Consider this a love letter. There’s a lot to admire about Vinyl Communications, an openly political label with deeply leftist roots forged during the fever pitch of OC skinhead violence. Vinyl Communications started in 1986 and stands out among the few in music who turn political posture into a kind of praxis. Bob Barley, label founder—one-time mayoral candidate and full-time plumber—ripped into the day a gnashing anarchic collage that has secured itself as one of my favorite labels of the mid ‘80s and ‘90s. By praxis here I mean what Bob tried to do with his label, from running shows for local San Diego bands in his backyard or making an album out of spliced interviews of him harassing shithead attendees of the Light Up the Border protests[1]. If there’s a true expression to any supposed political sentiment in DiY, it’s in his own activism and in building his own recording studio for the bands he signed, a testament to an unflinching will to put out what was most likely to cause a ruckus, all while working full time and playing in Tit Wrench and other bands on the label.
This dedication is even more impressive given the circumstances Vinyl Communications arose in. In the wake of the record industry wringing out Seattle of all its worth, major labels made a mad dash to accrue as much indie cred as possible in some sleazy attempt to capitalize off the success of Nirvana. The documentary “It’s Gonna Blow!!!” covers what resulted well enough, RCA, Interscope, Restless, and Atlantic bombarded San Diego and tried to catapult a bemused scene of oddballs into stardom, with the predictable consequence of absconding with the cred and pasting it as a brand on outsiders like Stone Temple Pilots. Vinyl Communications alongside labels like Gravity Records stood on the outside of this, almost railing against hype and profitability. Vinyl Communications could have had Rocket From The Crypt on label back when they were still doing splits, they could have had any number of connections considering that almost every guitar band on the label has members that achieved some modicum of major label notoriety. The fact that this never became the express goal of the label alone is laudable enough, but that Barley kept it going into the ‘00s, with the same energy and lust for experimentation is just Herculean.
You simply can’t describe Vinyl Communications in a word: punk, harsh noise, experimental dance, avant-spooky circus music—if you can think of a kind of music on the outer edge of most listening habits there is at least one record here that fits the description. The catalog is nothing but chaotic breadth, a horde of extremely uncommercial genres spanning the exterior of music. A Sensitive Fascist Is Very Rare floored me the first time I heard it: surprisingly loud for an ‘80s hardcore record with a soaring blend of psych, heavy, metal, operatic vocals, and anarcho-punks penchant for speed and politics. Rice, Bug Guts, Anemone, chicken farm, Night Soil Man, Gogogo Airheart—all these bands are what you’d expect from a San Diego label of this era—which is not to say anything there is predictable—skronky, angular, suffuse with a dynamism and willingness to explore dissonance and broaden punk horizons in a way most post-hardcore could only gaze on at. And it just goes on, the electronic music you get from here in the ‘90s is insane, Bombardier just fucking goes with these disgusting blown out bass lines, and Delta 9 rips open a door that should have been open from the start with metal riffs on top gabber on “die hard”.
There isn’t a single thing I don’t love here. Vinyl Communications is what a DiY label should aspire to be: diverse, raucous, and ever rebelling against the confines of a brand or sound in the screeching spirit of a constant reinvention. Enjoy.
[1] Series of largely Anglo led anti-immigration protests that occurred in California during the winter of 1989-90. Protests involved participants gathering in cars to shine headlights over the border onto immigrants waiting to cross the border at night.