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Before The Chop
Before The Chop
Before The Chop
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Before The Chop

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I have been living in Los Angeles for over thirty years. Since 1981, when I first arrived to now, the LA Weekly has had an ubiquitous presence in the city.

Years ago, in the back of the Weekly, there was a gossip column that had a revolving cast of contributors who sent in their reportage to fill the page. For some reason, these people would use me as a figure of fun and made sport of me quite often. Even up to a few years ago, I would get an e-mail from someone asking me if I had read about what was said about me in the LA Weekly.

And then, in August of 2010, Shelley Leopold and Gustavo Turner, two very good people at the LA Weekly, asked if I would like to be a contributor with an occasional feature or editorial. Since it was them asking, I said sure.

I started out posting a dispatch on the LA Weekly site later that month. My primary goal was to get out the play list for my Saturday night radio show on KCRW FM.

In November of 2010, Gustavo asked me if I wanted to interview Nick Cave about his Grinderman II album and turn it in as a feature. I said yes. I believe that was my first time being in the print version.

Early the following year, Gustavo said he really liked one of the things I had posted and wanted to put it in the print version to see what the response was. He did and people seemed to like it. He asked me to contribute on a weekly basis. I have been doing that since February of 2011.

Anger is my motivation for writing the column. To Ms. Molyneaux and the like, I’m some jackoff named Shecky. Believe me, I got it and I never forget. When I read something like the example I provided, I cannot explain to you how much it inspires me. Turned on doesn’t even begin to cover it. It reminds me that I have eaten more kinds of shit than they will ever have to and I am still here. This is why I overachieve. I live to bury people like this.

I have no idea how long this job will last. I keep sending pieces in and they keep printing them. So far, it’s been a good thing.

Due to space limits, the editor must trim the piece and often sees fit to change the title I sent in to something I would never say. I don’t mind any of this. I know the editors have a job to do, and ultimately, my version will end up right here . . . original form and title intact: Before the Chop.

My allegiance is to you. It always has been. It’s the only reason I do all this in the first place. -- Henry
LanguageEnglish
Publisher2.13.61
Release dateJul 15, 2013
ISBN9781880985533
Before The Chop
Author

Henry Rollins

Originally from Washington DC, Henry Rollins fronted the Los Angeles-based punk band Black Flag and is well-known for his hard-hitting writing, music, and acting.

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    Before The Chop - Henry Rollins

    LA WEEKLY #001

    02-04-11 Los Angeles CA

    For The Record

    Last week, I was at El Compadre, sitting across from my editor, one Gustavo Turner. He handed me an Amoeba Records bag and said the contents were a gift that he hoped I would like. I reached in and pulled out an LP by the Argentinean Tango master Astor Piazzolla. The LP, titled, Suite Troileana, was one I had never heard before. I looked forward to the evening to get that platter spinning.

    Hours later, there I was, sitting happily in front of my Wilson Sophia 3 speakers, soaking up every drop of this exquisite album. It was a perfect experience. At some point during side two, I remembered what Gustavo asked of me.

    Memo From Turner Dept.: Henry. Deliver some writing on music, something that captures your enthusiasm.

    By the time the Astor LP had come to an end, I had the idea for what to write about.

    Wonderful readers, pardon me while I wax euphoric about the simple and complete joy of listening to music from a vinyl source.

    As I write to you now, I am listening to a pristine Canadian pressing of Television’s absolutely perfect Marquee Moon album. It is to me, as good as music gets. The title track is one of the best things ever committed to magnetic tape. While the recently remastered CD version is excellent, there is but one way to truly enjoy the utter magnificence of the songs contained on this album and it is from the LP. Those of you who know what I’m talking about, know exactly what I mean.

    Yes, yes, ya’ll, it’s not hipster, elitist hype—vinyl sounds better. Much better. There is actual music in those grooves. Technically speaking, there is no music whatsoever on a CD. Lots of information but no music. Digital technology has made great strides to deliver a series of numbers to be read by a laser to emit that which is doing its damnedest to replicate its analog and sonically superior master. There are some very good CD players out there that sound incredible. I recommend the Rega Isis valve version or one of the players made by dCS but even they cannot capture the full bloom soundscape of your turntable interacting with an LP or single. As a LP spins, your needle goes on the musical journey with you, traveling great distances as it deftly picks up the analog information and delivers the sonic message to you in real time. Vinyl is the people, a CD is the man.

    Oh! Do you know that guitar breakdown right before the snare comes back in at the very end of Marquee Moon to end side one? That moment, never fails to move me. It just happened! Tom Verlaine, one of the great guitarists of all time. What a perfect piece of music! This happens to me over and over, I enjoy a CD but am moved by the vinyl version.

    Since I was very young, the playing of the vinyl is one of the most enjoyable rituals of my existence. It was Beatles records when I was very young and as I grew older, Zeppelin, Hendrix, Isaac Hayes, Aerosmith, Nugent, Van Halen, Stones to name a few.

    And then, in my very impressionable late teenage years, in came the noise that would start a revolution in my mind that I have never been able to quell. The Clash, Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Devo, The Saints, The Damned, The Adverts and many others, all fitting somewhat together under the umbrella of Punk Rock and Independent music. It was these bands that turned me into the record store haunting, album obsessive that I am now, decades later.

    Some of these albums I have no idea how many times I have played them. Their digital descendants don’t sound the same and leave me wanting. I have had some of these LPs for well over half of my life. I know every crack and pop on them. Those surface noises are to me, as much a part of the music as the songs themselves and gives the music some textural perfection that digital sterility simply cannot achieve.

    I am now listening to Hawkwind’s Doremi Fasol Latido LP released on United Artists in 1972. Amazing! A masterpiece. I don’t know how I am going to get to sleep tonight. I just want to stay up and listen to music.

    I have a lot of compact discs. I need them for radio play, and convenience. Many bands and artists I am a fan of don’t always release their work on vinyl, so I take what they feel like giving me.

    Sitting in a room, alone, listening to a CD is to be lonely. Sitting in a room alone with an LP crackling away, or sitting next to the turntable listening a song at a time via seven inch single is enjoying the sublime state of solitude.

    To burn a CDR of music you like to give as a gift to someone you wish to become closer to is a cold, moist palmed, mouth breathing bummer. A tape made from albums and singles, constructed in real time, every track representing a separate and careful needle drop, says a real heart indeed beats inside this body and baby, it beats for you. Scoooooooooooorrrrrrrrrre!!!!!!!!!!!

    There may be, at the back of one of your closets, a stack of your old and forgotten albums. I suggest you rescue them from obscurity and reconnect with your inner analog self. The brain re-maps, the ears quickly adjust, all of your cells wonder what took you so long.

    Perhaps the mightiest slap in the face of music has been the music file, easily downloaded and put into a playback device. This format strips the meat from the bone. Imagine an orange, squeezed by a gorilla. It’s still an orange but in name only. If Otis Redding could hear his music on MP3 he wonder what hack was trying to impersonate him.

    Thankfully, many bands and labels have brought back the LP. Labels like Dischord, Third Man, Art Yard and many others take vinyl very seriously and their releases are a dependable source of endless hours of happy happy joy joy.

    I have seen some stunning vinyl collections in my life. Mine is not one of them but what I have, I love as dearly as music itself and play whenever I can. Vinyl takes me to a very ecstatic place. My favorite day of the week is Friday. It’s a throwback from school and how much I hated it. I would sit in class all day long on that day, knowing that if I could somehow get through this oppressive, time suffocating hell, I would eventually be able to go back to my room and put on Zeppelin IV. Do you know what I mean? Well, you should.

    So, before your ears are too far gone, show them you love them and get a turntable plugged into your system immediately. Get some good records and get down with it! For those of you who never stopped playing albums, or like some people I know, absolutely refuse to listen to music from any digital source, I salute your purity. I fall woefully short in that department and listen to digitally processed imposter superficial sounds on a daily basis. But whenever I can, it is vinyl all the way.

    Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together is on deck!

    LA WEEKLY #002

    02-11-11 Los Angeles CA

    Second Time Around

    I would like to thank you for all the kind mail you sent me about last week’s tribute to the wonders of vinyl.

    As the deadline for this drew nearer, I needed a subject to write about. A couple of nights ago, I came up with it. I decided to put myself in a situation I would have to write myself out of. The idea was to write about three bands that avoided the sophomore slump with a not-so-great follow up to their debut albums. Several came to mind. I then decided to narrow the scope and hopefully force some compression to the writing. Then, I came up with it. Three great sophomore albums all released by American bands during the Vietnam War.

    I know that may sound odd to you. I am not trying to be morbid but music from the Vietnam War era has an undeniable intensity. Many young people were watching their friends go off to war and often come back dead. This was a very real and awful thing. America was going through a turbulent and eventful time. The music often reflected it, by explosive outrage, pointed denial or otherwise. While America’s adults argued over the threat of communism and whatever else was on the news, their sons and daughters were left to lose their friends, watch things burn and dig music that was to change their lives.

    There were bands writing and recording songs who had little or no interest in what was happening in the Brill Building or on Haight-Ashbury. They were plugged into a completely different socket. Dig it.

    The Doors – Strange Days – The Doors released their second album Strange Days in the autumn of 1967. There must have been quite a lot of pressure on the band to churn out more product because their self-titled debut was released in January of that same year. While Strange Days didn’t contain an obvious hit like Light My Fire, it gives the listener a preview of the band’s vocalist, Jim Morrison’s desire to take the lyrics and the band to more provocative spaces. I will never be able to consider the album’s title track as anything less than the perfect encapsulation of a young person’s unease and uncertainty of what was to be his or her future inside the American dream. What were the young to think as a war raged halfway around the world that relentlessly consumed the life, limb and sanity of so many of their own? Strange days indeed. The Doors made you think. They were a bummer at the love-in. Morrison forced you to confront the darkness you tried to shut out with your shiny happiness. On Strange Days, the band weaves itself into Morrison’s imagery with often astonishing cohesion.

    It was 1987. I was in Los Angeles, mastering my first band album, Lifetime at a place I believe was called Digital Magnetics. The Grateful Dead were in a studio across from mine, working on their first batch of CDs. I was told that all the way down at the end of the hall, a member of the Doors and their producer, Paul Rothschild were working on remastering the band’s catalog for CD. You have to remember all of this CD business was very new back then. I had someone relay a message to Paul and company that I was in the building. I had met Ray Manzerek and Paul years before and they were always cool to me. Moments later, Paul came into my small room and asked if I wanted to come in and have a listen to what they were doing. Uh, yeah! As we were walking down the hall, Paul asked me, "What’s your favorite Doors album? Without any hesitation, I replied, Strange Days. Mine too!", he said. We went into the studio and for a good while, I sat with Paul Rothschild and Ray Manzerek as they played Strange Days off the mix masters. Amazing. Strange Days, one of the best sophomore albums ever.

    The Doors were to release a few more albums, all with memorable songs. One of their best as well as one of their deepest and sadly beautiful was the Morrison Hotel album. Hard to listen to sometimes only because it so clearly telegraphs the end of the line for Jim Morrison.

    The Velvet Underground White Light/White Heat – For some, one of the best albums ever. For others, a noisy curiosity that need not ever be visited again, thank you very much. Perhaps you can guess which side I fall on. The Velvet Underground, who in 1967 released one of the most amazing and timeless records, The Velvet Underground & Nico, featuring stop-everything-you’re-doing-and-listen masterpieces like Sunday Morning, All Tomorrow’s Parties and Femme Fatale, a year later released one of the most worship-or-leave-the-room albums of all time, White Light/White Heat. This one is nothing like the one that came before it. Nico had split and the band’s two geniuses, Lou Reed and John Cale, were at each other’s throats. The tension was thick and the result was a clattering caterwaul of shrieking, damaged perfection. This album has it all. Gender re-assignment (Lady Godiva’s Secret), rough trade gay sex encounters and murder (Sister Ray), an ode to dope (White Light/White Heat) and a perversely hilarious love song that ends in the death of a romantically devoted Waldo Jeffers, who as you will find out, had reached his limit (The Gift). What more could you want from an album? A beat, you say? The Velvet’s drummer, Maureen Tucker, Mo to ya’ll, somehow nails all this nervy chaos down and propels this study in dark humor, desperation and density ever forward with freight train velocity. White Light/White Heat is real Rock & Roll and quite visionary. When all of Sister Ray’s seventeen minutes and twenty-seven seconds of sonic solidarity comes to a screeching, metal-on-metal halt and all you can do is smile and desire to hear it again immediately, grasshopper, it is time for you to leave the temple. By the next Velvet Underground album, Cale had split and the songwriting fell more into the hands of Lou Reed. The result, The Velvet Underground has some of the best work the band ever did.

    Stooges – Fun House – Without a doubt, my favorite second album by any band, ever. How the Stooges could have topped their self-titled first album is beyond me, but they did. It is excellent but quite restrained compared to the feral, unleashed-from-its-cage hungry animal, Fun House. Recorded right here in Los Angeles in early summer of 1970, about a year after its predecessor was released to abusive reviews and general non-interest, Fun House is pure Rock & Roll. The first few seconds of the album’s opening track, Down On The Street, is the definition of disinterested badassity. The song sets the tone of the whole album—a really good time on a really bad trip. Fun House is a drugged out, sexualized violence ride—the perfect soundtrack for youth who had been kicked to America’s curb, disowned, names forgotten and left to hang out and pick up on a whole other kind of Blues. Nixon’s Christmas Bombings on Hanoi were less than two years off and young people were being hoovered off the streets of America and fed into the Southeast Asian dream killing machine. Meanwhile, the Stooges were working through their nihilistic proclivities in the studio and onstage. This album is as brutal as a hyena with its jaws clamped on the throat of an impala. Brutal, yes, but like the hyena’s take down, completely natural. The Stooges could not play any other way than how they did on Fun House. The seven songs contained on the album are merely what happened when Iggy Pop, Ron Asheton, Scott Asheton, Dave Alexander and Steve Mackay met up with electricity. That Fun House is ultimate gear is not up for debate. It is a perfect album, timeless, peerless. The band, with a somewhat different line-up, were to record their third album, Raw Power, a few years later and tour until all the parts gave and the engine melted down. You need all of them. Now.

    I love these albums. As I wrote to you tonight, I played songs from them and got my kicks. No matter what, there will always be music. No matter how bad it gets, there will always be Fela, the Clash and Thelonious Monk. I reckon we’re going to be ok. We’ve got Funkadelic, therefore we have nothing to fear. As the Captain once said, If you got ears . . . you gotta listen.

    LA WEEKLY #003

    02-18-11 NYC NY

    New York City

    This week, I am in freezing New York City for five shows. It’s been going great so far. I used to live here in the 1990’s. I bet many of you have visited NYC. If you have not, you should. Actually, you better. Of all the cities I have ever been to, New York City is the most amazing one I know.

    The list of great bands that have come out of this city would exceed my allotted word count. Stories told to me of shows that went down here riddle me with envy. Hearing Hubert Selby Jr. talk about the times he saw Billie Holiday, Coltrane, Parker and other Jazz giants still blows my mind. Just walking around the city can often give the music fan quite a jolt as they are casually passed by a major Rock legend on his or her way somewhere. This city is all about music and there are countless tales to tell.

    Luckily, I have spent enough time here to where I have one or two New York music stories of my own. This is my favorite.

    I believe the year was 1995. I was living in a by-the-month hotel on Rivington, right off Bowery. One night, the Dictators were set to play at CBGB’s. There was no way I could miss it. I hit the street and endured the incredibly cold blasts of wind as I walked the few blocks up to the venue. Louise was at the door and waved me in, which made me feel like a big deal. I will never get better validation than that.

    The Dictators were about to go on so I stood by stage right and got ready to rock. The Dictators hit stage and the band’s vocalist Dick Handsome Dick Manitoba looked into the crowd and yelled, H-D-M?! The audience responded, King-Of-Men!! and roared in approval and laughter. Everyone was into it and we were off to a great start.

    The band starts playing and damn, they were absolutely killing it. Their records are cool but live is where this band shines. I noticed someone standing to my right and realized I was only looking at this person’s upper arm. Whoever it was had some considerable height. I look all the way up and see that my very tall fellow enthusiast was Joey Ramone. Joey looked down at me, I saw the wheels turn for a second and then his face brightened and he said, Hey! You’re a Dictators fan? I said I was and he smiled. I had done some shows with the Ramones in the past and had hung out with Joey briefly in different places over the years. He knew I was a big fan and was always very friendly to me.

    So, the two of us standing together, watched the Dictators rip it up on a cold February night at CB’s. After the show was over, Joey and I hung out with the band and their friends. It was one of those great nights where you know you’re in the right place at the right time. Doesn’t happen all that often to me, but it definitely happened a few times in New York City.

    I remember there was a photographer who took pictures of all of us. I always wanted one but could never track the person with the camera down. I finally found a photo of that night online. I typed in Joey Ramone Dictators into Google and hit images and there was one of the photos; my past was staring right back at me. Sadly, it was the last time I ever saw Joey. He passed away in April of 2001.

    Around that time, I knew Joey was not doing well. A mutual friend called me and told me that it was looking very bad for Joey and there wasn’t much time left. The next day, I left for shows in Australia. On the flight, I kept thinking of Joey and listened to the Ramones’ Subterranean Jungle album. Several hours later, I arrived in Melbourne. My press agent picked me up. I had to go from the airport straight to a radio station for an interview. Upon greeting me, she handed me a newspaper, pointed to an article and said I better check it out. It was an obituary for Joey, who had slipped away while I was in the air.

    When you walk the streets of New York and have music on your mind, there are so many landmarks to check out. Many of the actual places are gone now, but a lot are still around and one can be moved by just knowing that Hendrix walked out of that doorway or Buddy Holly lived in that apartment building or being able to stand in the spot where a famous Janis Joplin photo was taken. I don’t know about you, but that kind of thing is a big deal to me. I can’t help it. I am a fan.

    It’s not that New York City is the only place where great music comes from, but it has to be said that some of the mightiest musicians came to New York City to make their name. These people are giants to me and to walk the same streets and visit some of these hallowed spots always makes time here very memorable.

    Whenever I am here for more than a day or two, I always wonder if I could move back. I will sit somewhere, look out the window and try to imagine my life again as a New Yorker. There is something, perhaps the incredible speed and volume of this city that makes me feel like I’m plugged into some immense power source. New Yorkers are some of the most resilient, charismatic and high spirited people I have ever been around, not to mention one of most amazing audiences anywhere. You have to earn them, for sure, but if you do, you’re going to outdo yourself or keel over trying to keep them. Without question, some of the best shows I have ever done in my life have been here. As they say, You can’t stop New York. It is so true.

    Get ready for a great radio show this Saturday as we celebrate the birthday of one of the most important men in American history. The jams will be supreme, so you better tune in to 89.9 FM KCRW at 1800 hrs. to get sonically emancipated!

    Until next week.

    LA WEEKLY #004

    02-25-11 Los Angeles CA

    Back Pages

    On the thirteenth of this month, through no fault of my own, I turned fifty. If I wanted to, I could relegate myself to the Back in my day, we used to . . . shelf and limit myself to listening to the ten albums that allow me to cocoon myself in my warm and occasionally realistic version of the past. I could do that, but I won’t—ever.

    Now and then, you may have to endure someone who insists that new music is either bad, a repeat of what was or somehow not worth investigating. It is new, how could it possibly have any merit? This is of course, a cop out. New music is not boring. New music does not suck. At least not any more than it ever did. To be proprietary about a certain era of music and to dismiss the potential of that which came before or after your particular historical comfort zone is completely off the mark.

    Thankfully, that’s not a trap that would ever ensnare us, is it? Of course not! We know better. We know that there’s great music being made all over the world in great abundance at this very moment. We know that as long as there are people, there will always be great new music. Music will survive good times and bad, sometimes becoming even better in periods of turbulence and strife.

    We know these things to be true. So, how does one remain soluble to the uptake of different and new music? A good way is not to plant your flag in the ground and stay put. I always thought that those who only listened to a certain kind of music were not only missing out but perhaps seeing their cemented stance as some mark of integrity. Do what you want, of course, but damn, that is a corner you really don’t need to paint yourself into. If you’re open-minded, even to a small degree, then you are spoiled for choice when it comes to jam selection.

    The principal reason I go to all five corners of the record store is because of my mother. As a child, she whisked me off to the record store up to three times a week as she searched for new records. The small apartments we lived in all over the Washington, DC area were aloud with music. Miles Davis, Miriam Makeba, Bartok, Bob Dylan, Barbara Streisand, Pete Seeger, Carol King, Dionne Warwick and countless others hit the turntable ceaselessly.

    It is because of that inculcation into what would be considered a fairly eclectic world of music, I, by sheer proximity, developed a taste for all kinds of textures, tones and colors of music.

    In the eighties, I had the great luck of meeting two major mavens of musicality. Deirdre O’Donoghue at 89.9 FM KCRW and writer Byron Coley. I went to KCRW in 1983 at the age of twenty-two to be interviewed by Deirdre. We did the interview and got into talking about music after her show (S*N*A*P*) was over. I think we were in there until past three in the morning. We became great friends and she turned me onto a lot amazing music. Harold Budd, Eno solo records, the Arhoolie label, Laurie Anderson and outward in almost every possible direction.

    Byron used to come by SST Records, where I was living at the time. He would help the label with college radio ads. I would ask him about a band or an artist because it seemed that there wasn’t anything or anyone in the world of music he wasn’t conversant in. He started bringing me extra copies of records he had that he thought I would like. I listened to the records and artists that these people generously turned me onto and took it from there.

    As the years went on, my musical tastes have only broadened. It’s a hell of a thing to be into so many kinds of music from so many genres and time periods. It’s hard on the bank account and one can lose a lot of sleep chasing it all down, but it’s worth it.

    The point I am making is that it’s never over. In fact, it’s perpetually just beginning. Marnie Stern, Dax Riggs, Vice Cooler, John Olson and his incredible American Tapes label, Tinariwen from Mali, Konono No. 1 from Congo, Buck Gooter, Crystal Castles, etc. There’s great music happening all the time and as far as going into the past, hey, if you have not heard it yet, then it’s new, right?

    I think we’re really onto something here! Instead of out of some sense of loyalty or insecurity, nailing yourself to the floor as to what rocks, you can do something else and have endless amounts of incredible joy by digging the limitless mix tape that is open-eared listening.

    One of the best things for me as a man of fifty is to go to a show and see that I could very well be the oldest person in the room. It happened the other night at the Deerhoof gig. Music is music, no age limit, no i.d. required.

    Go get some. Go get a lot or take my advice and get too much because even then, it’s never enough.

    LA WEEKLY #005

    03-03-11 Los Angeles CA

    I Think We’re Alone Now

    Somewhere in the mid-eighties, I noticed a change happening on the American music frontier. Small bands from the club scene were getting airplay on college and more independently minded radio stations. Certainly, in previous years, thanks to visionaries like the great Rodney Bingenheimer on KROQ FM, bands in the margins were getting some well-deserved attention, but I noticed that it was picking up quite a bit of momentum. Things started getting interesting.

    As you might know, it was in the early nineties that some of these bands cracked it wide open and as a result, popular music in America has never been quite the same. Members of hair bands were suddenly delivering pizzas instead of ordering them and a new crop of musicians were selling tickets and moving units, much to the delight of major labels, radio stations, venues and no doubt, the bands; some of whom were getting quite the star treatment and some well deserved traction. These were great years and as you can expect, many bands didn’t survive it.

    As the new century dawned, it occurred to me that the big labels and radio had yet again grown stale, predictable, steeped in hubris and dangerously high on their own fumes. It seemed less about the music and more about the presentation—the video, the look, the package. More was demanded of young bands on big labels. Move mass quantities or be dropped like a hot stone. Many bands fell into obscurity because they were not able to make their music conform to these art killing criteria. Zappa warned you of the threat of mediocrity in music. He was right, of course.

    The almost karmic knee-to-the-groin came a few years ago in the form of iTunes, a consumer friendly music purchasing system that allowed the shopper to cherry-pick an album. Bands and labels heard directly from the fans as to what was wheat and chaff. A virulent strain of attention deficit was hatched and unleashed.

    More bands were dropped and employees let go as technology and the options it provided forced the bigwigs to make changes.

    The larger music providers went madly onwards into bigger and more garish displays. Televised music award shows and those oddly brutal talent search programs became incredibly self serious and swelled with popularity. Suddenly, Simon Cowell, a man with no obvious love of music, was a dictator of culture. While this collective atrocity lurched on into absurdity and excess, the rest of us were given room to get some real work done. It’s not like the lines were long—the herd had gone that-a-way at all speed. Hooray!

    It was around this time that something really great happened. More bands started doing it by themselves and for themselves. Small labels started sprouting up all over America. If someone in need of something different to listen to was sharp enough to delve into the somewhat narrow yet deep fissures of the music world, he or she would be rewarded many times over by the plentitude of great music being made on cassettes, CDR’s and locally pressed vinyl.

    Labels and bands who had zero interest in fitting in, being on MTV, radio or any other normal delivery system started making some of the more refreshing, innovative and happening music in years.

    Besides long time standard bearer labels like Dischord, Kill Rockstars, TeePee, Ipecac, Southern Lord, Meteor City, Sublime Frequencies, Stones Throw, Teen Beat and countless others, labels that make the aforementioned seem huge by comparison, started rocking nonstop in the free world.

    Some of my favorite free-to-freak-out-how-you-wanna labels like American Tapes, Hanson, Gods Of Tundra, AAA, UgExplode, Fusetron and others are putting out some serious brain damaging and mind-blowing jams on cassette, often on mass marketed ones, recording over what

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