RRRecords
Encyclopedia
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
to specifically publish underground noise music
Noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
in the early 1980s, and published the first American vinyl by Merzbow
Merzbow
is the main recording name of the Japanese noise musician , born in 1956. Since 1979 he has released in excess of 350 recordings.The name "Merzbow" comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' artwork, "Merzbau”. This was chosen to reflect Akita's dada influence and junk art aesthetic...
, Masonna, The Hanatarash
Hanatarash
Hanatarashi , meaning "sniveler" or "snot-nosed" in Japanese, was a noise band created by later Boredoms frontman Yamantaka Eye and featured Zeni Geva guitarist Mitsuru Tabata. The outfit was formed in Osaka, Japan in 1984 after Eye and Tabata met as stage hands at an Einstürzende Neubauten show...
, Violent Onsen Geisha
Violent Onsen Geisha
Violent Onsen Geisha is a Japanese noise music group, distinctive among many noise acts for frequently displaying a bizarre, sarcastic, and mischievous sense of humor...
, and many more artists who have subsequently become well known in the world of noise music. In its first 20 years, RRR has issued hundreds of releases. The label's owner, Ron Lessard, is a tireless supporter of new artists, and created several sub-labels and series to specifically highlight unknown and underground musicians.
RRR Sub-labels and series
One of the most popular of the RRR sub-labels is the Recycled Music series, which consists of used cassette tapes of pop and rock music that have been taped over with new music by a noise band. RRRecycled tapes are labeled with a simple strip of adhesive tapeAdhesive tape
Adhesive tape is one of many varieties of backing materials coated with an adhesive. Several types of adhesives can be used.-Types:Pressure sensitive tape...
along the spine of the insert with the artist's name hand-written upon it. Part of the charm of the recycled releases is that each tape is unique, and that, in some cases, the original audio is still partly audible. They have historically sold for $4 each, in order to encourage curious listeners to take a chance on a band they may not have heard of.
Other sub-labels have included Lowell records, which only published local rock, punk, and metal bands from Lowell, Massachusetts; Statutory Tapes, which reissued music originally published by Kinky Music Institute, G.R.O.S.S, ZSF Tapes, and Beast 666 Tapes; Pure, a series of low-cost CDs by new and established harsh noise bands, again to encourage listeners to take a chance on what might be a new name; RRReport, a magazine and CD set that existed for two issues; Stomach Ache, a collaborative label by Lessard and other unknown participants that published cheap vinyl singles of dubious provenance. Stomach Ache Records listed only a Mexican mailing address, and credited to the singles to a fictional person named Charlie Ward, so that any responsibility could be deflected. RRR has also collaborated with other labels to produce multi-LP box sets of noise based on specific regions of America. To date these have included New England, California, Texas, and Portland.
Package design
In the 1980s and early 1990s, RRRecords was known for elaborate packaging of its records. "Steel Plate" is a double 10" vinyl set by Chop Shop, which came sealed in between two 10" x 10" steel plates. A collaborative LP by SBOTHI, Merzbow, and P16.D4 came packaged in between two silk-screened sheets of plexi-glass. "God Bless America" was a 3xLP box set compilation of American experimental music which came wrapped in an actual American flag.Concerts at RRR
For a period of a few years in the late 1990s, RRRecords would host free Saturday afternoon concerts at the store, which were called the "2 O'Clock Matinee" series. Concerts were never advertised or promoted, but every one was recorded by Ron Lessard and every band always got paid $20.Mail-order
Lessard's XeroxXerox
Xerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
ed copies of a mail order list added to underground 'zines
Zine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
circulating in the mid-to-late '80s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
had a profound effect on the international noise communities, building interest in the music through minimal, very simple black and white advertisements. Catalogs never included descriptions of bands or records, so a new reader was expected to either already know what they were getting, or else buy things at random. Many of today's noise artists learned about the genre in part by being exposed to RRRecords catalogs.
The print catalog is no longer available, but a website has taken its place.
Partial RRR Discography (in no particular order)
As a label, RRR has a very prolific discography (though much of the music was co-released with Nurse With WoundNurse with Wound
Nurse with Wound is the main recording name for British musician Steven Stapleton. Nurse with Wound was originally a band, formed in 1978 by Stapleton, John Fothergill and Heman Pathak...
's label, United Dairies), some of which is included below.
- Recycled Music cassettes from most established noise artists.
- Emil BeaulieauEmil BeaulieauEmil Beaulieau, or more fully, “Emil Beaulieau: America’s Greatest Living Noise Artist” is the stage name of Ron Lessard, a prominent noise musician who primarily records for his own label: RRRecords. He has collaborated and performed with many well-known noise artists, including Merzbow, Pain...
/Zipper Spy/K.K. NullKK NullKK Null is a Japanese experimental multi-instrumentalist. He began as a guitarist, but soon added composer, singer, electronic musician and drummer to his list of talents, and also studied with the Butoh workshop....
- Japan 2000 - MerzbowMerzbowis the main recording name of the Japanese noise musician , born in 1956. Since 1979 he has released in excess of 350 recordings.The name "Merzbow" comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' artwork, "Merzbau”. This was chosen to reflect Akita's dada influence and junk art aesthetic...
- Pornoise 1 kg (5 cassette box-set) - Can't - New Secret
- Jason Lescalleet - Electronic Music
- Boy Dirt Car - Winter
- HanatarashHanatarashHanatarashi , meaning "sniveler" or "snot-nosed" in Japanese, was a noise band created by later Boredoms frontman Yamantaka Eye and featured Zeni Geva guitarist Mitsuru Tabata. The outfit was formed in Osaka, Japan in 1984 after Eye and Tabata met as stage hands at an Einstürzende Neubauten show...
- Hanatarash 3 - Burning Star Core - Let's Play Wild Like Wildcats Do
- Skullflower - Obsidian Shaking Codex
- Human Is Filth - Destroys Emil Beaulieau CD
- Sickness - Fuck Your Punk Rock
- Ichorous - Lifender
- MerzbowMerzbowis the main recording name of the Japanese noise musician , born in 1956. Since 1979 he has released in excess of 350 recordings.The name "Merzbow" comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' artwork, "Merzbau”. This was chosen to reflect Akita's dada influence and junk art aesthetic...
- Batztoutai With Memorial Gadgets - Karlheinz - Fucking
- Chop ShopChop ShopChop Shop a.k.a. Scott Konzelmann, is a noise musician who has released recordings on Pure, RRRecords, Banned Production, V2_Archief and Generator Sound Art....
- "Steel Plate" - BlackhouseBlackhouseBlackhouse is a Christian industrial band. Blackhouse plays what has been cited as "primo industrial rock", contrasting with post-industrial styles promulgated by artists such as NIN, Klank, or Circle of Dust...
- "Holy War" - P16.D4P16.D4P16.D4 was a German electronic noise music collective, active primarily from 1980 to 1988, whose work was inspired by the punk and Neue Deutsche Welle scene of the early 1980s, which they ruthlessly mocked in their debut self-released 7", "Bruckenkopf im Neimansland". The group began as the...
- "Three Projects" - K2K2K2 is the second-highest mountain on Earth, after Mount Everest...
& MacronymphaMacronymphaMacronympha is an American noise group formed 1990 by Joseph Roemer and Rodger Stella in Pittsburgh, PA. Tim Oliveira Stimbox and Dominick Fernow Prurient have occasionally appeared on Macronympha recordings and live performances....
- "Biometrics" - AnenzephaliaAnenzephaliaAnenzephalia is the nom-de-plume of noise musician B. Moloch, who is occasionally joined by Wilhelm Herich of Genocide Organ. Anenzephalia was one of the first projects to record for the Tesco Organisation label.-Partial discography:...
- "Fragments of Demise" - Violent Onsen GeishaViolent Onsen GeishaViolent Onsen Geisha is a Japanese noise music group, distinctive among many noise acts for frequently displaying a bizarre, sarcastic, and mischievous sense of humor...
- "The Midnight Gambler" - Emil BeaulieauEmil BeaulieauEmil Beaulieau, or more fully, “Emil Beaulieau: America’s Greatest Living Noise Artist” is the stage name of Ron Lessard, a prominent noise musician who primarily records for his own label: RRRecords. He has collaborated and performed with many well-known noise artists, including Merzbow, Pain...
- "That Velvet Touch" - Ramleh - "We Created It, Let's Take it Over 1-3"
- Sudden Infant - "Solothurn"
- Small Cruel Party & Chop ShopChop ShopChop Shop a.k.a. Scott Konzelmann, is a noise musician who has released recordings on Pure, RRRecords, Banned Production, V2_Archief and Generator Sound Art....
- "Split" - various artists - New England (5 LP box-set with hand-made cover art)
- Master Slave Relationship - This Lubricious Love