Format: LP

When Paul Hudson aka Joseph I aka H.R. of the mighty Bad Brains set out to record a solo album he didn’t do it in the District of Columbia, but across the Potomac River at a place called Cue Recording Studios in sleepy Falls Church. 

Cue started off in 1982 in the basement of Jeff Jeffrey’s parents’ house. Most sites say this was in Falls Church but the studio manager I spoke with yesterday, Dusty Rose, told me it was “just across the line” in Arlington. (In a place as small as Falls Church the boundaries are a constant source of debate; Falls Church High School, for example, isn’t located in the city of Falls Church but in Fairfax County.) 

In 1987, Jeffrey leased a space on Park Avenue above a janky knock-off 7-11 called 7 Stars, which was the closest convenience store to Mary Riley Stiles Public Library and the Falls Church Recreation Center in Cherry Hill Park, two places where my siblings and I spent countless hours. 

H.R. had a long, strange relationship with SST that I describe in great detail in Corporate Rock Sucks, but Keep Out of Reach (SST 177) and It’s About Luv (SST 179) were originally released by H.R.’s own label Olive Tree Records and subsequently reissued by SST. However, Charge (SST 256) was recorded at Cue for SST. (For more details about the studio’s history, check out the You Don’t Know Mojack podcast Now You Say episode #173 with Jim Ebert, a former engineer with the studio.)

I mentioned to Rose I was writing a book about SST Records and he told me that back in the day some mornings they’d come into the office and there would be long rambling messages from H.R. on the answering machine about his upcoming plans to make a new record or tour Egypt. The only other SST artist who recorded at Cue was Ras Michael who made his record Zion Train (SST 168), not to be confused with Zion Train the band, another H.R. project that put out a record for Olive Tree. The D.C. band Beefeater, who also had an Olive Tree connection, recorded at Cue as well. 

We’d popped in unannounced so we didn’t stay long, but in the music store on the ground floor an unusual-looking guitar caught my eye. Is that what I think it is? 

No, it’s not a Dan Armstrong but a Fender Strat with an acrylic body. What a strange coincidene that would have been, right? 

This post was originally published in sightly different form in two editions of Message from the Underworld: 1 & 2.

Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records is coming April 12, 2022, from Hachette Books and is now available for pre-order.

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A no-holds-barred narrative history of the iconic label that brought the world Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, and more, by the co-author of Do What You Want and My Damage.

What is SST? Greg Ginn started SST Electronics in the sleepy beach town of Hermosa Beach, California, to supply ham radio enthusiasts with tuners and transmitters. But when Ginn wanted to launch his band, Black Flag, no one was willing to take it on. Determined to bring his music to the masses, Ginn turned SST into a record label. On the back of Black Flag’s relentless touring, guerilla marketing, and refusal to back down, SST became the sound of the underground.

In Corporate Rock Sucks, Jim Ruland relays the unvarnished story of SST Records, from its remarkable rise in notoriety to its infamous downfall. With records by Black Flag, Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Bad Brains, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Screaming Trees, Soundgarden, and scores of other influential bands, SST was the most popular indie label on the planet until a tsunami of legal jeopardy, financial peril, and dysfunctional management brought the empire tumbling down. Throughout this investigative deep-dive, Ruland leads readers through SST’s tumultuous history and epic catalog.

Corporate Rock Sucks features over 50 photographs–many published for the first time–from Linda Aranow, Alison Braun, Edward Colver, Fred Hammer, Wild Don Lewis, Naomi Peterson, EJ Porter, Paul Rachman, and SPOT. Implementing interviews with the label’s former employees, as well as musicians, managers, producers, photographers, video directors, and label heads, Corporate Rock Sucks presents an unauthorized narrative history of the ’80s punk and alternative rock scenes, and shows how the music industry was changed forever.