In our second (and long overdue) installment of Required Tastes, we look at an offshoot label that in recent years has loomed larger than the legendary indie label that spawned it.
ANTI- Records
The 90’s, by and large, were good to rock and roll. When Nirvana knocked off Michael Jackson from the top of the Billboard charts in 1991, it marked a wholesale shift in direction mainstream music would take over the next decade and beyond. Whereas the 80’s were a decidedly pop oriented decade musically, the emergence of grunge, punk, alternative and techno made a sound declaration that the 90’s were going to be about the rawk.
And in 1994, when just about every nose pierced punk in Berkeley and Southern California were being thrown record deals in light of the breakthrough success of Green Day, the Offspring and Rancid, independent labels were being thrust unexpectedly into the limelight, even when they weren’t equipped to handle the windfall. Perhaps no label benefited from punk’s mainstream second wave better than Epitaph Records, the LA based imprint that served as the hub for underground (and mainstream) pop punk and melodic hardcore through the decade. Initially started by Brett Gurewitz as little more than a PO Box to help sell Bad Religion records in 1979, by ‘94 the label took off through the roof, dishing out gold and platinum records from the likes of Rancid, Offspring, Bad Religion and NOFX hand over fist. Even the label’s solid roster of midlevel acts such as Pennywise, the Bouncing Souls, Millencolin and H20 started seeing some pretty decent returns.
It was the right time and the right place, and Epitaph was cashing in big time. So much so that by 1997 Gurewitz expanded the imprint to include Hellcat Records, an offshoot sister label run by Rancid’s Tim Armstrong geared toward more street savvy punk, hardcore and ska acts. The clientele of the two labels largely overlapped, but Epitaph really shook things up with the creation of ANTI-Records in 1999.
With scarcely a punk band in sight, ANTI- lived up to it’s name 110 percent, especially when judged within the context of Epitaph and Hellcat’s steadfast adherence to all things punk rock. Epitaph had Rancid, the Descendents and Down By Law. ANTI- boasted records by diverse musical mavericks such as Tom Waits, Merle Haggard, Nick Cave and Marianne Faithful. True to the label’s name, the artists on ANTI- followed no one’s code but their own. The only theme connecting them was an aesthetic one, an iconoclastic commitment to a vision that often left them musically as islands to themselves. They were peerless loners traveling their own path.
By design, ANTI- is what you could certifiably call purist, a vanity label that puts quality over quantity across the board. The goal was never to sell shitloads of records, and if it was its probably safe to say that the Locust, Tim Fite and William Elliot Whitmore never would have been offered record deals. It was about signing good artists and putting out quality records. If they sold, great, and if they didn’t then fuck it. After all Epitaph was moving enough units to keep them plenty well funded.
But that commitment to excellence has helped the label thrive and stay in the black for over 10 years. ANTI-’s breakthrough and one of it’s best sellers to this day came just months after the label launched. Mule Variations not only won Tom Waits a well deserved Grammy, but it put the oddball musical maverick back on the map and introduced him to a newer, younger audience. It was an album that launched a great run of latter day Waits albums that included Alice (2002), Blood Money (2002), Real Gone (2004) and the sprawling rarities collection Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards (2006).
ANTI-’s diversity also proved to be a winning ingredient. Whereas Epitaph and Hellcat catered strongly to a specific fanbase, ANTI- artists ranged from soul (Mavis Staples, Solomon Burke) to country (Merle Haggard) to hip hop (Tricky, Blackalicious), to reggae (Buju Banton) to indie (the Weakerthans, Jason Lytle) and even comedy (Eddie Izzard). And with high profile releases from the likes of Bob Mould, Roky Erickson and Dr. Dog in recent years, ANTI-, started as a vanity label, has slowly crept out from big brother Epitaph’s shadow into its own light on a critical if not commercial level.
RB
