Location Winnipeg, Manitoba Founded 1997 | Headquarters Winnipeg, Canada Country of origin Canada | |
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Founder Chris Hannah
Jord Samolesky
Regal Genre Punk rock
Hardcore punk
Rock
Spoken word Official website g7welcomingcommittee.com Artists Propagandhi, The Weakerthans, I Spy, The (International) Noise Co, Swallowing Shit Albums Today's Empires - Tomorro, Left and Leaving, Black Coats & Bandages, The First Conspiracy, Potemkin City Limits | ||
G7 Welcoming Committee Records was a Canadian independent record label started by Chris Hannah and Jord Samolesky of punk band, Propagandhi, and their friend, Regal, in 1997. The label was based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, operated out of The Old Market Autonomous Zone, and mostly released material by artists and speakers with a radical left-wing point of view. The label ceased operations on April 1, 2008 although it did briefly come out of hibernation in 2010 to release a 3-track EP of Propagandhi songs from 1993-1996 as a benefit for Partners In Health.
Contents
In early-2015, it was announced on the G7 website that none of their previous releases were available for purchase as either physical copies or downloadable albums, but that most of their catalog was available on music streaming sites.
Political aspect
According to the G7 website, when the label was established, the founders hoped "to create a label that politically radical bands and speakers could unflinchingly support and call home; where the driving force behind the label's output was social change and radical thought; and where the structure of the organization didn't contradict itself by mimicking the structures of unbalanced power and hierarchy in the profit-driven corporate world." To this end the label incorporates the economic structure Parecon proposed by Robin Hahnel and Michael Albert.
The name is a reference to the G7 (now, including Russia, the G8) which brings together the world's richest and most powerful countries in yearly summits to discuss the global political and economic society and to make collective decisions. The label's website explains, "The G7 Welcoming Committee is an idea of resistance [...] A 'Welcoming Committee' to tell them, with words and actions, what we think of their power and neo-colonialism, around the world and at home, and that people are willing to fight back ..."
Associated bands
The following artists have released albums on G7:
It also carries spoken word material by Noam Chomsky, Ward Churchill, Ann Hansen, and Howard Zinn.