History of Trench Records Part 21994
In the early 1990s, the DIY ethic spread like a virus. Everyone it seemed was starting a band or cobbling funds together to start a fledgling record label. You’d thumb through maximumrocknroll or Flipside and their pages would be overstuffed with ads and record reviews of hundreds of bands you never heard of (and likely wouldn’t hear again). In fact, Flipside derided Trench Records’ first release, the Mother Load album, praising the first song before going on to say that the rest failed to justify the CD’s existence, complaining that “There are just too many bands...,” or something to that effect. Back then, Flipside was still relevant—and scoring a good review could mean the sale of a dozen or so CDs, which with only a thousand out there was nothing to dismiss. Although I disagreed with the reviewer’s assessment of Mother Load’s music (as I still do now), he was right about one thing: There were too many bands, too many records, too many labels. I did not want Trench to be a one-off, anonymous endeavor. I wanted the imprint to continue and eventually become a self-sustaining enterprise. “Every label has its first release,” I used to say. But most would go defunct before issuing a second record.
Looking back, perhaps Trench should have folded after its inaugural release. The Mother Load album more or less broke even in that we were able to pay back all the money we borrowed, but there wasn’t much left for a second release. But I didn't let that stop me. I was young, naïve and ambitious; I would see Trench Records to its second release even if that meant sharing a cramped two-bedroom apartment with three guys and working three jobs (I wrote the local paper at night, made pizza in the afternoon and worked at a record store in between). Fortunately, Spokane was a cheap place to live. Anywhere else I might not have raised sufficient funds. By spring 1994 I had saved almost $1,200 to finance the next record.
Enter Boycott. I had seen this band a dozen times open for some of the more established local punks and I liked them. Composed of Heidi on guitar and vocals, Britni on drums and vocals and Barb on bass and vocals (she replaced original bassist/vocalist Kim Campbell), Boycott were tough, brandishing a raw punk-metal sound—and they held their own against the boys. I don’t quite remember how I came into contact with the band or how I managed to get my hands on a six-song tape they had recorded with a future roommate of mine, Patrick Par, but I did. I remember liking five of the six tunes. They wanted all six on the record, but there just wasn’t room—Boycott’s record was to be a 7-inch EP, and even at the slower speed of 33 RPM, six songs was one song too many. I do remember the band being somewhat annoyed that the song I declined to release was “Red Ants.” They liked it; I didn’t (you can find “Red Ants” here. The five songs that made the cut for the EP that would be titled Barbie included “Greed,” “Phonecaller,” “Barbie Doll Death,” “Ghost Town U.S.A.” and “Whine”—angry, raw metallic punk in all its primitive glory. I pressed 500 copies of the record, gave a little more than hundred pieces to the band (in lieu of royalties), sold some to K Records, and once again, consigned them at stores all over the Northwest. Fifteen years later, I still have about 20 copies. So if you really must have this artifact, contact me. Otherwise you can download the entire record—ripped from the original vinyl—right here.
