Over the past eight years Funnybone Records, an independent label based in Hartford, has produced over 175 releases by around 25 artists of various genres and sounds. So, what unifies these musicians and tracks?

“No jerks allowed,” said the label’s founder, Dylan Healy.

Healy was joking, but not: “We want to work with kind people who want to connect and enjoy this privilege of making music together.” This bonhomie in turn informs the sound itself: “There’s this excitement to show each other music we’re working on – it can be very electrifying.”

Rather than forcing a “Funnybone” sound, Healy follows the artists’ lead: “I want artists to feel like they can be and present in their most authentic way without pressure from a traditional label to create a certain way or write music a certain way; whatever they deliver is their work as it is.” 

Funnybone Records came into being to fill a void. There was no record label to release Healy and his friends’ music, so Healy spread the word: there’s a new label in town. And people were down. 

“My favorite thing about the Hartford area is that, or even Connecticut really: we notice the things that we want, and we make them happen. Otherwise, they won’t happen,” he said. “We have to foster the spaces we want to see, the initiatives that we want, the support that we want. We live in a smaller city. We don’t have a lot of infrastructure or help from the powers-that-be.” 

We have to be resourceful, and that means making the infrastructure ourselves.

In addition to his role as a producer – and day job as a teacher – Healy is a musician: he records under the name Stadia. 

It’s hard for me to kind of describe it musically because there are so many moving parts,” Healy said of Stadia, named for his late Dungeons & Dragons character. “At moments I like for it to be really gentle and at other moments, I like for it to hit really hard.”

“It’s definitely an amalgamation of all of my different inspirations and emotions and kind of just like states of being.”

Stadia is currently working on two versions of the same album, one with a full band, the other bare bones acoustic.

Though Healy previously self-released, he’s looking elsewhere for these new Stadia projects. “I want to explore being a musician approaching labels.” But Healy promises he’s here in Hartford to stay.

“This place will always be home to me. It is a special place, especially as peers foster the kind of the spaces we want to see, the initiatives we want to see, and the support that we want to see.”

And the things we want to hear, too.