About Green Monkey Records
Have a question about Green Monkey Records, or want to know how the label started? This page answers the questions humans most commonly ask:
- What is Green Monkey Records (GMR)?
- How did we start out?
- What is the AOTM (Album of the Month)?
- What is Tom’s Rant?
- Where do I get the music?
- Where can I find your discography?
- Does Green Monkey Records accept demos?
What is Green Monkey Records (GMR)?
Green Monkey Records is an independent label started in 1983 and run by me, Tom Dyer, and my pal Howie Wahlen in Olympia, Washington. We release (mainly) Pacific Northwest music, mostly rock, with 200+ albums and a bunch of singles by over 80 artists. Our two most prolific artists are The Green Pajamas/Jeff Kelly and Tom Dyer, though the PJs have recently moved on to Label 51.
We have a little sub-label called Oly Jazz, where we sporadically re-release Olympia jazz albums that debuted before the World Wide Web made music digitally available. Oly Jazz artists include Red Kelly, Steve Lucino, Obrador, Jeffrey Morgan and Burt Wilson.
We have also put out a jolly pile of Christmas music, with 14 or so Christmas charity compilations released over the years, as well as a number of solo artist Christmas projects. We give any proceeds from the compilation albums to Musicares - A Safety Net For Music People.
Our Bandcamp site also includes a number of PNW artist interviews from Tom Dyer’s Freeform Northwest radio show on KAOS 89.3 FM, Weds 1-4pm.
All our releases are available on bandcamp.com and all the major streaming services.
How did we start out?
That was extensively documented in the 2009 2 CD release, It Crawled From The Basement: The Green Monkey Records Anthology. You can read that story on our Bandcamp site or, better yet, you can buy the two-CD set with its beautiful full-color 28 page printed booklet.
What is the AOTM (Album of the Month)?
Every month, Green Monkey Records generally releases one album and writes about it in our newsletter (subscribe here). The Album of the Month archive has every one of those write-ups, newest first, going back to 2009. We did not think up the Album of the Month idea - we got it from Julian Cope’s Head Heritage website, where he would write about somebody else’s music in the months that he didn’t have any of his own music coming out. If you go look at the early GMR AOTMs, about half the stuff we did every year was actual releases and the other half was featured albums by other artists that we liked.
What is Tom’s Rant?
Tom’s Rant is a bunch of writing done between releases, mostly by Tom but sometimes Howie. It has moved to Substack, where it’s now called Green Monkey Noize. New posts appear here automatically.
Where do I get the music?
Bandcamp (greenmonkeyrecords.bandcamp.com) is the main place for you to buy our releases. You can also buy them in record stores. If your local record store doesn’t have the one you want, request that they stock it. We are happy to help them do that.
Where can I find your discography?
Our full discography is on Discogs and other places; discogs.com/label/55726-Green-Monkey-Records
Does Green Monkey Records accept demos?
If you want to send us stuff to consider, you can. We don’t take on a lot of new projects, and rarely ones that are not from around here, but we are open minded. Please listen to some of our stuff and see if you think you’d fit in. We generally prefer you just use the Contact Us link and send MP3s and some info, but you can snail mail us stuff at:
Green Monkey Records LLC
PO Box 13494
Olympia WA 98508
We will usually give you some kind of feedback, but no promises there.
More questions?
