A ROUGH ROAD BEHIND

Scrub Club has always fought for the underdogs because that's where it all began.

MadHatter founded the label from scratch in 2001 to back their first storytelling group project, the Shadow Puppets. Showing some humor towards himself, the label started under the name “Spare Bedroom Studios” because that is exactly where all of the Puppet tracks were recorded. At the time, the only equipment they had was a six dollar microphone from Wal Mart and an extremely outdated computer. Hatter had never recorded or mixed music before, and this was going to be a learning experience. The beats were mostly made by Hatter, but he also was given permission to use a few others made by likewise groups on the internet. He unfortunately found out later that a few of them were actually mainstream beats he had not heard, so he vowed to never use untrusted outsider beats again.

During the formation of the label, the No Dough Logo was born, a crossed-out money sign that is still proudly represented by Scrub Club Records and their listeners today. The logo truly speaks for itself.

Hatter was in the group with his partner Wicket and a few other friends helped out. They recorded the first Shadow Puppets album, titled "Eye4AnEye" in March 2001. Soon, they were doing many shows in their favorite, rumored haunted, hole-in-the-wall establishment, "The Rock." The group met surprising underground success in the Wichita area.

Before the album was fixed up to be professionally released, the group began to experience differences, mostly on the
subject of money. MadHatter and a few other supporters were more concerned with getting the music and merchandise out to people for low prices, as he himself didn’t have much money. Wicket and some of the others, on the other hand, thought profits were more important to spread the music as far as it would go. The group started to disagree and fight. Rumors started to spread when they stopped communicating with eachother, and ended when some of the old crew broke into Hatter’s apartment... destroying, defacing, and stealing most of everything he owned. A psycho ex girlfriend of Hatter's at the time who had already took all of his money and left him with the bills teamed up with the rumor spreaders, and ended up getting MadHatter evicted from his apartment and had the rest of his possessions sold to gangbangers in the neighborhood while he was away at work one night.

Hatter wanted revenge, but an intelligent and mutual friend brought them back together to talk it over... All of the rumors were proven false, and beef was ended. But, the fact remained that Wicket had taken part in ruining Hatter’s life. And for that, He told Joey that they weren’t going to be working together in the future. What didn't kill him made him stronger, and it was time to go solo.

GROWING AND LEARNING

Shortly after being evicted, it was difficult to get to his job without a permanent place to live, so he lost that too. Now with barely any property or clothes left, he was lucky enough to have a few people to help him in his time of need. Fortunately, Hatter had his computer being held at his homegirl Amber's house, so that was untouched. Sleeping on floor after floor at various friend's apartments, he started recording his first solo album. This time there were more serious tracks that dealt with stress, being poor like he was, and the truth about the media and politics. This was going to end up a decently angry album, as he needed to vent out all the hate.

He produced, recorded, and mixed the entire album by himself on that ancient computer, and he titled it “Tensix.” Copies of it started spreading, and one of the singles off the album, “Fake,” was submitted to a few sites and contests. It got very good reviews, even with it being recorded on inferior equipment. Hatter quickly started building a strong online fan base while preparing to do live shows with his new content to gain more fans and family. Through the quick-spreading internet hype, he met several people that were down for the cause and wanted to help out. It was time to form.

Hatter now called the label “Scrub Club Records,” due to the fact that everyone getting involved were flat-broke outcasts, and it was almost like a club or family for them. Through promotion, MadHatter met a down-for-whatever fan named C-Dog, who would later become the leader of the Street Team and also he found Shaila, who was doing promotion and taking pictures and Linze, who shortly ended up being his girlfriend, webmistress, and official photographer.

Soon after this forming, MadHatter invited three more local artists to the label: KnightDetective, Twitch, and Acid. He produced several beats for them and TNA (Twitch and Acid) recorded a few tracks on his old equipment. Soon after that, Scrub Club also signed Da Kippa, One of Hatter’s favorite underground emcees from New York.

Also joining the ranks was a wiry guy by the name of Double O Ninja, who became Hatter’s hype man on stage. The whole of Scrub Club at that point booked a show together, and even KnightDetective and TNA performed.

Unfortunately, it just wasn’t working out. Knight eventually had too many personal and work-related things going on to focus on music, and TNA lost their motivation just months before Hatter was going to book professional studio time for them. Kippa was a challenge due to the fact that he lived so far away and it became tough to communicate.

Hatter was working a job at Kinko's at the time, which was a fantastic hookup for their flyers and printwork. It also helped find them contacts in the local music scene and clients for Hatter's side business, Ninja Grafix. He used the money from those projects to buy a slightly better mic, samplers, and flyers.

WEEDING OUT NEGATIVITY

With several of the artists not having enough time to get things done and with the diminishing communication, tension started forming. During a meeting between Knight, TNA, and Hatter, there were talks about changing the mission, logo and colors of the label, along with other things that MadHatter held sacred and didn’t ever want to replace. It ended with TNA leaving for that reason, and Knight having to leave to take care of the other things in his life first.

In his spare time, MadHatter also worked on and released his remix album "Rewind and Refresh."

Double O Ninja introduced Hatter to C.O.S., who eventually became an emcee on the label. They took in one other artist, Hyper Sniper from Kansas City, who was working on releasing his first album. Scrub Club began recording at a professional studio called A1 Music, re-doing "Tensix" with far better quality. The studio engineer at the time was the Wichita legend Tommy Carlyle, who we will always love. The label also did up some samplers and new projects. The new group even brought Sniper down from Kansas City to start professionally recording his first album “The Savage.”

Some people started to get a whiff of the money and the fame. Hatter was about to learn a tough lesson.

A big label split happened one night after months of power struggles between Double O Ninja and MadHatter. Dub had been involved with rumors, lies, and was planning to do his own label. Shaila was voted out by all of the members at the time save for Hatter and Linze for not showing up to meetings and disappearing for periods of time. Turned out she just wanted to be out of the picture until Dub was forced out of the Club, and drama was getting out of control. During a label meeting, Hatter dismissed Dub from the label, and a few supporters went with him, including C-Dog, which was an extreme shock.

This split had removed the negative vibes from Scrub Club Records at the time. Shaila came back and was eager to work again. In the empty space that Dub and crew left, new members arose. First was a girl by the name of anna rexia, one of the original members from Scrub Club's street team, who to this day is an artist and merch girl for us. Another young new artist by the name of Wookie joined a little later.

There was now a completely positive vibe in the Scrub camp.

Except for one thing.

Hyper Sniper didn’t think he had enough support from Scrub Club, even though they were putting in their own dime to help. Turns out that Sniper had been holding in for a long time the fact that he wanted more money, which is something they could not give him. Disagreements began right before an SCR show in Sniper's hometown of Kansas City, and something very stupid happened after Scrub Club's set that night, once again based on rumors. Sniper left the label to fully give life to his own label "Midwest Slaughterhouse." An insane amount of drama happened between the two labels, but eventually was ended and became positive in 2007. However, when it first happened, trust proved hard to come by.

The show must go on.

THE NEXT STEP

The year was 2005. With a little over 4 years behind them, Scrub Club Records was now tighter than ever. As of March that year, the label decided to go completely not-for-profit, putting all the money from every cd and merch item bought right back into purchasing more cds, flyers, equipment, and merchandise. It is hard to believe that all five members at the time agreed on doing this, yet dedicated so much of their lives to the project without expecting payment in return. That just shows you how tight and different the label has been compared to their competition.

Two new members were added to the roster. CK and Jorro, who were incredibly talented, had a basement studio and wanted Scrub Club to record there. Previously, SCR was still spending way too much money on studio time. The two turned out to be a perfect fit musically and were very inclined with film. They lent their equipment and talents to the label and helped make two music videos and other extra footage also. They both had been to an oldschool Shadow Puppets show back in the day, and after a concept meeting, Hatter decided to bring the much talked-about group back with CK and Jorro as the new Puppets Blockhead and Woodchuck. They also invited Wookie into he mix to be The Ventriloquist, the group's manipulator.

Also taking place was the formation of the group "8up" which consisted of members MadHatter, C.O.S., Wookie, anna rexia, Shai, CK, Jorro, and their homie Doc from A Squared Records. This supergroup was going to really turn people on to Scrub Club and was a crazy project. They began recording both the "Second Act" cd for the Puppets and the album for 8up.

However, as history often repeats itself, rumors once again started to spread. Certain members had problems with other members, let things get out of hand, and forgot how to be professional. Some even forgot what the label was all about. We won't waste your time by telling you everything that happened, but it was the most brutal and painful split that Scrub Club Records has ever been through.

It's a shame, the great projects that were planned and the brother/sisterhood that was alive and well at the time... all ruined by rumors and secrets. The whole ordeal was very unfortunate.

At the Scrub Club New Year's Eve party that year, the label inducted Chester into the group, who was an incredible guy and a great advisor and friend to everyone. He was known as Werewolf at the time.

Not too long after Shai, CK, C.O.S., and Jorro left the label, Hatter and Linze also separated their relationship (Completely unrelated). This left Hatter, Wookie, anna rexia, and Chester. Big Stephen and Gambling Chris, previously just listed as crew members, were also asked to finally be official like they deserved.

The next member of the label in 2007 was Shelshocker, MadHatter's wife. Aside from being an artist in development, she was also a very talented individual when it came to graphics, photography, and keeping everything positive and organized.

In the middle of that year, communication and other feelings fell apart between Wookie and Scrub Club, and he disappeared out of nowhere and was removed from the label a little over a month later.

At the end of the year, however, Scrub Club Records was blessed with the addition to their next member, DJ CutterJ, who had been forming a strong relationship and had many similar interests and plans.

In 2008, the label warmly welcomed fellow underground artist Benjamin Bear who also shared some same visions.

With skin tough from the flames of hate, disappointment, hard times, and backstabbing in the previous years, the label was now very strong in their bond together.

To make everything equal and to attempt to make the label more open to new artists and new business altogether, MadHatter decided to simply organize all of Scrub Club Records and their current talent and call it the "Scrub Club Collective," or "Scrub Club" for short, as he had always done. Within this new company, management and member duties shifted and more room was made for totally new and fresh projects including artwork, film, gaming, and much more. During this big change, a few members decided to part ways, but most supported the action and agreed with its meaning. The new generation of Scrub Club had just begun!

THE PERFECT FORMULA

The Club decided back in 2006 that the whole not-for-profit deal was all good, but that the label could hook up their listeners even better if they just released everything they made online for free. That is now why you can find tons of tracks here and elsewhere on the net any time you wish to listen to them. This ability to get free music whenever has spread our message and mission worldwide, and we're growing fast.

We never plan on changing this no-profit mission.

In late 2006, Scrub Club released two albums. "Second Act," the new cd from The Shadow Puppets, and "Noncents," a disc full of unreleased music from projects that were scrapped and other recovered audio.

As this history lesson was originally started on a previous version of this website, Scrub Club also released "8Bit Bullshit" in May 2007, MadHatter's nerdy masterpiece.

Following in December the same year, DJ CutterJ released his first Scrub Club launched mix cd "The Body Absurd Volume One." It has been continuously repeating in tons of cd players all over the place since.

At the beginning of 2008, Benjamin Bear had his first Scrub Club release, called the "Bear Necessities." A short while before that hit the site, a second "Noncents" album was also available online.

The label today is like a family business, each member and fan closely attached to the next. Between all of the artists, they have tons of new projects and plans for this new year, and Scrub Club hopes to put out at least three more new albums in 2008. With the drive, motivation, and the work ethic they have, they might even be able to do more.

The logo they still wear, passed on since the invention of the label, is the “No Dough Logo.” It is a crossed-out money sign meant to simply say that they do this music “for the love, not the money.”

MadHatter also lends his skills with graphic design, beat production, video editing, and promotions, so they never have to pay an outside source for those services. The same goes with photography and videography from Shelshocker and Gambling Chris. They have all of the professional tools right at their fingertips for free, which also makes them different. They also offer their services to other local artists in the area, whether it be music, art, or video. They want to support the scenes here in Wichita and get the underground breathing again.

The fact that money isn’t an issue causes no need for greed among the members, the amount of projects that are being worked on add up to more than any other label in Wichita’s offerings, and they are totally self-reliable. Haters, backstabbers, and hurdles will never affect their choices. Scrub Club is now truly invincible and unstoppable.

The rest is history. Will you be written along with us in the books? Come with us to the world after The Collapse.