15 Facts About SST Records

SST Records is an American independent record label formed in 1978 in Long Beach, California by musician Greg Ginn.

SST Records was formed in 1966 by Ginn at age 12 as Solid State Tuners, a small business through which he sold electronics equipment.

SST Records was a mail-order business that sold modified World War II surplus radio equipment.

SST Records issued the Minutemen's debut EP Paranoid Time as its second release in 1980.

SST Records sued Unicorn claiming the label did not pay rightful royalties and expenses for the album.

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When SST Records released the Black Flag compilation Everything Went Black, Unicorn took SST Records to court in July 1983.

SST Records then converted New Alliance to a label based around unusual jazz, rock, and spoken word releases.

The first, Cruz SST Records, which started in 1987, released three solo records by Ginn in the space of a year, and released records by ALL, Big Drill Car, and Chemical People.

The second, the short-lived Issues SST Records, concentrated on spoken-word releases, including a double album by former NBA player Bill Walton with music by Ray Manzarek.

Guitarist Thurston Moore said, "SST Records's accounting was a bit suspect to us", and the group's other guitarist Lee Ranaldo criticized the label's "stoner administrative quality".

In 1987 SST Records released over 80 titles, a "ridiculous amount even by major label standards", according to Azerrad.

SST Records's prestige declined and by 1990 Seattle-based indie label Sub Pop had upstaged SST Records.

SST Records's reputation was damaged severely when sound collage group Negativland fought a long legal battle with SST Records in the wake of its sampling lawsuit over their notorious "cover" of U2's hit "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", on the 1991 U2 single.

SST Records went into near-hibernation in the mid-90s, deleting much of its jazz output, and releasing little new material apart from Ginn's projects, but still keeping the catalogs of Black Flag, The Minutemen, Firehose, Husker Du, The Descendents, and Bad Brains in print.

In 2002, Ginn signed a new distribution deal with Koch SST Records and promised that new material by his various musical projects was forthcoming [1], these releases eventually appeared on their homepage.