Ancient Shapes make their live debut at Toronto's Monarch Tavern on Dec. 31, 2016, with You've Changed Records co-founders Daniel Romano (with microphone) and Ian Daniel Kehoe (far right).
Inspired by the Canadian indie-music photography of Davida Nemeroff and Catherine Stockhausen, Colin Medley began shooting artists from You’ve Changed Records in the label’s early years. As the label’s “unofficial official” photographer and videographer, he has captured the musicians in the studio, on stage and on the road.
Funny how some of the best ideas are hatched in the back seat of a car.
In 2009, driving home from the annual SappyFest, an arts and music festival held in Sackville, N.B., Daniel Romano and Ian Daniel Kehoe of the band Attack in Black mused about starting up an independent record label for their solo music and side projects. Seconding the notion, Constantines guitarist Steven Lambke offered to help. That’s how You’ve Changed Records came to be.
“We were young, impatient artists who wanted the freedom to do our own things,” Lambke says. “That was the original impulse.”
The late Richard Laviolette, performing at the label's fifth anniversary concert at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern in May, 2014. Suffering from Huntington’s Disease, he chose to receive MAID and died on Sept. 5, 2023.
This weekend, the small indie-rock label You’ve Changed celebrates 15 years with concerts at the Casbah in Hamilton on Saturday and the Rex Hotel in Welland, Ont., on Sunday. Both shows feature label artist Shotgun Jimmie (the stage name of Jim Kilpatrick), backed by Attack in Black and Lambke, who handles the label’s day-to-day operations.
The bill is fitting: The label’s first releases were Shotgun Jimmie’s Still Jimmie (catalogue number YC-001) and a split record by Attack in Black and Lambke’s Baby Eagle project.
The anniversary concerts are modest affairs feting a humble, artist-run label that has punched above its weight from the beginning. Its catalogue includes critically acclaimed releases from the prolific Romano, singer-songwriter Julie Doiron, Tamara Lindeman’s Weather Station, indie rocker Jon McKiel and others.
“You’ve Changed has come to be something that is pretty established and legitimate,” says Lambke, speaking from Sackville. “On the other hand, it’s pretty much me in my bedroom, hustling. It still has a degree of wildness to it.”
If you look around, a lot of label owners are lawyers and people who worked in retail. Steve is an artist, first and foremost, and if he believes in your art he’ll stick with you and do everything he can to get your music out there.
— Colin Medley, photographer
You've Changed Records co-founder and prolific troubadour Daniel Romano and singer-songwriter Julie Doiron, at SXSW in Austin, Texas, in March, 2023.
Jimmie was one of the first people I met in the You’ve Changed scene. He came to play a show in Oshawa when I was still in high school or just after. He’s been my friend ever since.
— Colin Medley, photographer
Tamara Lindeman (known professionally as Weather Station) between her first and second You've Changed Records releases, in May, 2013.
You’ve Changed has a shared way of working. There’s a certain community. Despite our successes, we’ve stayed grounded in a network of mutual support and a culture and a scene beyond ourselves individually.”
— Steven Lambke, You've Changed Records co-founder
You've Changed Records group portrait, featuring Steven Lambke, Jon Mckiel, and members of Apollo Ghosts, Status/Non-Status and the Burning Hell, at SappyFest, in Sackville, N.B., in August, 2022.
