Roots on the Palouse

This is an excerpt from an autobiographical column by Merrill; the full text is on the Inland 360 website at inland360.com.

The idea to start The Swingline Records was born in late 1995. I was working a sh-tty accounting clerk position at a seafood company, constantly during busy work, which included a ton of stapling interaction with my handy-dandy stapler, designed by Swingline, hence the name for the label.

My creative genius added “The” to the name, and voila a label was born. Now I needed a band to work with.

After graduating from Washington State University, managing bands, booking shows in Pullman (at WSU as ASWSU Entertainment Committee chairperson and independently at The Combine), I had moved to Seattle in 1995.

During my Wazzu days, I had become friends with a few bands playing in Moscow and Pullman, but I wasn’t really connected to any of them. Then, Scott Garred, who I knew from going to school in Clarkston, started a band with his then-girlfriend and some guys from Moscow called Sleepy Handful, and my high school buddy Dan Beloit started Shack Nasty with other “Valleyites,” including Jim Laws. The bands started playing shows together, and we all developed a mutual respect for each other.

Fast forward to 2003, and the label hadn’t released anything recent, primarily because of a lack of funds and focus. Around this time, Ben Rupp (who I knew from WSU; he lived in the Whitehouse, where bands played in the basement) and I developed a friendship and a mutual interest in Northwest bands. After many drinks and joints, we made a decision to relaunch the label. Now we just needed a band to work with.

Dan Beloit had relocated to Seattle and played in multiple bands, but around this time he had finally locked into a great little trio, called The Valley, who played short, fuzzed out, garage-y rock tunes. The Valley had recorded a handful of songs with Conrad Uno at the famed Egg Studios, so we jumped at the chance to work with each other: In 2003, The Swingline Records was reborn with the release of The Valley single “Marked Star.”

In 2004, we made the decision to release full-length albums instead of just singles. We approached The Valley about recording and putting out another release with them.

They went back into Egg Studios with Johnny Sangster behind the boards to record their debut album, “Blue Bear,” and by early 2005 the album was released.

The band played live on KEXP for the first time and had a sold-out record release show at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard. The album received rave reviews and lots of airplay on college radio.

In 2006, The Swingline Records also released CDs by the Seattle bands Magneto and the Heavy Hearts. By 2008, the label was put on hiatus because of work and family obligations.

In 2023, Ben and I started talking about reviving the label to re-issue The Swingline Records releases on vinyl (most of our later releases were CD only). We approached The Valley about the idea of releasing the “Blue Bear” album on vinyl for the first time.

Beloit loved the idea and started the process of gathering the recording and getting it remastered for vinyl. !