Jenz

Tim Cohen, of the Fresh & Onlys, will be one of the many local musicians on City Limits compilation

City Limits Records, a label started by SF bloggers, is set to emerge with a compilation exclusively by Bay Area bands pressed on 12-inch color vinyl.

To be clear, neither activity —blogging or pressing records — is seen by City Limits as a money-making venture. Peter Arko, one of the principals, makes no direct income from his music blog Ears of the Beholder —his main motivation for posting tracks is the rush he gets when he introduces and connects bands to more fans and other musicians. This record aims to achieve this on a local and global scale.

After the completion of this vinyl—tentatively set for a release in early June—Arko and partner Robert Khoury, who runs the music and photo blog at See the Leaves, say they plan to release blogger curated compilations in other cities from Los Angeles to London. Khoury elaborates that local bloggers in different cities will choose bands for each release—“they will give it that personal touch, because they are in-tune to what is going on in their city”—and Arko and Khoury will help with all the business details, like raising funds and getting the vinyl pressed.

Through Kickstarter, the popular crowd-funding site, Arko and Khoury teamed up to raise more than $2,300 in March for the label’s first release. Like every Kickstarter, they are using incentives to encourage backing — for example those who gave $35 or more receive a copy of the vinyl record with hand-drawn artwork from one of the bands, a digital download of the record, and their name in the liner notes. Word spread fast, and by the end of the first day on March 2nd, they’d received $500 in donations. They reached their goal on March 24th.

The City Limits compilation features folk, electronic and rocks bands that are at different stages in their careers, but whose members all live in the Bay Area. “We thought it’d be great to have visible music acts, like the Sandwitches and the Fresh & Onlys’ Tim Cohen, that people really want to hear,” explains Arko. “That’ll help carry the promotion, and give some of the smaller bands attention as well.”

Local bands aren’t the only ones who stand to benefit from City Limits’ work. Robert Khoury’s See the Leaves predominantly features music tracks by psychedelic- and garage-rock bands from all over the world as well as his own photos from live shows. Because readers don’t always realize where he is located, he is constantly getting invitations to shows in London—which he notes he wishes he could attend. 

“While this release serves to highlight a regional community, it also serves to define what music in San Francisco is in 2011,” says Arko. In this way, he hopes it’ll be seen as a musical time capsule.