G7 Welcoming Committee Records

Template:Short description Template:Redirect Template:Infobox record label

G7 Welcoming Committee Records was a Canadian independent record label based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The label mostly released material by artists and speakers with a radical left-wing point of view.

HistoryEdit

G7 Welcoming Committee Records was founded by Chris Hannah and Jord Samolesky of punk band, Propagandhi, and their friend, Regal, in 1997.<ref>Heppe, Abigail. Propagandhi returns with a vengeance-and a new sound. Template:Webarchive The Berkeley Beacon. 22 Feb. 2002.</ref><ref name=globe>"Propagandhi machine". Robert Everett-Green, Globe and Mail, Mar. 19, 2009</ref> The label operated out of Winnipeg's The Old Market Autonomous Zone.<ref>"A Comprehensive Look At Winnipeg’s PC Punk Scene". Noisey, Sheldon Birnie Sep 22 2014,</ref> During its years of operation about 50 albums were released.<ref name=globe />

The label ceased operations in April 2008<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> although it did briefly come out of hibernation in 2010 to release a 3-track EP of Propagandhi songs from 1993 to 1996 as a benefit for Partners In Health.

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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Political aspectEdit

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.<ref>Faulkner, Robert. Agitrock rolls on; Today's groups continue a long tradition of activism, belting out songs of protest at the world's wrongs. Toronto Star. 3 Dec. 2000.</ref>

The name is a reference to the G7 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 ..."