Jagjaguwar

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Jagjaguwar
Founded	1996
Founder	Darius Van Arman
Genre	Indie rock
Country of origin	United States
Location	Bloomington, Indiana
Official website	http://www.jagjaguwar.com

Jagjaguwar is an indie rock record label based in Bloomington, Indiana. In 1996, in Charlottesville, Virginia, friends of Darius Van Arman were in a band called "The Curious Digit" that had just recorded a new album, but had no label. They had previously released a 7-inch record on a short-lived label called Sentimental, which was co-run by Darius Van Arman and a friend Dawson Prater (who went on to eventually start the Locust Music label out of Chicago.) But Sentimental became inactive when Prater moved from Charlottesville. Working under the theory that having some sort of label-affiliation would be better for the Curious Digit than if they self-released the album, Darius Van Arman started Jagjaguwar.

Initially, the Curious Digit album called "Bombay Aloo" was going to be the only album released on Jagjaguwar, but a Richmond band called Drunk performed at a venue Darius Van Arman booked for called Tokyo Rose. Mesmerized by their performance, and Van Arman was moved to ask them to release their new record, which they had just completed. Two records make a label discography, and Jagjaguwar was earnestly underway.

In 1999, Chris Swanson, who was part owner of Secretly Canadian, became partners with Darius Van Arman and Jagjaguwar and Secretly Canadian became much more tightly connected, sharing office space and some staff. Most recently, the other two partners of Secretly Canadian, Ben Swanson and Jonathan Cargill, became equal partners of Jagjaguwar as well, although, A&R-wise, Chris Swanson and Darius Van Arman solely decide what is released on Jagjaguwar.

With regard to the Jagjaguwar name, it was generated using a Dungeons & Dragons character name-generating program.