"Sharing information and resources with other musicians is invaluable.  Other musicians are your greatest allies." - Beth Wood

"We're structuring an alliance with other indies we know and love so we can use our sites to refer and do crossover selling between us.  We're excited by the potential in that." - Tina Broad (manager of BROTHER)

"Many indies are banding together on a business level to create a more powerful entity.  Many indies are creating co-ops.  They operate under one umbrella, sharing a distributor and the cost for a publicist, radio promoter, etc.  They share expenses, which allows for things one person couldn't afford.  When you unite with the right musicians, your clout and your ability to promote your music will increase.  Start your own support system.  Cross-promote.  If indies work together and support one another, we can own tremendous power!  Book group gigs.  Do a group mailing to everyone's fans.  Advise them to stay for the whole show; you'll share fans and have a bigger crowd.  Plus, it's nice to be part of something." - Daylle Deanna Schwartz (I Don't Need A Record Deal!)

Syphrus Music is an independent record label/collective based in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. We are basically an eclectic rock label, with artists ranging from hardcore/metal to roots/world music and anything in between. Syphrus Music was started and continues to be operated by musicians, for musicians, in a way that bypasses the traditional mainstream music industry. We do this through a homemade, do-it-yourself ethic enhanced by professional studio, media, and promotional resources. Because we are all musicians ourselves, we keep an open mind regarding the music we are involved with. 

We are a small, artist-run record label/collective. Our goal is to develop a music forum for independent bands, artists, fans, and promoters. We believe in sharing resources for unsigned bands and artists. Our objectives are to promote local and regional artists, to enable artists to produce, release, and distribute their own CDs, and to research and develop new media opportunities. We place an historic value on the work of local independent artists; one of our basic purposes has always been to help document the music around us and provide an outlet for such music. We hope to provide resources that enable artists to keep their CDs available and in print. We also hope that our community efforts will build an awareness of this music with new fans and create a self-sufficient scene.

We are not a company or label in the traditional sense. We are a collective of artists, musicians, and fans working together to achieve common goals. We are not a corporate label trying to make money. Nor does the label itself have a budget to finance individual artists' CD manufacturing or touring. We are the artists. We each pay our own way, pooling our resources to lessen the burden of business and promotion. Each artist gets back what they put into it. We have a wide variety of resources and options already researched and categorized, allowing individual artists to focus on making music instead of running into brick walls on the business end. We place a high emphasis on community-based efforts. We are 100% independent.

Syphrus Music was created in the Fall of 1999 to document the music being made by our friends from around West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle. The purpose of the label has been to provide resources to those whose music might otherwise not be preserved or shared. We take pride in working on a local level to create a homegrown identity. We have been blessed with the technology to keep most of our operations local, from the recording process to CD manufacturing. This has allowed us to develop a unique and organic product line. We relate our approach to the Library of Congress field recordings of the early 1900s, or the D.I.Y. punk/indie scene of the late 1970s and 1980s. Many other labels and artists out there are following similar principles, and we encourage it!  Regional and local musical identities of past decades and centuries have been homogenized by the rise of mass media. Fortunately, the age of information has also leveled the playing field, making technology more readily available now than ever before.

© 1999-2006 Syphrus Music. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is a violation of applicable laws.  Syphrus Music, PO Box 1676, Hedgesville, WV 25427.

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