Mike Turner’s little label is big on friendships, imagination and ingenuity as it reaches the 10 year mark.

It’s an August night in Athens’ Caledonia Lounge and Holly Ross, lead singer/guitarist of UK’s Lovely Eggs, is holding court atop the dimly-lit stage. With a drum mallet in one hand and a PBR in the other, she watches fellow bandmate (and husband) David Blackwell set an unstable, rust-colored floor tom aside the front monitor.

“This is a song about an amazing guy we know who draws octopuses and owls,” she says while swigging the beer, “it’s called ‘Jon Carling’.” And she’s off, banging the mallet against the tom with all her might.

“I know an artist and he draws about owls/He knows about birds/He draws about owls” she croons as the crowd, amid their delight, can see what’s unfolding. With each hit, the tom leg inches closer and closer and closer to the floor.

There’s trouble ahead.

Standing near the stage is Nate Mitchell, drummer for Cars Can Be Blue. Just as the tom topples, he rushes over and holds it steady as Holly keeps blasting away. Two other people lend a hand, and the song, lasting less than a minute, is saved.

Mike Turner, the founder of Happy Happy Birthday to Me records and the man who made this moment possible, watches a few feet away. He smiles.

Bands helping bands. That’s what this 10 years is all about.

It’s been a wild decade – terrorist attacks and wars, cities lost to hurricanes, presidential elections decided by courts, the first African-American head of state – but perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the aughts is the loss of personal connection. The onset of the Internet, and the electronic tools it fosters, has made the world flat (as one Pulitzer Prize-winning writer noted) but also distant. Admit it, you have no idea who your neighbors are, even while you glom their wireless.

So while a 10-year anniversary is but a blip in the realm of time (even Donald Trump had a marriage that lasted 10 years), in today’s detached, 24-hour news cycle world, it’s a heady achievement. Especially for an independent record label created as a lark by a guy who’s job before starting it was running a rather efficient frame shop in the Florida Panhandle.

“Ten years? I didn’t expect it at all,” said Turner about the aluminum anniversary of HHBTM. “The first CD was meant to mark the last issue of my zine Bee’s Knees. The original Happy Happy Birthday To Me Volume 1 was meant to be a joke because there was not going to be a Volume 2. I thought it would be funny if someone really dug it and then wondered if there’d be a Volume 2 only to find out there wasn’t.”

Volume 1 was released in the summer of 1999 and featured songs by Elf Power, Of Montreal and Marshmallow Coast. The collection of 15 singles was culled from contacts and friends Turner made in the four-years previous while working on his zine, but proved a harbinger as the ’90s came to an end. Turner not only tapped into a sound people sought but a musical aesthetic defining what his venture was to become. And now, a decade later, the one-off “joke” has grown to an industrious enterprise. HHBTM claims more than 100 albums, a stable of bands of various musical genres, an annual five-day festival featuring 80-100 bands from all over the world, and a belief that taking chances and cherishing a personal, homemade feel can not only attract a fan base, but grow one as well.

“Everyone I’ve met associated with HHBTM have been really nice and genuinely enthusiastic about our band and the other bands on the label,” said Tom DeChristofaro, whose band Afternoon Naps is a recent addition to the HHBTM family. “He’s actually releasing our debut, and as with all the current releases, Mike has pre-order specials the early bird fans can order and in return they get something special with the album. We pitched him the idea of wrapping it in a silkscreened pillowcase and he loved it. Little things like that make it an ideal place for us.”

Turner encapsulates his mantra on the label’s Web site: “HHBTM bands help each other out. If you don’t think you can help a fellow labelmate out with booking a show or two for them, or a place to crash for a night while on tour, then this is not the label for you. We all treat each other like family, and always try to do the best for each other.”

And that means righting fallen toms.

“The thing I like about Mike and Eric and the rest of the HHBTM usual gang of idiots is that they take what they do seriously without taking themselves seriously,” said Matt Harnish of Bunnygrunt. “They realize that the alternative to doing stuff is not doing stuff and who cares about people who don’t do stuff? They have a respect for us but at the same time Mike has no problem punching me in the balls if he feels like it. That’s the kinda label we wanna be on.”

It’s not just a twee label, OK?

“A lot of people put tags on things because it’s easier for them to describe,” Turner said. “I did the same thing when I wrote so I understand when people say ‘Well it’s easier to put things in this little category or section and describe it this way’. The label has had a wide variety of stuff. I’ve never really put out a noise record or a hip-hop record, but there’s been enough other kind of things where it’s not just a twee label. But once you get that tag it’s hard to get rid of.”

The twee moniker will happen on a label with bands named The Smittens, Afternoon Naps and The Lolligags, but a closer look at the catalogue shows elements of Americana, 1960s power pop and psychedelic-folk reminiscent of Elephant 6.

“The first CD I put out was by the artist Birddog, which was more Americana,” Turner said. “The record had Elliott Smith on it, Paul K from Paul K and the Weathermen, Edith Frost, Glenn Kotche from Wilco, so the first actual artist CD that I put out was Americana music. The second one was The Visitations with Davey Wrathgabar, who I knew because of the E6 connection, so I really got into that scene. Then the Gwens were kind of another sub E6 affiliate band . . . and then as things went on I had an Ashley Park record, which is more ’60s pop.

“There’s a time from 2002 to 2003 where all the things that came out were Americana,” Turner continued. “It wasn’t Elephant 6, it wasn’t pop, it was very much roots oriented acoustic music — folky ’60s based. And right after that there may have been more like psychedelic pop stuff, which led to the twee pop.”

And it was at the time of more twee when Turner, living in Panama City, Fla. decided to take a chance on creating a music festival — 400 miles away in Athens. Set to play at Tasty World and the 40 Watt Club, Popfest 2004 saw the 50 or so bands (including Sunshine Fix and the Rosebuds) play four days and nights in early August.

Turner moved to town just in time for the festival’s festivities.

“I thought, you know what, I’m just going to put together a festival,” Turner said, laughing. “I’d been visiting Athens and I fell in love with it . . . I made friends with people who were putting out records at that time. So I just moved up here and put together a festival with no real job. The first year of the festival was a success in that it went off.”

With Eric Hernandez at his side as the festival’s stage manager (he also does artwork for the label), Turner knew he had a good idea, but with several kinks to work out.

“I learned everything not to do, then it was trying to fix that and make back the money that was lost,” Turner said. “It was frustrating at the end because it really wasn’t local.”

Undaunted, Turner set sights for 2005, moving to the Little Kings bar from Tasty World (“moving all that stuff from Tasty World to 40 Watt was a big hassle,” Turner remembers), and getting a huge boost when Athens’ favorites Pylon and Of Montreal signed on to be headliners. Later years saw The Mountain Goats, Deerhoof, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and a breakthrough performance by Black Kids etch the festival into minds of music bloggers everywhere.

“We met Mike and the gang when we were asked to play the Athens Popfest,” DeChristofaro said. “Needless to say the whole Popfest experience was amazing and quite eye-opening.”

A rough economy had Turner shut down Popfest for 2009, but he plans to return in 2010 with a few new surprises. Surprises to further dispel the twee image.

“With Popfest there’s a certain community that looks at it as ‘Oh, this is tender twee pop type stuff,’ but it’s not really,” Turner said. “Maybe the first year it was indie pop, but it wasn’t specifically twee pop, and there all different kinds of pop. By the second year the addition of Pylon and Of Montreal moved to more electronic and dance music, and by the third year it’s Mountain Goats, Deerhoof and Apples in Stereo. None of the people fit the twee pop thing, but to a rock audience, it’s very much a twee festival. To an indie pop or twee pop element, this is a rock festival, which is really frustrating because I like a lot of stuff. But you can’t change the way people think about it or write about it so you just have to let it go.”

The music business as it is nowadays, sometimes having a label doesn’t make much sense. For this reason, Turner takes a nontraditional approach in who he chooses to work with, and once they’re onboard, how he markets and introduces them to the world.

“It’s always up in the air,” he said. “If someone doesn’t like how it goes, they’re free to go. There’s no real signing on, there’s no contract. Sometimes I wish there were — there’s been times where I wish I would have had that because at least the interest of the label would be protected. But at the same time at times it’s good there weren’t contracts signed. It’s so easy for bands to do it on their own anyway, sometimes I don’t even know where the label exists at some point.”

When the label started, he added musicians and bands he met while putting together Bee’s Knees — Birddog, Visitations, Kingsauce. But now Turner — aside from getting a healthy host of letters and MP3s via e-mails (which he promptly deletes) — brings bands into the fold after being impressed with their live show, following recommendations by friends, or by pure kismet. He also leans on Hernandez and his wife Leslie (who is a member of The Lolligags) to find the best fits.

“With Tunabunny I went to see them and was blown away with how unaware of themselves they were,” he said. “It was really like they were playing and doing what was right for them and whatever else was going on didn’t really matter. Instantly I had to sign them. Then there’s this band Sourpatch. Friends of mine who I really trust went to see them at San Francisco Popfest and said ‘We met this band, they’re so nice, they fit the label, they’ll help bands out with shows they’ll give people a place to stay, their music fits in, we know you already love their influences.’ So I got these demos in and one night was listening to it eight or nine times and I thought, ‘yeah I can see this working.’”

“I booked a show for this band TacocaT which I was really excited about seeing, and Forever was touring with them,” Turner continued. “Though I was excited about TacocaT, when Forever played I was instantly into them, and by the time they got home from their tour I sent them an e-mail and said we need to put this out on a real CD and do this right now and it just worked. I like the way they were working toward what they were doing.”

“It’s been really great getting to know everyone on the label and getting to know and work with Mike,” said Joel Lopez of Forever. “Recently, we got to hang out with him again at AthFest 2009 which ended up being such a good time. The label showcase we played was well attended, air conditioned and ended up being a really great time. We got to see Tunabunny who were radical and ended up putting us up for the night in their big beautiful house just outside of Athens. I read some good material in their bathroom. We’re also stoked about our friends Sourpatch who will be putting out a release on HHBTM. Stay tuned, it’s gonna rule.”

Connections. Bands helping bands. See, it’s working.

“This is where I find myself to be more of a chump than a record mogul,” Turner said with a grin. “I’ve got this band called Lovely Eggs coming over from the UK, and I think, ‘You know what, I’ll make them a bunch of buttons and I’ll mail them to them so when they start their tour, they’ll have this bag of buttons.’ Then they say ‘Hey can you silkscreen some shirts for us?’ OK, I guess I can, when you get to Athens you can pick them up. I find myself making T-shirts, posters — it’s a nonstop thing to where I’m sure no one in Matador or Merge are in the little details of things.”

The little details. Whether it’s sleeves made of fun foam (Red Pony Clock), a coloring book based on song lyrics (63 Crayons), or a specially-designed reference dictionary (Patience Please), the individuality of the label is what keeps Turner’s business going.

Moving past the 10-year mark, Turner has designs for another 10 years, and has ideas of how to achieve that.

One way is to get more bands on tour — with booking agents. Right now only longtime HHBTM band Casper & the Cookies has an agent (although Marshmallow Coast is close to having one as well), but a band such as Cars Can Be Blue with a booking agent would break new territory (“they would stay on the road – all year long. I wish I could get them on a Warped tour because I know the people who would really dig what they do are probably a bunch of 14 and 15 year old kids,” Turner said).

Another aspect to continued success is having bands in constant “go mode.”

“I would love to see bands be able to get out and create a fan base or meet their fan base or discover that fan base and keep the records in print,” Turner said.

But while Turner would like bands to take more control over their destiny, he knows part of his destiny is helping them achieve that goal. For Turner, continuing to be a “record mogul” is staying connected with the people you work with, and the music you love, because it makes you a part of something bigger than yourself.

“The beginning of the label was very much me being hands on in an arts and crafts background of making sleeves and hand-doing stuff,” he said. “And then it led to manufactured goods, where everything was done at a processing plant and there was shrink wrap around everything. But in the last year it’s changed. I looked at the amount of records we’ve done, and I love these records, but I’m completely detached from some of them. Sure I put them out, I was involved with the distribution or manufacturing end, but I’m not attached to them in that I actually had a hand in helping them more than just getting them to the store. So I sat down and said ‘what part of the label did I enjoy?’ And it instantly became I enjoy doing the handmade end. It’s where I want to be.”