PUNK USA – The Rise and Fall of Lookout Records
We’ve always had a soft spot for punk culture – and this looks like a great find to get know more about the Bay Area scene. Grab a copy and get front row accounts of the way it was and what occurred behind the scenes.
PUNK USA – The Rise and Fall of Lookout Records
by Kevin Prested
Available now on Paperback, 5×8″, 192 Pages
A chronicle of an influential music label (birthplace of Green Day) and the underground scene it created told through the participants own voices. Plus the detailing of missteps that squandered tens of millions of dollars through bad business decisions and damaged relationships.
Through hundreds of exclusive and original interviews, Punk USA documents an empire that was built overnight as Lookout! Records sold millions of albums and rode the wave of the second coming of punk rock until it all came crashing down.
In 1987, Lawrence Livermore founded an independent punk label to release records by his band the Lookouts. Forming a partnership with David Hayes, the label released some of the most influential recordings from California’s East Bay punk scene, including a then-teenaged Green Day. Originally operating out of a bedroom, Lookout Records created the “East Bay Punk sound,” with bands such as Crimpshrine, Operation Ivy, the Mr. T Experience, and many more. The label helped to pave the way for future punk upstarts, and as Lookout! grew, young punk entrepreneurs used the label as a blueprint to try their hand at record pressing.
Kevin Prested is a music journalist, an archivist, and a musician. He wrote for the official Lookout! Records blog and website.
A small, charming, and innovative publishing house, Microcosm Publishing specializes in work designed to make the reader feel good about being alive, take an active role in bettering their life, and impact the world around them. Microcosm has developed a reputation for teaching self-empowerment, showing hidden histories, and fostering creativity through challenging conventional publishing wisdom, with books and bookettes about DIY skills, food, zines, and art. The then-distro and record-label was founded in Cleveland, OH in 1996 and is now based in Portland, OR. Microcosm constantly strives to be recognized for our spirit, creativity, and value. Our books are printed by union workers in the U.S. and we are moving towards all production using post-consumer papers, with vegan inks and bindings. Further, while only 25-35% of authors are women, over 50% of the books we publish are by women.
Purchase: http://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/5160/
CHAPTERS:
1. Laytonville, The Lookouts and the early days
2. Chris Appelgren
3. Stikky, Plaid Retina and Sewer Trout
4. .Mordam Records, Yeastie Girlz
5. Operation Ivy, The Thing That Ate Floyd
6. Green Day, The Lookouts and David Hayes
8. Livermore, Appelgren and Hynes
9. Fifteen, Green Day and Al Sobrante
11. The Shit Split and Can of Pork
12. Kerplunk, Backwater Boys and a 5th
13. 1991 : The year of the Weasel
14. New romances, New bands, New Classics
15. The Queers, Queercore, & the new Lookout
16. The pre punk explosion, label departures
17. Green Day Leaves, Lookout Expands
20. Weasel Vs Vapid
21. Larry’s new band, Downfall, Sweet Baby
23. Cathy Bauer & the MTX Starship
24. The Riverdales & other new arrivals
27. Weasel Vs Livermore, Lookout Record Store, The Smugglers and the Queers hit Japan
28. Furious George VS Lookout, Music Videos
29. Larry leaves, Ernst VS Green Day.
30. Samplers and the revenge of Furious George
32. The Donnas, 10 Year Anniversary
34. Lookout’s ‘Nero’ and a Queers Casualty.
35. The Avengers, The Donna’s get skintight
37. Disappointments, Departures and divorces
38. Panic Button cashes out
SPECS
ISBN: 9781621066125
Published: December 2014
Format: Paperback, 5×8″, 192 Pages
Subjects: Music / Business
Price: $14.95 U.S.
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