenting Norwegian bands, each one pressed in ten thousand copies.

It grew far bigger than I had dreamed. Bergen Rock City ran to eight volumes, then Norwegian Wood Music For China to thirteen, plus a Stavanger Rock City. Twenty-two free compilation CDs in all, ten thousand copies of each, two hundred and twenty thousand physical discs of Norwegian rock spread across China, four hundred and twenty-two tracks between them. Alongside the compilations we released artist CDs in first pressings of three thousand, and my own K-Jell records sold in the tens of thousands out there. Then Norway gave the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, being Norwegian in China went from hard to impossible, and it all stopped as suddenly as it had started.

The 22 free China compilations, series by series

The Vinyl Years

2013-2023

I do not let myself be stopped, not even by the Chinese authorities. In 2013, right in the middle of the boycott, SUBS turned ten, so Kang Mao and I made a tribute CD of Norwegian bands playing SUBS songs, Nice To Meet You, and it flew right under the radar. After that we took the label down to a resting pulse you could barely hear, and turned to our own projects.

Then came the vinyl years. A red-vinyl K-Jell record in 2016, the double album Christesgate 14 in 2017 with Apollon Records to help save the Garage club in Bergen, and Refreshing Power finally out on blue vinyl. Above all Real Punk Rock Music Is Not On The Radio, ten volumes from 2018 to 2023, every one a different color, every one pressed in five hundred copies, with the bands sharing the records among themselves so they flew out to people fast. October Party Records was never built on money, but on relationships and good friends who want to make something and have fun.

Not On The Radio, all ten volumes