What do you think?
Rate this book
Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records
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.
Greg Ginn started SST Records in the sleepy beach town of Hermosa Beach, CA, 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 them 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, music journalist 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 obscure yet influential bands, SST was the most popular indie label by the mid-80s--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.
Featuring never-before-seen interviews with the label's former employees, as well as musicians, managers, producers, photographers, video directors, and label heads, Corporate Rock Sucks presents a definitive narrative history of the ’80s punk and alternative rock scenes, and shows how the music industry was changed forever.
Greg Ginn started SST Records in the sleepy beach town of Hermosa Beach, CA, 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 them 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, music journalist 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 obscure yet influential bands, SST was the most popular indie label by the mid-80s--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.
Featuring never-before-seen interviews with the label's former employees, as well as musicians, managers, producers, photographers, video directors, and label heads, Corporate Rock Sucks presents a definitive narrative history of the ’80s punk and alternative rock scenes, and shows how the music industry was changed forever.
432 pages, Hardcover
Published April 12, 2022
78 people are currently reading
1418 people want to read
About the author
Jim Ruland
23 books347 followersJim Ruland is the LA Times bestselling author of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records. He also co-authored My Damage with Keith Morris, the founding vocalist of Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and OFF! and Do What You Want with Bad Religion. He wrote the award-winning novel Forest of Fortune and the short story collection Big Lonesome. His new novel, Make It Stop, will be published by Rare Bird Books.
His work has appeared in The Believer, Electric Literature, Esquire, Hobart, Granta, Los Angeles Times, and Razorcake -- America's only non-profit punk rock zine. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the host of Vermin on the Mount, an irreverent reading series based in Southern California.
Subscribe to his newsletter Message from the Underworld: http://jimruland.substack.com
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews
April 30, 2022
The history of the most famous and notorious indie record label (as well as the LA punk scene, and hardcore, and alternative music) is as comprehensive as it is engaging. It's a marvel, and Jim's best book to date.
December 6, 2021
Interesting story. Didn't completely capture me, but other people may be grabbed more than I was. Either way the history is super fascinating.
February 10, 2023
Interview I did with the author...
https://youtu.be/3s86v_QFo4Q
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
I had mixed feelings going into this book, Jim Ruland is a local in San Diego and a writer I have seen at lots of events. I was a big fan of his memoir of Circle Jerk Vocalist Keith Morris – My Damage. He also did a great job doing a biography. Jim has shown a great knack for drilling down into the details of these underground figures in music and telling their stories. So what are mixed feelings about?
Writing a book about SST records is a really smart next move for Ruland who did some of the research naturally for this with his Keith Morris book. I mean Morris started on SST records as an early vocalist of Black Flag. That is the thing, even though I am a big fan of classic punk rock, I love 80s punk, but one of the classic bands I never jived with was Black Flag. I know they were good, and they were important but I just never was a big fan.
I knew that this book was going to be lots of Greg Ginn and the drama that always circled around him and Black Flag. I knew he had more members come in and out than a Marching band in Flag. I wasn’t sure I would be interested. There are three SST bands I love Bad Brains, Descendents, and Husker Du. I admit I perked up a little more when those parts came up but I enjoyed the whole thing.
Jim Ruland is an excellent historian and plays a vital role in documenting the stories of these LA bands. It is important. Even if I don’t personally like many of the bands the details and the history are important.
This book didn’t give me more respect for Ginn, after reading it I began to really believe the dude was a jerk, it is clear who is hard to work with in the Black Flag orbit. (at one point there was a civil war of Black Flag fans on which version of the band to support)…It was clear from the outside that Ginn was the problem this book only confirmed it for me.
The number of details, research, and stories makes this book important for all music fans, if you like SST is not the point, they did really interesting things, and the study of how they did it is important. Jim is coming on my podcast at some point to talk about the book and his process.
https://youtu.be/3s86v_QFo4Q
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
I had mixed feelings going into this book, Jim Ruland is a local in San Diego and a writer I have seen at lots of events. I was a big fan of his memoir of Circle Jerk Vocalist Keith Morris – My Damage. He also did a great job doing a biography. Jim has shown a great knack for drilling down into the details of these underground figures in music and telling their stories. So what are mixed feelings about?
Writing a book about SST records is a really smart next move for Ruland who did some of the research naturally for this with his Keith Morris book. I mean Morris started on SST records as an early vocalist of Black Flag. That is the thing, even though I am a big fan of classic punk rock, I love 80s punk, but one of the classic bands I never jived with was Black Flag. I know they were good, and they were important but I just never was a big fan.
I knew that this book was going to be lots of Greg Ginn and the drama that always circled around him and Black Flag. I knew he had more members come in and out than a Marching band in Flag. I wasn’t sure I would be interested. There are three SST bands I love Bad Brains, Descendents, and Husker Du. I admit I perked up a little more when those parts came up but I enjoyed the whole thing.
Jim Ruland is an excellent historian and plays a vital role in documenting the stories of these LA bands. It is important. Even if I don’t personally like many of the bands the details and the history are important.
This book didn’t give me more respect for Ginn, after reading it I began to really believe the dude was a jerk, it is clear who is hard to work with in the Black Flag orbit. (at one point there was a civil war of Black Flag fans on which version of the band to support)…It was clear from the outside that Ginn was the problem this book only confirmed it for me.
The number of details, research, and stories makes this book important for all music fans, if you like SST is not the point, they did really interesting things, and the study of how they did it is important. Jim is coming on my podcast at some point to talk about the book and his process.
June 24, 2022
By the time I got to Black Flag as a teenager, there was already so much non-punk music coming out by them. It was confusing. After reading this book I see what Greg Ginn did to the band, to its legacy and to SST Records. While I applaud him for a vision, I hate most of the music he released and the fact he destroyed the legacy of Black Flag, in my opinion.
May 20, 2022
Really interesting book about the rise and fall of one of the most important indie record labels ever - SST. Formed in the South Bay by Greg Ginn, one of the founders of seminal punk rock group Black Flag, SST had a long history of putting out albums by punk, hardcore, and unusual bands that helped them break into the big time. Husker Du, The Minutemen, Soul Asylum, Screaming Trees, and many more first made their way into kids' homes via SST.
Ginn also had a long history of not paying his bands for their sales, which as the years went on caused more and more problems. He also had a history of kicking people out of Black Flag, which didn't lead to as many bad feelings as you'd think. And as his career went on, his own music meandered further and further from the mainstream, limiting his appeal as an artist.
As a Manhattan Beach resident, I found the book fascinating. Many of the guys in these bands graduated from the same high school that my daughter now attends. Black Flag played an outdoor gig at a park right across the street from my house. That stuff is cool to know.
Because Ginn was one of the founders, there is a lot about the history of Black Flag, and the bands that formed around Black Flag. Some were started by guys who were kicked out of Black Flag (or left after differences with Ginn), but it is fun to see the orbit of musicians and bands around Ginn.
I'd rate the book higher but it gets a little list-y, particularly at the end. There is less about the history and more lists of which records were released by who. There are also several mentions of particular songs noted for having special meaning and import, but never are the lyrics quoted. If you're not familiar with the songs, then you might feel a little lost in those parts.
But as a portrait of a true do-it-yourselfer, Ruland's work about Greg Ginn and SST is an enjoyable ride.
Ginn also had a long history of not paying his bands for their sales, which as the years went on caused more and more problems. He also had a history of kicking people out of Black Flag, which didn't lead to as many bad feelings as you'd think. And as his career went on, his own music meandered further and further from the mainstream, limiting his appeal as an artist.
As a Manhattan Beach resident, I found the book fascinating. Many of the guys in these bands graduated from the same high school that my daughter now attends. Black Flag played an outdoor gig at a park right across the street from my house. That stuff is cool to know.
Because Ginn was one of the founders, there is a lot about the history of Black Flag, and the bands that formed around Black Flag. Some were started by guys who were kicked out of Black Flag (or left after differences with Ginn), but it is fun to see the orbit of musicians and bands around Ginn.
I'd rate the book higher but it gets a little list-y, particularly at the end. There is less about the history and more lists of which records were released by who. There are also several mentions of particular songs noted for having special meaning and import, but never are the lyrics quoted. If you're not familiar with the songs, then you might feel a little lost in those parts.
But as a portrait of a true do-it-yourselfer, Ruland's work about Greg Ginn and SST is an enjoyable ride.
June 22, 2022
Really well done. I went to the author event for this book at Powell’s and it was a discussion between Jim Ruland and Joshua Mohr. Mohr said the book read like a novel and I agree. So much information is included here it’s hard to imagine that anything was left out.
May 25, 2022
The photos, most of which I'd never seen, put this book into 3-star territory. Ruland's generic prose dies on the page - an interesting and exciting story rendered rote and even boring.
January 28, 2024
Or Nothing Lasts Forever.
Fascinating and page turning history of an underground movement that rose in direct opposition to 80s pop/rock trends (and MTV) – in terms of American music cool, SST in the early to mid 80s was untouchable – it’s taste transcended geography (whereas many other labels, including the soon to ascent in SST’s wake Seattle-based Sub Pop or the Chicago-based Touch & Go) and even musical style (though most would fall into a roughly white dude centered brand of post-hardcore – Black Flag – the pun intended flagship of SST would only really stick with hardcore punk on its first album and singles) to show that the logo on the record was a trademark of quality – SST wasn’t the first indie label but it cornered the market before Alternative Rock became a genre or even College rock became a thing. So Ruland’s history – really a chronicle of the major releases by the label done chronologically and each band’s interaction with the silent main character of the story – Greg Ginn – is really a chronicle of taste.
Ginn and his cohorts had impeccable taste and timing in getting these disparate bands united in a creative sense that pursuit of a musical “career” – i.e. “selling out” or making music for money – was anathema to the quality of the music made by the artists who were making it. This conflict – of integrity vs. commerce – came to its head in the following decade as Kurt Cobain and Nirvana really took this argument to the masses – and in a lot of ways Cobain was the little brother to Greg Ginn – it’s impossible to listen to the Meat Puppets II album and not hear their major influence on Nirvana, nor Black Flag or Sonic Youth or Dinosaur Jr. or so many in SST’s roster.
This reads nicely next to Simon Reynolds’ excellent Rip it Up and Start Again – a similar subterranean guide to music not necessarily linked by players but more by attitude. Black Flag promised its fans nothing more than a band wanting to create its own way – and SST’s demise became as Ginn turned it less into a place for like-minded artists to present their albums and more a respository for his seemingly inexhaustible muse – which in many ways makes him more skin to someone like Frank Zappa or even Nurse With Wound – these dudes who create and put out whatever they want. And to be fair – Ginn becomes less and less sympathetic as SST goes from being the coolest label in America to a has-been – after dealing with multiple lawsuits and musicians complaining about royalties when initially the money wasn’t the thing, it makes sense that Ginn doesn’t really speak anymore. If they were so upset with SST, why didn’t they do what he did, and put out their own music? So many bands used SST as a stepping stone to the majors, and if something was not necessarily created as a commercial vehicle – as an independent label is seemingly not – as you get old and the lack of paychecks starts to really weigh (your 40s as opposed to your 20s – which was how old most of the bands putting out albums on SST were), people just coming after you for blood from a stone might sting. Reading Zappa interviews in his later life he wasn’t a warm n fuzzy personality either.
But as an alternate history of America, literally heard through it’s multiphonic voices, which encompass Black Flag’s nonconformist nihilism, Husker Du’s dreamy fuzzy speed sheen, Minutemen’s wry lyrical integrity, Sonic Youth’s post post ironic noise, and literally hundreds of other bands who feel what they have to say requires volume, sweat, and energy to say it correctly so that those little brothers in the audience have their minds blown and go form bands of their own not to try to make money or have a career, but for those few hours spent at a show or listening to another person say things that somehow make one feel less alone, like someone else feels the same way about their hometown, their friends, and their government and they were so inspired by these feelings they needed to plug them into amps and shout into the maelstrom about it. Fantastic story there.
Fascinating and page turning history of an underground movement that rose in direct opposition to 80s pop/rock trends (and MTV) – in terms of American music cool, SST in the early to mid 80s was untouchable – it’s taste transcended geography (whereas many other labels, including the soon to ascent in SST’s wake Seattle-based Sub Pop or the Chicago-based Touch & Go) and even musical style (though most would fall into a roughly white dude centered brand of post-hardcore – Black Flag – the pun intended flagship of SST would only really stick with hardcore punk on its first album and singles) to show that the logo on the record was a trademark of quality – SST wasn’t the first indie label but it cornered the market before Alternative Rock became a genre or even College rock became a thing. So Ruland’s history – really a chronicle of the major releases by the label done chronologically and each band’s interaction with the silent main character of the story – Greg Ginn – is really a chronicle of taste.
Ginn and his cohorts had impeccable taste and timing in getting these disparate bands united in a creative sense that pursuit of a musical “career” – i.e. “selling out” or making music for money – was anathema to the quality of the music made by the artists who were making it. This conflict – of integrity vs. commerce – came to its head in the following decade as Kurt Cobain and Nirvana really took this argument to the masses – and in a lot of ways Cobain was the little brother to Greg Ginn – it’s impossible to listen to the Meat Puppets II album and not hear their major influence on Nirvana, nor Black Flag or Sonic Youth or Dinosaur Jr. or so many in SST’s roster.
This reads nicely next to Simon Reynolds’ excellent Rip it Up and Start Again – a similar subterranean guide to music not necessarily linked by players but more by attitude. Black Flag promised its fans nothing more than a band wanting to create its own way – and SST’s demise became as Ginn turned it less into a place for like-minded artists to present their albums and more a respository for his seemingly inexhaustible muse – which in many ways makes him more skin to someone like Frank Zappa or even Nurse With Wound – these dudes who create and put out whatever they want. And to be fair – Ginn becomes less and less sympathetic as SST goes from being the coolest label in America to a has-been – after dealing with multiple lawsuits and musicians complaining about royalties when initially the money wasn’t the thing, it makes sense that Ginn doesn’t really speak anymore. If they were so upset with SST, why didn’t they do what he did, and put out their own music? So many bands used SST as a stepping stone to the majors, and if something was not necessarily created as a commercial vehicle – as an independent label is seemingly not – as you get old and the lack of paychecks starts to really weigh (your 40s as opposed to your 20s – which was how old most of the bands putting out albums on SST were), people just coming after you for blood from a stone might sting. Reading Zappa interviews in his later life he wasn’t a warm n fuzzy personality either.
But as an alternate history of America, literally heard through it’s multiphonic voices, which encompass Black Flag’s nonconformist nihilism, Husker Du’s dreamy fuzzy speed sheen, Minutemen’s wry lyrical integrity, Sonic Youth’s post post ironic noise, and literally hundreds of other bands who feel what they have to say requires volume, sweat, and energy to say it correctly so that those little brothers in the audience have their minds blown and go form bands of their own not to try to make money or have a career, but for those few hours spent at a show or listening to another person say things that somehow make one feel less alone, like someone else feels the same way about their hometown, their friends, and their government and they were so inspired by these feelings they needed to plug them into amps and shout into the maelstrom about it. Fantastic story there.
April 27, 2022
While there is, perhaps, just a little too much space given over to telling the story of Black Flag that has been documented in countless other places, this is a fascinating story of one of the greatest record labels ever.
May 26, 2022
Incredibly well researched and written. Great job Jim. Thank you for such an engaging profile of what remains for me, the most important indie label of all time.
May 7, 2022
Well shit, I thought I knew a fair amount about SST Records, but there was a new revelation on every other page! Jim Ruland's exhaustive history traces not only the arc of the influential record label, but the back stories of most of the bands and musicians associated with SST. There is so much information packed into every single page of this book (and probably so much more laying on the editing floor). Ruland's tone is pitch perfect and while the book is exhaustive it is by no means exhausting. I could have easily read another 200 pages without flinching. Absolutely essential for anyone with a passing interest in punk, record labels, and the numerous bands associated with SST. A beautiful achievement. (And how is it possible that Ginn/SST haven't sued Ruland yet?!?!)
November 23, 2022
This totally reads like someone didn't have access to the artists so he just strung together quotes from other sources. Which is what happened. I mean, if I was a super-fan of SST and Black Flag, I probably still would've liked it. But I'm not. And there's just not enough of the artists here to make it interesting.
September 11, 2023
Wow. This book was…long. I feel like there should be two versions. One for super fans. And ones for just regular fans wanting to know a little more. The minutiae dragged the whole thing down for me and it took forever to read it.
January 5, 2024
A well researched breezy read, with voices from SST past and present. Fills in gaps where the average fan needs. Fun.
March 3, 2024
3.5 Stars!
“One could argue that Black Flag’s graphic representation was more stylistically consistent than its music.”
This starts off with a good, strong background into the musical landscape of late 70s America and how it was so hard to get heard unless you were just another cover band. Hailing from Hermosa Beach and part of the wider emerging scene, Black Flag and SST would go onto play a wider and more significant role in the developing alternative music scene in California and beyond, throughout the States and even abroad.
The fact that Rollins was the band’s fourth singer, already gives some indication of the volatility within the core group. Ginn doesn’t come across well at all in here, sounding like a spiteful, petty, jealous grudge nursing, control freak who seems to be in the habit of collecting enemies and grudges like old ticket stubs.
Personally I never really got the appeal of Black Flag, I always preferred Henry Rollins’ solo stuff, both his music and his spoken word material, which I still enjoy today. But still, there are many fine bands and strong albums that came out of the SST stable back in the 80s, the likes of Bad Brains, Sonic Youth, Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr, Screaming Trees and even early Soundgarden, though they did turn down Nirvana. Though almost every one of them is let down by pretty poor production.
“It was his band, his show, his rules.”
Is one quote in relation to Greg Ginn. We learn that Raymond Pettibon, Ginn’s brother and the man responsible for much of the art work including the logo, quit SST and stopped talking to his brother a short time later and hasn’t spoken to him since, including through the death of their father.
I have to say I have never heard of anything like this with any label before, let alone an indie one, a man so bitter and who tried to sue so many of his own acts?...so quick to take offense, so contrary in being wrong and so sensitive to any perceived slight. I wonder if Ginn tried to sue the author of this book too?...
SST sounds like it would have been a horrendous record label to be at, the ultimate advert for signing to a major label. So much of the conduct in here is real low-down scum of the earth tactics. Too often it seemed to be more about Ginn’s whims, moods and ego, than supporting the music and the bands. In particular his treatment of the Meat Puppets and Negativland are straight from the school playground.
We learn of the many recurring issues which plagued a number of the bands, particularly with Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains, Negativland and The Meat Puppets. They struggled to get royalties owed to them or found that their fans were repeatedly finding it difficult to buy their music. It got so bad that when Husker Du were doing one record store appearance, they didn’t even have any copies of the album they were promoting (“Zen Arcade”) and so they made up a flyer instead for something to sign and give to the fans who showed up.
Unfortunately this is a huge problem with so many independent labels which extends beyond US shores as seen with Factory in England and Flying Nun over in NZ. We see owners too often biting off more than they can chew, making bands do work which they shouldn’t be. Once you get past the myth and the romance of an indie label and look at what was really going on, it was often the case that they were actually worse than the majors in so many ways. Whether having to lug your own gear around, making your own art work, delaying payments, poor advertising and promotion and the most consistent issue being serious distribution issues.
Elsewhere we learn about the awful treatment at the hands of the LAPD who as well as being laughably ignorant and inept, appeared to operate and behave under the illusion that they were in a fascist police state, rather than the so called “land of the free”. The media manipulation who seemed only interested in generating drama and sales regardless of the consequences or who paid them.
One of the things this reminds you of the depressing impact that lawyers seem to have on the history of popular recorded music. There seems to be countless examples of rampant opportunism, blatant deception and pure greed and just lies which really impacted on so many good bands making great music.
So Ruland tells an interesting story and manages to keep this engaging throughout, there are lots of decent photos from the era too and we certainly gain a thorough account of the label and many of the people and bands associated with it.
“One could argue that Black Flag’s graphic representation was more stylistically consistent than its music.”
This starts off with a good, strong background into the musical landscape of late 70s America and how it was so hard to get heard unless you were just another cover band. Hailing from Hermosa Beach and part of the wider emerging scene, Black Flag and SST would go onto play a wider and more significant role in the developing alternative music scene in California and beyond, throughout the States and even abroad.
The fact that Rollins was the band’s fourth singer, already gives some indication of the volatility within the core group. Ginn doesn’t come across well at all in here, sounding like a spiteful, petty, jealous grudge nursing, control freak who seems to be in the habit of collecting enemies and grudges like old ticket stubs.
Personally I never really got the appeal of Black Flag, I always preferred Henry Rollins’ solo stuff, both his music and his spoken word material, which I still enjoy today. But still, there are many fine bands and strong albums that came out of the SST stable back in the 80s, the likes of Bad Brains, Sonic Youth, Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr, Screaming Trees and even early Soundgarden, though they did turn down Nirvana. Though almost every one of them is let down by pretty poor production.
“It was his band, his show, his rules.”
Is one quote in relation to Greg Ginn. We learn that Raymond Pettibon, Ginn’s brother and the man responsible for much of the art work including the logo, quit SST and stopped talking to his brother a short time later and hasn’t spoken to him since, including through the death of their father.
I have to say I have never heard of anything like this with any label before, let alone an indie one, a man so bitter and who tried to sue so many of his own acts?...so quick to take offense, so contrary in being wrong and so sensitive to any perceived slight. I wonder if Ginn tried to sue the author of this book too?...
SST sounds like it would have been a horrendous record label to be at, the ultimate advert for signing to a major label. So much of the conduct in here is real low-down scum of the earth tactics. Too often it seemed to be more about Ginn’s whims, moods and ego, than supporting the music and the bands. In particular his treatment of the Meat Puppets and Negativland are straight from the school playground.
We learn of the many recurring issues which plagued a number of the bands, particularly with Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains, Negativland and The Meat Puppets. They struggled to get royalties owed to them or found that their fans were repeatedly finding it difficult to buy their music. It got so bad that when Husker Du were doing one record store appearance, they didn’t even have any copies of the album they were promoting (“Zen Arcade”) and so they made up a flyer instead for something to sign and give to the fans who showed up.
Unfortunately this is a huge problem with so many independent labels which extends beyond US shores as seen with Factory in England and Flying Nun over in NZ. We see owners too often biting off more than they can chew, making bands do work which they shouldn’t be. Once you get past the myth and the romance of an indie label and look at what was really going on, it was often the case that they were actually worse than the majors in so many ways. Whether having to lug your own gear around, making your own art work, delaying payments, poor advertising and promotion and the most consistent issue being serious distribution issues.
Elsewhere we learn about the awful treatment at the hands of the LAPD who as well as being laughably ignorant and inept, appeared to operate and behave under the illusion that they were in a fascist police state, rather than the so called “land of the free”. The media manipulation who seemed only interested in generating drama and sales regardless of the consequences or who paid them.
One of the things this reminds you of the depressing impact that lawyers seem to have on the history of popular recorded music. There seems to be countless examples of rampant opportunism, blatant deception and pure greed and just lies which really impacted on so many good bands making great music.
So Ruland tells an interesting story and manages to keep this engaging throughout, there are lots of decent photos from the era too and we certainly gain a thorough account of the label and many of the people and bands associated with it.
June 3, 2022
I’m going to start calling Jim Ruland “Jim Rules-and” or “Jim Rules Land.” By the time I came to punk rock in the late 90s (and it really is a calling), SST was already going “dormant.” It a took a few years of dedication to realize I had to go back to the source to truly understand modern music and that inevitably led me to SST Records. But, by that time it seemed more like a museum, keeping its back catalog in print and not releasing any new music. I always wondered why that was…until now.
It's been said that Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records is the book everyone had been waiting for but no one had been brave enough to write. Being a zine and Razorcake fan, I was familiar with Jim Ruland and his previous book on Keith Morris, which was so well-written that it was able to go deep while keeping the reader engaged. Memoirs don’t often do that. And, as Ruland himself will admit, Corporate Rock Sucks is the final entry in his LA punk rock trilogy – The Rule Land, as I like to call it. Its also the current high point. Again, I had known SST Records to be the starting off point in punk rock and post punk LA music and that Greg Ginn was the engine for it, but what I didn’t know was that it was one of the most (if not THE most) revered indie rock label of its time: bands would have given anything to be part of it.
Corporate Rock Sucks is loaded with interviews with band members, label operators, and friends who paint a very colorful picture of what it was like being in a band around that time and coming under the gravitational orbit of SST.
Of course, you can’t talk about SST without talking about Greg Ginn, and one of the most revelatory things about this book is that instead of being the asshole everyone portrays him as, he’s in fact a very complex character. The way Ruland lays it out is that, in the 70s in LA, when bands were popping up everywhere, being targeted by the police, with nowhere to play, Ginn was basically the engine to give bands a break. Surrounded by fuck-ups (more or less), he was the only who got his shit together (more or less) and figured out how bands could play local venues, how to record music, how to press records, and how to plan a tour. Also, using his finance knowledge (dude got his degree!), he was able to lay the groundwork for what would become a successful label, with headquarters and all. That speaks volumes for Ginn’s legacy. Where things become murkier is when his priorities start to shift, which would have been fine, if he weren’t also an alpha micromanager. Simply put, he’s a man on a mission, and when he puts his mind to something, there’s nothing that will stop him from reaching that goal. If you’re not on the same page as him, he’ll find someone who is. With that trajectory, there are plenty of people who get lifted up and burned along the way, and as Ginn’s priorities get more and more personal, really no one is left BUT him. That’s because he is Black Flag and he is SST and everyone else can only ever be reduced as a facilitator.
On the other hand, Greg is someone who under difficult circumstances, was able to build and maintain an engine that brought progressive, risky, and highly influential music to the world. For every story about Ginn’s petty selfish behavior, there’s one about his kindness and generosity.
Ruland has put together one the most interesting books this year that’s a must-read for both music and non-music fans. It’s masterfully researched, fun, informative, revelatory, hilarious, and highly introspective. It went deep and left me wanting more.
It's been said that Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records is the book everyone had been waiting for but no one had been brave enough to write. Being a zine and Razorcake fan, I was familiar with Jim Ruland and his previous book on Keith Morris, which was so well-written that it was able to go deep while keeping the reader engaged. Memoirs don’t often do that. And, as Ruland himself will admit, Corporate Rock Sucks is the final entry in his LA punk rock trilogy – The Rule Land, as I like to call it. Its also the current high point. Again, I had known SST Records to be the starting off point in punk rock and post punk LA music and that Greg Ginn was the engine for it, but what I didn’t know was that it was one of the most (if not THE most) revered indie rock label of its time: bands would have given anything to be part of it.
Corporate Rock Sucks is loaded with interviews with band members, label operators, and friends who paint a very colorful picture of what it was like being in a band around that time and coming under the gravitational orbit of SST.
Of course, you can’t talk about SST without talking about Greg Ginn, and one of the most revelatory things about this book is that instead of being the asshole everyone portrays him as, he’s in fact a very complex character. The way Ruland lays it out is that, in the 70s in LA, when bands were popping up everywhere, being targeted by the police, with nowhere to play, Ginn was basically the engine to give bands a break. Surrounded by fuck-ups (more or less), he was the only who got his shit together (more or less) and figured out how bands could play local venues, how to record music, how to press records, and how to plan a tour. Also, using his finance knowledge (dude got his degree!), he was able to lay the groundwork for what would become a successful label, with headquarters and all. That speaks volumes for Ginn’s legacy. Where things become murkier is when his priorities start to shift, which would have been fine, if he weren’t also an alpha micromanager. Simply put, he’s a man on a mission, and when he puts his mind to something, there’s nothing that will stop him from reaching that goal. If you’re not on the same page as him, he’ll find someone who is. With that trajectory, there are plenty of people who get lifted up and burned along the way, and as Ginn’s priorities get more and more personal, really no one is left BUT him. That’s because he is Black Flag and he is SST and everyone else can only ever be reduced as a facilitator.
On the other hand, Greg is someone who under difficult circumstances, was able to build and maintain an engine that brought progressive, risky, and highly influential music to the world. For every story about Ginn’s petty selfish behavior, there’s one about his kindness and generosity.
Ruland has put together one the most interesting books this year that’s a must-read for both music and non-music fans. It’s masterfully researched, fun, informative, revelatory, hilarious, and highly introspective. It went deep and left me wanting more.
June 15, 2022
While this book is not perfect, it is arguably better than OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE, because it is more deeply researched, and more passionate about a specific subset of bands. Azerrad's book is essential reading for anyone that is not aware of any of those 13 bands featured, and this book serves as an "updated supplement" for a significant portion of that book.
Not that much has changed since 2001 for these bands, and while Black Flag has their own longer form biography (which Ruland recommends in the Acknowledgements section), SST Records does not. Of course, SST is all over the place in OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE. SST (along with Touch & Go, Sub Pop, Homestead, Dischord, K Records, and later Matador and Merge) serves as a cornerstone for this subset of music. Yet SST seemed to come first and inspire the rest.
And also, it may have inspired many of those labels to do better. The book does not delve deeply into the "accounting irregularities" that are often stated as the reasons for bands leaving the label, but they are mentioned more than briefly. It might have been interesting to see some actual numbers, some estimate of the amount of money these bands were owed, but SST's chief accountant (Mugger) had no real formal education after running away from home as a teen, and the label seemed to be rather disorganized (for example, many of the master tapes from early recording sessions are damaged and/or lost).
But this was never about the money--this was about the intentional community that Greg Ginn created, and the music he played an essential role in releasing. The label did not want to be "corporate," but as the book points out, less than a decade in, it began to become just that, and has been that ever since.
There is a lot I could say about this book (and I did, in the review linked below, but there is still more I could say) because there is a ton of material and some relatively nuanced storytelling, but it is probably enough to say, if you have more than a passing interest in any of these bands or the music industry, it's worth reading. I read OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE several times, and it would have been better to replace one of those re-reads with this (except that was impossible before 2022). I would still probably read that first, as it serves as a good introduction, but I would recommend this as a follow-on to anyone that enjoyed that. I think it has more "cred."
http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2022...
Not that much has changed since 2001 for these bands, and while Black Flag has their own longer form biography (which Ruland recommends in the Acknowledgements section), SST Records does not. Of course, SST is all over the place in OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE. SST (along with Touch & Go, Sub Pop, Homestead, Dischord, K Records, and later Matador and Merge) serves as a cornerstone for this subset of music. Yet SST seemed to come first and inspire the rest.
And also, it may have inspired many of those labels to do better. The book does not delve deeply into the "accounting irregularities" that are often stated as the reasons for bands leaving the label, but they are mentioned more than briefly. It might have been interesting to see some actual numbers, some estimate of the amount of money these bands were owed, but SST's chief accountant (Mugger) had no real formal education after running away from home as a teen, and the label seemed to be rather disorganized (for example, many of the master tapes from early recording sessions are damaged and/or lost).
But this was never about the money--this was about the intentional community that Greg Ginn created, and the music he played an essential role in releasing. The label did not want to be "corporate," but as the book points out, less than a decade in, it began to become just that, and has been that ever since.
There is a lot I could say about this book (and I did, in the review linked below, but there is still more I could say) because there is a ton of material and some relatively nuanced storytelling, but it is probably enough to say, if you have more than a passing interest in any of these bands or the music industry, it's worth reading. I read OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE several times, and it would have been better to replace one of those re-reads with this (except that was impossible before 2022). I would still probably read that first, as it serves as a good introduction, but I would recommend this as a follow-on to anyone that enjoyed that. I think it has more "cred."
http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2022...
June 8, 2022
My first foray into the vast treasures of SST's catalog probably began when I was about 13-14 in Las Vegas. I'm pretty sure my first SST album was Dinosaur Jr's "You're Living All Over Me" followed shortly thereafter by similarly earth-shattering releases by Husker Du, Soundgarden and Sonic Youth. I bonded with people in my high school over this stuff. It meant a lot to me. There is a quality implied by that stamp which guaranteed a uniquely liberating listening experience. Furthermore, to an awkward, self-effacing and obsessive album dork such as myself, putting on these albums felt encouraging and comforting on a deep level and made me feel like I could maybe even make neat music one day.
Flash forward to 2022: still possessing all of those qualities and still endlessly inspired by the work of the bands that had the blessing and curse of being on SST. I very much enjoyed reading this new book by Jim Ruland. It enriched my understanding of the bands I was already familiar with, the sordid history of that time and place in history and also gave me some good juju, perspective and ideas for new approaches to my present work.
Some of the stories were pretty remarkable. I had no idea about HR from Bad Brains, that the Minutemen toured alongside REM, the hilarious story of Negativland lampooning U2 and so on. It was also really cool to read about some people who are now friends and collaborators as well as see mention of the studio where I just recorded my album as it was used back in the day.
Anyway, I highly recommend reading if anyone is interested in a glimpse to a special time and place in music.
Flash forward to 2022: still possessing all of those qualities and still endlessly inspired by the work of the bands that had the blessing and curse of being on SST. I very much enjoyed reading this new book by Jim Ruland. It enriched my understanding of the bands I was already familiar with, the sordid history of that time and place in history and also gave me some good juju, perspective and ideas for new approaches to my present work.
Some of the stories were pretty remarkable. I had no idea about HR from Bad Brains, that the Minutemen toured alongside REM, the hilarious story of Negativland lampooning U2 and so on. It was also really cool to read about some people who are now friends and collaborators as well as see mention of the studio where I just recorded my album as it was used back in the day.
Anyway, I highly recommend reading if anyone is interested in a glimpse to a special time and place in music.
October 18, 2022
I feel like I wanted more insight into diy/punk culture of the era but the text seemed so preoccupied with documenting every band and release on this label it was almost like reading a Wikipedia article at times...
It's not quite as self-congratulatory as a lot of punk retrospectives (it's honest, at least, about the misogyny & racism coming from some bands at times) but it does bring up some unresolved contradictions. There's this claim that "jocks, racists, homophobes, and actual psychopaths were drawn to punk shows" & this "discouraged many open-minded kids from going to shows, particularly women, who were curious about punk but not enough to risk getting harassed and beaten up for it." And then within the same chapter punk is said to be a community accepting of LGBTQ people. So which is it? Was punk a positive force for LGBTQ people or did they actively avoid participating because of the risk of homophobic and misogynistic harassment and violence? If this acceptance was limited to men, why say "LGBTQ communities" ? Maybe it's outside the scope of this book to go into detail on this subject but it seems odd to bring it up at all with no elaboration when it contradicts much more detailed depictions earlier! Anyway.
The text is at its most interesting when highlighting the hypocrisy of SST's later business practices, honestly, and I wanted more of that and less descriptions of when bands I don't care about released their albums. Please give me more dirt & drama. I don't even care about Black Flag, much less Greg Ginn's list of side projects!
It's not quite as self-congratulatory as a lot of punk retrospectives (it's honest, at least, about the misogyny & racism coming from some bands at times) but it does bring up some unresolved contradictions. There's this claim that "jocks, racists, homophobes, and actual psychopaths were drawn to punk shows" & this "discouraged many open-minded kids from going to shows, particularly women, who were curious about punk but not enough to risk getting harassed and beaten up for it." And then within the same chapter punk is said to be a community accepting of LGBTQ people. So which is it? Was punk a positive force for LGBTQ people or did they actively avoid participating because of the risk of homophobic and misogynistic harassment and violence? If this acceptance was limited to men, why say "LGBTQ communities" ? Maybe it's outside the scope of this book to go into detail on this subject but it seems odd to bring it up at all with no elaboration when it contradicts much more detailed depictions earlier! Anyway.
The text is at its most interesting when highlighting the hypocrisy of SST's later business practices, honestly, and I wanted more of that and less descriptions of when bands I don't care about released their albums. Please give me more dirt & drama. I don't even care about Black Flag, much less Greg Ginn's list of side projects!
October 30, 2022
A very good and reliable work that is sourced and researched incredibly. It aims to be thorough by covering all the releases on this label and try to get a handle on the person who started it and is now seemingly the only person left running the back catalog. Ruland does this capably though seems to hold back on details of Greg Ginn’s personal life (fear of lawsuits or trying to focus mainly on label itself). Those details would have helped fill in the picture and show the poignant sadness of a man who has isolated himself from so many.
May 14, 2024
greg ginn is probably the most mercurial yet influential figure in the la punk scene and alternative music history, which is really saying something.
August 26, 2023
“They responded by pelting the band with the dregs of their picnic lunches: empty cans, half-eaten sandwiches, chicken bones, and watermelon rinds. ‘It was an entirely fun time,’ Joe Nolte said. ‘The families got into the spirit of things and started giving their children things to throw at the band’” (33).
Super cool that this author took the endeavor to dig this deep into SST. He sure seems to capture the full story, perhaps even to a fault; at times supplying information far too detailed for most readers, I imagine, even for heads (likely the only people reading it). Corroborating accounts from everyone from Mark Lanegan to the Kirkwoods to Rollins, we get a clear picture of the Central SST Paradox: of how fun and united in their confrontation with mainstream society SST and their bands were, and at the same time, how messed-up and divisive SST could be to their bands.
Ruland succeeds in illustrating the SST scene and the broader underground cultural milieu. One of the best descriptions of Ginn’s vision and the promise and pitfalls of 80s punk generally: “Ginn was looking for ‘a place without an age limit that anybody can go to. No restrictions, you don’t have to look a certain way. Open to any kind of taste which means putting up with some assholes’” (66).
When I read the book about the story of Impulse! Records, I discovered a number of great recordings. One disappointment with Corporate Rock Sucks is that the more obscure bands and records are obscure for a reason. The truly great records from SST’s discography are the ones we already know and love.
Super cool that this author took the endeavor to dig this deep into SST. He sure seems to capture the full story, perhaps even to a fault; at times supplying information far too detailed for most readers, I imagine, even for heads (likely the only people reading it). Corroborating accounts from everyone from Mark Lanegan to the Kirkwoods to Rollins, we get a clear picture of the Central SST Paradox: of how fun and united in their confrontation with mainstream society SST and their bands were, and at the same time, how messed-up and divisive SST could be to their bands.
Ruland succeeds in illustrating the SST scene and the broader underground cultural milieu. One of the best descriptions of Ginn’s vision and the promise and pitfalls of 80s punk generally: “Ginn was looking for ‘a place without an age limit that anybody can go to. No restrictions, you don’t have to look a certain way. Open to any kind of taste which means putting up with some assholes’” (66).
When I read the book about the story of Impulse! Records, I discovered a number of great recordings. One disappointment with Corporate Rock Sucks is that the more obscure bands and records are obscure for a reason. The truly great records from SST’s discography are the ones we already know and love.
June 7, 2022
I’m guilty as charged. One thread that remains constant throughout Jim Ruland’s riveting story about SST records – Greg Ginn ran Black Flag and SST and he hated the fans that wanted Black Flag to keep playing those fast punk anthems from the early days. As each successive Black Flag tour rolled through Detroit the songs became slower and longer and the energy was sucked out of me with each guitar solo. So, yeah – I was the idiot yelling for “TV Party” and “Rise Above” while getting a 20 minute version of “My War”. The crowd and the critics were not going to stop Greg Ginn from running his band and his label. I get it.
Jim Ruland follows his two excellent books on Keith Morris and Bad Religion with the history of the hardcore punk label that started it all. Black Flag is the history of punk rock and Greg Ginn was in the forefront: starting his own label for his band, relentlessly touring across the country, helping to build and organize the blueprint for what became hardcore punk and the whole indie DIY industry. SST was the most trusted brand in America – you could buy any record with the SST label and know that it was going to be great. So what the hell happened? That’s what Jim explains in this book – you’re going to hear about bands that you love and bands that you forgot about and you’re going to see the decline of another great American institution.
The chapters all have headings such as “SST vs. Bomp”, SST vs. Hollywood – it’s always “SST vs somebody” and that neatly describes the history of SST and the history of Black Flag. Greg Ginn obviously did not participate in this book and most of the people that do go on record do have a bone to pick with Mr. Ginn. But this all lies in the future – everything that SST ever put out is described here and the tumultuous history of Black Flag is intertwined with the Descendents, Minutemen, Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains and a whole bunch of other bands. You’ll be reaching for your turntable or jumping on YouTube to listen what punk in the 1980s was all about. The book is well-researched and all sorts of “what if” scenarios jump off the page. Yes, SST actually did turn down Nirvana. It’s a fun ride, but the SST machine starts grinding to a halt – most of the people leave or get forced out and SST turns into a label for all of Ginn’s side projects. Even a “can’t-miss” Black Flag reunion goes awry when the ex-members who weren’t invited create their own band called “Flag” and become much more successful than Ginn’s band.
SST still exists on-line, but it’s difficult to find their product anywhere and many of their classics have been out of print for years. Jim Ruland provides an excellent solution to SST’s dilemma, but that chapter hasn’t been written yet. This is the book that you should read and maybe SST will be able to salvage a future yet. In the meantime – I’ll just keep listening to those early SST records!
Jim Ruland follows his two excellent books on Keith Morris and Bad Religion with the history of the hardcore punk label that started it all. Black Flag is the history of punk rock and Greg Ginn was in the forefront: starting his own label for his band, relentlessly touring across the country, helping to build and organize the blueprint for what became hardcore punk and the whole indie DIY industry. SST was the most trusted brand in America – you could buy any record with the SST label and know that it was going to be great. So what the hell happened? That’s what Jim explains in this book – you’re going to hear about bands that you love and bands that you forgot about and you’re going to see the decline of another great American institution.
The chapters all have headings such as “SST vs. Bomp”, SST vs. Hollywood – it’s always “SST vs somebody” and that neatly describes the history of SST and the history of Black Flag. Greg Ginn obviously did not participate in this book and most of the people that do go on record do have a bone to pick with Mr. Ginn. But this all lies in the future – everything that SST ever put out is described here and the tumultuous history of Black Flag is intertwined with the Descendents, Minutemen, Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains and a whole bunch of other bands. You’ll be reaching for your turntable or jumping on YouTube to listen what punk in the 1980s was all about. The book is well-researched and all sorts of “what if” scenarios jump off the page. Yes, SST actually did turn down Nirvana. It’s a fun ride, but the SST machine starts grinding to a halt – most of the people leave or get forced out and SST turns into a label for all of Ginn’s side projects. Even a “can’t-miss” Black Flag reunion goes awry when the ex-members who weren’t invited create their own band called “Flag” and become much more successful than Ginn’s band.
SST still exists on-line, but it’s difficult to find their product anywhere and many of their classics have been out of print for years. Jim Ruland provides an excellent solution to SST’s dilemma, but that chapter hasn’t been written yet. This is the book that you should read and maybe SST will be able to salvage a future yet. In the meantime – I’ll just keep listening to those early SST records!
February 19, 2022
My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Hachette for an advanced copy of this book on rock music history.
Back in the days before compact discs and Napster independent record labels and independent music stores were the bastions of cool. So much great music on vinyl, cassettes, eps zines and odd comics that would show up and disappear so fast. One of the labels that always seemed to have if not the best music, but the most interesting and usually the loudest was SST Records. The artwork, the music, the attitude so apparant on every release, just super fresh super real sounds. Jim Ruland in his book Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records tells the history of this label that changed so many things in music, but has really become one of music's great "And yet" stories. The "And yet" really is the heart of this tome.
SST Records is the brainchild of guitarist Greg Ginn, known more for being a founding member of the band Black Flag and later Gone. Having difficulty in getting a record deal for his band, Ginn adapted his own mail order ham radio business to distribute info, eps, art and and zines to fans. Touring endlessly the band built up a steady fanbase that included venues, music buyers, store owners, and authorities who didn't like the punk music scene. Other bands soon joined the label, releasing some of their best works, and getting them major label attention such as the Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden and others. The label was one of the most respected labels during the 80's until the industry, and musical tastes outside and inside the label and things just started to slide.
The book is well researched and full of information and interview, some never seen before. And lots of music, some great music, some ehh music, but the love the author has for this genre, and label shows clear. Not that he has a problem pointing out the mistakes and frankly arrogance and stubbornness of creators, label owners and musicians. This is very much a warts and all telling, and gives the reader a lot to think about, in what went right, and what went wrong. My only gripe is that there are alot of names to keep track of, and some players disappear for long stretches or are gone from the book entirely. However, that is minor in something that is so comprehensive.
A intriguing read about a label that was so cool, that went downhill so fast. The "And yet" and "If only" moments are many, but that seems to be a theme to books like these. Definitely recommended for music fans and historians, if only for the complete discography of releases. Also recommended for people wanting to make their own way in the arts, if you have a dream go for it, Greg Ginn did, an well read the book and learn what you can.
Back in the days before compact discs and Napster independent record labels and independent music stores were the bastions of cool. So much great music on vinyl, cassettes, eps zines and odd comics that would show up and disappear so fast. One of the labels that always seemed to have if not the best music, but the most interesting and usually the loudest was SST Records. The artwork, the music, the attitude so apparant on every release, just super fresh super real sounds. Jim Ruland in his book Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records tells the history of this label that changed so many things in music, but has really become one of music's great "And yet" stories. The "And yet" really is the heart of this tome.
SST Records is the brainchild of guitarist Greg Ginn, known more for being a founding member of the band Black Flag and later Gone. Having difficulty in getting a record deal for his band, Ginn adapted his own mail order ham radio business to distribute info, eps, art and and zines to fans. Touring endlessly the band built up a steady fanbase that included venues, music buyers, store owners, and authorities who didn't like the punk music scene. Other bands soon joined the label, releasing some of their best works, and getting them major label attention such as the Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden and others. The label was one of the most respected labels during the 80's until the industry, and musical tastes outside and inside the label and things just started to slide.
The book is well researched and full of information and interview, some never seen before. And lots of music, some great music, some ehh music, but the love the author has for this genre, and label shows clear. Not that he has a problem pointing out the mistakes and frankly arrogance and stubbornness of creators, label owners and musicians. This is very much a warts and all telling, and gives the reader a lot to think about, in what went right, and what went wrong. My only gripe is that there are alot of names to keep track of, and some players disappear for long stretches or are gone from the book entirely. However, that is minor in something that is so comprehensive.
A intriguing read about a label that was so cool, that went downhill so fast. The "And yet" and "If only" moments are many, but that seems to be a theme to books like these. Definitely recommended for music fans and historians, if only for the complete discography of releases. Also recommended for people wanting to make their own way in the arts, if you have a dream go for it, Greg Ginn did, an well read the book and learn what you can.
May 13, 2022
This review first appeared in the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Back in the ‘80s, an army of college deejays and record-store clerks gathered nightly at Cabaret Metro in Chicago and the 9:30 Club in Washington to worship at the feet of their idols. R.E.M., the Replacements, and the Violent Femmes all had their acolytes, but the most exciting bands seemed to record for a single label, SST Records.
SST was the Sun Records of its era, and Greg Ginn was punk rock’s Sam Phillips. Phillips discovered Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis and seeded the birth of rock ‘n’ roll. A generation later, Ginn formed Black Flag and discovered, in rough chronological order, the Minutemen, the Meat Puppets, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains, and Dinosaur Jr., enough bands to populate a history of indie rock. Latter-day superstars from Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins to Green Day and Blink 182, not to mention the grunge movement and DIY labels such as Merge Records, all would be unimaginable in a world without SST.
Corporate Rock Sucks, a new book by longtime punk ‘zine-ster Jim Ruland, offers an exhaustive history of SST and its mercurial founder. With his penchant for courting controversy and dodging lawsuits, Ginn emerges in Ruland’s account as an antihero very much in the Phillips tradition. Yet, unlike Phillips, Ginn also fronted one of the bands on his label, a duality that both enriches and complicates his legend.
Ginn’s status as an L.A. punk icon gave him enormous currency with the bands he signed. Over time, though, his Black Flag duties distracted him from his other artists and sometimes put the bands in direct conflict over release dates and funding priorities.
A good history of SST Records is long overdue. The label launched several of the greatest rock bands of the 1980s. Forty years later, both the label and the bands feel like footnotes, unknown to all but a thinning crowd of aging Gen-X hipsters.
Back in the Sam Phillips era, and through the two decades that followed, the best rock ‘n’ roll music generally fared well in the marketplace, a correlation that reached its apotheosis with the Beatles. Art and commerce strode hand-in-hand through the punk and new-wave eras of the late 1970s and early 1980s: the Ramones, the Clash, Elvis Costello, the Pretenders, the Cars, Blondie, and the Police all sold records in relative abundance.
And then, with the rise of college radio and independent-label rock, artistry and royalties went their separate ways. In 1984, SST placed three records in the Top 20 on Robert Christgau’s annual Pazz & Jop Critics Poll: the double-album masterpiece Zen Arcade by Hüsker Dü, the Minutemen’s inspired Double Nickels on the Dime, and the vastly influential Meat Puppets II.
In 1985, SST placed four records in Pazz & Jop: Flip Your Wig and New Day Rising by the ascendant Hüsker Dü, Up on the Sun by the Meat Puppets, and 3-Way Tie (For Last) by the Minutemen. Anyone with even a flickering interest in indie rock should own them all. And yet, none of those records charted. The bands counted themselves lucky if they sold 30,000 copies, luckier still if they saw a royalty check. (In the grand tradition of independent labels, SST didn’t always pay its artists in a timely fashion.)
Ruland does a great job in charting the rise of SST. Ginn, an L.A. punk with an econ degree from UCLA, came of age in the South Bay, an expanse of self-contained suburbs and industrial sprawl tucked between Los Angeles and Long Beach. He formed the band that became Black Flag in 1976 after seeing the Ramones. He then started a record label on top of a mail-order business he’d launched as a child to sell ham-radio parts, SST Electronics.
“For many young artists, the confluence of art and commerce can be difficult to navigate,” Ruland writes, “but for Ginn, making a record was no more mysterious than manufacturing a tuner or applying for a patent.”
Black Flag played hardcore punk, much of it so fast and loud it made the Clash sound like the Carpenters. Ginn played lead guitar and wrote songs. By 1981, with Damaged, Black Flag had produced a landmark of L.A. punk. That feat alone would secure a legacy for Ginn and SST. But Ginn quickly revealed an uncanny ear for A&R (artists and repertoire), signing a succession of bands that would record some of the most rewarding and challenging music of the decade.
The Minutemen, a trio of string-shredding socialists from San Pedro, released their first SST record in 1980. The Meat Puppets, acid shamans from the Arizona desert, surfaced in 1982. And Hüsker Dü, a thrash-pop trio from the Twin Cities, debuted on SST in 1983.
The bands could not have been more different: no thousand-word review can do them justice. And this is where Corporate Rock Sucks gets frustrating. Ruland chose to fix his narrative eye on Ginn and Black Flag, documenting their intertwined careers in granular detail. Maybe that was the right play, but I wish he’d told me more about the great bands Ginn brought into the SST fold. Ruland might have devoted a full chapter to each of them, and I would’ve devoured every word. Instead, he takes pains to catalog dozens of releases from obscure SST artists that didn’t sell then and don’t matter now.
I would’ve liked to know more, too, about Ginn’s million-dollar ear: What, exactly, did he hear in each band when he first encountered its work on a beer-drenched stage or hand-delivered cassette? Hüsker Dü would rewrite the rules of hardcore punk, but their early recordings revealed little of that promise — except, apparently, to Greg Ginn.
My favorite passages in Corporate Rock Sucks explore the punk-rock landmarks in the SST catalog: Zen Arcade from Hüsker Dü, the Minutemen’s Double Nickels, and Black Flag’s Damaged. Sadly, Ruland spills considerably less ink on SST’s more eclectic treasures: Hüsker Dü’s power-pop masterpiece New Day Rising, the Meat Puppets’ light-psychedelic classic Up on the Sun, and Dinosaur Jr.’s sludge-metal celebration You’re Living All Over Me, records that transcend genre and stand among the finest recordings of the decade from any label.
I suspect Ruland’s own allegiances lie with punk. That’s fine: Back in the 1980s, my college friends argued endlessly about the comparative merits of the great SST bands. Everyone had a favorite, and Ruland comes off as a Black Flag partisan. But to treat SST as a punk label is to minimize the imprint’s massive impact beyond that niche. When Kurt Cobain invited the Meat Puppets to join him on the “MTV Unplugged” stage in 1993, it was not to play punk rock songs.
Ruland writes with an easy cadence and a clear mastery of his subject, especially when he dwells within the punk canon. No one is likely to carve a better portrait of Greg Ginn, the lanky gearhead at the center of the SST storm. Ruland’s book leaves “plenty of room for further study of SST Records,” as he acknowledges at the end. Bob Mould’s excellent See a Little Light, Michael Azerrad’s beloved Our Band Could Be Your Life, and the spirited Minutemen documentary “We Jam Econo” fill in some of the gaps, and all are highly recommended. Better yet, stop reading and buy the records.
Daniel de Visé is the author, most recently, of King of the Blues: The Rise and Reign of B.B. King.
Back in the ‘80s, an army of college deejays and record-store clerks gathered nightly at Cabaret Metro in Chicago and the 9:30 Club in Washington to worship at the feet of their idols. R.E.M., the Replacements, and the Violent Femmes all had their acolytes, but the most exciting bands seemed to record for a single label, SST Records.
SST was the Sun Records of its era, and Greg Ginn was punk rock’s Sam Phillips. Phillips discovered Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis and seeded the birth of rock ‘n’ roll. A generation later, Ginn formed Black Flag and discovered, in rough chronological order, the Minutemen, the Meat Puppets, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains, and Dinosaur Jr., enough bands to populate a history of indie rock. Latter-day superstars from Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins to Green Day and Blink 182, not to mention the grunge movement and DIY labels such as Merge Records, all would be unimaginable in a world without SST.
Corporate Rock Sucks, a new book by longtime punk ‘zine-ster Jim Ruland, offers an exhaustive history of SST and its mercurial founder. With his penchant for courting controversy and dodging lawsuits, Ginn emerges in Ruland’s account as an antihero very much in the Phillips tradition. Yet, unlike Phillips, Ginn also fronted one of the bands on his label, a duality that both enriches and complicates his legend.
Ginn’s status as an L.A. punk icon gave him enormous currency with the bands he signed. Over time, though, his Black Flag duties distracted him from his other artists and sometimes put the bands in direct conflict over release dates and funding priorities.
A good history of SST Records is long overdue. The label launched several of the greatest rock bands of the 1980s. Forty years later, both the label and the bands feel like footnotes, unknown to all but a thinning crowd of aging Gen-X hipsters.
Back in the Sam Phillips era, and through the two decades that followed, the best rock ‘n’ roll music generally fared well in the marketplace, a correlation that reached its apotheosis with the Beatles. Art and commerce strode hand-in-hand through the punk and new-wave eras of the late 1970s and early 1980s: the Ramones, the Clash, Elvis Costello, the Pretenders, the Cars, Blondie, and the Police all sold records in relative abundance.
And then, with the rise of college radio and independent-label rock, artistry and royalties went their separate ways. In 1984, SST placed three records in the Top 20 on Robert Christgau’s annual Pazz & Jop Critics Poll: the double-album masterpiece Zen Arcade by Hüsker Dü, the Minutemen’s inspired Double Nickels on the Dime, and the vastly influential Meat Puppets II.
In 1985, SST placed four records in Pazz & Jop: Flip Your Wig and New Day Rising by the ascendant Hüsker Dü, Up on the Sun by the Meat Puppets, and 3-Way Tie (For Last) by the Minutemen. Anyone with even a flickering interest in indie rock should own them all. And yet, none of those records charted. The bands counted themselves lucky if they sold 30,000 copies, luckier still if they saw a royalty check. (In the grand tradition of independent labels, SST didn’t always pay its artists in a timely fashion.)
Ruland does a great job in charting the rise of SST. Ginn, an L.A. punk with an econ degree from UCLA, came of age in the South Bay, an expanse of self-contained suburbs and industrial sprawl tucked between Los Angeles and Long Beach. He formed the band that became Black Flag in 1976 after seeing the Ramones. He then started a record label on top of a mail-order business he’d launched as a child to sell ham-radio parts, SST Electronics.
“For many young artists, the confluence of art and commerce can be difficult to navigate,” Ruland writes, “but for Ginn, making a record was no more mysterious than manufacturing a tuner or applying for a patent.”
Black Flag played hardcore punk, much of it so fast and loud it made the Clash sound like the Carpenters. Ginn played lead guitar and wrote songs. By 1981, with Damaged, Black Flag had produced a landmark of L.A. punk. That feat alone would secure a legacy for Ginn and SST. But Ginn quickly revealed an uncanny ear for A&R (artists and repertoire), signing a succession of bands that would record some of the most rewarding and challenging music of the decade.
The Minutemen, a trio of string-shredding socialists from San Pedro, released their first SST record in 1980. The Meat Puppets, acid shamans from the Arizona desert, surfaced in 1982. And Hüsker Dü, a thrash-pop trio from the Twin Cities, debuted on SST in 1983.
The bands could not have been more different: no thousand-word review can do them justice. And this is where Corporate Rock Sucks gets frustrating. Ruland chose to fix his narrative eye on Ginn and Black Flag, documenting their intertwined careers in granular detail. Maybe that was the right play, but I wish he’d told me more about the great bands Ginn brought into the SST fold. Ruland might have devoted a full chapter to each of them, and I would’ve devoured every word. Instead, he takes pains to catalog dozens of releases from obscure SST artists that didn’t sell then and don’t matter now.
I would’ve liked to know more, too, about Ginn’s million-dollar ear: What, exactly, did he hear in each band when he first encountered its work on a beer-drenched stage or hand-delivered cassette? Hüsker Dü would rewrite the rules of hardcore punk, but their early recordings revealed little of that promise — except, apparently, to Greg Ginn.
My favorite passages in Corporate Rock Sucks explore the punk-rock landmarks in the SST catalog: Zen Arcade from Hüsker Dü, the Minutemen’s Double Nickels, and Black Flag’s Damaged. Sadly, Ruland spills considerably less ink on SST’s more eclectic treasures: Hüsker Dü’s power-pop masterpiece New Day Rising, the Meat Puppets’ light-psychedelic classic Up on the Sun, and Dinosaur Jr.’s sludge-metal celebration You’re Living All Over Me, records that transcend genre and stand among the finest recordings of the decade from any label.
I suspect Ruland’s own allegiances lie with punk. That’s fine: Back in the 1980s, my college friends argued endlessly about the comparative merits of the great SST bands. Everyone had a favorite, and Ruland comes off as a Black Flag partisan. But to treat SST as a punk label is to minimize the imprint’s massive impact beyond that niche. When Kurt Cobain invited the Meat Puppets to join him on the “MTV Unplugged” stage in 1993, it was not to play punk rock songs.
Ruland writes with an easy cadence and a clear mastery of his subject, especially when he dwells within the punk canon. No one is likely to carve a better portrait of Greg Ginn, the lanky gearhead at the center of the SST storm. Ruland’s book leaves “plenty of room for further study of SST Records,” as he acknowledges at the end. Bob Mould’s excellent See a Little Light, Michael Azerrad’s beloved Our Band Could Be Your Life, and the spirited Minutemen documentary “We Jam Econo” fill in some of the gaps, and all are highly recommended. Better yet, stop reading and buy the records.
Daniel de Visé is the author, most recently, of King of the Blues: The Rise and Reign of B.B. King.
April 24, 2022
SST holds a place near & dear as a few of my all-time favorite albums were issued by that label and I would gladly pick up a book with background on this or other labels of that time (Touch&Go, Discord, Matador, SubPop, K, AmRep, etc.) But SST was a bit before the others and had such an incredible roster. It was just so depressing to read of its slow denouement - clearly Ginn had some knack for business and picking bands, but that ability dried up in the late 80’s as it slowly became a husk of its former glory over the next three decades. Very well documented and enjoyed the writing style.
January 15, 2024
Fascinating history of the record label as well as several of the bands that started out on that label. This would have been a 4 star but everything started to really drag about 3/4th of the way through the book. However, if you are interested in punk rock history in general, it is still worth reading.
June 2, 2022
I'm a Gen-Xer who is kind of revisiting my teen years lately, reading, watching, and listening to a lot of things that I was just vaguely aware of when they were happening. So this detailed history of SST was a rich vein to explore. I learned about the early origins of all of these interconnected bands and about the revolutionary act of creating such a big and influential punk label in the 80s, before "indie music" was a viable branch of the industry.
Only three stars because the entire story is a bit of a slog to get through. Ruland is thorough, to be sure, painstakingly listing every SST release and giving each one at least a sentence, and he follows the trajectory of seemingly every SST employee. The result is inevitably that you'll end up skimming past a lot of discussions about bands that don't sound particularly interesting, some of which you can't even hear if you wanted to. Ruland doesn't seem to have a good sense for storytelling - surely there are more anecdotes in here that would be interesting.
One telling detail, I thought, was that (as far as I could tell) he doesn't mention the origin of SST's "Corporate Rock Still Sucks" bumpersticker (you know, the one that the book title is referencing) until he is discussing Nirvana in the mid-90s (because Kurt fashions a hand-drawn "Corporate Magazines Still Suck" T-shirt of the cover of Rolling Stone.) He literally mentions it is retrospect. Like, if you are hanging your whole book on this detail surely you should drop it earlier, whenever the bumpersticker was actually made.
Only three stars because the entire story is a bit of a slog to get through. Ruland is thorough, to be sure, painstakingly listing every SST release and giving each one at least a sentence, and he follows the trajectory of seemingly every SST employee. The result is inevitably that you'll end up skimming past a lot of discussions about bands that don't sound particularly interesting, some of which you can't even hear if you wanted to. Ruland doesn't seem to have a good sense for storytelling - surely there are more anecdotes in here that would be interesting.
One telling detail, I thought, was that (as far as I could tell) he doesn't mention the origin of SST's "Corporate Rock Still Sucks" bumpersticker (you know, the one that the book title is referencing) until he is discussing Nirvana in the mid-90s (because Kurt fashions a hand-drawn "Corporate Magazines Still Suck" T-shirt of the cover of Rolling Stone.) He literally mentions it is retrospect. Like, if you are hanging your whole book on this detail surely you should drop it earlier, whenever the bumpersticker was actually made.
May 24, 2025
A Masterpiece of Punk History: Jim Ruland's Corporate Rock Sucks
Jim Ruland's Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records stands as one of the most compelling music biographies in recent memory. This meticulously researched narrative delves deep into the tumultuous journey of SST Records, capturing both the triumphs and tribulations of the label that defined an era of punk rock.
Ruland's storytelling prowess shines through, particularly in his vivid metaphors. A standout moment is his portrayal of Henry Rollins joining Black Flag, describing how he "detonated his old life in DC" to immerse himself in the band's chaotic world. Such evocative language not only paints a vivid picture but also underscores the profound personal transformations that characterized the punk scene.
One of the most eye-opening chapters centers on Negativland's infamous legal battle with U2's record label, Island Records. Their 1991 EP, U2, which featured a satirical sound collage of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," led to a lawsuit that nearly bankrupted the band, and broke their relationship with SST. Ruland captures the absurdity and significance of this confrontation, highlighting the tensions between artistic expression and corporate interests.
Corporate Rock Sucks is more than just a chronicle of a record label; it's a testament to the spirit of punk rock and its enduring impact on music and culture. Ruland's work is a must-read for anyone who is a fan of independent music.
Jim Ruland's Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records stands as one of the most compelling music biographies in recent memory. This meticulously researched narrative delves deep into the tumultuous journey of SST Records, capturing both the triumphs and tribulations of the label that defined an era of punk rock.
Ruland's storytelling prowess shines through, particularly in his vivid metaphors. A standout moment is his portrayal of Henry Rollins joining Black Flag, describing how he "detonated his old life in DC" to immerse himself in the band's chaotic world. Such evocative language not only paints a vivid picture but also underscores the profound personal transformations that characterized the punk scene.
One of the most eye-opening chapters centers on Negativland's infamous legal battle with U2's record label, Island Records. Their 1991 EP, U2, which featured a satirical sound collage of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," led to a lawsuit that nearly bankrupted the band, and broke their relationship with SST. Ruland captures the absurdity and significance of this confrontation, highlighting the tensions between artistic expression and corporate interests.
Corporate Rock Sucks is more than just a chronicle of a record label; it's a testament to the spirit of punk rock and its enduring impact on music and culture. Ruland's work is a must-read for anyone who is a fan of independent music.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 1, 2023
When you read about a record label, you ultimately read about its founder and visionary, just like how reading about a band is reading about its individual members. Greg Ginn is that founder and visionary for SST. He is the Sam Philips of Hardcore, the Gamble & Huff of the West Coast, and the Ahmet Ertegun for the Minutemen, Husker Du, and even Sonic Youth. He had it all, and this story is about his path from nobody to somebody and the trail is rife with mistakes and miscalculations.
I greatly enjoyed the read knowing very well how this story would play out. If you're new to popular music history, expect pages of releases, chapters on personal life, and very little about the music itself. But we're here for history instead of music theory.
If anything, I wish this book talked more about the recording landscape SST existed in while it was signing hardcore acts. The book does a fair amount to talk about music scenes, but very little to discuss exactly how commercial music responded to SST. It teeters on the edge of giving enough context but ultimately seems to tell the story in a little bit of a vacuum.
If you enjoy learning about the tragic story that is every band who flourished, failed and ultimately paved the way for grunge's eventual takeover, this book is for you. The founder, Greg Ginn, and his vision IS the story - and it's a sad one filled with unrealized potential and self sabotage.
I greatly enjoyed the read knowing very well how this story would play out. If you're new to popular music history, expect pages of releases, chapters on personal life, and very little about the music itself. But we're here for history instead of music theory.
If anything, I wish this book talked more about the recording landscape SST existed in while it was signing hardcore acts. The book does a fair amount to talk about music scenes, but very little to discuss exactly how commercial music responded to SST. It teeters on the edge of giving enough context but ultimately seems to tell the story in a little bit of a vacuum.
If you enjoy learning about the tragic story that is every band who flourished, failed and ultimately paved the way for grunge's eventual takeover, this book is for you. The founder, Greg Ginn, and his vision IS the story - and it's a sad one filled with unrealized potential and self sabotage.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews