Three One G | |
---|---|
Founded | 1994 |
Founder | Justin Pearson |
Distributor(s) | Deathwish Inc., The Orchard |
Genre | Hardcore punk, punk rock, experimental, indie rock |
Country of origin | United States |
Location | San Diego, California |
Official website | www |
31G Records, or Three One G, is a San Diego, California-based independent record label, started by musician Justin Pearson in 1994 and focusing on punk and experimental music. The label has released a number of albums and compilations in what has been described as "freak punk" [1] and "spaz-rock." [2] Musicians on the label frequently collaborate, creating supergroups such as Holy Molar, Some Girls, and Head Wound City. [1] Three One G's roster has featured many noise rock bands.
31G Records was founded by Justin Pearson in San Diego, California in 1994. [3] The name comes from the chorus of a Joy Division song "Warsaw", a song covered by Pearson's then-band, Swing Kids. The reference for '3-1-G' in the original song was to Rudolf Hess's prisoner number. [4] The first album released on the new label was the 1994 single "And / Fall On Proverb" by metalcore band Unbroken. The second release was a reissue of the new debut album from hardcore punk and noise rock band Swing Kids, a band consisting of both the Unbroken guitarist Eric Allen and Pearson on vocals. [5]
The following few releases also involved the same community of musicians, with a split between Swing Kids and Spanakorzo coming out in 1995, and the second released recording by Pearson's new band The Locust coming out as a split EP with Jenny Piccolo in 1996. [5]
In 1998 Allysia Edwards joined with Pearson as a partner at the label, and their annual output began to increase. [5] By January 2011, the label had put out approximately 60 releases total. [3] Staff as of 2011 include Sal Gallego of Some Girls, Marcus D’Camp, Brandon McMinn, Mike McGuire, Becky DiGiglio, and Pearson. [6]
According to Pearson, the label's best selling releases have been Discography by Swing Kids, as well as March on Electric Children by The Blood Brothers. [3]
Three One G has released a compilation of Queen covers by their artists called Dynamite With a Laserbeam: Queen as Heard Through the Meat Grinder of Three One G, as well as a similar tribute to The Birthday Party titled Release The Bats. There has also been a DVD documentary, This is Circumstantial Evidence, made about Three One G. [5] In 2020 the label released a tribute album to The Cramps called Really Bad Music For Really Bad People: The Cramps As Heard Through The Meat Grinder Of Three One G and featured artists such as METZ, Chelsea Wolfe, and Mike Patton.
Reviewers have described the Three One G community of musicians under the umbrella term "freak punk" [1] or "spaz-rock," [2] saying "the intense, the slightly frightening, and the brutal all find a place for themselves and their music in Three One G Records." [2]
Most of the label's bands have shared members or interact within the same musical community, and according to Pearson,
"[The label] quickly developed into a family of artists who were all intertwined or on the same page as one another. We could all conceivably tour together, even sometimes collaborate and share members. To me, this is interesting, bringing so many new avenues of creativity, which are things that the music industry in general has since forgotten." [6]
According to SSG Music, "It seems that members of San Diego label Three One G decide to form new supergroups at least once a year." [1] Three One G bands Holy Molar, Ground Unicorn Horn, and Head Wound City were all formed with earlier musicians on the label. The label's supergroup Retox included Gabe Serbian and Pearson of The Locust, [1] and many of the bands such as The Crimson Curse and Cattle Decapitation [5] are connected to The Locust as well. [6]
The Cramps were an American rock band formed in 1976 and active until 2009. Their lineup rotated frequently during their existence, with the husband-and-wife duo of singer Lux Interior and guitarist Poison Ivy the only ever-present members. The band are credited as progenitors of the psychobilly subgenre, uniting elements of punk rock with rockabilly.
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The Locust was an American hardcore punk band from San Diego, California, known for their mix of grindcore aggression and new wave experimentation.
Post-hardcore is a punk rock music genre that maintains the aggression and intensity of hardcore punk but emphasizes a greater degree of creative expression. It was initially inspired by post-punk and noise rock. Like the term "post-punk", the term "post-hardcore" has been applied to a broad constellation of groups. Post-hardcore began in the 1980s with bands like Hüsker Dü and Minutemen. The genre expanded in the 1980s and 1990s with releases by bands from cities that had established hardcore scenes, such as Fugazi from Washington, D.C. as well as groups such as Big Black, Jawbox, Quicksand, and Shellac that stuck closer to post-hardcore's noise rock roots. Dischord Records became a major nexus of post-hardcore during this period. The genre also began to incorporate more dense, complex, and atmospheric instrumentals with bands like Slint and Unwound, and also experienced some crossover from indie rock with bands like The Dismemberment Plan. In the early- and mid-2000s, post-hardcore achieved mainstream success with the popularity of bands like At the Drive-In, My Chemical Romance, Dance Gavin Dance, AFI, Underoath, Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, The Used, Saosin, Alexisonfire, and Senses Fail. In the 2010s, bands like Sleeping with Sirens and Pierce the Veil achieved mainstream success under the post-hardcore label. Meanwhile, bands like Title Fight and La Dispute experienced underground popularity playing music that bore a closer resemblance to the post-hardcore bands of the 1980s and 1990s.
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Holy Molar is a noise rock band from San Diego, composed of members Mark McCoy, Bobby Bray, Justin Pearson, and Gabe Serbian and Maxamillion Avila.
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Some Girls was an American hardcore punk band consisting of a collective of musicians who came from different backgrounds and all who had established hardcore bands.
Antioch Arrow was an American punk rock band from San Diego, California, that formed in 1992. Most of their discography was released through the San Diego independent label Gravity Records. The label was responsible raising San Diego's profile in the underground music scene of the mid-1990s. The band, breaking up in 1994 and releasing one final studio album posthumously in 1995, are now considered to be one of the most influential bands of the early 1990s that shaped emo and post-hardcore music of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Justin Pearson is a vocalist and bassist known for his music career, playing in a number of San Diego-based noise rock, punk and grindcore bands, as well as his record label Three One G Records. Starting off in the punk outfit Struggle in 1994, ensuing projects such as Swing Kids, The Locust, Dead Cross and Retox. He has collaborated with Kool Keith, Gabe Serbian, Karen O, Nick Zinner, Adam Gnade, Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Asia Argento, The Bloody Beetroots, Silent, among many others.
Swing Kids were a post-hardcore band from San Diego, California, during the mid-1990s. They were closely involved with and influenced by the forerunners of the San Diego hardcore punk scene of the 1990s.
Head Wound City is an American hardcore punk supergroup consisting of Jordan Blilie and Cody Votolato both of The Blood Brothers, Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Justin Pearson and Gabe Serbian, both of The Locust.
Adam Gnade is a San Diego, California-born American musician and author currently living on a farm in rural Kansas. In his bio he defines his music as "talking-songs", which he describes as mixing the spoken vocals of talking blues songs with country music, Appalachian folk, noise, psychedelic folk and drone music influences. His work is issued as a series of records and books, which continue the stories of each other's characters and further develop plot-lines. Considered a regionalist writer, he writes mostly about San Diego, a bordertown city in Southern California, namely the area around the US/Mexico border, though many of his stories take place to the south of San Diego in the city of Tijuana, Mexico. Gnade also writes stories that take places across the continental US but according to interviews he's done these stories always reflect the Californian's experience on the road.
Narrows is an American mathcore band based in Seattle, but with members "spread out across both the United States and two continents." The band has been described as a supergroup, as its lineup includes Dave Verellen of Botch and members of bands including Unbroken, These Arms Are Snakes and Bullet Union. Narrows is a part-time band. All members have full-time jobs and are starting their own families.
Retox is an American rock band that formed in 2011. The four-piece was founded by Justin Pearson and Gabe Serbian, both of whom had previously performed together in The Locust, Holy Molar and Head Wound City. The two additional members are Thor Dickey and Michael Crain. Serbian was replaced by Brian Evans in 2013. Retox has since been signed to Ipecac Recordings and Epitaph Records and released three studio albums: Ugly Animals (2011), YPLL (2013) and Beneath California (2015).
Dead Cross is an American crossover thrash supergroup formed in Southern California. The band consists of guitarist Michael Crain (Retox), bassist Justin Pearson, drummer Dave Lombardo and vocalist Mike Patton.
This is a discography for the American vocalist and bassist Justin Pearson.
Michael Jason Crain is an American guitarist, singer, producer and songwriter best known as the guitarist of the bands Kill the Capulets, Retox and Dead Cross. He has collaborated with Justin Pearson, Ryan Bergmann, Kevin Avery, Dave Lombardo, Mike Patton among many others.