Fan First, Mogul Second
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Greynolds’s brief career as a rocker was over, but something else grew out of that adventure: over the next year he released three seven-inch singles by acts he’d befriended on tour, including Pajo, San Francisco’s Dura Delinquent, and Calexico, who went on to sign with the Touch and Go imprint Quarterstick. Greynolds named his label All City, and its catalog has since grown to include 11 singles, two EPs, and, most recently, a handful of full-lengths.
While his girlfriend and eventual wife, Mary Kearney, brought home the bacon
Ken Dyber, who runs another emerging local label, Aesthetics, came to Chicago in much the same way Greynolds did–after connecting personally with someone in a band he admired. As a marketing major at Plymouth State College in New Hampshire, Dyber started out hoping for a job with a ski resort or a snowboarding company. But after learning to play bass and spending three and a half years as music director of his college radio station, he reset his sights on the music industry. He gave radio a whirl, interning at a Connecticut commercial alt-rock station between his junior and senior years, but soured on that segment of the biz after a media conglomerate bought the station and fired most of its staff. In 1996, a few months after graduating, he started Aesthetics, signing a Boston rock band he loved called the Lune.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Howard Greynolds; Ken Dyber photos by Nathan Mandell.
