{"id":8564,"date":"2021-03-18T22:00:37","date_gmt":"2021-03-19T02:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes-2\/?post=cat-family-records"},"modified":"2021-03-23T17:01:09","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T21:01:09","slug":"cat-family-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2021-03-18\/cat-family-records\/","title":{"rendered":"Cat Family Records and Musicians Seek Alternatives to Live Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nonprofit record label Cat Family Records was founded in 2016 to help do-it-yourself local musicians deal with all aspects of the music industry. The largely events-based organization hosted over 200 shows prior to COVID-19. A year into the pandemic, volunteer-led Cat Family Records still has live music on hold, but is seeking new avenues of creation, including video production.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

Before COVID-19, nonprofit record company Cat Family Records played a role in the live music scene in Tallahassee. In its first four years, it hosted nearly 200 live shows at various bars and house venues around town. As the world changed in March 2020, the organization changed with it. Cat Family Records<\/a> has been adamant about not hosting events and keeping the community safe. \u201cMost of our funding was coming from events,\u201d says Cat Family Records’ founder and president Scott Bell. \u201cI think we were one of the first organizations to stop shows and we\u2019ll certainly be one of the last organizations to start them back up again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Scott Bell. President and Founder of Cat Family Records<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cat Family Records<\/a> was founded in February 2016, about five years after Scott Bell and his younger brother Nick moved to Tallahassee for Scott to pursue a graduate degree at Florida State University. \u201cWe were in bands for four or five years,\u201d Scott says. \u201cWe played local bars, we worked with some local studios.\u201d The brothers found it challenging to self-produce music and book gigs. After contending with the struggles of being an independent artist, Scott Bell suggested a solution to his circle of fellow musicians who played at the now-closed Warehouse. \u201cOne day I just hit a few people up, said \u2018I have this idea for a record label. I have a name for it already. And I don\u2019t really know what a record label does but I feel like we should try it.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Warehouse on Gaines Street in Tallahassee, FL. The bar, poolroom, and venue closed on May 31, 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This can-do attitude is what launched Cat Family Records<\/a>, named for a family of stray cats who lived outside the apartment of one of Scott\u2019s friends in North Carolina. The label has always been completely volunteer-led, but two years after its founding, Cat Family became a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit and found its footing as an event and DIY music organization. Tim Holder, the bassist of the Cat Family musical group bandanna<\/em> and former volunteer for the organization, came on board just as the label became a nonprofit. \u201cWe started applying for grants and we started developing more streamlined branding and vision sort of and an idea of what we wanted to accomplish,\u201d says Holder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tim Holder of bandanna plays at Cat Fest 2019. Photo courtesy of Addison T. Mathis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, Cat Family Records<\/a> has hosted shows at venues around town such as The Bark, The Wilbury<\/a>, and the now-closed Warehouse, as well as house shows at their venue and organization headquarters, The Litterbox<\/a>. They welcome volunteers and artists from the local universities and offer official course credit to students seeking internships. They also host an annual music festival, Cat Fest, which takes place in Railroad Square<\/a>. In addition to hosting live music, Cat Fest also hosts adoptable cats (far away from the stages) for festival-goers to meet and possibly adopt. \u201cThe idea of Cat Fest is really just to try to build a free community event and to sort of bring people together that typically aren\u2019t together,\u201d Bell says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cat Family\u2019s website<\/a> hosts its mission statement, which reads \u201cCat Family Records empowers artists and enriches creative communities by providing open access to industry services and curating local events, festivals, and publications.\u201d However, they also have an accompanying vision statement that speaks to larger goals than just the practical function of the organization. \u201cWe invest in a more open, inclusive, resilient, and unified future,\u201d says the vision statement. \u201c\u2014one where it\u2019s okay to be an artist\u2026 just not a starving one.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local Routes sat down with the label\u2019s musical group bandanna<\/em> over Zoom. They offered their lived experience as a band as proof of the Cat Family vision statement come to life. Bassist Tim Holder recognizes a trope that often is assigned to musicians. \u201cThe starving artist is a very common sort of thing that we throw around,\u201d says Holder. \u201cBut Cat Family at its core and at its vision is trying to change that. How do you break into the music industry without knowing people who are in the industry, without being the son of someone who\u2019s already done it? You know it\u2019s like you just do it, and you don\u2019t get discouraged.\u201d Holder believes bandanna<\/em> is on its way with help from the record label, and that Cat Family has shown artists that there can be a middle class in music. \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for FSU and Cat Family in a big way, we wouldn\u2019t exist as a band,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can get paid to play your music and to write original songs. You don\u2019t have to be a cover band and play three-hour sets to make money. There\u2019s a lot of ways to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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bandanna, currently based in Atlanta, sits for an interview with WFSU Public Media over the Zoom platform. (Left to right) Tim Holder, Anna Griffith, Mason Palanti, and Nick Bell.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

bandanna<\/em>, is compromised of Holder on bass, Scott Bell\u2019s brother Nick on drums, Mason Palanti on keyboard, and Anna Griffith on vocals and guitar. bandanna<\/em> is a DIY band that has received recognition on an officially curated Spotify playlist, propelling their first single, Fire Escape, to over 150,000 plays. The band is currently based in Atlanta, and put out a full-length debut album in November 2020 called Uncertain\/ty<\/em>. Cat Family found the musicians as solo artists and helped them connect over a shared love of music. \u201cI was signed to Cat Family as a solo artist and Nick and Tim were working and volunteering there at the time,\u201d says Griffith. \u201cThe way I like to tell the story is that they asked if I wanted a band and I said \u2018yes,\u2019 and then they asked, \u2018could we be your band?\u2019 and I said \u2018yes,\u2019\u201d Griffith laughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scott Bell attributes the success of Cat Family Records<\/a> to the dedicated team of volunteers who work behind the scenes to keep the organization afloat and help artists make careers out of their passions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m always incredibly humbled by it,\u201d says Bell. In a transient college town like Tallahassee, there is a revolving door of volunteers, but Bell sees this as a strength that has added to the DNA of the nonprofit. \u201cWe end up having to train people every semester. I think we\u2019ve learned how to spin [the transience] into a strength, right so you know bringing in new ideas.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Holder\u2019s own experience as a volunteer showed him just how strong the revolving door of organizers can be. \u201cEven when I left, there was not even a hiccup,\u201d says Holder. \u201cI had a lot of responsibilities and then I was gone and the organization chugged right along.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Volunteer coordinator Cierra Alexander continues to be impressed by the dedication of the volunteer team. \u201cWhen I got involved, I was astounded at the community of it,\u201d says Alexander. \u201cRight now, even in COVID, including all the department heads we have around 30 people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cierra Alexander, Volunteer Coordinator of Cat Family Recoreds<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While volunteer-led Cat Family has seen success with their musical groups and with hosting events, COVID-19 has significantly changed the way the events-based organization operates. \u201cThe landscape has changed. Several venues have closed,\u201d says Scott Bell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the things we\u2019ve always wanted to get involved with but never had was our own video production arm, and we started experimenting with that because we were sort of locked inside for a while,\u201d says Scott Bell. The label aired Cat Family TV, a combination of recorded performances and skits on both Youtube and Facebook late last year, and Cat Fest 2020 took a similar course, premiering live on Youtube but featuring pre-recorded material ranging from musical performances to comedy spots. \u201cFor us it\u2019s sort of like the last frontier. That is the thing that we are currently learning and getting better at and I think we\u2019re just going to start incorporating different art forms. So we started off as a record label but I think we\u2019ve grown more into an art collective.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the Bell brothers do anticipate challenges due to the unknowns of the future of live music, they have been able to take a positive spin on the events of the last twelve months. \u201cThe best thing about COVID,\u201d says bandanna<\/em> drummer Nick Bell. \u201c [Is] we\u2019ve always talked about being an art collective. We started with music because Scott knew how to play guitar, I knew how to play drums, but since then, the evolution has come to the point where I think we\u2019ve always wanted it to be. That\u2019s the coolest part about COVID, is it\u2019s forced us to become all these things that we always talked about becoming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A still from a comedy sketch video Cat Family produced for their virtual Cat Fest 5, which aired on Youtube in November 2020. Scott Bell delivers a satirical announcement regarding the record label, jokingly declaring war against the country of Iceland with a dead-pan comedic delivery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Scott Bell has no illusions that the road ahead will be without challenge, but he looks forward with the can-do attitude that has carried the organization through the past five years. \u201cI think a lot of people that do art and music sort of approach it from this angle of like \u2018damn this is like way too much for me, this is going to require a team, I can\u2019t do all this’. And I think if you sort of flip that and start from the assumption that you can do it, it makes it easier to find people who share that same outlook\u2026.. I think you start to see this snowball effect and this kind of network and collective action.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Find out more about Cat Family Records by visiting their website<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Watch Cat Family TV clips and performances on Facebook<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Last month Local Routes featured another group of musicians finding ways to create during COVID <\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nonprofit record label Cat Family Records was founded in 2016 to help do-it-yourself local musicians deal with all aspects of the music industry. The largely events-based organization hosted over 200 shows prior to COVID-19. A year into the pandemic, volunteer-led Cat Family Records still has live music on hold, but is seeking new avenues of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":8565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":"","wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[136],"tags":[706,3,2],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCat Family Records and Musicians Seek Alternatives to Live Music - WFSU Local Routes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When live events were cancelled due to Covid, Cat Family Records changed their mission and found new ways to help artists.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2021-03-18\/cat-family-records\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cat Family Records and Musicians Seek Alternatives to Live Music - WFSU Local Routes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When live events were cancelled due to Covid, Cat Family Records changed their mission and found new ways to help artists.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2021-03-18\/cat-family-records\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"WFSU Local Routes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-03-19T02:00:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-03-23T21:01:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/cat-family-records-1024x576.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Devin Bittner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2021-03-18\/cat-family-records\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2021-03-18\/cat-family-records\/\",\"name\":\"Cat Family Records and Musicians Seek Alternatives to Live Music - WFSU Local Routes\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-03-19T02:00:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-03-23T21:01:09+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/#\/schema\/person\/16f36f198937ce5f1977e64c21ff22b5\"},\"description\":\"When live events were cancelled due to Covid, Cat Family Records changed their mission and found new ways to help artists.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2021-03-18\/cat-family-records\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2021-03-18\/cat-family-records\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2021-03-18\/cat-family-records\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Cat Family Records and Musicians Seek Alternatives to Live Music\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/\",\"name\":\"WFSU Local Routes\",\"description\":\"Local stories from northern Florida and southern Georgia.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/#\/schema\/person\/16f36f198937ce5f1977e64c21ff22b5\",\"name\":\"Devin Bittner\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/44a\/44aac8f935bf9f916a53eee8bdfa8c29x96.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/44a\/44aac8f935bf9f916a53eee8bdfa8c29x96.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Devin Bittner\"},\"description\":\"Devin Bittner is a Producer for Television at WFSU Public Media. 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