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Moo Cow came into existence in 1992 when I was living
in Burlington, VT and going to school at UVM. I suddenly had the
urge to do something, anything, connected to hardcore that I could
do while being stuck in northern VT where at the time there were
no shows or bands (for all practical purposes). I had grown up in
the Boston (I used my Massachusetts address for mailing for the
zine because I moved so often in VT) area where there were plenty
of shows and moving to Vermont was a culture shock for me. So I
decided to start a zine. Fanzines were a great way to get involved
when you have limited financial resources. You can photocopy just
a few dozen copies, and often get those copies for free or almost
free. When it came time to name said zine I narrowed it down to
two choices: "Vein of Bitterness" and "Moo Cow". Of course Moo Cow
won out. I ended the zine run in about 1997 after 17 issues of Moo
Cow Fanzine. It grew from about 3-4 dozen copies of issue number
one to 3,000 newsprint copies of issue number 17.
After about a year and 3 or 4 issues of the zine
I got the bright idea to do a record with alocal hardcore band called
The Champions. They already had one 7" out, I was eager to do something
more in the scene, and we were friends. The Champions "Once and
Future King" 7" was released in May of 1993. The name "Moo Cow"
was tacked onto that record. It just didn't seem to make sense to
create a new name. I already had gained some mild name recognition
in the scene for doing the zine, so why start all over again trying
to create a name for myself? Every so often, especially when I moved
to Madison, WI in January 1995, I considered renaming the label.
Most recently I gave it serious consideration when after a couple
of years hiatus I moved back to Boston and got it all going again.
But once again I run into the issue of already having name recognition
(for better or worse) and not seeing the need to create that name
recognition all over again. True, the name is pretty dumb, whatever...
Being associated with great bands such as Cave In, New Day Rising,
Fall Silent, Overcast, Disembodied, etc. more than makes up for
the silly name in my opinion.
Moo Cow has been, and always will be, an extension
of myself and my tastes. I listen to several sub-genres of hardcore/punk
including emo, straight edge, mosh, powerviolence, crust, grindcore,
etc and I am willing to release any "type" of punk/hardcore on my
label. The only condition being I have to like your band, and if
I know you as people, I have to like you/believe in you.
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