SST Records is an American independent label based in Long Beach, California in 1978 by musician Greg Ginn . The company was formed by Ginn at the age of twelve in 1966, as Solid State Tuners [1] , a small business through which he sold electronic equipment. Ginn reassigned the company to a record label to release music releases from Black Flag , his own band.
SST Records | |
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basic information | |
Based | 1966 [1] (Solid State Tuners) 1978 (SST Records) |
Founder | Greg Ginn |
Genre | punk rock , alternative rock , rock , heavy metal |
A country | USA |
Location | Taylor, Texas |
sstsuperstore.com |
Music journalist Michael Azerrad wrote that "Ginn began with a cashless business store, exhausted by cops, which easily became the most influential and popular underground indies label of the eighties" [2] . Together with other American indie labels, such as Twin / Tone , Touch and Go Records , Epitaph and Dischord , SST helped lead the nationwide network of underground groups that formed the pre- Nirvana indie rock scene [3] . These labels led the transition from hardcore punk , which then dominated the American underground scene, to more diverse alternative rock styles that were only born then [4] . SST initially focused on producing hardcore punk bands from Southern California . As many label members sought to go beyond hardcore, SST released many key albums that played an important role in the development of American alternative rock , including the releases of Minutemen , Hüsker Dü , Meat Puppets , Soundgarden , Sonic Youth , and Dinosaur Jr. After a peak release in the late 1980s, SST began to publish jazz records. Now SST is located in Taylor, Texas . Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, Dinosaur Jr., and Meat Puppets reclaimed their rights to the material published by SST after they left the label.
Content
History
Early years
Greg Ginn founded Solid State Tuners (SST) at the age of 12. SST was a postal delivery business that sold radio equipment left over from the Second World War . The business was small, but prospered well in the early years of the majority of Ginn [5] .
Ginn formed the punk rock band Panic in 1976. Panic recorded 8 songs in January 1978, but none of the labels was interested in publishing these records besides Bomp! Records . By the end of 1978, Bomp had not yet given official consent to publish music, so Ginn decided that he had enough experience with SST to publish recordings on his own [6] . Publishing albums turned out to be a simple matter; "I just looked in the phone book under the stamping and there was one thing there," Ginn recalled, "I had always done catalogs." In January 1979, SST Records released the music recorded by the Ginn group (which today is called Black Flag ), the mini-album Nervous Breakdown [7] .
Many concerts in the early years of Black Flag ended cruelly, often with the participation of the police . As a result, the police listened to the label’s calls and kept the SST office under surveillance [8] . Ginn claims that undercover police officers posed as homeless people sitting near the SST entrance door. The group could not hire a lawyer due to lack of money; Grinn later explained: “I mean, we were thinking about saving on our diet. ... We had nowhere to go. " [8] By 1980, Los Angeles clubs began to impose bans on the performance of hardcore punk bands, adding to these even more SST problems [8] .
In 1980, SST published Paranoid Time , the debut mini-album Minutemen [9] . The songs were recorded and mixed overnight, for $ 300. Bassist Minutemen Mike Watt he recalled, "it was realized that it was from the Mount Olympus. “It’s possible to get things beyond your little group” [10] . Faced with hostility towards hardcore punk, SST members such as Black Flag and Minutemen performed wherever they could, mostly at home parties and, at an early stage, in basements [11] . Black Flag began to travel around the coast of California to give a concert at a nightclub en: Mabuhay Gardens , located in San Francisco , making a total of seven trips. Spot , the home producer of SST played the role of a sound engineer and tour manager, also took a big part in recording the music of the label [12] .
SST sold their releases to small distributors at a deliberately low price; however, since distributors tended to sell import records, these records usually went to specialty stores where they were sold at high prices. Ginn decided to release Damaged , the first full-length Black Flag album, through a mainstream distributor. SST made a deal with MCA Records about co-publishing Damaged on Unicorn Records, a smaller label owned by MCA. Shortly before the release of the album, MCA decided not to publish Damaged , citing the "non-parent" theme [13] . SST sued Unicorn, claiming the label had not paid royalties and expenses for the album. Unicorn retaliated and Black Flag received an injunction against the publication of new materials until the case was settled. When SST published a collection of Black Flag Everything Went Black , Unicorn appeared before SST in court in July 1983. Ginn and Black Flag bassist Chuck Dukowski (who became co-owner of SST) was charged with violating the injunction and sent to Los Angeles County jail for five days. At the end of 1983, Unicorn went bankrupt, and the ability to release albums returned to Black Flag [14] .
Growth and diversity in terms of music
Despite legal problems, SST continued to record performers, including Minutemen, Saccharine Trust and Meat Puppets . The first band, not from the West Coast, who signed the label, was Hüsker Dü in 1982 [15] . After resolving the fiasco with Unicorn Records, SST released four Black Flag albums in 1984. The release of Black Flag's multiple albums and Zen Arcade and Double Nickels on the Dime's double albums from Hüsker Dü and Minutemen, respectively, increased the profit of the label. While SST believed that Zen Arcade would be a significant underground hit, a circulation of more than 5,000 copies was a surprise for the label, so they made a mistake because of their precautions and did not print this number during the initial compact. Zen Arcade, recognized by several critics of mainstream media , quickly sold out and because of this for months remained inaccessible for purchase [16] . Ginn decided to reduce the cost of promoting Black Flag albums, publishing them one by one and organizing a tour in support of the group's albums [17] .
In the mid-1980s, Hüsker Dü became the main attraction of SST, their serious lyrics and increasingly melodic music became the key link between hardcore and the evolving sound of college rock [18] . The continuous recording and release of albums by the group (which released three albums during 1984 and 1985) created an influx of earnings for the label and allowed him to receive money from distributors for other releases [19] . However, the band felt that SST was not paying enough attention to their releases; After the band left the label, Hüsker Dü drummer Grant Hart mentioned: “I think there’s a slight reluctance on their part to allow someone to get a little more attention than Black Flag” [20] . In 1985, Hüsker Dü wanted to independently release their third studio album, New Day Rising . Ignoring the wishes of the group, SST appointed Spot to lead the sessions. Grant Hart later explained: “We had no choice but to work with him. SST forced us " [21] . Realizing all the tension, Spot "had to do what the record company wanted." As a result, New Day Rising became one of the last albums Spot recorded at the label's request [22] , and the band soon joined the major label Warner Bros. Records [23] .
The list of SST performers went down due to the end of Minutemen in 1985 (the cause was the death of guitarist D. Boone ) and the collapse of Black Flag in 1986. The label replaced these bands with Sonic Youth , Dinosaur Jr and Bad Brains . Sonic Youth often mentioned the label in their interviews and, according to the opinion of music writer Michael Azerrad , “it seemed they were actively campaigning for signing a contract with an indie-locomotive” [24] ; In turn, Sonic Youth played an important role in concluding an SST contract with Dinosaur Jr. Gerard Coley, owner of Homestead Records The previous label on which Dinosaur Jr was recorded mentioned: “SST was the label that everyone wanted to be on [...]. All favorite bands recorded on this label; SST were funnier, cooler, they also had machinery ” [25] .
Ginn bought the label New Alliance Records Mike Watt who founded it together with D. Bunn [26] . Ginn and SST continued to re-release some of the New Alliance's key albums — Descendents albums, Land Speed Record from Hüsker Dü, and all Minutemen albums that were not released by SST itself. He then remade the New Alliance into a label specializing in unusual jazz, rock and spoken-word recordings.
In the late 80s and early 90s, Ginn discovered two distributed SST sublabs. The first one, en: Cruz Records , which opened in 1987, released three solo albums recorded by Ginn during the year, and also published recordings of groups ALL , Big Drill Car and Chemical People . The second, short-lived Issues Records, which focused on spoken-word recordings, including the double album of former NBA member Bill Walton , whose composer was Ray Manzarek .
Decay
Several performers left SST in the late 1980s. By 1987, just one year after signing a contract with the label, Sonic Youth became disillusioned with it. Guitarist Thurston Moore pointed out, “SST's accounting records seemed dubious to us,” and another guitarist of the group, Lee Ranaldo, criticized the label’s “smoked administrative quality” [27] . The team was also dissatisfied with the new contracts Ginn. Dissatisfied with the fact that their income from the recordings ultimately went to the financing of "mediocre albums", Sonic Youth sarcastically left the label and signed a contract with Enigma Records in 1988 [28] . Dinosaur Jr left SST for en: Blanco y Negro Records in 1990. Group founder Jay Maskis mentioned: “I like Greg Ginn and all that, but they won't pay you.” [29]
In 1987, SST published about 80 entries, a “ridiculous number even by the standards of major labels,” according to Azerrad [28] . SST's prestige has fallen, and by 1990 the Seattle indie label Sub Pop surpassed SST. SST's reputation is seriously shaken when the sound collage group Negativland entered into a long legal battle with SST in connection with the label lawsuit against their notorious “cover” of the U2 hit “ I Still Haven't Found What I’m Looking For ”, which was released on their U2 single in 1991. The case was settled when Ginn and SST agreed to fully publish most of the Negativland master albums (mainly their series Over The Edge ) in exchange for completing a live album, which was planned long before their legal battles began, and also safety for a short period of three releases of Negativland on the label issued by STT (later the copyright of these records was returned to Negativland). All this battle later became the basis for the Fair Use of the Numeral 2 , Negativland audiobook , published in 1995 (“SST: Corporate Rock Still Sucks” and “made it into Corporate SST Still Sucks Rock”).
In the mid-90s, SST almost went into hibernation, eliminating most of its jazz material and publishing a little new, not counting Ginn’s projects (including en: Confront James , en: Mojack ), but still retaining the Black Flag, The Minutemen, Firehose catalogs , Hüsker Dü, The Descendents, and Bad Brains in print. Several artists who previously worked on the label, including Sonic Youth and Meat Puppets , sued SST to return their master copies, demanding unpaid fees [30] . The label ceased operations by the end of the 1990s. According to Ginn, the culprit of this was the bankruptcy of the label distributor, DNA [31] . Over time, the label resumed its activities in the mid-2000s. However, these new editions were within the framework of Ginn related projects such as Gone, Hor, Jambang and Greg Ginn and the Taylor Texas Corrugators.
In 2002, Ginn signed a new distribution agreement with Koch Records and promised to publish new material from his various musical projects [1] ; in the end, these releases appeared on his website. In 2006, the independent distributor of digital music The Orchard announced that 94 releases from the SST back-catalog will be available through digital stores such as eMusic and the iTunes Music Store [32] .
Discography and label artist list
- SST Records Discography
- SST Records Artist List
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 Chick, Stevie. Spray Paint The Walls: The Story of Black Flag. - PM Press , 2011. - p. 18.
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 14
- ↑ Dolan, Jon (January 2005), " The Revival of Indie Rock ", Spin : 53 , < https://books.google.com/books?id=fyLttHWpa9EC&lpg=PA53&dq=minnesota&pg=PA53#v=onepage&q=minnesota&f= false > . Checked on April 19, 2015.
- ↑ Reynolds, Simon. Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984. - Penguin Books, 2006. - ISBN 978-1-1012-0105-3 .
- ↑ Azerrad, p. sixteen
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 18
- ↑ Azerrad, p. nineteen
- ↑ 1 2 3 Azerrad, p. 21
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 68
- ↑ Blush, p. 53
- ↑ Blush, p. 54
- ↑ Azerrad, 2001. p. 23
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 36
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 37
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 171
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 182-83
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 44-45
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 159
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 184
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 187
- ↑ Azerrad, 2001. p. 185
- ↑ 1 2 Azerrad, 2001. p. 186
- ↑ Azerrad, 2001. p. 190
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 261
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 358
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 94
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 268
- ↑ 1 2 Azerrad, p. 269
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 374
- ↑ Azerrad, p. 496
- ↑ Greg Ginn interview . www.markprindle.com . The appeal date is April 3, 2018.
- ↑ SST Records to make back catalogs available for download (Unavailable (unavailable link) . Alternative Press (January 11, 2006). The date of circulation is June 26, 2016. Archived August 16, 2016.
Literature
- Azerrad, Michael . Our Band Could Be Your Life . Little, Brown and Company, 2001. ISBN 0-316-78753-1
- Blush, Stephen . American Hardcore: A Tribal History . Feral House , 2001. ISBN 0-922915-71-7