Brick City Records, the first student-run record label at Ohio University, is taking its next big step: signing and recording its first artist.
Senior Brent Mulgrew, a public relations major, has a pending contract with the record label and is performing tonight at The Blue Gator, 63 N. Court St., in a Brick City Records event. Mulgrew and Brick City recently reached an oral agreement, and the contract will be for one album.
The event, along with another show on April 6, will involve recordings that will be incorporated into Mulgrew's album.
Brick City publicist Kelly Bucher, an OU senior, said the label wants to get people excited about the live recording at the show, and to allow them to see what it is all about. The show is also going to be a way to promote Mulgrew.
Mulgrew has performed in Athens, Columbus and Oxford, where he plays at a bar called 45 East. He played at two of the fundraising Brick City events, including the first show Fall Quarter. He became involved through his friend, Matt Gerst, who is also one of the label's founders.
It's kind of funny
we've had all these events and the first one that we saw pretty much was the one we wanted to go with said Nate Levin, president of Brick City and one of the label's three founders.
Brick City Records is an official student organization, and began meetings last winter. The label planned to have an album released during Spring Quarter, but its plans were slowed by the delays in construction of the new studio in the School of Telecommunications. The studio's finish date was pushed back to Spring Quarter, and for planning and budgeting reasons Brick City was not able to find another studio, Levin said.
Unfortunately our plans have had to morph with the studio he said.
Because of the delay, the label is going to incorporate the live recordings with a few studio tracks, rather than record a full studio album. Mulgrew, who plays guitar live, said he wants to inlude other instruments in the studio recordings. Twelve original tracks are planned for the album, he said, with studio versions of two of the songs.
The planned release date is May 18, Levin said.
Mulgrew said the goal is to release the album locally as well as in Columbus (his hometown) and Oxford. Because the show involves recording, Mulgrew said he is going to make sure he gets a good enough version and might redo songs. However, he said he is going into tonight's event as if it was a regular concert, and the recording is just the icing on the cake.
The show's profits will be divided between Brick City, Mulgrew and The Blue Gator.
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Megan Chew
