Stand Up! Records is an American independent comedy
record label founded in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, by
Grammy-winning producer
Dan Schlissel. It has been called "the country's most respected indie comedy label."[1] Stand Up! has released more than 200 comedy albums and videos since its founding in 2000, including albums by
Lewis Black,
Patton Oswalt,
Greg Proops,
David Cross,
Maria Bamford,
Hannibal Buress,
Judy Gold, the
Sklar Brothers, and
Eddie Pepitone.[2][3] Comedian and actor
Marc Maron, who released his first three albums on Stand Up!, described Schlissel as "a guy who loves comedy, and is very attentive to the process of recording comedy," and, referencing the large number of noteworthy comics who were given important exposure in their early careers by the label, joked that "you've done everybody's first two records."[4]
A relatively small operation, the label is run almost entirely by Schlissel, who also served as recording engineer and producer on many of the label's albums.[5] The label has been praised for bringing an independent approach to the comedy genre, inspired by Schlissel's roots in punk and indie rock. Henry Owings, founder of humor magazine Chunklet, stated that Schlissel "has done a great job trying to reintroduce some fresh blood into comedy albums. ... If anybody's trying to bring back the idea of comedy albums being something that should be looked at in the same light as a music album, it's him."[6]
History
In the 1990s, Schlissel founded the
Lincoln, Nebraska-based
-ismist Recordings, which released works by Midwestern punk, metal and alt-rock bands such as
Killdozer and
House of Large Sizes, including
Iowa metal band
Slipknot's 1997 debut/demo, Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat. After Slipknot left -ismist for
Roadrunner Records, Schlissel became disillusioned with running a music label, and moved away from Nebraska in 1998 to take a job at a software company in
Minneapolis.[7] He considered folding -ismist, but instead found new focus after convincing Lewis Black to work with him after meeting the comedian after a show in Minneapolis.[8]
Schlissel recorded Black's The White Album in
Madison, Wisconsin, in 1999, with
John Machnik, who would be his production partner for many years.[9] Released on -ismist, the album was an immediate success, eventually selling around 60,000 copies, more than the entire previous -ismist catalog combined.[10] Schlissel reinvented -ismist entirely, moving from punk rock to comedy. The label released several other comedy albums, including two by
Doug Stanhope, Sicko and Something to Take the Edge Off, and Jimmy Shubert's Animal Instincts, while Schlissel launched Stand Up! Records in 2000. By 2002, -ismist had effectively closed down and been replaced by Stand Up! Records.[11] Black's next album, the post-9/11 The End of the Universe, sold similarly well.[1]
Besides Black's White Album, the label also released a 2002 set of White Album outtakes called Revolver (continuing the Beatles title theme), and the 2002 album The End of the Universe.
In addition to re-releasing Maron's debut Not Sold Out, Schlissel recorded and produced Maron's second and third albums, 2006's Tickets Still Available and 2009's Final Engagement,[4] and released a best-of compilation of Maron's podcast WTF with Marc Maron in 2010.
Schlissel recorded and produced Maria Bamford's first two albums, 2003's The Burning Bridges Tour and 2007's How to WIN!, as well as the 2010 live DVD Plan B.
Whose Line Is It Anyway? star Greg Proops released two albums on the label in 2007, Houston, We Have a Problem and Joke Book.
Stand Up! also often partners with comics who have already self-released an album to re-release it in an expanded edition with broader distribution. Examples include Maron's debut Not Sold Out and Pepitone's A Great Stillness.[4]
Vinyl and collectors' editions
Stand Up! releases albums via digital download and streaming, CD and vinyl. Although vinyl remains a niche market with minimal profit margins compared with digital and streaming,[5] Schlissel told an interviewer for Roctober magazine that he continues to support the format because "the physical product matters. I want me and my artists to have something to hold in hand and say, 'I did this!'"[10] The label's dedication to vinyl has been credited with helping a resurgence in the format; Don Steinberg of the
Wall Street Journal stated that Stand Up! has given comedy on vinyl "a hipster comeback,"[14] while John Wenzel of Vulture lauded the label for "honoring the history of the format."[15]
The vinyl picture-disc edition of Black's End of the Universe was autographed by Black before manufacturing; his signature is part of the vinyl art, under the grooves.
Dana Gould, former co-executive producer of The Simpsons, re-released three discs on vinyl with Stand Up!: Funhouse, Let Me Put My Thoughts in You and I Know It's Wrong. For the 2009 re-release of Funhouse, the label also made an 8-track tape version as well as CD and vinyl.[10]
Stand Up! often works with larger labels to co-release collector's-edition vinyl versions of a comic's album. Besides the two Lewis Black albums, Stand Up! also released LPs of David Cross's Grammy-nominated 2002 album Shut Up You Fucking Baby[16] and the subsequent It's Not Funny and ...America...Great..., as well as Patton Oswalt's Feelin' Kinda Patton and Werewolves and Lollipops,[14] Hannibal Buress' Animal Furnace, and
Kyle Kinane's Death of the Party.[10] In 2015, the label re-released
Joan Rivers' groundbreaking 1968 The Next To Last Joan Rivers Album for
Record Store Day; it had long been out of print.[17]
Philosophy and approach to comedy
The name "Stand Up!" was chosen not only for its obvious connection with stand-up comedy, but for its association with free-thinking and revolutionary ideals, as in the
Bob Marley song "
Get Up, Stand Up" and the intellectually confrontational comedic approach of
George Carlin,
Lenny Bruce and
Joan Rivers.[8] The label's logo, a clenched fist holding a microphone aloft, was designed by street artist and activist
Shepard Fairey in 2002.[8]
Rather than sticking to a single style of comedy, Stand Up! maintains a diverse set of styles and viewpoints among its artists. Political material on the label ranges from libertarian
Tim Slagle to moderate
Will Durst to the left-leaning Black and Maron.[10][6]
Reflecting the label's interest in edgy, punk-inflected comedy and Schlissel's roots in indie rock, Stand Up! often works with visual artists who share that sensibility, such as Fairey and
Frank Kozik.[16]MAD magazine cartoonists
Jack Davis and
Mort Drucker drew the covers for albums by Tim Slagle and
Dwight York, while
Raymond Pettibon, the iconic punk artist who created many of
Black Flag's album covers, drew the cover for J.T. Habersaat's Hostile Corporate Takeover.[11]Derek Riggs, who designed
Iron Maiden's albums, did the cover for
Glenn Wool's No Land's Man.[10]Wendy Pini, creator of the Elfquest comic-book series, illustrated the cover of Keith Lowell Jensen's album Elf Orgy.[10] Cartoonist
Drew Friedman illustrated the 2014 vinyl edition of Eddie Pepitone's A Great Stillness.[18]Pia Guerra,
Eisner Award-winning co-creator of Y: The Last Man, drew the cover for Ray Harrington's 2017 album Overwhelmed.[19]
Ties with Minneapolis and Austin
In addition to its roster of nationally known comedians, the label also has particularly strong ties with the regional comedy scenes in
Minneapolis-St. Paul and
Austin, Texas. Minnesotan comics on the label include Bamford,
Chad Daniels,
Mary Mack,
Tim Harmston,
Chris Maddock,
"Fancy Ray" McCloney,
Corey Adam, and Rich Kronfeld of Comedy Central's Let's Bowl, and Stand Up! has also released two DVDs of the Twin Cities public-access cable series Drinking With Ian.[7] In Austin, the label has put on multiple showcases at the annual
SXSW festival, and has produced albums by Austin comedians including Andy Ritchie,
David Huntsberger, J.T. Habersaat, John Tole,
Doug Mellard, and
Ryan Cownie. In 2019, Stand Up! released the posthumous album by Austin's
Lashonda Lester, Shondee Superstar,[20] which was praised by Paste magazine as "a lovely introduction to a voice that's both purely unique and universally relatable ... If the world is only lucky enough to have one album from Lester, it's a blessing that it's a recording of a complete show."[21]
Other works
Roku channel
Stand Up! has a streaming channel available on
Roku featuring new and archival comedy videos and podcasts.[22][7]
Akumal Comedy Festival
From 2012 to 2015, Stand Up! hosted the annual Akumal Comedy Festival in
Mexico, a nonprofit event held in
Tulum,
Playa del Carmen, and
Akumal which raised money for the
Mexican Red Cross. The festival featured comics performing in both English and Spanish. Headliners included
Darryl Lenox, Maggie Faris, and
Derek Sheen. The festival was co-founded by Schlissel and Twin Cities comic Gus Lynch, who also acted in the films Saving Silverman, North Country, and I Spy.[23] Lynch died after an accidental fall in Akumal in 2014; the final festival was held in his honor.[20][24]
Scottish tartan
In 2017, during the label's first visit to the
Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Schlissel registered a Scottish
tartan with the
National Records of Scotland in the name of Stand Up! Records. Designed by
Edinburgh kiltmaker Gordon Nicolson, the tartan blends the colors red, black, and tan (from Fairey's Stand Up! Records logo), blue (from the
Israeli flag, symbolizing Schlissel's Jewish heritage), and silver-grey (for -ismist Recordings'
25th anniversary).[25]
Discography
All releases from 2000 and 2001 were originally issued by -ismist Recordings, the predecessor to Stand Up! Records. When the titles were repressed, starting in early 2002, the branding was switched to the Stand Up! Records imprint. All titles from 2002 onward were originally issued by Stand Up! Records, unless under license from another label, or bringing an out of print release back into print.
^Joe Randazzo (2 June 2015).
"An Interview With Dan Schlissel". Funny on Purpose: The Definitive Guide to an Unpredictable Career in Comedy: Standup + Improv + Sketch + TV + Writing + Directing + YouTube. Chronicle Books LLC. pp. 159–.
ISBN978-1-4521-3559-5.
^Baumgartner, Jeff (2015-08-31). "Mediarazzi cuts costs of connected-TV plays: vendor 'levels the playing field' for smaller producers, developing apps for less than $10,000". Broadcasting & Cable. 145 (29). NewBay Media LLC.