In the Fall of 2018, I left a steady office job to found an independent record label called Yellow Racket Records. The first album we released on the label was Introspecter, Pt. 1, which I had written and recorded with my own band, Telemonster. Over the next several months, we signed Joel Harris, El Rocko, Summer Dregs, and MOMO. Still, within a year of starting the label, I was working as a farm hand in North Georgia just to make ends meet. Six months later, I was scrubbing toilets as a church janitor, and after that I stuffed envelopes and sent out birthday emails to members of a trucking association (usually after midnight so I could keep managing the label during the day).

At the beginning of 2020, we were attempting to launch a brick-and-mortar record store in Chattanooga, TN. But shortly after signing a lease on a building, most of the world shut down to brace for the impact of COVID-19. I forged ahead anyway and the shop eventually opened its doors in August of 2020.

It was the hardest year I could have imagined. Every time something went right, 2 more things went wrong. I even contracted COVID myself, forcing the record store to shut down for almost 2 weeks.

And yet, we're still here. And we don't plan on going anywhere any time soon.

- Ben VanderHart, Founder