02/28/2022
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. (Apr.)
**Pitchfork, "Best Music Books of 2022"** **Rolling Stone, "Best Music Books of 2022"** **LOUDER, "Best Music Books from 2022"**
“Jim Ruland tells the whole messy saga [of SST Records] in his un-put-downable CORPORATE ROCK SUCKS.”—Rolling Stone
“A go-to resource for punk archivists looking beyond the impact of Damaged or Double Nickels on the Dime.”—Pitchfork
"The DIY label's messy history... is quite a tale, and its related here in unflinching detail, making Corporate Rock Sucks as much an autopsy as a celebration of defiant 'fuck you' punk rock ethics... Corporate Rock Sucks should inspire a new generation of outliers to seek out some of the most thrillingly uninhibited art to emerge from the punk rock underground."—LOUDER
“[A] fascinating history... [Ruland] offers a most impressive work that brings together the various artists that were part of the SST galaxy, along with insightful views of the vast catalog produced by the label during its forty-year history.”—Seattle Book Review
“Take the most influential Southern California punk label from the 1980s, combine it with the master touch of music historian Jim Ruland, and you get this incredible historical narrative that is difficult to put down.”—Greg Graffin of Bad Religion
“SST Records became a radiant supernova of creativity and possibility. A true and livable alternative to lame shit. And then, somehow, it fell apart when it was poised to create another universe. It became radioactive, a black hole. This book is that ‘somehow’—part archeology, part autopsy.”
—Todd Taylor, Razorcake
“‘Get in the van,’ to borrow a phrase from another Black Flag book you may have heard of, has become something of a cliche, but it's no less true for punk bands in 2022 than it was in 1981. No matter how talented you are or how good your songs, you still, at long last, have to put in the work. The same applies to writers. For Corporate Rock Sucks, it's clear Jim has logged thousands and thousands of miles, talking to seemingly everyone who ever even heard of SST, digging up old record reviews and interviews and photos and zines no one has probably looked at for decades. It all adds up to an informative and fun read on a highly influential, and highly dysfunctional, record label.”
—Luke O'Neil, author of Welcome to Hell World: Dispatches from the American Dystopia
“With Corporate Rock Sucks, Jim Ruland asserts his power as a leading chronicler of Southern California punk rock. His exhaustive research and incisive commentary form a detailed and dynamic work worthy of the gargantuan legacy of SST—one of America’s foremost independent record labels that gave rise to Black Flag, the Meat Puppets, Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and many others. An essential read for those curious about the label’s serpentine path and pre-broadband DIY music culture.”
—Erin Osmon, author of Jason Molina: Riding with the Ghost and John Prine
“The improbable rise and slow-motion implosion of SST Records is legendary, but nobody has painted a complete picture of the dark saga until now. Ruland combines his personal knowledge of the SoCal punk scene, in-depth research, and interviews with key players to tell the whole sordid tale. Corporate Rock Sucks is a must-read for fans of ‘80s/‘90s hardcore, punk, and alternative rock.”
—S.W. Lauden, editor of Forbidden Beat: Perspectives on Punk Drumming
"When tracing the lineage of independent record labels in the American Punk scene during the 1980s, SST Records can definitely be cited as the vanguard to the whole shebang. With a history gnarled with legal issues, money issues, blown release dates, hard-living, and a devilish penchant for pushing against punk’s parameters, their tale is a tough one to wrangle, but Jim manages to cut through all the convolutions to deliver the straight dope on the influential imprint in a concise, informative and entertaining way."—Tony Rettman, author of Straight Edge: A Clear-Headed Hardcore Punk History and NYHC: New York Hardcore 1980-1990.
“Fascinating, entertaining, and revealing… a must-read.”
—AV Club
02/04/2022
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 Hüsker Dü 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
2022-01-22
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, Hüsker Dü, 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.