2010 was an unbelievable year for Scrub Club Records. We saw our fan base nearly double since last year as our musician roster tripled, we got to rock some huge shows nationwide, our amazing fans supported us in getting things we needed to succeed, and our influence on independent artistry spread even farther worldwide. it seems at this point that there’s not much we can’t do… We can only imagine what 2011 has in store for us all together!

And with that huge growth, I thought I’d start a new tradition of letting the public know some of our year-end numbers to put it better into perspective just how much our fans, friends, and family make a difference in our mission. Because without seeing these numbers, you might never know just how your contributions of time, presence, and funds have truly effected us. It’s time for you to see how you helped us shine in 2010, and also to see the future more clearly.

First of all, let’s talk about the music – because after all, it’s what we put to the forefront.

Since 2006 (when we switched servers and started over the data), we have reached a grand total of over 81,620+ album downloads. In 2010, we saw each month pass by where several thousands of downloads took place, which was utterly amazing. Our growth is finally picking up incredible speed as our album links are freely spread across affiliate music sites, pirate music sites, inside fan-made torrents, and through several branches of social media. We will be reaching 100,000 albums downloaded by the first quarter of 2011 at this rate, which makes me physically speechless… Never did I think back in 2001 when I started Scrub Club that we would achieve numbers like this, fans like this, opportunities to be heard like this. Myself and our other artists are eternally grateful for you Scrub Club Soldiers getting the word out!

Since we decided to go completely not-for-profit in 2006, we have had several tough challenges due to having a zero budget, but we somehow scraped by. In 2010, we decided to start accepting official donations after so many fans and business partners recommended it as a way to help us out. With some reluctance (most of us hate the thought of even mentioning the word “donation” to our fans), we decided to give it a shot and see how the year went. Well, after lots of great feedback and a staggering amount of gifts this past year, I’m amazed to report that our Soldiers out there made general donations in the sum of $1,198.14! And that’s not even counting a few fundraisers and projects by fans that separately scored some of our artists airfare this year totaling over $1000 as well, and merchandise sales over a few hundred that went directly into our central fund. To put it bluntly… ah… holy shit. So to all of you out there that think your single buck or $5 won’t amount to much, now you know… With the amount of incredible fans and friends out there, every bit adds together to make our needs come true. We got to perform at shows we wouldn’t have been able to even attend because of you all… we got the equipment we needed to put on our best multimedia performances… we got to purchase awesome merch like posters and stickers for you to rep Scrub Club to the fullest… and all of it was made possible by you in just less than a year’s time! Much respect to everyone who tossed a few dollars our way, and expect something nifty in the mail soon!

With such astounding results, I have put together an incentive plan called the “Knighthood Program,” which will combine download numbers with donations to help the top performing artists of our label excel in their musical goals. More on that later this month, though… Let’s get back to the numbers.

Another important figure comes from a new direction we’re taking – fundraising for charities. This year, we were involved with the Salvation Army “Angel Tree,” which pulls together warm winter clothes and toys for Christmas gifts to underprivileged children during the holidays. With just a little over a week to work with, our Scrub Soldiers raised $205.60 for this fantastic charity. Yet another testing of water, we plan on doing more thing sto fight good fights in 2011, and hope to raise at least twice that amount for people in need… After all, most of our artists and fans have been through equally tough, if not worse times in their lives. We understand. And if we can all pool together to help, we will! Thanks again to everyone who participated in this event.

To give you an idea on our website growth since Version 9 launched this year on a new WordPress platform rather than the good ol’ html route, we had hundreds of thousands of unique visitors to help make for 18,272,047 hits (yes, that’s over 18 million visits), and guzzled down a fiery 4,797.239 gigs of bandwidth (yes, that’s almost 5 terabytes of transfer). We want to thank our homies over there at HostGator in Texas for providing us with an adequate server to handle all of that with no problems. The top ten countries that visit our site are the United States, Russian Federation, Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine, China, Czech Republic, and Israel. Aside from having the site being completely translatable, we’ve been off-and-on again viral with Russian-area music sites, which has really shown promise. Hey guys, you should get us out there to perform!

As far as social media stuff, there was finally a full approach to getting these done properly this year. With big plans on increasing these numbers, we currently have 1,795 subscribers on Facebook, 903 on Twitter, 404 on YouTube, and 19,108 on that aged beast MySpace.

So there you have it! Every single one of you is a gear in this Scrub Club machine, and without you, we would be nothing but rusted and broken down. We promise to continue to bring the best entertainment in 2011, and with your help, we hope to continue the push globally until we show everyone how to put the power of music back into the people’s hands, not corporations. I’ve got a few surprises already in the works on how we’re going to achieve that, but… all in good time. If you want in on the action and you’re ready to fight in the front lines, make sure and sign up for our official street team via the email address form in the right sidebar. New promo missions will be arriving in your inbox soon!

As always, much love… Thank you for an incredible year of growth and new friendship… 2011? Let’s start this party with a bang!

“As Scrub Club has been growing in popularity this year, the RIAA has asked American officials to keep intelligence-gathering “informal” to help avoid scrutiny from other record labels, diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks show.”

Made ya look, right? Okay, so maybe this wasn’t an official Wikileaks article, but it’s really no big secret that Scrub Club houses the most talented, dedicated entertainers in the world!

Enjoy the free albums, massive photo gallery, overflowing video vault, and all the other assorted goodies on the site. Much love!

Scrub Club is making a difference this year in a few young lives… From now until December 9th, if you make a donation to Scrub Club via the buttons here on the site, and include in the note section that you “want to make a difference,” all of these marked donations will pool together to buy some winter clothes for unprivileged kids this year via the Salina Angel Tree / Salvation Army Program.

Whatever is donated will be added up, and yours truly will do a video blog of the whole process including selecting the clothes we’ve bought for the kids and a special thank you. No money will go to Scrub Club if you mark it for this project, only straight to making the clothes donation to the Salvation Army in Scrub Club’s name (the actual donation ends up being anonymous, but you get my drift).

How does the Angel Tree program work? A parents fills out a card for their child with necessities for this winter that they need – Shoes, caps, mittens, jackets, pants, etc. Everything is anonymous except for the child’s age and gender. Depending on the amount of donations we build up, we will be picking one of more children to buy supplies for. Once the clothes have been purchased, we return to the Angel Tree center and drop them off, and the Salvation Army delivers them to that family before the holidays. As a bonus, the Salina Area Salvation Army will also include an age-appropriate toy with every child you donate for. The children who benefit from this program would otherwise not receive gifts such as these due to financial or social issues.

We can help some kids out this year! Yes, most of us are poor as well, but our pool of change that we can spare together could really make a serious difference in a family’s life.

Times are tough. Let’s stand up for our little brothers and sisters.

Thanks for your help! If this goes well, we will probably do more charity-oriented events and projects.

- Hatter

Scrub Club is soaring quickly to new heights, and four more talented individuals have enlisted to help power the No Dough Movement, make some killer music, and rock your faces… all at the same time! Crazy, right? So without further ado, let’s check these gentlemen out and welcome them to the family. Their pages and previous works aren’t on the site yet, but until then, please click on their names to visit their sites to get a preview of what is to come!

Untested Methods – Held highly for the numerous, hard-hitting beats he has produced this year for Scrub Club, Methods has since been pushing out his own music, a hearty mix of electronic, rock, industrial, and even hip hop sounds that truly bring electronic music back to its roots… and improves upon it. He hails from N’awwwwlins and has probably played every single pen and paper role playing game. Like… ever.

Dale Chase – Representing the nerdier side of Brooklyn, Dale may just now be emerging on the scene with his material, but he’s got an old soul when it comes to enjoying music of all genres and stirring it all together to make his product. With a laid back flow and a general groove attitude towards life, Mr. Chase is ready to bring you some classic Hip Hop storytelling to keep your head nodding off the axis.

Shammers & Lefthand – A truly different element to throw in the Scrub Club mix, this duo of do-naughties is ready to shatter all of your expectations of rappers in flip-flops. Shammers, an improvisational comedian, has teamed up with Lefthand, an amazing beat producer and funny looking guy as well. Together, they make music that gets you moving as well as makes you laugh out loud. Like, embarrassingly loud. To top it all off, Shammers can freestyle anyone under the table, and these dudes from Indiana are some of the nicest networkers you’ll ever meet.

Please take some time to load up your Twitter clients and Facebook pages to give a grand how-do-ya-do to these guys, as they will soon be representing YOU! We are privileged to have them aboard, and we know you will enjoy what they have to bring to the table as much as we do.

Look forward to getting properly tagged and updated previous releases here on the Scrub Club site here in the next few weeks! Until then, much love!

This past weekend has opened my eyes to a few new paths of thinking and reasoning when it comes to Scrub Club.

You have to understand, I mean this truthfully when I say that our four days at Gen Con were the biggest, tightest bonding experience we’ve ever had together as musicians and friends. The Friday night show AT Gen Con was the best, most fun show I’ve ever performed, seen, or been involved with in over nine years. It’s not like it was a 30,000 attendee sold out show or anything, and the equipment we were provided was sub-par… but the VIBE. The vibe was through the roof. The vibe from the crowd and our fellow Scrubs pierced Heaven and whatever other afterlife you may believe in, all in a big, long row like a delicious beef, chicken, shrimp, and veggie skewer. And then it all wrapped up with a fun time performing our first outside set at Scotty’s in downtown Indiana, which felt more like a supportive family reunion than anything.

So when I say that we’ve reached some kind of new turning point and I feel that big, biiiig stuff is coming… believe me. The next level of Scrub Club Records is here.

First, let’s start with the props to the people that helped make this happen:

D20 and Untested Methods – Thank you so much for being the actual building block here. Those who don’t know, these two gentlemen basically went into debt just to make this event happen with no expectations to get their money back. We love you guys and you did amazingly well for your first event. Also many props to their crew, especially Corey, who was a killer resource and driver for us all weekend. You guys took this seriously and stayed on top of the plans all weekend, and made sure us out-of-towners weren’t completely batshit lost, which we would have been without you.

Derek at Gen Con – Major props to you for giving us a chance. Looks like it all paid off, eh? Thank you for always staying in contact and for having a badass mohawk.

Scott and Dave at Scotty’s Brewhouse Downtown – When our other second performance fell through, you guys picked us right up in four days flat. We have major respect for you guys and appreciated the ability to rock your patrons on Saturday. It’s amazing that you guys can keep a full house inside (that’s about the size of four of my hometown restaurants) AND an outside patio of 150 people under control, in a speedy fashion, and with some delicious stuffs. There’s not one place I’ve ever been to that could handle something like that so well. You guys are great, keep up the good work, and we hope to help you kick off your next location in style! Oh, and also, the amazing waitresses that treated us like Kings and Queens and always kept the pitchers coming. Especially our main girl. I can’t remember your name at the moment, but I hope your newfound Krondor Krew ninja sword helps you take out your less desirable customers from this point on.

Kyle Mistry and Suzi – Thank you for amazing professional shots over the weekend. Can’t wait to share them with everyone, you guys really captured the best moments. I can’t stop laughing until tears come out on some of these pics. You may think it’s just taking photographs, but the truth is that people like you are generous enough to actually chronicle our history for the entire internet. Bravo, bravo.

Shammers and Lefthand – Thanks for the extra “local dude” help that was provided, as well as Shammers volunteering to drive people around out of nowhere. You guys were great company, shirt-off-your-backs as always, and made the weekend all that more enjoyable. You guys rock.

Tom Croom from Wasabi Anime – Thank you for staying in contact and for apparently sending a big chunk of crowd our way after the panels on Friday. When we reached out for any possible support and guidance from people who had attended Gen Con in the past, you were the first and best to respond. Here’s hoping we can actually have the time to plan out some sort of combo event next year!

The director of Gen Con – I forget what your name is, and couldn’t find a directory on the site to refresh my memory, but thank you for stopping by our show right when our big group set was in full force. Just knowing that you want us back next year bigger and better lets us know that we did a good job and can only make our events at Gen Con even more epic in the years to come!

To our unbelievable fans and friends that made it out – Thank you for helping us out, passing out flyers, and getting people hyped for the show. Especially people like Britsy and Suzi, DemonstrativePronoun, or Yellapaint and his homies. And the homeboy from Bloomington that came to rep POWERLIFTER. Or that crazy bastard Brian Himes and his buddies Kristina and Jarrod. You guys and everyone else I failed to mention by name are all so damned amazing and we would pour our heart (and sweat) out for you on stage any time you’d have us.

And also to all of our new fans! Just in the day I got back into town I noticed 35 or so brand new people on the Facebook, and I’m excited to see if there was a spike in downloads since the show. Much love to YOU guys for coming up to us and telling everyone what they liked about the show, asking fresh questions we’re always more than happy to answer, and sharing some good laughs with us. Feel free to get as deeply involved as you would like, you are our new family! Spread the good word!

Oh, and FRED! Fred the soundguy will Machete your ass!

I’m much too busy with preparing for the upcoming Wichita Scrub Club Celebration to write a full review, so I’ll just stream a highlights reel right from my brain and into the monitor. Pardon me if some of it doesn’t make sense.

Astounding amounts of inner-memes were created, modified, or thrived this weekend: Phil is 60. Fuck chairs. The surprise was genuine. Waft. White Castle was the biggest mistake. Monocle Smiiile. BOOM! HEADSHOT! Fuck doctors. PIZZA. That chick’s got a butterbutt. BIG. PHAT. SUB WHOOFAHHH. WUB WUB WUBWUBWUBBUWUBWBUWUBUWBUBWUBUBW. Dubstep turtle. Spark Kent. This place smells like White Castle, beer, onions, and puke. Oh yeah, that’s because I puked, dude. Sorry. One merriorn twoops. Wowwwwww. JESUS CHRIST I JUST KEEP FINDING ONIONS IN MY BEDSHEETS. You pwess xxx,yyy,xxx,yyy, you get sucked. … Right? Not funny. Not funny. Free lemonade? FREE lemonade? I loaf you. Masurao doesn’t get bacon, fuck that guy. I’M BACKING UP HATTER I’M BACKING UP HATTER I’M BACKING UP HATTER I’M BACKING UP HATTER. Just how many of us have rapped about DeLoreans? Seriously, bro? Are we doing this right now? TLC match. Let’s just find a ladder to fuck and we’re good. Kyle Mistry is a Lakitu, he throws porcupines at peeps like I don’t give a shit, homie. TRAITOR! SPICE GIRLS! IMPOSTOR. And pasta. What’s the deal with marinara sauce lately? Nice elevator show, Ke$ha. Mmm, this chicken is to dick for. I meant Die-no-wait… yes, to dick for. Can I cancel her special? Can I cancel that cancel? MORE FUCKING HUMANS? Come on bro, you gotta have some Orcs. How can we hear Nintendo sounds if there’s no power. “You hear the voice of a 6 year old girl.” “SHOOT HER IN THE FACE!” King Pheenix… You are a… 16 year old hacker… Male or female? Spooky, stop spending money, no seriously, you can only wear one leather mask at a time. Stop it. HAYYY NERDS! *crickets* “Hi, I’m YellaPaint.” … “WHAAA?!” BLMAOD. Sir, can I ask you to please lower your skirt? Thanks -WHOA! Deafinition, you’re a hairbeast. I give great ninja head!

And also, the one mirrerion in-jokes I can’t currently remember before I’ve had lunch.

Seriously, though, best weekend ever for Scrub Club Records. And with that, the bar has now been raised against difficulty of joining or being part of the label. Our family is simply too strong to just let any artist with talent in. My promise is that from now on, any future artist, model, or business partner will be looked at with utmost scrutiny, and only those that would be a perfect piece of the puzzle will be allowed your trust and respect.

We love all of you, and thank you for making Gen Con the best thing to happen to us to date. Just you wait for what we have in store now that we’re running full steam!