Man's Ruin Records
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| Man's Ruin Records | |
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| Type | Defunct |
| Founded | United States of America, circa (1994) |
| Headquarters | San Francisco |
| Key people | Frank Kozik, Founder |
| Industry | Recording industry |
| Products | Music, Artwork |
| Revenue | Unknown |
| Employees | Lane Shorkney |
| Slogan | Empty Pleasures and Desperate Measures Since 1994 |
| Website | N/A |
Man's Ruin Records was an independent record label, owned and founded by Bay Area artist Frank Kozik. After the 1994 release of Man's Ruin's first record, entitled Experimental Audio Research (EAR): Delta 6, Kozik worked with artists who he wanted to release; he also designed all of the sleeve art for the releases. The catalog of Man's Ruin is vast, including relatively famous bands such as The Hellacopters, Nebula, Entombed, Turbonegro, Queens of the Stone Age and The Sex Pistols, to unknowns such as FuckEmos, Soulpreacher, Angelrot, and Los Cowslingers. The last record released was by Begotten, and the label was officially gone by 2002.
The label's slogan was Empty Pleasures and Desperate Measures since 1994.
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[edit] Operations
Man's Ruin did not make signed contracts with the artists that they released, their operation was instead very open. The poster and album art from the Man's Ruin era are still very coveted and the limited print vinyl are constantly rising in their value due to two factors: the majority of covers were screen-printed and numbered by Kozik himself, and all records were released in editions of 5000 copies or less. The most sought-after records from the Man's Ruin catalog have consistently been The Desert Sessions records, which were released in highly limited editions on clear and colored vinyl. The CD versions of the first six volumes, as well as the rest of the entire Man's Ruin catalog have gone out of print with the bankruptcy of the label. Subsequent volumes of The Desert Sessions were released on Josh Homme's Rekords Rekords label.
Man's Ruin specialized in producing and releasing limited edition 10" EP records. Often an album would be released in several different sets, such as the first release from Queens of the Stone Age in 1998, which was released on Man's Ruin in three editions: 2500 black, 300 green, 200 orange/yellow (a subsequent pressing of 198 copies on blue vinyl was made independently by the band as a "tour edition"). The vast majority of records released on the label were colored.
The label was distributed in the UK by Mordam Records and internationally by Swedish distributor and record label House of Kicks. Unlike most releases in music today, the international releases from Man's Ruin did not differ from the domestic American releases. However, it was not uncommon for the cover of a vinyl release to differ from that of the CD edition of the release.
[edit] Decline and Fall
The label went defunct after reportedly surviving on sales of its releases by area band Fu Manchu.[citation needed] The label's website was shut down a few months following its demise. Internet users who wished to view the Man's Ruin web site were simply greeted with the message: sorry mansruin never paid their bill and their site is no longer here.[1] Surrounding the close of the label, Frank Kozik became somewhat of a mystery in the underground rock scene. He was impossible to get in touch with, perhaps because he owed so many people in the industry small amounts of money.[citation needed]
Several bands (such as Fu Manchu, Turbonegro, and The Hellacopters) who have gained popularity after their work with Man's Ruin have re-released the albums they recorded there, independently or with other record labels.
