Candice Pedersen co-owned of the

Olympia, Washington Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat and largest city of Thurston County. It is southwest of the state's most populous city, Seattle, and is a cultural center of the southern Puget Sound region. European ...

-based

independent record label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...

K Records K Records is an independent record label in Olympia, Washington founded in 1982. Artists on the label included early releases by Beck, Modest Mouse and Built to Spill. The record label has been called "key to the development of independent mu ...

from 1986 to 1999, along with

Calvin Johnson Calvin Johnson Jr., (born September 29, 1985) is an American former football wide receiver who played in the National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons with the Detroit Lions. He played college football at Georgia Tech, where he twice ...

Beat Happening Beat Happening is an American indie pop band formed in Olympia, Washington in 1982. Calvin Johnson, Heather Lewis, and Bret Lunsford have been the band's continual members. Beat Happening were early leaders in the American indie pop and lo-fi mo ...

. In 1999, she sold her half of the label to Johnson.

Career

Pedersen was initially hired as a K Records intern in January 1986, for $20 a week and credit at

Evergreen State College The Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington. Founded in 1967, it offers a non-traditional undergraduate curriculum in which students have the option to design their own study towards a degree or follow a p ...

. Pedersen became a full partner in 1989 until selling her half of the label to Johnson in 1999. Though she managed day-to-day operations of the label, Pedersen noted in a 1992 interview that "I'm often considered my partner's secretary." Pedersen also contributed to the label's history through organizing the citywide

International Pop Underground Convention The International Pop Underground Convention (or IPU) was a 1991 punk and alternative rock music festival in Olympia, Washington. The six-day convention centered on a series of performances at the Capitol Theater. Throughout August 20–25, ...

, which was an extension of a summer barbecue party she'd hosted on Steamboat Island, near Olympia. Pedersen decided to make the event citywide in 1991, and was responsible for the all-girls night which is cited as a formative moment within the Pacific Northwest's

riot grrrl Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia, Washington and the greater Pacific Northwest and has expanded to at least 26 other countries. Riot grrrl is a subcultur ...

scene, marking the debut performance of many acts that would become nationally renown.

External links

The Shield Around the K
(2000), documentary film.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pedersen, Candice Evergreen State College alumni K Records artists Riot grrrl Music festival founders Music of Olympia, Washington Living people Women business executives Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesswomen 21st-century American women