temporary post

this post is just a temporary note to myself so I know the next bunch of records to write about.

9/93 KRS212, KRS214, KRS215

10/93 KRS106, KRS217, KRS 218

11/93 KRS216

1/94 KRS219,

3/94 KRS222, KRS223, KRS225

5/94 KRS224, KRS226, KRS227, KRS107

7/94 KRS230, KRS 232

8/94 KRS229, KRS231, KRS233, KRS234

9/94 KRS221, KRS228

10/94 KRS235

12/94 KRS236



5/95 KRS220

KRS-213 Frumpies "Babies & Bunnies" 7"

August 1993

The band Bikini Kill started in Olympia, but for awhile they all moved to Washington DC. When they asked me to put out their records on my new label Kill Rock Stars, I flew out to DC to meet with them and plan the first record, which became the Bikini Kill EP.

Bratmobile also had moved from Olympia to Washington DC.

While I was there visiting everybody, I found out that 3 of the members of BK (Tobi, Kathi, and Billy) had joined with one member of Bratmobile (Molly) to form a new band too, The Frumpies. I got to see the Frumpies play a show while I was there visting everybody in DC. It was sublime.

So later when the Frumpies asked me if I'd put out a 7", of course I was delighted.

I even got to record some of this record, just about my only experience as a "producer," and the tracks i didn't record were still recorded on my cassette 4-track machine. It was mixed by Donna Dresch.

This record is super lo-fi but I think it sounds really neat.

There are 5 songs on this record. My favorite is "Intertube Tomorrow." The opening couplet still gets stuck in my head all the time - "East Coast, West Coast, I think I hate them both." I've always believed that Tobi Vail is a terrific songwriter although she's usually been in situations where she isn't in the sole spotlight as songwriter and bandleader - The Go Team, Bikini Kill, etc.

Michelle Mae, who later played in DC bands, is pictured on the cover and toured with the Frumpies after they moved back to Olympia, but she does not actually play on this 7".

KRS-211 godheadSilo "Thee Friendship Village EP" 7"

July 1993

The way I always thought of it, the "first wave" of KRS roster bands was Unwound, Bikini Kill, Witchypoo, and Bratmobile.

Huggy Bear kind of entered the roster as "wave one and a half" by being on the split LP with Bikini Kill. It wasn't clear at that time whether or not Huggy Bear would do any more records at all, or any more records on KRS, although they did end up doing a 10" and an album with KRS.

to my mind, godheadSilo was the first band added to the KRS roster in the "second wave" of bands - other than Huggy Bear, they were the first band that wasn't part of the Olympia scene that I'd been a part of since 1986.

I first heard about godheadSilo from the members of Bikini Kill, who had played with them and met them while on tour. They wrote to me, I heard their music, I thought it was rad. So we agreed to do a 7" and then eventually an album. And they moved to Olympia.

Mike and Dan are real characters, both very hilarious and both very serious and deep in their own ways. I hope they don't feel offended if they read this, but they both strike me as products of small-town midwestern life. I mean that in a good way.

Mike is a total guitar god, altho his guitar is the 4-string variety.

This 7" is super powerful, it is my favorite release by godheadSilo (altho I also really love their 2nd KRS 7" too) and I recommend EVERYONE to give it a listen, it'll blow you away how much noise and power these two guys conjure with a drumset and a bass, long before lightning bolt, et al.

this recording was made in portland at smegmatone by the legendary mike lastra, joe preston (as salty green), and tim green, all dudes who knows a little bit about making a big noise.

KRS-210 Unwound "Fake Train" LP/CD/CS

July 1993

As written elsewhere in this blog, it was the first Unwound show (although they didn't yet have their permanent name) that inspired me to expand the KRS label from being spoken-word-only to also do music. The Unwound song was the only song that was recorded specifically for the Kill Rock Stars compilation in 1991, the rest were just collected from songs that were already in the can.

Unwound's original drummer was Brandt Sandeno. He played on the song on the KRS comp and on the first two 7"s on KRS. The band also had a cassette release that he played on.

After those 7"s, the band started to record what was intended to become their debut album, but in btween recording sessions Brandt quit the band. A search for new drummers resulted in the addition of Sarah Lund, and all new songs and the recording sessions started over fresh for the debut album, which became Fake Train.

It was recorded by Steve Fisk at Avast, Stuart Hallerman's studio in Seattle.

I personally think "Dragnalus" might be the greatest first song on a debut album, ever. The only song for my money that might rival it as a first track on a debut album would be "holidays in the sun" on Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.

KRS-208 Bratmobile "Pottymouth" CD/LP/Cassette

June, 1993

This was the last record I released while still doing KRS part-time. I got laid off from my job at the Washington State Human Rights Commission at the end of June, 1993. I thought at the time that I would apply for unemployment benefits, but I never did. From then on, KRS was my full time job until I left in October, 2006.

I knew Allison Wolfe from the Olympia scene. Can't remember when I first met her but I had been friends with Allison for several years by the time this record came out. Allison was an Olympia girl but she went to Eugene for college. I remember driving to Eugene with Aaron Stauffer (Spook and The Zombies, Seaweed) to visit Allison, and meeting Molly there for the first time. Molly eventually became one of my greatest and most long term friends - we've had our ups and downs but are really good friends as I write this in 2009, and I cherish that we've been such great friends for so many years (despite the one interruption), she is one of my all-time favorite people.

I can't remember at what point Allison and Molly formed a band together, but I do know that Molly was from DC and they ended up living in DC and adding Erin Smith, the same year that Bikini Kill were living in DC.

I'd like to make a side note about Eugene - Tobi Vail quit college to go live Eugene for awhile in the mid-late 80s, Allison and Molly went to college in Eugene, and Corin Tucker and Tracy Sawyer from Heavens To Betsy came from Eugene, if I remember right. Billy Karren of Bikini Kill and Al Larsen of Some Velvet Sidewalk both came from Eugene and both had played guitar in the legendary Eugene band Snakepit, which also produced Mike Johnson. Adickdid, who were featured on the Stars Kill Rock compilation, were from Eugene, and Kaia from that band went on to be in Team Dresch and release solo albums. All in all, Eugene plays an important contributing role in the proto-history of Riot Grrrl, as well as the "international pop underground."

This Bratmobile record was recorded in DC by Tim Green, who was a guitar player in The Nation Of Ulysses at that time. The CD version of this album had the 3 bonus songs from the Kiss and Ride 7 inch that was recorded by Conrad Uno and Pat Maley. I love the "primitive" sound of this record, and Molly's drumming and Erin's guitar are great examples of "cool minimalism" in it's purest form, reminiscent of great bands like the Gories, Shaggs, Beat Happening, the Cramps, etc.

I also love the fabulous combination of childlike poses and fierce politics that is Allison's persona on this and many future records.

KRS-105 Juliana Luecking "She's Good People" (wordcore v.5) 7"

May, 1993

The shadow of the International Pop Underground Convention loomed over a lot of what KRS did in the first few years. Every band on the original 14-song Kill Rock Stars compilation except Nirvana played at the IPU convention. And we added more bands to that compilation who I first found out about by seeing them at IPU (Heavens To Betsy, etc).

Juliana Luecking is another artist I was first exposed to at IPU.

During IPU there was a spoken-word event at the Smithfield. (I have a cassette tape and some video from that show somewhere in my "memories box," maybe I'll dig it out sometime). I was one of the performers - Juliana was another one. I really thought what she was doing was super great so a couple years later I asked her to do Wordcore Volume 5.

I think the results are pretty neat, this is a super great record and it led to KRS doing two full albums with Juliana later on.

side b of this record was recorded live at the riot grrrl convention in DC in 1992. the bass player performed in a bunny suit.

KRS-209 Heavens to Betsy "These Monsters Are Real" 7"

May, 1993

Sadly, the main thing I remember about this 7" is that we were still so green, we accidently got the covers printed too small and had to reprint them. turns out that the jacket for a 7" record has to actually be slightly bigger than 7" x 14" !!!

for a long time I had piles and piles of the wrong-sized covers sitting around in my apt/office. We used them for packing materials and stationary.

I first saw Heavens To Betsy at the hastily-added "Girl Night" of the IPU copnvention in summer of 1991. They really bowled me over - especially the passion and power of Corin's vocals in the minimal context of two instruments played very simply. I asked them to provide a song for the CD version of the Kill Rock Stars compilation, and then asked them to do a 7".

all 4 songs were recorded by Tim Green (Ulysses, etc) and Molly Neuman (Bratmobile, etc) at the Red House in Olympia in 1992. I lived at the red house (twice! - I moved out and moved back in a bit later) around this same time, but I'm not sure if I was living there when this was recorded.

The artwork is handwritten on the back, and if you look carefully, the address for Heaven's To Betsy is in a different handwriting - that's my handwriting. I don't remember how it came about that we used my handwriting there, but it must have been pretty last-minute on the way to the printer, or I'm sure we would have picked somebody with a steadier hand.

My favorite song on this record is "Firefly." I think it's a terrific song that should go down in history.

KRS-104 Penny Arcade "A Cunt Is A Useful Thing" (wordcore v. 4) 7"

December, 1992

Tinuviel introduced me to Penny. I only met Penny once, at the NYC venue Fez, which no longer exists. Penny and I had several long conversations on the phone about this 7 inch, and she sent the tapes and the artwork in, and we put it out. I still get parts of this record stuck in my head sometimes.

I have heard a lot of crazy stories about Penny over the years, from both before this record came out, and the many years since...I think she is a true American Original.

This artist name on this record is actually a bit fuzzy - it is "Penny Arcade AKA Susana Ventura" and Penny seems to do all the pieces on this record in the voice of the alter-ego Susana Ventura.

KRS-207 Stars Kill Rock compilation CD/LP

April, 1993

As soon as the Kill Rock Stars compilation came out, I concocted the idea of two follow-up compilations under the names "Stars Kill Rock" and "Rock Stars Kill," but it took almost 2 years and a change of distributor to get the first follow-up album out. During those two years KRS moved from my mother-in-law apt with Greg Babior, to the Phoenix house, and then to the Red House, and then eventually above Barnes Floral on 4th Avenue, across from the Smithfield Cafe.

The one rule for this compilation was that it would not include any repeats from the first compilation in the trilogy.

It was funny sending this one in to be mastered - the source tapes included reel-to-reel pancakes on 15 ips and 30 ips, cassette tapes, super-VHS tapse, and DATs.

some thoughts about the contributors:

Tiger Trap was a rad all-girl band from Sacramento. my band Witchypoo played with them in Sacramento on a West Coast tour and I really fell in love with them. I tried really hard to get them to put out an album on KRS after this compilation came out but they ended up deciding to go with K. I briefly dated the lead guitar player, Angie, who mysteriously dumped me with no given reason, but not before writing a song about me. The song "Supreme Nothing" that is on this compilation also appeared in a later version, on their debut album. Rose Melberg, the main singer and songwriter in Tiger Trap, went to to form the excellent The Softies, and also to make beautiful solo albums. Heather Dunn, the drummer, was Tiger Trap's secret weapon. She is an incredible drummer who really took their songs over the top. Heather went on to do lots of great things, including playing in Dub Narcotic, Lois, and the Raincoats.

godheadSilo were a duo who Tobi from Bikini Kill had turned me on to. They definitely had similarities to another band from Fargo - Hammerhead - but they also had a sound all their own. Mike Kunka played bass and sang - Dan Haugh played drums. They were very loud and very powerful. Later on, they moved to Olympia. More on that later...

Jack Acid were a great Bay-area punk band that I didn't really know all that much about, but they had a couple 7"s out that I thought were terrific, so I asked them to contribute a song.

Tribe 8 were a great queer all-dyke band from San Francisco fronted by Lynee Breedlove. Very powerful and inspriational punk rock.

Versus: Were suggested to me by Unwound, who had played with them on tour and been really impressed. I agreed, I thought their sound was terrific.

Slant 6: Autoclave were and still are my favorite all-woman band, ever. This all-woman trio included Christina Billotte from Autoclave, but had a more driving sound than Autoclave. She later formed the band Quix*o*tic and The Casual Dots.

Karp: Like Unwound before them (at least in the original Unwound line-up), Karp were a local home-grown Olympia-area trio who had all gone to high school together and had grown up listening to and being influenced by some local and nearby musical heroes, especially the Melvins and Nirvana. Karp's drummer, Scott Jernigan, also known as Maniac, was one of the most driving, hard-hitting, powerful drummers I ever saw or had the pleasure to work with.

Mary Lou Lord: The first time I heard about Mary Lou Lord, I heard about her from my friend Kurt Kobain. He had met her in Boston while on tour. She was a folksinger who made a living busking in the subways of Boston and in Harvard Square in Cambridge. At the urging of Tinuviel, Mary Lou sent us a cassette of herself playing her songs into a boom box in her kitchen, which I absolutely fell in love with. I loved the songs exactly as they were, and asked Mary Lou if we could just put on on the compilation as it was, without re-recording it or anything.

Calamity Jane was a local all-woman trio fronted by Gilly Ann Hanner, who I had met at Evergreen. Gilly was badass with both her guitar and her shrieking singing style. Calamity Jane went through a bunch of lineup changes over the years but Gilly was always the consistent glue that held them together.

Heroin was a terrific punk or possibly even proto-Emo band from San Diego. I remember that early on, Matt Anderson was the drummer and I've always had the impression that our song might have had the original singer, before Matt became the singer, but I'm not actually sure. Either way, Heroin was a terrific, frenzied punk band that ended way too soon. The live shows I saw of theirs are still among the most memorable shows I have ever seen.

Adickdid were a trio of gals from Eugene Oregon, the same city Heavens To Betsy came from. This was Kaia's (Team Dresch, Butchies, etc) first band.

Getaway Car was Mike Fellows from Rites of Spring and Kim Thompson. I wish this band lasted longer than they did, I guess maybe it was a side-project, but Mike and Kim are incredibly talented people who have done so many terrific things in their lives, it would have been neat to see what more they could have done together...

CWA: Stood for Cunts With Attitudes. I met this band through Allison from Bratmobile. This band was incredibly short-lived, I'm not sure that they played more than one or two shows ever. They also disappeared right after this record came out and it was many years before KRS was able to find them and pay them the royalties that they were owed from this album. But the song is neat. Note that for practical reasons (the maximum length of an LP is about a half an hour shorter than the maximum length of a CD), this song is not on the vinyl version of this compilation, but two other songs (The Frumpies and Huggy Bear) are on the vinyl.

Bumblescrump was a really sarcastic, energetic, flippant, irreverent, passionate truly PUNK band from the East Bay that I would say ended all too soon, but then again, maybe this kind of band is best if they burn hot and fizzle fast. One of the singers of Bumblescrump was "Chrisser" Appelgren, who went on to sing for the Peechees and the Pattern, and is a co-owner of Lookout Records.

Cheesecake was an all-woman band from Boston. We connected with them through Tinuviel, who at the time of this album was still my partner in KRS. I never saw them play, but I dug this song.

Pansy Division is a queer pop-punk band from San Francisco, one of the founding bands of the Queercore movement.

Nikki McClure is primarily a graphic artist (http://www.nikkimcclure.com/) but at this time she also sometimes sang powerful a cappella songs onstage or at parties or whenever the mood struck her. I felt like what she was doing very much captured the "Olympia" spirit of DIY and a kind of high-quality music in which emotion, intent, and authenticity was more important than "chops" and "technique" and "production values."

The Frumpies: Tobi and Kathi and Billy from Bikini Kill formed this band with Molly from Bratmobile during the time that Bikini Kill was living in DC. They had three guitar players and no bass player, much like the original line-up of Pussy Galore. This song only appears on the vinyl version of this compilation, not the CD, at their request (CDs were pretty new and Frumpies recorded all-analog and I think they had an aversion to CDs at that time). I saw them play a terrific show in DC when I flew out to DC to "sign" Bikini Kill in 1991.

Huggy Bear: I believe this song was taken right off of one of the original Huggy Bear cassettes. Like the Frumpies song, it is only on the vinyl version of this compilation, at the band's request.

KRS-206 Bikini Kill/Huggy Bear "Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah" b/w "Our Troubled Youth" LP

March, 1993



I have always been a little fuzzy on the details, but as I understand it, the Brighton UK band Huggy Bear got a copy of the Bikini Kill "Revolution Girl Style Now" cassette. Around this time Huggy Bear had self released some cassettes and put out the "We Bitched" cassette on Wiiija. Huggy Bear started writing love letters to Bikini Kill and a mutual admiration sprouted, which led to the idea of a split album, which came out on KRS in the US and on Catcall records in the UK.

The bands also decided to tour both countries together and in 1993 Bikini Kill toured the UK with Huggy Bear, with my band Witchypoo opening most of the shows. This was the most insane two weeks of my life. I can only compare it to the films "Don't Look Back" combined with "The Kids Are Alright."

My writing skills are not up to the task of describing this crazy tour. I may never be able to. I can't really quantify the phenomenon of Riot Grrrl and the British press and the weirdness of the brief national fame that both of these bands enjoyed in the UK for a little while, just as this tour was happening.

These were some of the greatest shows I have ever witnessed - two incredible bands totally on fire, at the height of their powers and fueled by a genuine punk/youth/social/political passion and belief that what they were doing was incredibly important. They completely ripped it up every night.

Perhaps some day I will try to write the story of this tour.

But about the record - this is probably my favorite record KRS ever put out. I think it is one of Punk Rock's finest moments and includes absolutely everything I love and have loved about punk rock. The music, the politics, the "coolness", the energy, and the simplicity and accessability of it all.

I can't imagine that anybody with a pulse could listen to these songs and remain unmoved. Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear burned hot and ended quick, but while they lasted, they were the greatest bands in the world.

KRS-205 Unwound "Kandy Korn Rituals" +2 7"

January, 1993


This was the follow up to the the first Unwound 7" that we did. They had also been working on an album, but in the middle of the recording for the album, the original drummer Brandt Sandeno decided to leave the band, so we had to scrap the album (it came out a few years later on Honey Bear records in 1995) and start again once they found a new drummer and wrote all new songs with her on drums. This is the last Unwound record that Brandt played drums on.

The first two songs were recorded with Unwound producer standby Steve Fisk, but the third song was recorded by Damon Houk and me at a party in our basement in a house on 4th avenue that we lived in in late 1991 or early 1992. You can hear the microphone get knocked over towards the end of the song.

KRS-204 Bikini Kill s/t 12"EP

October, 1992


After a few early shows in Olympia and some minor lineup changes, that completely gelled when the excellent Billy Karren formerly of the Eugene band Snakepit joined up, Bikini Kill moved to Washington DC in 1991. They had recorded with Pat Maley and self-released the "Revolution Girl Style Now" cassette with some help from Calvin. I had asked them to contribute a song to the Kill Rock Stars compilation.

Even though I had been pretty good friends with Tobi for 5 years by this time, and I had released a spoken word 7" featuring Kathleen, I was stunned and amazed and supremely flattered and excited when they called me and told me they wanted me to put out this EP. I flew to DC to talk to them about the "deal" and switched distributors to Mordam distribution in order to make sure that the record would get the best possible distribution.

Becoming the record label for Bikini Kill, right at the time that Riot Grrrl was getting going, and being on the margins and able to contribute to the Riot Grrrl phenomenon, was incredibly exciting and important to me. 1991 to 1993 was one of the very best times of my life, and I really felt like I was involved in something that made a real difference in the world. And Bikini Kill was quite possibly the greatest punk rock band of all time, in my humble opinion.

Switching to Mordam was a really big change. They were a San Francisco company who distributed Alternative Tentacles and other cool punk labels. They charged a very reasonable percentage for their services, and they shared the anti-corporate, pro-artist values that KRS had.

Tobi once told me that "Thurston Hearts The Who" was originally called "PC Rebellion" and was their version or answer song to "HC Rebellion" by Pussy Galore.

KRS-103 Jean Smith "Carboni Angel" (Wordcore v. 3) 7"

June, 1992

This single, in my mind, symbolized that I was getting really serious about the "Wordcore" series, and that I wasn't going to abandon my idea of doing spoken word seven inch records, even though I was now doing rock records too, which was not part of the original plan.

As I have noted earlier, Jean Smith is in one of my favorite bands of all time, Mecca Normal. When this single came out, I think she hadn't written any novels yet, but she had published a bunch of pamphlets and fanzines that had terrifically impressed me. The first time I saw Mecca Normal, I was so blown away that I could not speak. My friend Rich Jensen introduced me to them, but I was left utterly speechless by the genius and power of their show. So I just stuck out the album I had just bought and got them to sign it. They were like music gods to me.

The second time I met Jean Smith, it was at a spoken word I had organized as part of the Fringe Festival, which was the midnight events as part of the Olympia Film Festival. This must have been about 1987 or so. I remember that I was 20, and could not yet go into bars. We both read poetry or performed spoken word at the event, and then started talking and walked around all night. I thought she was brilliant, and I still do. I am still really proud of this 7".

KRS-203 Unwound "Caterpillar" +2 7"

sometime in 1992

So basically I started the label expressly to put out Unwound records because I thought Unwound was an incredibly exciting band that K records and Sub Pop were totally overlooking. Unwound put out a cassette release, and then we decided to put out a 7" basically just because that is how it was done in those days - the 80s and early 90s in indie rock were all about putting out a bunch of 7"s and then eventually an album. So I connected the band with Steve Fisk, and this was recorded in a couple days at Avast. One of the songs on the B-Side, "Love and Fear," was my favorite song in their live set and I begged them to include it on this single. Justin didn't really want to but he went along with it. In retrospect, I think I understand now that it was a song that was a lot more like the songs on the cassette release (poppier and more stereotypically "grunge" than their later sound), and his songwriting was evolving away from that. I like the other two songs on this 7" a lot more than "Love and Fear" now.

KRS-202 Witchypoo "Groaning Machine" +2 7"

Sometime in late 1991

This was my own band. We recorded this with Steve Fisk in two days in Seattle at Conrad Uno's Egg Studios in Seattle. Me and Greg Babior and my sister Amy Moon. I remember Reverend Horton Heat and his band were waiting outside on the last day while Steve mixed it down. I had a nice chat with the Reverend, he seemed like a nice guy.

We got one nice review for this 7", in The Rocket. I think everybody else hated it. I think we were an extremely misunderstood band in general, but people from Olympia who saw us a few times got it at least. They might still not have liked it, but it took seeing us a few times to get what we were doing, I think. Otherwise perhaps it was just a bit too subtle. I don't say this out of pride, I say this out of regret.

The first pressing of this 7" was with silkscreened covers by Tinuviel, who we had decided was my partner in the KRS label by this time.

I think it's kinda funny I mentioned Cylons from the 1979 TV show Battlestar Galactica, which came back in the last few years as a notable remake (best tv show ever on a non premium channel?).

"in the not too distant future
robocop will face off against
the terminator
cities of twenty-first century Earth
will be laid to waste as they pave out their turf
the war will be won by the one who can win
more points from the crowd on the groaning machine

cylons pylons love bug dr. shrinker
elektra woman dyna girl sleestak baltar
sigmund and the sea monsters
i saw the 21st century first
when i met the woman who gave me the curse
of what its like to live in my dreams
stop and listen to the groaning machine

i'm not 'Chosen' and i can't write a song
nearly as heavy as a fucked up
universal destroyer
cities of 21st century earth
will be laid to waste in the face of god's mirth
but i'm ready to say that that's ok with me
we'll count up the points on the groaning machine

the groaning machine says kill the rock stars
the groaning machine says jail politicians
lies lies lies and more lies
kill the rock stars kill the rock stars
life is too important to dream
stop and listen to the groaning machine"

copyright 1990, haha.

KRS-201 Kill Rock Stars compilation CD/LP

August, 1991

By early 1991 it was a very exciting time in Olympia, with a lot of great bands, some made up of folks who had come to town to go to college, but also a bunch of exciting home-grown bands. One of these great home-grown bands had been Giant Henry - their last show was just about the funnest party/show I've ever been to. For the last song, they played their smash hit "Chris Jordan" for about half an hour. Eventually one of them got up and walked off but the other two kept playing. A member of the audience grabbed the unused instrument and joined in. Then another member left and another audience member took over. After a while, all the members of the band had left but the song was still being played. It seemed like it went on for hours. The reason Giant Henry broke up was because Brandt wanted to quit. Later, the same three guys started a new band with all new songs. They called themselves "Cygnus X-1" (or something like that). Their first show was incredible. I felt super inspired after seeing their show at The Surf Club, and talked to Justin, their guitar player and singer, after the show, about my idea of creating an anthology of Olympia bands. I had this idea that we could put it out in time for the upcoming "International Pop Underground Convention" that K records had organized for later that summer. But I went home that night and did the math, and decided that it was impossible - the convention was only a month away, and also i didn't have enough money for a compilation. The next morning Calvin Johnson called me and said "so are you going to do this compilation or what" - apparently Justin had mentioned it to Calvin. In a short conversation Calvin convinced me to put out the comp, and offered his help to make it happen. It also turned out that the real "Chris Jordan" had a friend, Ryan Baldoz, who was willing to loan me half the money to get the records pressed. The next few days were a blur of activity - the idea of the compilation morphed from being just Olympia bands, to include bands that would be playing the IPU convention - Calvin arranged for contributions from Some Velvet Sidewalk, Courtney Love (Lois and Pat), The Nation Of Ulysses, Melvins, Kicking Giant, Jad Fair - he also recorded "Cygnus X-1" so they could be on the comp. Friends in Bratmobile and Bikini Kill, who were all living in DC at the time, sent tracks, and friends in Mecca Normal, Nirvana, Infamous Menagerie, and Fitz Of Depression quickly contributed tracks. Of course I added my own band Witchypoo. Within just a few days we had a 14 song compilation and mailed it off to be mastered. There was no way to design a cover and get it printed in time, but my friend Tinuviel volunteered to silkscreen all the covers. 30 days later, on the first day of the IPU convention, the records had arrived and the first silkscreened jackets had dried, and we were able to sell copies at the merch booth every day of the IPU convention. It was a smashing success. The money we made from selling this compilation and later pressings with an offset-printed cover, after paying back Ryan including his share of the profit, funded the next few 7"s and really got the label started. About a half year after the LP came out Cargo Records offered to fund and distribute a CD pressing. I thought it was a shame to not use the extra time available on a CD, so I enlisted 4 more bands who had played IPU to contribute to the CD version - Heavens To Betsy, Steve Fisk, 7 Year Bitch, and Kreviss. Not long after this record came out, Tinuviel joined me as a partner in Kill Rock Stars, and she remained involved for another year or two, contributing art, graphics, production logistics, and A&R activities. This record could not have been the success that it was, without her.

Some thoughts about the contributors:

Bratmobile: I knew Allison from my earliest days in Olympia, and met Molly when they were roommates at college in Eugene. By 1991 they had moved to DC and been joined by Erin. Allison was always so sassy and Molly so tough, Brat was a really good word to have in their name. Guitar, drums, and dedicated vocalist.

Some Velvet Sidewalk: When Tobi was living in Eugene, she sent me tapes of Snakepit and Some Velvet Sidewalk, the bands she said were the best bands in Eugene. Later, Al Larsen from SVS moved to Olympia. SVS were one of the first guitar/drummer duos I saw, a format that became much more popular years later.

Courtney Love: Lois was the first person to encourage me to get involved as a participant in other ways besides just as a performer - specifically she convinced me that putting on shows was easier than it looked, and she even organized a flier-making party at her apartment to make fliers for my first show! I always thought she was one of the smartest people I'd ever met. This was another guitar/drummer duo, the drummer was Pat, who was in hippy bands and worked at the food co-op. This is a cover of a terrific Beat Happening song, but the Courtney Love band also had some really terrific songs that came out on several 7"s that are worth looking for.

The Nation Of Ulysses: I must confess that when we put this song on this compilation, I was just going on the recommendation from Calvin of from my friends in Bikini Kill and Bratmobile. But later, when I got to see them, in the 5 member lineup, i thought they were the best live band I ever saw. Their show at IPU is still my favorite show ever.

Unwound: The whole reason I put out this compilation. Such a great band! A trio.

Mecca Normal: I love that you can hear the ghost of the scratch vocal on this track. Jean Smith and David Lester started Mecca Normal in 1984, so the band was 7 years old when this compilation came out. The are now on their 25th year. They have both been my heroes, soldiers of art, for all this time. They are definitely the greatest rock band without a rhythm section of all time. They are both also tirelessly involved in many mediums - painting, publishing, novel writing, and graphic design, etc - throughout their lives. So many young bohemians swear they won't grow up and turn lame, and so many of them do. So many bands claim "it's all about the art, not the money," and yet fizzle out if they aren't able to make a "decent living" from making music, but Jean and David have never let economics and limited popularity deter them. They have persisted in living lives worth living, and producing incredible art, regardless of how many people bother to notice or not. Vocal and guitar duo.

Nirvana: Nirvana was in the middle of a whirlwind time when this compilation was being put together - their first major label album had been delivered and had a street date only a month away. They were preparing for a tour, etc. Krist was good enough to find time to bring a master tape down. We snuck into the college radio station and dubbed off a copy for the compilation. Thanks Krist! Nirvana was still the best band in Olympia in 1991 and it was very important to me that they were included on this compilation. A trio.

Heavens To Betsy: Heavens To Betsy were not on the original vinyl version of this compilation. The first day of the International Pop Underground convention featured "Girl Night" (I'm not sure if that was the official name but that's what everybody referred to it as) and Heavens To Betsy stood out as a revelation. I was totally floored and definitely wanted them very badly to be on the CD when we expanded the tracklisting of this compilation. I was really really impressed by Corin's voice and poise at a young age. They were a duo, but sometimes it was drums and bass, sometimes guitar and drums, and sometimes guitar and bass, i.e. they switched off. "My Red Self" had Corin on drums and singing.

Steve Fisk is a northwest institution, a man who started making sampler-type music before samplers existed, totally ahead of his time. In addition to his own musical contribution to the last 30 years of northwest rock, he has worked with a dizzying list of incredible bands as producer or collaborator.

Bikini Kill were probably my closest friends of any of the bands on this compilation. I thought they were great but I also kind of took them for granted in the beginning, in the way that we frequently take our friends for granted. It took seeing them through the eyes of others, seeing how people reacted to them at IPU, before I realized that they were one of the greatest punk rock bands in the history of punk rock, past or present. I am incredibly blessed to have been able to work with them. Tobi, Kathleen, Kathi, and Billy, were all amazing bigger-than-life people. I don't know if I've ever worked with any other 4-piece or larger band with so much personality and musical ability throughout the whole lineup. In my consciousness, they are the biggest rock stars ever, and changed the way I look at music forever.

Witchypoo: This was my band. I wavered with the idea of not putting this on this compilation but my friends insisted that it was perfectly legit to include my own band. I still kinda regret it.

Melvins: As I have written elsewhere, the Melvins were the first punk band I ever saw, and it changed my life forever. From that day until they moved to California, my social scene and musical consciousness centered around their shows. Being there to witness their evolution from the fast and loud band documented in this song, to the heavy and loud and eternally tense marvel that they became. I would call them the most intelligent metal band in history, except I actually think they are an art rock band, not a metal band at all. A trio.

Infamous Menagerie were a band I had fallen in love with in Seattle when I lived there for 8 months trying to start the band Earth with Dylan, before I quit and returned to Olympia. I loved how they supplemented drum machine with percussion involving a shopping cart full of pieces of metal. I wish they had lasted longer and made more records. They were a trio.

Kicking Giant was a band that I didn't know when this compilation came out, but Calvin strongly recommended them. They were from New York but they came and played IPU and I guess they liked Oly because they ended up moving out to Olympia not long after. The were around for a few years then broke up and Tae, the guitarist, continued as The KG for a while, while Rachel, the drummer, went on to be in a string of many terrific bands continuing on to this day. Rachel and Tae were people who really believed in art, and got involved in lots of other aesthetic activities beyond music... Drums and guitar duo.

Fitz Of Depression: My first band when I moved to Olympia, Nisqually Delta Podunk Nightmare, went through several different drummers. One of them was Mike Dees, who most know as "Mikey". At about the same time (1986) Mikey Fitz Of Depression. Over the years they have been a greatly beloved and greatly influential band in the Olympia area, and in some punk circles elsewhere. Mikey is a sweetheart and I'm glad this band is still going. They are a trio.

Jad Fair: Jad Fair is of course a genius and a legend and a trailblazer who made so much possible for so many, capturing the real essence of great music and throwing away all the smoke and mirrors and noise and bullshit and red herrings. I was of course really grateful that Calvin got him to contribute this track. At the IPU convention I told Jad I had a secret hope of some day making a living putting out records and he said "Don't get your hopes up," which was kind of crushing at the time, but probably sensible advice.

7 Year Bitch was another band that played "Girl Night" at the IPU convention and got added to the CD, because I thought they were great. They were much "punker" in sound at that time, their sound became more "hard rock" a while later.

Kreviss also played Girl Night and got added to the CD version of this comp. They were a giant band of untold legions of women playing guitar, and two drummers. It was really such a sight to behold!

KRS-102 Stacey Levine and Peter Toliver "Sweethearts" b/w "Wad" & "Load" 7"

Spring 1991

This is still early 1991. After doing the first 7" and getting a taste for it, I wanted to follow up and make it into a series. I liked the idea of getting "more bang for the buck" by doing another split single and getting two artists on there. To be honest, I didn't know as many spoken word artists as I would have liked to admit, but I had seen Peter Toliver perform in Seattle - I think it was opening for the legendary and incredible Jesse Bernstein (Steven Jesse Bernstein), who was a mentor and inspiration to me when I was in high school and learning to discover my own "voice" as an artist. I was introduced to Stacey Levine (http://www.staceylevine.com/) through my friend Alice Wheeler. Alice Wheeler had helped me buy my first leather jacket (from a Mod named Vince), had introduced to to Jesse Bernstein and many other spoken word artists and poets, and she was the first person I knew who was into scooter culture. She was also the first punk-rock photographer I ever met. The marriage of Peter and Stacey was not necessarily something that either of them was excited about - they didn't know each other, didn't run in the same scene, and had very different styles. Stacey aspired to be a published writer, and Peter aspired to shock. At least that's how I saw it, I'm sure both of them would say I'm oversimplifying it. I LOVE all three of these pieces, for how creepy and subversive they are. In retrospect, I prefer the subtlety of Stacey's approach - I think she is a great writer whose work really gets "under my skin" and stays with me. This is one of the little-known and mostly-unheard releases from KRS that I am most proud of...and since it was the first release that didn't have me or one of my own bands on it, it was arguably the real beginning of KRS being a "real label" and not just a vanity project. The cover of this record was designed by a designer whose name i have forgotten, it was my first experience with layout and offest printers, since the other early records all had silkscreened or photo paper covers. Picking up the covers at the printer was very exciting!

KRS-101 Kathleen Hanna and Slim Moon "Rock Star" b/w "Mean" 7"

February, 1991

I moved to Seattle for much of 1990 because my bandmate in Earth was moving there. While I was there I recorded some of my spoken word pieces on a 4 track that I had bought with money from my computer programming job. I decided that I wanted to start a record label to put out 7" singles of "spoken word as a performance art." I called Calvin Johnson, the only person I knew who had put out records before, and asked him how to do it. He readily told me over the phone on the spot, and I wrote it all down. Late in 1990 I quit Earth and moved back to Olympia and got serious about putting out the first 7" and starting a record label. I had bought some watercolor paints and made a painting on the back of a Pontiac Brothers poster, a bunch of sweeping lines of color, a few splashes and a few words, the most prominent being "kill rock stars". When I applied for a business license I felt pressed to come up with a name. I almost called it "Pound Dog Records" to go along with a drawing of a hungry dog that I liked, but then I realized that the drawing had been drawn by Dylan Carlson, who I was on the outs with, so I went with a different idea. That "kill rock stars" poster/painting was on my wall and it seemed like a good idea so I named the label after the painting. 
 I told my mom's husband at Christmas 1990 back in Montana that I dreamed to someday live off of putting out records as a fulltime occupation, but of course I never dared tell any of my punk rock friends this dream, it seemed too crazy, especially considering that I was only putting out 7"s and only putting out spoken word, not music. I really wanted to put out my own piece "Mean" but I also knew I wanted to put out other artists' pieces too, so I decided to ask my friend Kathleen, a photographer and spoken word artist who was involved in a cooperative gallery called Reko Muse, to contribute the piece for the A Side. Kathleen came over to the mother-in-law apartment that I shared with Greg Babior on the east side of Olympia on Capitol Blvd near the Frog Pond grocery, and we spent a few hours recording a bunch of her stuff. I still have the cassettes of the whole recording session. I sent two cassettes to John Golden at K Disc and he cut the 7". Kathleen's side was over 10 minutes long, which was unheard of for a 7", but we got away with it just by not knowing the "rules" and John Golden made the magic happen. I thought it was cool that the first piece on the first record was called "Rock Star" since the label was gonna be called Kill Rock Stars. I got the business license in January and we got the 7"s back from Bill Smith Custom Records in February 1991. I remember sitting in front of the Smithfield Cafe, my regular hangout, holding my first 7" in my hand and telling the barista who was working at the time that now all my dreams had come true. Kathleen took some pictures of herself and some pictures of me and designed a cover/photonegative. We bought 7 inch wide giant rolls of photo paper and snuck into the Evergreen State college photo lab late at night and processed 500 7x14 prints, and folded them and stuffed them with the 7"s into bags that we bought from Bags Unlimited, so that the record had fancy full color covers printed on photopaper, but cost us very little money to print. We had a record release part at the Rebar in Seattle where Kathleen and I both read, and then another record release party in the Phoenix House basement on the east side of Olympia on Phoenix Street, but Kathleen didn't show up so I was the only performer, which was kind of weird. My brother in law Bob Basinich might still have video footage of the Rebar record release party, but the video footage of the Phoenix house party was lost when someone stole it out of the backseat of the videographer's car. In addition to getting a business license, I had gotten a "private mailbox" (because there was a long waiting list for PO boxes at the downtown Olympia post office at that time) for the new record label. Kathleen had laid out an advertisement for the 7" in one of her fanzines before the record was even out, and Joe Lally of Fugazi was the first person to place an order by mail. I was always proud that my first sale was to Joe Lally. I sent a box of 50 of the 7"s to Sub Pop, who had a regional distribution service going on at that time, but they shut down the distribution within a few weeks and laid off some employees and sent back my box of records, with 3 missing (which Jonathan Poneman paid me for years later at SXSW when I brought up the subject of the three missing unpaid-for 7"s - I'm pretty sure I never cashed his $6 check, but I appreciated the gesture). I bought my first Apple Macintosh computer in honor of the new label, and created a spreadsheet to keep track of expenses and income and eventual royalties to be owed that became the template for KRS royalty calculation for many years. The model was to be a 50-50 deal between the label and the artist or artists. I wrote an insert for the 7" that was a disjointed manifesto of sorts, and photocopied it on pink paper and inserted it. I found out later that Kathleen didn't like what I had written and I learned a valuable lesson about making sure in advance that an artist is ok with all the materials going into their release. This 7" had two later versions with different covers - the next pressing of 1000 had a pink and black version of the original cover, and all the pressings after that had a new black and white cover that was redesigned by Kathleen because she didn't like how the original looked when converted to just two colors. At this time i really hated traditional poetry readings and the poetry scene and I was looking for a new term to describe this youthful, intense spoken word that I wanted to document with my new label. My friend Al Larsen suggested the term "wordcore" and I decided to do a series under this name. I honestly can't remember if I was already using the term Wordcore and intending it to be a series when the first one came out, but I do know that the original cover for KRS-101 did not mention Wordcore, this term was only added to the cover later.