A Humble Beginning…
Every record label has had its unusual beginnings. Had one label in particular not started out in another area, it’s likely that a lot of things we take for granted simply would not exist. Case in point, the advertisement below:
An impromptu bit of Googling revealed the above scan: a print ad in a ham radio magazine called Check-Off for a company called SST Electronics.
If that logo and their PO Box address look familiar, you’re absolutely right – that same logo and address would get a lot more exposure on a long list of punk, alternative, and indie rock releases that are now considered classics.
In brief, Greg Ginn had already been running a pretty good business selling ham radio equipment of his own design (if I remember correctly, he may even have a patent or two under his belt for some of that stuff). Around the time this ad was being seen by ham radio enthusiasts all over the country, Black Flag had already recorded the session from which their first EP Nervous Breakdown – and a few years later, the first half of Side A of Everything Went Black – would be derived. They were waiting on Bomp! Records to release it, but when delays proved too long, Ginn decided to put his business skills, some of the profits he had made from his ham radio products, and the PO Box he already had to good – soon to be better – use, found a pressing plant in the phone book, and, with a first pressing of about 300 to 500 copies (stories vary), SST Records was born.
Both SST Records and SST Electronics would exist side by side for a few years – according to Michael Azzerad’s book Our Band Could Be Your Life, the Minutemen all even had jobs assembling some of SST Electronics’ products – but by 1982 SST would strictly be a record company, leaving ham radio enthusiasts in the dust but giving music fans a reason to live and then some.
For even having a small business of his own to help fund what would become one of the most influential labels in contemporary American music, music fans should be grateful. Had Greg Ginn not taken that first step, none of us would have ever heard of Black Flag, The Minutemen, The Meat Puppets, Husker Du, Saccharine Trust, Bad Brains, fIREHOSE, Sonic Youth, or Dinosaur Jr., countless bands of today that we take for granted would never have been influenced by artists like the aforementioned in the positive manner they were, and blogs like this one might not even exist.
Definitely something to think about.
Thinking About an American Musical Legend…
Today would have been the 51st birthday of an American Musical Legend…
Dennes Dale Boon, known to most music fans as D. Boon, was born on this day. D. Boon was the guitarist and frontman for the mighty trio known as the Minutemen.
It is pretty much inconceivable to think of how the American music scene would have been without the Minutemen. The Minutemen would probably have been just another short-term band from California had Black Flag not taken the initiative to invite them to make a record – the Paranoid Time seven-song 7″ EP – for Black Flag’s SST Records label. Had that initiative not been taken – or had been turned down by the Minutemen, we probably would not have been blessed with The Meat Puppets, Saccharine Trust, Husker Du, Sonic Youth, or Dinosaur Jr. And American independent music itself would have been drastically different.
But thankfully, the Minutemen did go into the studio with Black Flag’s Greg Ginn one hot California night to record Paranoid Time, and the rest was an important part of music history. For the next six years, the Minutemen would create a wide body of material, all of it now considered classic and influential. Their 1984 double album Double Nickels On The Dime is considered to be a must-own, must-hear, classic album.
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