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Paul, clickpop records
Paul Turpin, co-president
Dave, clickpop records
Dave Richards, co-president

clickpop records | Clickpop Records

Clickpop Records is a fairly new label hailing from Bellingham, WA. (true home of many “Seattle” bands such as Death Cab for Cutie, The Posies, The Mono Men and Idiot Pilot). It was founded in 2004 by Dave Richards and Paul Turpin with a mission to take the fresh music that they have found around the Pacific Northwest of the USA, and get it out to the rest of the planet. So far this has resulted in successful releases from Idiot Pilot, The Trucks, Prosser, Kristin Allen-Zito, and Darin Schaffer, with many more to come.The label got its start by releasing “Strange We Should Meet Here,” the debut album from the musical duo Idiot Pilot. Blending elements of twitchy electronica, dream pop guitar melodicism and the primal scream of post hardcore vocal aggression, “Strange We Should Meet Here" was Clickpop’s inaugural release. Shortly after it came out, the band was picked up by Warner Brothers/Reprise, who re-released the CD (with new artwork, but no changes to the mixing or mastering), confirmation that Clickpop chiefs--Dave Richards and Paul Turpin--possessed a keen insight into the record-buying public’s hunger for adventurous new sounds in popular music. It was a major achievement for a brand new label and a fledgling band from the small college town of Bellingham, Washington. Located between the musical meccas of Vancouver, Canada and Seattle--Bellingham has all the makings of another Athens, Georgia. “There’s a huge music scene here,” says Turpin. “Everybody’s in a band. Everybody goes to see the local bands. But so far, it’s all been very insular. The scene stays in Bellingham. That’s what we’re hoping to change.”

Dave Richards had already launched the indie Rebel Alliance label when he landed in Bellingham in 2001 and opened the successful record shop Sonic Index while simultaneously embarking on a career as an in-demand DJ. Seeking out a facility to record, mix and master Rebel Alliance releases, Richard’s found producer/musician Paul Turpin, proprietor of Bellingham’s top commercial sound studio, Bayside Recording. Idiot Pilot was one of the acts that Turpin had been working with for some time, helping nurture teenage wunderkinder Michael Harris and Daniel Anderson through a variety of stylistic evolutions.    
“Those guys had been hanging out at the studio forever,” says Richards. “But when I heard the demos for what would become “Strange We Should Meet Here," I literally turned my car around and drove to the other side of town, back to the studio, to tell Paul I wanted to help out however I could to get this thing to the world.”  
“So we decided to form our own label,” Turpin continues. “Not a niche label like our former efforts, but a mainstream pop music label. We wanted to create a label that represented where both of us were coming from and something on a higher level than anything either of us had done before or Bellingham had ever seen before. Dave had more of the connections for manufacturing and retail. I had the experience in production and studio work. So, putting those things together, we seemed to compliment one another.”
A brainstorming session yielded the name Clickpop Records. “It works on a lot of different levels,” says Richards. “It suggests using a mouse and, at the same time, an old, scratchy vinyl record. It can connote a certain style of electronic music, and of course it stands for pop music. And pop (albeit what Richards terms somewhat left of center pop) is the common denominator that unites the diverse Clickpop roster.

This roster is expanding quickly, and currently includes songwriter Kristin Allen-Zito, all-girl synth punk band The Trucks, the alt-americana rock of Prosser, space rockers Delay, the sensitive and mysterious Jenni Potts, post-rock band ISOPAL, punk act Scatterbox, eastern influenced looping artists Darin Schaffer, and the zombie-like rockers Black Eyes & Neckties.
“We want to find acts that we feel are deserving of national or international attention,” says Turpin. “It’s a diverse roster,” Richards concedes, “but we’re confident that each of the artists will slot into their own markets.  And later on, people will make the connection that they’re all coming from the same pool.”
Recently, Clickpop reached a distribution agreement with the spinArt label that will take its releases to an even wider audience through the Rykodisc network. In early 2007, The Trucks and Prosser will be promoted and released nationwide, with many more new releases coming hot on their heels.