Nice guy finishes first

TABARI MCCOY | CIN WEEKLY

Jamie Mandel (Photo by Leigh Patton/CiN Weekly)

JAMIE MANDEL

AGE: 23

RESIDENCE: Fairfield

LABEL: Nice Guy Records (founded 1999)

SPECIALIZATION: Punk Rock

Awards and affiliations: A 2002 graduate of Xavier University with a degree in Liberal Arts and a minor in Peace Studies, Mandel also won two entrepreneurship awards from the school. Mandel manages two Web sites - www.niceguyrecords.com and www.cincinnatishows.com - in addition to his record label. Mandel also plays in two local pop punk bands, The Scrubs and Caruso.

ONLINE

www.niceguyrecords.com
www.cincinnatishows.com

E-mail
jamie@niceguyrecords.com

THE NICE GUY LEGACY

The Scrubs
Makin' a Mess (1999)

Dropkickmejesus
Love Sucks (1999)

Moloko Plus
Running on Empty (1999)

Last Laugh
Going Nowhere (2001)

The Fonzarellis
Beautiful EP (2001)
Sweet Velvet Runaway (2002)

Bottom Line
In and Out of Luck (2002) TBA (Due June 2004)

Anchor Set
Anchor Set (2002)

Travoltas
Step on the Gas ... and Don't Look Back! (2002)

When Sparks Fly
We Who Are... About to Die (2003)

Various Artists
• Ohio and Beyond (2001)
• Pop Punk Fever (2001)
• Nice Guys Finish Last (2003)

DOWNLOADS
Download or stream music from bands on the Nice Guy label such as The Scrubs, Anchor Set, When Sparks Fly Bottom Line, Travoltas and The Fonzarellies.

THE SCRUBS
Together again: The Scrubs reunion show part deux

Jamie Mandel has toured Japan twice - while preparing for final exams. He graduated from Xavier after transferring from Ohio State and is engaged to be married this summer. Not bad for a Jewish kid from Blue Ash who, as a college freshman, started a punk rock record label that earned him two entrepreneur awards from a Jesuit college. Huh?

No wonder people think he's such a Nice Guy ...

Out in the midst of suburbia in a new subdivision on an otherwise non-descript road lies a home unlike any other near it. Behind the simple picket fence, and inside the house, the occupant works diligently in a room as visually stimulating as plain white copy paper.

And in the case of the resident, 23-year-old Jamie Mandel, things couldn't be much better. Mandel is the owner of Nice Guy Records, a fledgling record label he runs out of a room in the Fairfield condominium he shares with his fiancée, Amanda Peterson. Specializing in punk rock, the label has grown to be an internationally known player on the indie record scene.

MORE THAN A SCRUB

Flash back to the late 1990s - the local punk rock scene belongs to a three-man team known as The Scrubs. Composed of guitarist/backup vocalist Mandel, bassist and lead singer Mike Ingram, and drummer Jeff Meeker, The Scrubs are one of area's hottest tickets for home grown music playing to capacity crowds at bars, taverns and concert halls throughout the Midwest.

Looking to find a way to help his group after the release of its first CD, Makin' a Mess, Mandel decided it was time to create something "people could rally around."

"Nice Guy Records, that kind of came from the whole 'nice guys finish last' thing," Mandel says. "There's sort of this sarcastic tone to a lot of punk rock, like, 'We're at the bottom of everything.' If I could go back, I might name it something different, because I wonder what the female demographic thinks."

Mandel began his label with the money he saved working at Pipkin's, a Blue Ash fruit/vegetable market near Sycamore Junior High. A GeoCities Web page became the online home of Nice Guy Records, complete with an address for Scrubs fans to contact to order CDs.

The Scrubs broke up in August 2001 once Meeker left for college, but Mandel has been able to cultivate a following of fans in the thousands by putting out more than a dozen artists and compilations since Nice Guy's inception.

Despite the success, Mandel still has to work part-time on occasion to pay the bills. As someone who hates working what he calls "normal" jobs, Mandel knows the grind can be taxing, especially given the fact that he is his label's only employee.

The one-man show doesn't really foresee things changing anytime soon, though.

"I have a handful of people who help me on an as-needed basis, just college people that I know - anybody basically that's willing to work for a T-shirt and a job reference," Mandel says. "There's absolutely no need for me to have an office separate from my house at this point because it's not big enough. And most of the time, it's just me doing the work, so it's not that hard."

THE BUSINESS OF MUSIC

Spending many nights outside Bogart's and other venues, Mandel has built a nice Rolodex of names, numbers and industry friends to help him build Nice Guy over the years. Pointing to a stack of mail in his makeshift office, Mandel says he receives about 10 demo tapes a week from bands nationwide, which is how he found the group Anchor Set from Boston and the Omaha, Neb.-based act The Fonzarellis.

Despite all the attention, Mandel says he is careful in the projects he selects for both personal and financial reasons, as he has no plans to go into debt anytime soon. He says he recently realized he probably will never be as famous as he thought he might once be, joking, "I'm going to be on the cover of CiN Weekly, so that's probably as big as I'm going to get."

He says breaking even definitely won't hurt, though.

"I never sat down and drew out a business plan and said 'I'm going to start a business. I'm going to need this much money and this is what's going to happen.' It just kind of naturally blossomed," Mandel says. "I never really dreamed that I could do this for a living, and I still don't know if I can. That's still yet to be seen; I really can't declare victory right now."

But the early battles clearly seem to be going Mandel's way. His connections have helped him earn distribution deals in both Australia and Japan, in addition to helping Bottom Line, a Cincinnati group on his label, enjoy its third straight summer on the Vans Warped Tour.

His two tours of Japan, however, are his career toppers.

"Some of the highlights included getting stopped on the streets of Tokyo with Bottom Line for autographs, some of the craziest hotels I've ever imagined," Mandel says. "There's this Japanese term 'Shah-cho' which is kind of slang for the owner or head of a business. People figured out that I was the head of Nice Guy Records since I was the white guy with Bottom Line, and fans would just come up and address me as Shah-cho. It was pretty funny."

His connections have also helped him get his CDs into Best Buy, a major accomplishment that has helped him push more than 4,000 copies of Bottom Line's CD alone.

True to his Nice Guy nature, Mandel talks about the achievement with compassion for its affect on smaller record stores.

"Obviously, I would still rather the people buy the music from an independent music store because that's my ethics, but not enough CDs get sold there for what (I) need," he says. "I'm a little torn like, 'Should I be out here pushing this new release (and saying), "Get it at Best Buy," when I really don't want to see Shake It Records go out of business. I guess you really just have to push both."

FOR THE FANS

Mandel says he would love to be able run his label for a living, but still doesn't consider it as one since he still has to work other jobs occasionally. He says he doesn't worry about not fitting the stereotypical image of a punk rocker, as he lacks any significant body art or piercings other than the two small silver hoops in his ears.

That's why he hopes more punk fans will begin to concern themselves with things other than image.

"People really do focus on the image of punk rock, and it's not all that important when it comes down to it. No one cares," Mandel says. "You're supposed to just accept everybody. If you're just concentrating on looks, that's not going to work."

Coincidentally, he says growing older is the one thing that seems to turn a lot of people away from punk rock. Mandel doesn't see the turnover in fans as a bad thing.

"One, they are more excited about the music than older people - they really get into it. They go see the show, they go nuts, they love it," Mandel says. "Talking to high school people now, they are so much smarter than when I was in high school. It just blows me away. That's what makes this business so great is all the people that you meet."

SUCH A NICE GUY

Mandel says he worries people will forget the ideals of what punk rock is supposed to stand for as it becomes more popular; he feels the music and social issues should be strongly tied. He says he would like for his label to possibly become a non-profit social organization one day in following the lead of other label owners he knows across the country.

"I don't believe in capitalism enough for me to get complete satisfaction out of me just running a successful business," he says.

He says making both happen, however, is his "ultimate goal."

"I worry as I get older I'll lose touch as a lot of people do, but I don't think I will," says Mandel. "I guess that's me in a nutshell - when you strip everything away (and) get rid of the salesman Jamie and everything, I just like to think I'm very committed to the people that I love. Making other people happy makes me happy."

He won't have any qualms if any of his bands move on to bigger and better things should a major label come calling, either.

"I figure if I do a really good job now and really get the bands out there and do my job well, they'll move onto the next level and I'll eventually profit from that," he says. "It's a pretty cool reciprocal relationship - they are as important to me as I am to them."

Ben Howard, a member of Bottom Line - now working on its second album for Nice Guy - agrees.

"It's been in the back of your mind sometimes about what being on Nice Guy gives us that being on a bigger label doesn't - we've been through everything together, and we've grown together," Howard says. "We've really helped each other grow, and it's cool that way."

Those are among the reasons Mandel's fiancée, a first grade teacher, believes in Jamie.

"Jamie's just so intelligent and so driven, he's just a personable person," Peterson says. "I think it's all of those things, combined. He's able to make those connections and do what he wants to because he's such a nice person."