ALTERNATIVE TENTACLES RECORDS
Alternative Tentacles is an independent record label established in 1979 in San Francisco, California. It was originally used as the label name by the Dead Kennedys for the self-produced single “California Über Alles”, and after realizing the potential for an independent label, they released records for other bands as well. Dead Kennedys guitarist East Bay Ray and vocalist Jello Biafra formed the original Alternative Tentacles partnership, but the label is now run by Biafra, who became the sole owner in the mid-1980s. Alternative Tentacles no longer owns the rights to Dead Kennedys recordings after a 2000 lawsuit. (More from Wikipedia)
Looters, Flashpoint – My copy of this 1990 CD has a sticker on it with a list of the dates in their U.S. tour, so it might have been a promotional album of some kind. Allmusic gives this album 4 stars and says this about their incongruous beginnings and fan base: “Formed in San Francisco in 1982 at the peak of the city’s hardcore punk movement, Looters were embraced by the local punk rock scene even though the style of music the multi-racial, multi-ethnic band played couldn’t have had its roots further from Gilmore Street. The Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra was an early fan of the band, however, which led to the release of a self-titled EP on his Alternative Tentacles label. As legend would have it, Island Records head honcho Chris Blackwell heard the disc playing in a record store during a trip to the Bay area and subsequently signed the band to Island.” This is their debut album on Island but actually their second album (Jericho Down came out in 1984). The album has a host of influences and is rife with a compelling world-music vibe. The opening track, “War Drums” naturally is drum-based but also has fine harmony vocals. But the killer track for me is “Manzanar”, with its recurring call of “how far . . . is Manzanar”. From Wikipedia: “Manzanar is the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II from March 1942 to November 1945.”
(December 2015)
