Favourite SST Release of... 1989

One of
215 Grant Hart Intolerance
231 Soundgarden Flower
248 Screaming Trees Buzz Factory
253 Meat Puppets Monsters

for me

Helter Stupid

Flower. Might be the best things Soundgarden ever did.

nice cover of "a year with no head" on that slovenly album

Intolerance vs Helter Stupid vs the Elliott Sharp / Soldier String Quartet CD (which is actually a reissue of 1987's Tesselation Row + a couple of new pieces)

I owned all these at one time, still have about 5 of them :

149 Saccharine Trust Past Lives
156 DC3 Vida
208 Elliott Sharp/Carbon Monster Curve
209 Slovenly We Shoot For The Moon
214 Minutemen Joy
215 Grant Hart Intolerance
217 Treacherous Jaywalkers La Isla Bonita
226 Black Flag I Can See You
229 Paper Bag Improvised ... My Ass
232 Elliott Sharp/Soldier String Quartet Hammer, Anvil, Stirrup
235 fIREHOSE fROMOHIO
236 Tar Babies Honey Bubble
238 SWA Winter
239 Trotsky Icepick Poison Summer
240 Mofungo Work
243 No Man Is Roger Miller Win! Instantly!
244 Dinosaur Jr Just Like Heaven
245 Alter-Natives Buzz
246 Trotsky Icepick El Kabong
247 Stone By Stone I Pass For Human
252 Negativland Helter Stupid
253 Meat Puppets Monsters

Monster is far from my favorite Puppets, but then it's the only album here with "Touchdown King" on it

1989 was somewhat better than 1988 in SST land, were Buffalo Tom their last breakthrough band or did anyone after them get big(gish)?

They're not a 'big' band as such, but SST had Oxbow in the late '90s - though they went under the radar for years before they turned up on Neurot and now Hydra Head.

Fatso Jetson are a cult stoner rock band, very influential in that scene. But obviously most have never heard of them.

Trotsky Icepick Danny & The Doorknobs

This one is very good; it's a reissue of their first album Poison Summer when the band was called Danny & The Doorknobs (their gimmick was that they'd change the band name for every record, but keep the album title - they gave up on that pretty quickly).

what's funny is I pulled out past lives last week cuz of all these polls, listening to it tonight reminds me how much I <3 saccharine trust

an acquired taste to be sure tho

Saccharine Trust sound(ed) great live. I've got a live version of 'YHWH On Acid' knocking around here somewhere, shame it wasn't on Past Lives as it kicks my ass every time.

ENJOY!

Let's go to Mrs. Gooch's for some apricots.

Damn, I had twenty of these albums! But I don't even have to think about this one - Slovenly, no question. Such a joyous piece of vinyl.

fROMOHIO probably. No, definitely. I always think I like Dino Jr's Cure cover more than I actually do, so I can't vote for it in good conscience.

Intolerance

Assume Fat is a reissue of the Descendents' 1981 EP? Never owned it, though I did have some slightly expanded mid-decade record on New Alliance called Bonus Fat for a while. Anyway, I'm gonna vote for that, because I sure don't see much else up there. (Also had the original '86 issue of Enjoy! once; remembering liking "Wendy." And I swear I thought those 2 Elliott Sharps weren't awful at the time.)

Fatso Jetson are a cult stoner rock band, very influential in that scene

Wait, they wound up on SST? (I always liked Toasted from 1998, which was on Bong Load.)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/613EMefXIdL._SL500_AA280_.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61ZcYC31vhL._SL600_.jpg

Yep, they were on SST first, as was the Lallis' other band The Sort Of Quartet.

This feels like a tie: Meat Puppets vs Slovenly vs Helter Stupid vs Enjoy! vs Stone by Stone. All topnotch. Voting for Stone by Stone because I played it the most. Listened again today, it still holds up. Great record! Is that Chris D's last great one or has he kept on?

Runners up: the Suns record has good stuff; Joy 7" is great too obviously.

Yeah, there were some good songs on the Volcano Suns, especially the Kleiler ones iirc. The Roger Miller album is okay too I think.

I forgot he was in the Suns! Always liked Sorry. Kind of nice that Miller and Prescott were labelmates; did their bands ever play shows together in the SST era?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCFa3LMuc1w

When you are a 13y/o skater living in the middle of nowhere daydreaming about girls you met on summer vacation in California, there is probably no better soundtrack.

Hi uh, well say uh, what do you think of this band here? Man, ive never heard seen guys before. Gee, i think they're pretty new wave. They have a little uh, they've got kinda a R.E.M-ie thing and i think they're uh riding the crest so to speak. can i get you something? maybe a uh, a uh daquiri or a margarita? oh..you dont wanna dance with me...guess its true...you cant really dance to that kind of music now can you? I know Billy Idol says you can dance by yourself, but i'd rather dance with you. you dont wanna...no..oh ok.

I have only ever heard Helter Stupid (thx jjjusten)

It's getting even worse but,this time it has to be The Descendents- although was it originally released in the mid 80's?

Steve Shasta otm. I loved that album at the time . Their version of 'wendy' and 'get the time' made it on to every mix tape I did, bless the recipients

Honourable mentions for Slovenly, Tar Babies (again - would even dig this out now for a blast, if I had a turntable and 'my shit' wasn't creating structural problems in the loft), Grant H's effort

so the negativland ilm block ensures they win again?

the answer is Slovenly

I voted for Helter Stupid, gotta admit, even though the second half of it was less impressive to me than the first. But nothing else here struck me as particularly crucial. Tried (and failed) to love the Grant Hart and Meat Puppets releases and can't justify throwing my vote behind "Just Like Heaven", as much as I love it. So yeah, maybe the Negs have a real shot at the crown here.

The idea of Helter Stupid, as in the prank that Negativland pulled (if there even was a prank - you never know with those culture jammers!) is better than the record. They're the kind of group I'd happily read about, not listen to.

The Slovenly record is very good, ditto the Screaming Trees (it's the best produced of their SST ones, actually the cleanest-sounding until Dust I think).

I think it's been said on ILX before that Take The Manic Ride is great, but ruined by shitty production.

The Last's Awakening has good tunes, but sounds like crap compared to Confession (the drums are rotten, which is odd since it was produced by a drummer). Also, I read recently that the recording of this one went way over budget and brought SST to the brink of bankruptcy - is there any truth to that?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

my last day in charge of the SST polls, hope you all enjoyed them, and you all take part in macdara's 90s SST polls.

peace to you mr. pfunkboy, thanks for putting up with my antics. :D

SST in the 90s will be U2 in 91 (?) and then what?

should switch to matador in 91 tbh. INDIE4EVA

Yeah, hardly anyone is gonna vote in my polls! Matador did kinda take over in the '90s, true -- just as Sub Pop went big. Ginn really missed the boat and let his label all but disappear. But it's a shame as there's good stuff that few have heard. The Guns, Books & Tools debut is great, for instance.

I'm sure one of you could do Sub Pop and Matador polls.

I would really appreciate someone doing a Matador poll, as I know virtually nothing about the first few years apart from Yo La Tengo (and I even have that 10th anniversary comp!).

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

It's been fun and now over to macdara and the negativland faction then..

That'll come tomorrow, people - I'll probably vote for Negativland as well it's the only one of theirs I really dig.

The new poll is up, in case anyone's keeping track here: Favourite SST Release of... 1990-1996

The final poll will be 1996-2008; I basically split the remaining releases right down the middle.

Please give them a look, as you might be surprised who was still putting out records on the label!

No SST records here, right?

some records i apparently liked in 1989

Or here for that matter...

definitely not the best records of 1990 (for the most part)