Colemine Records was started by accident in 2007. Me and a buddy of mine, Louis Rideout, had just finished an album called The City. The album was an extension of the hip-hop/funk band we were in at the time called Soundscape. Everyone in the group contributed to the record and I was pretty proud of the final product, so we wanted to start selling it at shows. But I wanted it to seem legitimate and shopping the record around to labels didn’t appeal to me. So, we developed some artwork and I made up a label….Colemine. The logo image came to me when I was eating Subway in Oxford, OH while attending graduate school at Miami University. I drew it on a napkin and boom! We had a logo.
So, we pressed up 500 CDs and sold them at shows. I even got a few retailers to stock them online. Most notably Dusty Groove in Chicago, IL. We had made what I thought was a good record and people could now enjoy it, so I was happy. Then Rideout & I received a message via MySpace (that’s right…MySpace) from P-Vine Records in Japan. They said they were interested in licensing the album. I thought it was bullshit. I thought there was no way a company wanted to pay us money for our music. But it was legit. And that was the first time I thought just maybe this whole record label thing wasn’t such a bad idea. So the rhythm section from Soundscape cut our first funky organ 45 as The Jive Turkeys and that broke us into the funk/soul scene.
Since that first release we’ve been lucky enough to work with many talented musicians and producers. Our extended family seems to grow every year and we have no plans of slowing down. My goal for Colemine was always very, very simple. I simply wanted to release music that I love and help those that create that music in any way possible. This label was never about getting rich, becoming famous, or overnight success. I was a high school biology teacher for the first eight years of the label’s existence and this label has always much been my labor of love. True love.
It wasn’t until the stars aligned just right towards the end of 2014 that I could officially say that running Colemine Records was my “job”. My younger brother, Bob, had just finished graduate school and was all set to start his career as a computer engineer. Great money, benefits, a comfortable life was ahead of Bob. So naturally I convinced him to forego all that in order to somehow make Colemine Records our career. The answer was opening up a brick & mortar record store to compliment what we were already going to be doing as a label. So within a week of the idea we had a business plan, a location, and a one-year lease. Thus Plaid Room Records in downtown Loveland, OH was born. And since opening, both businesses have complimented each other while each continues to grow and reach its full potential.
The growth since opening the shop has been rapid we have no plans of slowing down! We’re going to plug away and make soul music the way we think it should be made until people stop wanting to hear us or we’re tired of doing it.

Terry Cole
Colemine Records