It was mid-february, mere days before valentine's 2014

A musician hoodlum in a pair of ripped black jeans made his way through the surprisingly frosty San Diego noon into the post office. Tucked under his arm was an envelope full of official-looking documents, with multiple stamps in the upper right hand corner, just in case. This hoodlum was named Andrew Ware, and the post office visit was the birth of Ursa Polaris Records, LLC. The entire purpose of the whole officiation exercise was to put a sheen of legitimacy on the name "Ursa Polaris" on the back and inside of his band's fourth album, so that when he sent out PR emails and mailed packages out to radio stations, he could honestly say the album was released by Ursa Polaris Records in San Diego, and it would sound like a legit thing.

Nearly a year and a half later, in October of 2015, the name would be commandeered for slightly different purposes. The little hair wash room behind the barbershop in Cardiff, CA, which was covered in carpet from floor to ceiling, and whose dingy atmosphere was host to countless inspired hours of practices and jams, and where Andrew Ware and a group of similarly hoodlummy musician friends made their stand, changed ownership. Suddenly, the lifeline for these musicians was ripped away, and they didn't have a place to make music. So Ursa Polaris Records metamorphosed, like a cocooned caterpillar, into the name of a warehouse space that was generously referred to as a "studio".

Three months later, on January 2, 2016, after the studio had a one-man floor installation job and various improvements, the entire area flooded, ruining months of work. Still, Ursa Polaris's then-molding floorboards were host to the first Monarch album, out on El Paraiso Records out of Denmark. After some unsuccessful attempts at using kitty litter to absorb water (definitely don't use the clumping kind), and after the long and drawn-out demolition and re-flooring process, Ursa Polaris re-opened its doors to the public in the Summer of 2016, with walls crammed full of acoustic panels and more rockwool than is in stock at the average Home Depot, so that using the term "studio" for the space was more than just a kindness. 

Now the studio is host to some of San Diego's premier bands, including local legends Earthless, JOY, Sacri Monti, Amerikan Bear, Monarch, Oceleot, Featherstone, The Surrealistics, Mrs. Henry, Desert Rhythm Project, Nowhereland, Radio Moscow, Ditches, Pale Hush, Color, and many others.