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For Arrowhawk Records, the Show Must Go On
LABEL OWNER ALY88A DEHAYES PUSHES FORWARD
It is important to understand that the
mall is private property. What we must do
to encourage thoughtful, successful and
needed development occurs includes: cre
ating a Tax Allocation District that includes
the mall, so that capital is raised to make
capital improvements and provide devel
opment incentives; amend our stormwater,
zoning and land-use ordinances to encour
age re-development; incentivize inclusion
of affordable housing and public facilities;
and work with Hendon Properties, LLC,
the owner of the property, to envision a
development that achieves objectives of the
owner and the county.
FP: Please list any other issue(s) you feel
are important and your solution(s).
JH: We must end unpaid inmate labor,
which is present-day slavery. Instead, con
vert that necessary work into living wage
jobs with hiring focused on formerly incar
cerated people.
Publicly operate 911 and emergency
medical services through our fire depart
ments. This means no contract renewal with
the for-profit company, National EMS. Until
then, we need transparency, accountability
and ACC dispatching all 911 calls.
Athens’ outermost neighborhoods need
to be looped in. This means adequate sewer
and stormwater infrastructure; expanded
sidewalk, bike, and trail networks; and
trash, recycling and bus services covering
the whole county.
Finally, commissioners must share
power and rethink how government oper
ates, bringing it out of City Hall while being
more transparent, accessible and account
able. Regular town halls, participatory
budgeting, and community-driven rede
velopment of spaces like the mall are great
first steps.
JN: The pandemic will have an unpre
dictable impact on the tax revenue of the
Unified Government of Athens-Clarke
County. I would build an FY21 budget that
is conservative but can be amended as
impacts become clearer.
The ACC anti-discrimination ordinance is
narrow and difficult to enforce. Implement
broader, more enforceable anti-discrimina
tion ordinances.
The vast majority of ACC contracts are
awarded to companies outside of Clarke
County. Amend ACC procurement policies
to give preference and enable local busi
nesses to win contracts, supporting those
businesses and keeping spent tax money in
our local and regional economy.
Few sidewalks, no trails and no pedes
trian/bicycle connectivity exist in District
6. Build a sidewalk/trail system on the west
side, particularly on Mitchell Bridge Road,
connecting to Timothy Road.
There has been no collaborative planning
or problem solving between Athens-Clarke
County Unified Government and the Clarke
County School District, resulting in imbal
anced school attendance zones, uninformed
future planning, and duplication of effort.
Continue to build a collaborative relation
ship with the Clarke County School District
to facilitate smart planning by both enti
ties; cooperate on job training initiatives
and other mutual interests.
Half of our jail inmates have diagnoses
of behavioral disorders before their incar
ceration and are recidivists. Improve the
criminal justice system to provide behav
ioral health services. ©
By Chad Radford music@flagpole.com
Apr. 25, Alyssa DeHayes was sup
posed to host a party at Flicker
Theater. Arrowhawk Records, the indepen
dent label that she owns and operates from
an office near Athens’ Boulevard neighbor
hood, turned seven years old in April, and
a stack of new LPs, cassettes, T-shirts and
stickers are in the queue.
From the blend of psychedelic
punk-country melodies of Arbor Labor
Union’s New Petal Instants and Portland,
OR songwriter Jeffrey Silverstein’s You
Become The Mountain, to the outsider snarl
and jangle of Nana Grizol’s
South Somewhere Else (out
June 19 via Arrowhawk/Don
Giovanni), DeHayes had laid
down all of the groundwork
for the label to have a banner
year.
But as Georgians began
self-quarantining to slow
the spread of the COVID-
19 outbreak, weeks before
Governor Brian Kemp
declared a statewide shelter-
in-place order, it was clear
the anniversary party was
off.
For DeHayes, however,
the show must go on. Orders
for Arrowhawk Records
releases are still coming in
every day, and singles such as
Shana Falana’s “Everyone Is
Gonna Be Okay” are still roll
ing out online. There is social
media content to push and
packages to be mailed out.
With her hands-on net
work of part-time staffers and interns stay
ing home as a social distancing measure,
DeHayes is working harder than ever. With
her tan and white fox-tailed dog Greta to
keep her company, Arrowhawk is pressing
forward as a one-woman operation, inno
vating the process one step at a time—and
as quickly as possible.
“Handling orders is very different now,”
she says. “Normally I have interns or
part-timers who help pick and pack. Right
now our shipping time is delayed, since, for
everyone’s safety, I’m handling all packing
alone at the office at night, on week
ends, anytime I can fit in some packing
sessions with a mask and gloves and
constant hand washing. When I have a
small stack, I schedule a touchless USPS
pickup rather than going to the post
office and putting postal workers at
risk,” she adds. “I have also been trying
to put as many fun extras (stickers, post
cards, etc.) into packages as I can, to make
up for the wait, and because I think folks
could use a shipment that feels a bit like a
present to unwrap right now.”
DeHayes grew up on the outskirts of
Atlanta and moved to Athens in 2005,
where she earned a bachelor’s degree
in Public Relations at the University of
Georgia. She founded Arrowhawk Records
in 2013 with the arrival of Bambara’s
Dreamviolence LP. Since then, the label’s cat
alog has garnered international distribution
for releases by Georgia-based acts such as
Cinemechanica, Shepherds and Arbor Labor
Union, along with Nashville/Los Angeles-
based actor and songwriter Chris Crofton,
Detroit’s power pop trio Deadbeat Beat, and
more.
Each release in the label’s catalog defies a
singular musical aesthetic. “I’m friends with
everyone first,” DeHayes says. “As far as a
sound goes, it’s kind of all over the place—I
don’t know that I could pin it down, but I
know it when I hear it.”
Since founding the label, DeHayes has
also settled into roles as a partner and
national publicist with Riot Act Media,
working on national campaigns for various
touring independent artists and record
labels such as New West, Captured Tracks,
Polyvinyl and Mexican Summer.
In 2015, she also began working as an
adjunct professor teaching Publicity and
Promotion for Music through UGA’s busi
ness school. Soon, she will be taking a break
to focus on other endeavors as Andrew
Rieger of Elf Power teaches the class.
More recently, in 2019, DeHayes took
yet another job handling social media
marketing for Smithsonian Folkways in
Washington, D.C. Each week, she man
ages Smithsonian Folkways’ social media
accounts and social marketing. She gets to
sift through the historic nonprofit label’s
digital archives and share older recordings
that resonate with newer releases.
DeHayes ability to manage so many
endeavors underscores her profile as a
nimble, self-made entrepreneur. It’s a skill
and a mindset that she has developed since
childhood.
“I was an only child, and there weren’t
many kids on my street,” she says. “I spent a
lot of time in my room tinkering with proj
ects. I see that come out when I’m at the
office packing orders, looking at designs and
quantities, adding data into a spreadsheet.”
As the label grows, DeHayes keeps
most of her business affairs planted firmly
within Georgia’s creative industry. Arbor
Labor Union’s singer and guitar player
Bo Orr handles most of the design work
with Brooklynite Bailey Elder. Vinyl LPs
are pressed at Kindercore Records, and
all of Arrowhawk’s merch is printed at
RubySue Graphics, including a Nalgene
bottle branded with artwork from Jeffrey
Silverstein’s You Become The Mountain.
As the pandemic became a reality,
Silverstein had to cancel a tour supporting
the new release. Shana Falana’s first SXSW
was canceled, and much of the advance
work for Nana Grizol’s new album has been
disrupted, but the plan is to move forward.
In April, Nana Grizol released a video for
“Future Version” from South Somewhere
Else, in hopes that the world will be
moving again by June.
For DeHayes, the seven-year
anniversary party will happen later,
although it’s too soon to say when. In
the meantime, her mission is to keep
music flowing out to the people who
want it and need it most. “We’re doing
an indie record store exclusive of colored
vinyl with the Nana Grizol LP,” DeHayes
says. “That’s something we do with most
releases, but it feels more important now to
offer something to independent shops that
big box retailers won’t have. Everyone is
pointing to the Spanish flu as our historical
model, but that was not in most peoples’
lifetimes,” she adds. “We’re all trying to
logistically navigate a situation that is
unprecedented in our lifetimes.” ©
As far as a sound goes, it’s kind of
all over the place—I don’t know
that I could pin it down, but I know it
when I hear it.
APRIL 29, 2020 | FLAGPOLE.COM
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KRISTIN KARCH