Blue Nose Music is one of the last true local labels left in the Tac'. Before everyone had the ability to grind musically on their own - local artists almost needed a little label help. Now someone can record on their own, find beats on their own, pay for their own marketing and promoting and basically do the independent thing. Back in the day, most artists had the backing of a label, even if it was a small independent local label. These labels helped with promotion, studio-time, beat-selection and all other aspects of the game. Each label was its own self-contained musical family. Every label was a little different, and the different camps added to the richness of the scene.

Blue Nose Music are some of the staunchest supporters of the local-scene around, they rep' the Northwest harder than most. They carry different types of artists that all have a different style. There is Greg Double, the business-man/rapper; Thunderchief, the party-rocking, crazy have fun guy; and who can forget Mike Groeshong, the nicest, most down-to-earth, videographer around.

If the world was filled with Mike Groeshong's, than we would all be in a better place. Happy Belated Birthday My Dude, I wanted to get that in there publicly.

There is also Lil Gr3y, 5ive 3re, Tactical, Vic, Mouse Wayne and Castroni. I apologize to those I just left out.

Blue Nose Music still prints-out CDs and pushes them like our hip-hop ancestors did out the trunk. With the music market so different and constantly changing it's refreshing to see some fellas out there doing it without the help of a blog or a slick-edited video. These guys make moves the old-fashioned way - with feet on the pavement networking.

Along with doing their fair share of shows, they released two albums on their bandcamp page this summer, www.thedoghouse.bandcamp.com. In July they released Welcome to the Doghouse, a 20-track compilation of previous songs. Then, in August they dropped Puppy Love, which is a 13-track album of older tracks. The albums are a testament to the amount of work and recording this crew does.

There will be more albums from Blue Nose to come in the future. We can count on that. And their presence is a throwback to the way things used to be. They are a history lesson for the new cats on how we had to do it before everyone had the technology in their own bedrooms.