Man's Ruin Records | |
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Founded | 1994 |
Founder | Frank Kozik |
Defunct | 2001 |
Status | Defunct |
Country of origin | U.S. |
Location | San Francisco, California |
Man's Ruin Records was an independent record label, owned and founded by Bay Area artist Frank Kozik. After the 1994 release of Man's Ruin's first record, entitled Experimental Audio Research (EAR): Delta 6, Kozik worked with artists who he wanted to release; he also designed all of the sleeve art for the releases. The catalog of Man's Ruin is vast, including relatively famous bands such as The Hellacopters, Nebula, Kyuss, High on Fire, Entombed, Turbonegro, Queens of the Stone Age and The Sex Pistols, to less known bands such as FuckEmos, Soulpreacher, Angelrot, and Los Cowslingers. The last record released was by Begotten, and the label was officially gone by 2002.
The label's slogan was "Empty Pleasures and Desperate Measures since 1994."
Man's Ruin did not make signed contracts with the artists that they released, their operation was instead very open. Recordings were licensed for a time period of 2–5 years and all copyrights and publishing liberties were retained by the bands. Profits on releases were split 50-50 between band and label. The posters and album art from the Man's Ruin era are still very coveted and the limited print vinyl are constantly rising in their value due to two factors: the majority of covers were screen-printed and numbered by Kozik himself, and all records were released in editions of 5000 copies or less. The most sought-after records from the Man's Ruin catalog have consistently been The Desert Sessions records, which were released in highly limited editions on clear and colored vinyl. The CD versions of the first six volumes, as well as the rest of the entire Man's Ruin catalog have gone out of print with the demise of the label. Subsequent volumes of The Desert Sessions were released on Josh Homme's Rekords Rekords label.