Slash, 1980

As someone who fumbled through self-publishing layout in the late 80s and who put out some records and was responsible for trying to design label art--while being a person with no business doing either--I have an appreciation for the amateurish output of imprints in their earliest days. LA's Slash Record, which grew out of a zine of the same name, eventually settled on a red cursive logo with dripping letters--maybe blood, maybe spray paint. In any case, when they released Los Angeles, the debut album by X, they were still figuring it out, and I love the low-budget look of this record.

Thrill Jockey, 1999

For nearly all of my posts I've focused on records going back three decades or more, but today I'm almost getting contemporary. This excellent lino cut design by Damon Locks was used on one of the debut 12" singles by his band the Eternals. I love Damon's artwork and while many of his pieces are dense with images and action, I like these label efforts because they offer up only a single idea with plenty of white space.

ESP-Disk, 1967

A very cool label from Steve Lacy's great album The Forest and the Zoo on ESP-Disk. The image is a detail from the photo on the back of the album cover, an awesome black and white shot of Lacy, painter Bob Thompson--who did the amazing cover--and bassist Johnny Dyani taken in Rome in 1966. The record also features the Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava and the South African drummer Louis Moholo, a bandate of Dyani's from the Blue Notes.

United Artists, 1959

A lesser known live classic by Charles Mingus, Jazz Portraits includes the first recorded version of "Nostalgia in Times Square." It's one of my most treasured original pressings.

BYG, 1970

This label formed in Paris by Fernand Boruso, Jean-Luc Young, and Jean Georgakarakos--the first initials of their last names formed the imprint's moniker--back in 1967 provided a crucial platform for the explosion of free jazz expats from the US that descended upon France in the late 60s, headed by leading lights of Chicago's AACM like Art Ensemble of Chicago, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, and Leo Smith. Some key east coast players, like Archie Shepp and Sunny Murray also made the scene, hooking up with some interesting European types as well. It was all over by 1972, but the stunning releases on BYG, once clogging used record store bins, have become eminently collectable--but that wouldn't matter if the music wasn't strong, too. This label is from Other Afternoons, the killer debut album by alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons--Cecil Taylor's most trusted and simpatico sideman--and it includes great work by Lester Bowie, Alan Silva, and Andrew Cyrille. The music was made in the fall of 1969, but the record came out the following year.

Coconut, 1978

From what I can tell Coconut Records was a Nigerian label owned by EMI, but I'm just guessing. In any case, I sure do love this logo. The label calls this Fela Kuti classic Suffering and Smiling, and I think that is, indeed, the actual title, but it's often spelled Shuffering and Shmiling, one of three variants on the original cover art.

Invictus, 1970

Invictus was a label launched by the songwriting linchpins of the Motown hit factory, Edward Holland Jr., Lamont Dozier, and Brian Holland, in 1968. Most of its offerings were successful R&B and soul records, but in 1970 they dropped this stone cold, unclassifiable classic, Osmium, the first and one of the trippiest and best albums by George Clinton's Parliament (not be confused with his earlier vocal group, the Parliaments).

Y, 1980

Y Records was about as awesome as post-punk label could get. Formed in 1980 by Dick O'Dell (aka Disc O'Dell), and distributed by Rough Trade, the label channeled in some of the most primitive and explosive funked-up punk ever recorded, blazing a trail for countless British bands in its immediate aftermath, plus all of that Brooklyn hoo-haw from a few years ago. The studied primitivism of this label design was a simpatico match for the music--raw, rude, profound, and weirdly elegant at the same time. Pictured is the 'a' side of For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?, the second album by the brilliant, politically blunt Pop Group, who's debut album a year prior gave O'Dell the label name. (Yes, it was called Y.) The group was led by the caustic singer Mark Stewart who later hooked up with a bunch of Sugar Hill studio cast-offs and formed a knock-out punk-dub outfit called the Mafia, who made some classic records with producer Adrian Sherwood. Among the artists who released music on Y; Slits, Maximum Joy, Pigbag, Diamanda Galas, Sun Ra, Pulsallama (the earliest group of the fab Ann Magnuson), Shriekback, Glaxo Babies, Steve Beresford & Tristan Honsinger, and the Fearless Four. It makes sense that the label had some so-releases with New York's 99 imprint, as they trafficked in similar low-end excursions.

Stiff, 1980

An excellent custom label from Stiff Records, accentuating the nerdy look of the Feelies with a highly stylized illustration, from their classic debut Crazy Rhythms. I had a few songs from this record on a tape compilation I got through the brother of a girl I had about two dates with--meaning, I hung out at her house once and she came to my house once (ahem, our parent's homes, really). The cassette contained zero information, but eventually I heard one of the Feelies tracks on WPRB, the Princeton University radio station that was one of my formative influences. Another of my all time favorites, the early look of these Hoboken, NJ greats played up their bookish dorkiness long before such an image was cool.

SST, 1984

Regional pride from Double Nickels on the Dime, the best album by one of the world's greatest bands: the Minutemen. 'Nuff said.

Uhlklang, 1983

Uhlklang was a short-lived imprint run by the Swiss duo of Andy Guhl and Norbert Möslang and manufactured and distributed by the great German free jazz label FMP--the design templates of both labels were similar, but the wavy text and the owl, who winks on side 2, distinguished Uhlklang from its parent company. Guhl and Möslang were eventually known better as Voice Crack--the title of a 1984 album, which they then adapted as their own moniker--and who were usually credited with "cracked everyday electronics," a catchall for the bricolage of busted, salvaged, and repurposed electronic devices they adapted into noise-making instruments. Knack On was reissued on CD by John Corbett's Unheard Music Series label.

Sue, 1963

Between 1989-1993 I worked at Chicago's mighty Jazz Record Mart, and those years functioned as a supplemental education for me. I learned and was exposed to more music during that period than during any other part of my life. The store was also a great place to pick up used vinyl, and many of my records were acquired back then. Here's one such gem, Dynamite, one of the earliest albums by Ike & Tina Turner--well before they jumped on the rock tip--released by Sue Records. I don't need to add any words to help in the appreciation of such a sharp label.

Black Saint, 1980

The first jazz record I ever bought, back when I was still in high school in 1983 (ouch!) was on the great Italian label Black Saint Records. The label still exists, but its true heyday was in the 70s and 80s, when it was the most consistent imprint for cutting-edge jazz from the US and Europe. Black Saint was also the first record company I had encountered that used the same iconic image as the 'a' side for all of its releases, placing all of the track info on side 'b.' The scanned label here technically comes from Ming, a classic 1980 album by the David Murray Octet, but the same image was (and may still be) present on all of their records. Thus, it's hardly a rare image, but it certainly was once synonymous with quality.

Columbia Masterworks

Sadly my last post, it wouldn't be complete without some Steve Reich.
Here's the Violin Phase on side 1 and side 2: It's Gonna Rain, which was a seminal minimalist piece in 1965.

"The source material of "It's Gonna Rain" consists entirely of a tape recording made in 1964 at San Francisco's Union Square. In the recording, an African American Pentecostal preacher, Brother Walter, rails about the end of the world, while accompanying background noises, including the sound of a pigeon taking flight, are heard. The piece opens with the story of Noah, and the phrase "it's gonna rain" is repeated and eventually looped throughout the piece.
For the recording, Reich used two normal Wollensak tape recorders with the same recording, originally attempting to align the phrase with itself at the halfway point (180 degrees). However, due to the imprecise technology in 1965, the two recordings fell out of synch, with one tape gradually falling ahead or behind the other due to minute differences in the machines and playback speed. Reich decided to exploit what is known as phase shifting, where all possible recursive harmonies are explored before the two loops eventually get back in synch before the end of the piece."

On Columbia Masterworks, nice and gray label, this is a Not For Resale, Columbia Records Radio Station Service copy so it plays real nice.

Over and Out x