Seeing Heavenly on the soozradio playlist reminded me of my younger days when Riot Grrl was in full swing and I was all about starting a band, starting a zine, joining the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade because it had cute boys... (oh, wait - that last one was my friend Krissy. Never mind). And so I did a Google search on three of my favorite labels from that time: Simple Machines (defunct, but still putting out their back catalogue), Dischord and K Records.

Jenny and Kristin of the band Tsunami were the driving forces behind Simple Machines, which published the Mechanic's Guide to putting out your own records in the early 1990s. (a PDF version from 2000 is available here). After Sassy magazine made it 'cool zine of the month,' their popularity shot through the roof. One really cool project they did was Working Holiday, a once-a-month 45 rpm (yes, vinyl) subscription in 1993 similar to the infamous Sub Pop singles collection. Working Holiday is now handily compiled into one CD with booklet - available via Dischord mailorder here. Bratmobile, Scrawl (from Columbus! yay!) and other fine bands abounded on SM.

Dischord is and was the pet project of Ian McKaye from Fugazi. They put out super-punk music, and back in the day they were the place to find "straight-edge" records. One favorite album from a Dischord band is Nation of Ulysses' 13-Point Program To Destroy America, featuring the vocal stylings of Ian Svenonius (a former Sassiest Boy In America...I am convinced that Sassy magazine was a major influence on decent rock in the early 90s) on "You're My Miss Washington D.C." and other fine tunes.

K Records held down the fort on the west coast, particularly the Olympia-Seattle hop that gave Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill (now in Le Tigre) and other Pacific Northwest bands to the world. Dig through their catalog, it's chock full of MP3s. You can cheat and just look at the directory here (for some reason the link I put up to Heavenly's "P.U.N.K. Girl" wasn't working, so try this method instead). K put together the International Pop Underground Convention compilation CD (HIGHLY recommended, for the Spinanes, Bratmobile, L7 and Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet...and more)

Sigh, riot grrl nostalgia. Who'd have thought it?