Haymaker Records is home to a quirky roster

Thousands of records line the shelves of the dining room in Brenton Cook’s midtown home. Each album is in a Mylar sleeve, packed tightly into quadrants, alphabetized and organized by a code that only Cook knows. More records are piled on the dining-room table. Even more, Cook tells me, are stored upstairs. Altogether, he has about 10,000 records.

It’s an impressive collection, one that he puts to use at a DJ gig called the Monthly Layover at MiniBar. But it’s also physical evidence of Cook’s commitment to music — along with his year-and-a-half-old label, Haymaker Records.

“It’s still pretty new,” Cook says. “I’ve been trying to put the name out there.”

Having signed six bands in the time since he formed Haymaker in January 2014, Cook seems serious about building a label. His roster is a mix of new and established acts from disparate genres, including Be/Non, the 21-year-old eccentric prog-rock project of local music veteran Brodie Rush; far-left-of-center garage-pop act Schwervon; psych-electro weirdos Monta at Odds; math-rockers HMPH and Riala; and the Jorge Arana Trio, which defies classification.

“They could go into jazz or experimental or math rock,” Cook says. “I love the diversity. I think KC has a lot of great musicians in different genres here, but I think there is a big market for music that is underrepresented. And it doesn’t bother me that a couple bands on my label I don’t even know where to group them.

“The main thing is that it has to be out of the norm, music that makes you think,” he continues. “There can be a lot of different bands that fit into that. I can’t even say how the label is going to be five years from now, but I just know that I want a sound that’s complex. All of the bands that I’ve signed encompass that.”

Jorge Arana, guitarist, keyboardist and the namesake of his trio, sees Haymaker Records as an oasis of misfits.

“Honestly,” he says, “it seems like the only real label or spot where you can find some of the more outsider kind of music. Before it, there wasn’t anything close to that.”

What really matters, Cook says, is that these bands now have a home and a clear path to release their music. Cook isn’t interested in artist management. His role as label owner is not to mold or coddle bands but to give them a larger platform.

“It’s the same concept,” Cook says, “that Midwest Music Foundation has worked so hard for: building a community, making resources available for musicians, connecting people, providing platforms for some national exposure for Kansas City artists. I’m still working on the national-exposure part of that equation for Haymaker Records, but it is a big goal for the label and something I’m dedicated to making happen.”

Midwest Music Foundation can take some credit for shaping Cook’s vision. For the last few years, he has been the organization’s main Web person. (Cook is a software engineer by day.) He’s also behind MMF’s Midwestern Audio compilation series — an all-local-music mixtape released annually — and he’s the DJ at MMF’s annual SXSW showcase, the MidCoast Takeover.

“Brenton has been a great asset to the KC music community,” says MMF executive director Rhonda Lyne. “He’s passionate about music, and that shows in his work and how he supports artists. He’s grown from an avid fan and record collector into one of the people helping put the music out there.”

Cook, soft-spoken and friendly, says the inspiration for Haymaker Records started when he was pulling shifts at the student-run radio station KMNR at the University of Missouri–Rolla (now the Missouri University of Science and Technology).

“I found my niche there at that radio station, in the midst of a really boring city in a pretty boring part of the country,” Cook says. “It was all I wanted to do, and it helped shape my tastes. I feel like a lot of people aren’t crazy about putting out a math-rock album right now. I feel like some people think that genre is dead. But I really like that music, and I think there’s a lot of people that may come around to it. There are certainly plenty of people making that kind of music.”

Now 36, Cook intends to prove that. The next few months will be some of his busiest yet. In August, he’ll put out HMPH’s debut full-length, Headrush. Riala’s first LP, Be Here | Be There, will follow in September. At some point this fall, Be/Non’s Mystic Sunrise/Sunset Magic will also arrive. In addition to a digital release, all these albums will be out on vinyl, which Arana considers a huge bonus to being part of the Haymaker family.

“It’s really hard for a band to put out vinyl by themselves,” Arana says. “They don’t make enough money to do it, usually. And Brenton is good about getting the records out in town and getting them to shops. It’s nice that he’s putting out some of the more oddball music around here.”

But Cook says one person’s oddball tastes are another’s treasures — and, for him, Kansas City is the ultimate treasure chest.

“I have a total sense of pride in my city,” he says. “There’s a great sense of community happening, and it’s so fun to see it in action. I think that environment works well for labels and artists. There’s a real sense of, ‘Hey, we’re all in this together.'”