Corporate Rock Sucks

February 15, 2022
A pointed history of the rise and fall of one of the earliest alt-rock record labels. All labels have problems, as any musician will tell you, no matter what their good intentions. In the U.K., the case in point is Factory Records. In the U.S., it's SST, the subject of journalist and aficionado Ruland's dig into the archives. Greg Ginn founded SST Records as a preteen in the exurbs of Los Angeles County, locked in his bedroom as a ham-radio geek selling hard-to-find electronic parts. He found his way to a guitar, drifted from heavy metal to punk, and founded the iconic band Black Flag. SST, along with a few other indie labels, "bolstered the fractious scene and proved that punk rock was more than fucked-up kids with blue hair playing dress-up." In a Southern California scene that featured bands like Black Flag, the Germs, the Weirdos, and the Minutemen, Ruland notes two constants: SST's business and accounting methods were as anarchic as the music, and if homogenizing corporate radio was an enemy, a worse one was the LAPD, which declared open war on the unruly kids. SST signed now-legendary bands such as the Meat Puppets, H�sker D�, Soundgarden, and Sonic Youth, but the business practices worsened. Lawsuits mounted, bands defected, royalties went astray, and, ultimately, writes Ruland, many of the label's contracts were flat-out illegal, commingling publishing and recording contracts. More than four decades later, the label still exists, though it's been quiet for a decade. The author closes by noting that while die-hards wonder why SST hasn't cashed in on the remaster, deluxe-edition craze, the answer is simple: Many masters have gone missing, and "the vast majority of these records were produced for very little money during a short period of time in studios rented by the hour," with iffy sound quality. An entertaining celebration of punk rock's golden age and a cautionary tale about overreach and excess.

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February 28, 2022
Ruland (My Damage, with Keith Morris) offers an illuminating if baggy look at SST Records, which signed some of the most successful alternative bands of the 1980s yet struggled to stay afloat. Greg Ginn, a ham radio enthusiast from Southern California, began SST in 1966 at age 12 as an electronics business before using it to release the 1979 debut EP of his band Black Flag. Chapters on other well-known SST bands, such as Hüsker Dü and the Minutemen, intrigue, particularly where Ruland shows how the former’s ambition inspired the latter. However, accounts of groups that never took off, such as hardcore-thrash hybrid the Stains, are sunk with a bit too much minutiae. Other top-selling bands on the roster—notably Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth—left for major labels and eventually reclaimed rights to their SST recordings after years of missed royalty payments. The trailblazing Seattle grunge band Soundgarden’s relationship with SST was brief, but it stands out here thanks to a dynamic interview with guitarist Kim Thayil, who fondly recounts the label’s “open-mindedness and... progressive embrace of the indie ethos.” Unfortunately, though he notes many bands’ reasons for leaving (including being forced by the label to tour endlessly), Ruland never fully elucidates how the label imploded so spectacularly. While a bumpy ride, the insights still make this worth the effort. Agent: Peter McGuigan, Ultra Literary.

February 4, 2022

Ruland (coauthor, Do What You Want) focuses on the far-reaching legacy of the independent, Southern California record label SST, created and still nurtured by the creative, iconoclastic, and strident Greg Ginn. Ruland deftly examines the transformation of Ginn's mail order electronic business into SST, which in 1979 started pressing records for Ginn's hardcore-punk band Black Flag. The author follows the upward climb and musical changes of the path-breaking band (guitarist Ginn, bassist Chuck Dukowski, and a revolving cast of drummers and singers) and other early SST acts such as the Minutemen and H�sker D� After describing Black Flag's implosion by 1986, Ruland deals with the many experimental outfits who began their careers on SST including Soundgarden, Sonic Youth, and Dinosaur Jr. He ends with the slow deterioration of the label due to lawsuits, cash flow issues, distribution problems, and major label poaching of SST bands. VERDICT Supplementing previous works, such as Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life and Steven Blush's American Hardcore, with new in-depth interviews, Ruland expertly conveys the importance of SST to the rise of hardcore and indie rock and the challenges faced by a small label in the cutthroat corporate music industry. Rock fans will be fascinated.--David P. Szatmary

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