Naomi Peterson
Joe Carducci
Joe Carducci
SST Records went from a hand-to-mouth, rat-infested storefront operation in Hawthorne, California, to the most influential and popular underground record label of the 1980s. Much has been written about the early days of SST Records and their top-selling band Black Flag, but it bears repeating in a digital age in which hard work, creativity, social interaction, and risk do not necessarily go hand in hand.
Joe Carducci was a third of the ownership of SST Records from 1981 to 1986, the other two-thirds being Greg Ginn and Chuck Dukowski of Black Flag. SST worked hard and played hard, pouring what money they earned into the next recording and gas money for the next tour. This meant often skipping meals to the point of once eating dog food to survive. Putting up flyers was often a sunup to sundown job, creating a backdrop to venue neighborhoods that lasted up to a year, especially in the warm California sun. All this to spearhead the nationwide network of underground bands that formed much of the indie-rock scene we still have today.
Carducci co-founded Systematic Record Distribution in Portland in 1978. As Rough Trade’s American outlet, it moved to Berkeley at the end of 1979 to pave the way for Rough Trade US. There he also was involved in the Thermidor label (ONO, SPK, Birthday Party, Toiling Midgets) and Optional Music (Dead Kennedys, Negativlan).
Partnering with Black Flag
Carducci moved to L.A. in the fall of 1981 to partner with Greg Ginn from Black Flag on their label SST Records (Black Flag, Descendents, Minutemen, St. Vitus, The Last, Husker Du, Soundgarden, etc.) until 1986.
He now appears occasionally on WFMU in New York. Carducci has lived in Wyoming since 1996 where he has been writing in earnest. His most notable release was Stone Male, A Requiem for the Living Picture, traces the development of the archetypal American action-film hero through the development of the leading male, as portrayed in the leading males of the Western movie genre.
I spoke to Joe at his home in Centennial, Wyoming. We discussed why cowboy movies are punk, the peak and downfall of SST records, and a missed opportunity between the legendary Black Flag and Milwaukee’s legends, The Oil Tasters.
JW: Upon hearing the Oil Tasters record while you were at Systematic, what was your first impression?
JC: I got the record from Jim Nash at Wax Trax. Black Flag really liked the song, “Brick Through a Window.” They were going to record a cover of the song and wanted the Oil Tasters to do a U.S. tour with them. I called Caleb Alexander [Oil Tasters’ saxophonist] and he told me that they broke up. But he still said he would ask the guys. But Richard had moved to New York so it was just too difficult for them to do.
Henry and Greg really appreciated the fact that they had a saxophone. It was different from anything else at the time. My first impression of The Oil Tasters was that they were a band who really belonged in New York. They were like Richard Hell with a saxophone! They had a white version of black R&B with an artier presentation. White kids can afford to risk popularity, so they don’t need to play rhythm and blues nicely.
JW: I hesitate to use the term “white privilege” because the term can mean many things. However, I think there is a sense of, “I already experienced recognition. It’s overrated!” among early ‘80s punk bands that reflects grave discontent after having basic needs met.
JC: Yeah, white kids don’t need to dress nice. You can dress like Joey Ramone, and have long hair and wear jeans.
JW: I noticed SST had a mailing address in Hawthorne at one point, home of the Beach Boys! While Brian Wilson created a Disney version of California life and dealt with life that way, SST gave us the unedited version of Southern California and delivered suburban nightmares to everyone’s neighborhood by touring. Black Flag had a legendary, by-any-means-necessary tour schedule. You guys booked schools, VFW halls, Indian reservations and rock clubs six or seven days a week!
JC: Black Flag needed Henry Rollins to do the tours because he was a kid whose voice could last longer than three weeks. I came to LA in 1981 after running Systematic. I offered to run the SST office right after Henry did the first show at the Cuckoo's Nest. Black Flag was the only band touring the U.S. from a van for months at a time, playing every day. Black Flag created that network, a blueprint for the other touring bands that came after. Flipper toured extensively, but not until 1983 or 1984. It was harder for them to do because, well … they were on drugs.
Bill Stenevson (Descendents, ALL, The Last) really kept Black Flag going. While Black Flag was in Court and had a cease and desist order on releasing records, Bill would go into the lawyer's office with Greg and read cases to see if they could navigate the lawsuit they had with Unicorn Records.
JW: I heard that Suicidal Tendencies wanted to be on SST, but Greg wasn’t into it. What changes would you have made to the label?
JC: If I would not have left, Nirvana would have come out on SST, with SPOT producing it. They wanted to be on SST too. But Greg was too difficult to work with.
I wouldn’t have had Negativland on SST. They were too artsy. I favored bands like St. Vitus and Overkill. At least metal bands knew how to rock. St. Vitus had the perfect sound to tweak the EQ knobs in your van while driving. They were opening for Motley Crue in Germany and Italy, but they were not as big in the States.
JW: Italians do it better! Or at least know better. I just started exploring their vast film culture of the early 20th century.
JC: Italians were marketing silent “Diva” films during the teens and 20s. They didn't strike me as that interesting. But then, I was watching a lot of silent films from that era. I was trying to figure out where the archetypal man you see in Westerns came from.
So long as you could ride a horse and read your lines, you could be an actor.
JW: That’s insane! You’re saying that cowboy movies were kind of like the original “punk”!
JC: Exactly, I mean, who told Joey Ramone he could be a singer? Who told a rugged, unshaven dude that he could become a movie star?
JW: It’s almost as crazy as saying a 50-year-old guy from Milwaukee could be a great actor.
JC: Haha. I don’t know if that’s good or bad to get famous at this point. I heard Wet Leg on the radio the other day, and you know it's … maybe one of the better things that is played on the station, but not as good as the Pixies. But people don't want to be poor. SST bands were all college dropouts or people who never went to college. They were lifers.
We worked so hard at SST. Then the one guy who got in the door blows his head off. The story of punk from Joey Ramone to Kurt Cobain reads like the screenplay to a bleak ’70s movie.
