Original image by There Stands the Glass.
Greg Ginn and I bonded over our mutual respect for Sonny Rollins the first time we met. Many fans of Ginn’s seminal punk band Black Flag might be surprised by the anecdote. Yet Jim Ruland’s revealing new book Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records repeatedly affirms Ginn's predilection for jazz.
Through a circuitous series of developments in the music distribution realm I then inhabited, my initial meeting with Ginn in the late ‘80s indirectly led to the debilitating blow dealt to SST by the bankruptcy of my employer in 2001. (Mine was among the dozens of jobs that were lost in the post-Napster fallout.)
Ruland mentions the bankruptcy in passing, but his study primarily focuses on the staggeringly eclectic range of music released by SST. The backstories of classic albums by the likes of Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, the Minutemen and Sonic Youth are related in detail, as is Ginn’s adamant refusal to sign Nirvana.
From a purely artistic perspective, Ginn’s bias was justified. He’d already signed the superior Soundgarden to SST. Yet my head spins when I speculate about the additional Sonny Rollins-inspired punk albums that might have been issued had SST been flush with Nirvana money.