Mr. Lady Records (also known as Mr. Lady Records and Videos) was founded in 1996 by Tammy Rae Carland and Kaia Wilson as an independent record label and video art distributor specifically committed to lesbian and feminist cultural productions. Through most of its existence, Mr. Lady Records was located in Durham, North Carolina. The label moved to San Francisco in 2002. Between 1996 and 2005, Mr. Lady released nearly thirty albums and also oversaw the distribution of a dozen video artists. This included the works of Tami Hart, Sarah Dougher, the Butchies, and Le Tigre.
Co-founder Tammy Rae Carland was born in Portland, Maine in 1965. She received her BA from The Evergreen State College and MFA from UC Irvine. While running Mr. Lady, Carland was also employed as an Assistant Professor of Photography at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In 2002, she accepted a post at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, where she is now an Associate Professor of Fine Arts and Photography and as well as the chair of the Photography Department. Carland primarily works with photography, experimental video, and small-run publications. Her zine I (heart) Amy Carter was influential in the Riot Grrrl Movement of the early 1990s. Kaia Wilson was born in 1974 and is originally from Oregon. Her first band, Adickdid, was formed when she was fifteen years old. She subsequently went on to have a prolific career as a solo artist as well as the frontwoman of queercore punk bands Team Dresch (primarily 1993-1998) and the Butchies (1998-2005). Tammy Rae Carland and Kaia Wilson were partners during the years they ran Mr. Lady together.
Works Cited:
From the guide to the Mr. Lady Archive, 1992-2005, (© 2012 Fales Library and Special Collections)
