Mystic Records
| Mystic Records | |
Native name | Mystic Records |
| Independent Thrash / Punk Record Label | |
| ISIN | 🆔 |
| Industry | Music |
| Genre | Thrash / Punk |
| Fate | Still Active |
| Founded 📆 | |
| Founder 👔 | Doug Moody |
| Headquarters 🏙️ | U.S.A., Oceanside California , U.S.A. |
Areas served 🗺️ | Worldwide |
Key people | Doug Moody, Candace d' Andrea, Mark Wilkins |
| Products 📟 | Music, Digital Downloads,CD's LP's Cassettes |
| Brands | Mystic, Nardcore, Thrash, |
Production output | (1979-now) |
| Owners | Doug Moody |
| Members | Mark Wilkins, Candace D' Andrea, Philco Raves |
Number of employees | 4 |
| 🌐 Website | http://www.mysticrecordshq.com/ |
| 📇 Address | Oceanside California USA |
| 📞 telephone | |
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History[edit]
Mystic Records is an American record label and music production company specializing in hardcore punk, crossover thrash, underground music, vintage and cult records. It is owned and operated by Doug Moody. The label was originally established in Hollywood, California, and subsequently moved its operations to Oceanside, California.
Mystic Records is closely associated with the personality of its founder, Doug Moody, regarded as a pioneer of the independent rock and roll industry. Moody's father, Walter Moody, was himself an influential figure in the music industry, running EMI Studios (Abbey Road Studios) in London during the 1930s. In 1953 the family moved to the United States.
Moody decided to himself become involved in the music business, first working in the A&R department of Silvertone Records in New Jersey. He also worked with his father who was one of the owners of Clock Records which had a hit song "The Happy Organ" with Dave Baby Cortez as well as "Tequila" with Chuck Rio and The Champs.
A series of music industry jobs followed throughout the decades of the 1960s and 1970s, including stints in various capacities at Kama Sutra Records, 20th Century Fox, and Mercury Records. During his Major label Executive career, Moody claimed he was involved with 60 gold and platinum records with recording artists like "Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, The Troggs, The McCoys, The Strangeloves, The Lovin' Spoonful and many others. He also had a hand in breaking the Beatles in the U.S. and creating the diving guitar sound on Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" which was recorded initially at Moody's Mystic Studios in Hollywood, not long after a session he recorded with member of Led Zeppelin and Screaming Lord Such who they were previously in a band with (The Alley Cats).
Seeking another place in the music industry outside of the major record labels, Moody opened a recording studio in Hollywood, California, at the location of the old Mustang Studios, made famous as a facility used by the Bobby Fuller Four. Moody changed out the studio's superannuated 2 track mono recording gear and replaced it with state of the art 8-track stereo gear, leaving the recording rooms otherwise largely unaltered.
In tandem with the studio was launched the Mystic Records label. During the label's peak period of activity, from 1982 through 1990, Mystic released over 200 records, many of which were multi-band compilations, involving the work of several hundred artists. Emerging as a prominent force in the Southern California punk rock music scene, Mystic put out an array of alternative bands, with an emphasis on the hardcore punk, crossover thrash, and speed metal styles in vogue during this period.
Moody claimed to have invested $70,000 in the label in 1983 alone, but taking into account recording costs and sales figures averaging about 2,000 copies per record, found the operation with about $40,000 left to recover at the end of that year. Bands would purchase studio time, with Mystic recouping its investment against royalties due, which in 1984 Moody claimed was approximately 40 cents per record.
In conjunction with the label, Moody and Mystic established its own wholesale record distribution branch, MD Distributing. This distributorship handled not only Mystic releases but those of other labels as well.
Some of the best known artists on Mystic Records include NOFX, RKL, Battalion of Saints, Ill Repute, Agression, The Mentors. Mystic Records has also released vinyl compilations featuring Suicidal Tendencies, Love Canal, New Regime, Black Flag, False Alarm, Duct Tape Hostage, SIN 34, Government Issue, Teacherz, The Minutemen, Burning Image, Habeas Corpus, and Bad Religion.
Mystic Records has been credited with several innovations in the independent record industry of the 1980s. It introduced Super Sevens (7-inch 33rpm extended play records featuring seven songs) and helped popularize the manufacture of limited edition records on colored vinyl. The label was also influential through its release of multi-band compilation albums, such as its "The Sound of Hollywood" series, and promotional label samplers making use of album tracks, typified by its "Mystic Sampler" series.
Additionally, Moody worked to define new genres of music such as "METALCORE," which he described in 1984 Press Release as "a mixture of hardcore, fast paced thrash music with double drumming & heavy Metal screaming guitars." Moody, along with his Promotion Director Mark Wilkins, promoted the Oxnard (which Moody named Nardcore) and Simi Valley (which Moody named Slimy Valley) Punk Music scenes.
Wilkins also created, and Moody agreed, and approved, the popular Ads for Records promotion, in which Mystic would send ads to punk zines and when the zines printed the ad Mystic sent free records in trade. This allowed Mystic to cut down its ad budget and also obtain more record reviews as zines would review any records that were sent. At it's zenith, in the mid 1980s, Mystic was sending records in exchange for ads to 350 US and 150 Foreign zines.
Moody's key collaborators on the Mystic Records project included producer and engineer Phillip "Philco" Raves, (since 1980), sales and distribution Randy Boyd of Cobraside Distribution, (since 2008), Promotion Director Mark Wilkins, (since 1982), and Candace D'Andrea who helped as Moody's Assistant since 2012.
External links[edit]
1. John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock 'n' Roll Pioneers. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009; pg. 363.
2. Al Kowalewski et al., "Mystic Records, Doug Moody," Flipside, whole no. 42 (Summer 1984), pp. 42–43.
3. History of Mystic Records". Archived from the original on 2019-09-15. Retrieved 2020-07-07.
4. Mystic Press Release by Promotion Director Mark Wilkins circa 1984: https://archive.org/details/MysticRecordGroupNewsHollywoodCA/page/n4/mode/1up
