Wax Trax! Records was a record label in the United States. Wax Trax! began as a record shop in Denver, Colorado opened by Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher. They sold the store in 1978 and, in November of that year, opened a new one under the same name at 2449 N. Lincoln Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. This store would become the center of the punk rock and industrial music worlds in Chicago.

The record store became a record label slowly at first, releasing a few limited edition records, then some EPs. The first release ^*" target="_blank" >was Strike Under's Immediate Action twelve inch EP in 1980 [http://www.collectorscum.com/volume3/illinois/, followed by Divine's Born To Be Cheap seven inch. But it was the release of Cold Life by Ministry — along with the licensing of Front 242's Endless Riddance EP — that set the stage for Wax Trax! to become America's preeminent industrial music and dance label of the 1980s and 1990s.

Nash and Flesher licensed a number of recordings from Play It Again Sam of Belgium, and eventually opened a North American office for the label (dubbed Play It Again Sam Records U.S.A.) as a division of Wax Trax!. PIAS, in turn, oversaw the operation of Wax Trax! Europe, although both closed abruptly when the relationship between the labels ended acrimoniously in mid-1990.

Following a bankruptcy filing, Wax Trax! was bought by New York-based TVT Records in 1992, with Nash and Flesher retaining creative control over the label. TVT continued to use the Wax Trax! imprint for years, even after Nash's death from AIDS-related symptoms on October 10, 1995.

Bart Pfanenstiel, a former Wax Trax! employee, founded WTII Records in 2000 in an effort to rekindle the spirit of Wax Trax!'s early music.

Among the most noteworthy artists released by Wax Trax! were Front 242 (including Jean-Luc De Meyer side project C-Tec), KMFDM, Meat Beat Manifesto, Front Line Assembly, Young Gods, Sister Machine Gun, My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, Coil, Cubanate and Laibach. The label also released a bevy of side projects by Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker of Ministry, including Revolting Cocks, Acid Horse (a collaboration with Cabaret Voltaire), Pailhead (a collaboration with Ian Mackaye of Fugazi), PTP (short for "Programming The Psychodrill"), Lead Into Gold (a solo vehicle for Barker) and 1000 Homo DJs.

See also

• List of record labels
• Chicago Record Labels
• The First 13 Years - a retrospective box set of Wax Trax!' output as an indie label

External links

• Wax Trax Records, the original Denver record store
• "Wax Trax! article at discogs.com
• Wax Trax! Revisted - Part One (Denver) and Part Two (Chicago)
• Wax Trax! Not Sub Pop, a fan site run by a collector

Defunct record labels | American record labels | 1978 establishments

Wax Trax! Records