Label Profile
Touch & Go/Quarterstick Records
Chicago, Illinois
Profiled by Colin McElligatt
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Founded at the dizzying outset of American indie rock, Touch & Go Records, along with its sister label, Quarterstick, has been the home to some of the most influential and indelible indie rock records of all time. Looking back at the twin labels’ accumulative rosters is like reading a compendium of the best underground music of the past twenty years; Slint, Big Black, Butthole Surfers, Jesus Lizard, Rodan, Mekons, Don Cabellero, Dirty Three, Calexico-- it’s all there. Where other labels like SST and Matador have faltered, Touch and Go has remained bracingly consistent.

Touch & Go was the brainchild of Midwesterner Corey Rusk. The label’s name derived from a fanzine started by Rusk during the preliminary rumblings of the underground rock phenomenon that would go on to be known as “indie.” Little did Rusk know that the small imprint he began to release his friends’ seven inches would be at the vanguard of the movement.

The first records pressed by the label were singles that accompanied the ’zine, many from young punk upstarts like the Necros, The Fix, and Meatmen, bands who took the hardcore ideals of Black Flag and married them with twisted, dark, and macabre tones, a style that would carry on throughout the label’s history. The first handful of LP releases were relatively forgettable affairs from the aforementioned artists, as well as contemporaries such as Killdozer and Die Kreuzen. It wasn’t until the Locust Abortion Technician LP by Texas-bred maniacs Butthole Surfers that the label began to gain more widespread recognition by racking up what would become one of the most respected artist stables in the business.

As the eighties progressed, the records flowed with an unrivaled consistency that had not been seen since the heyday of Greg Ginn’s SST. Near the decade’s close, Rusk formed Quarterstick, a subsidiary of sorts that has come to dabble in more understated, cerebral fare, such as the classical-minded Rachael’s and desert rockers Calexico. With the new label came increased success for Touch & Go, not only in the form of records like Slint’s Spiderland and Shellac’s At Action Park, but in a distribution deal with Europe’s Southern as well. This state has only flourished since, perhaps due in part to the mainstream popularity of former Touch & Go allies Girls Against Boys and Urge Overkill in the mid- 1990s.

Although classic acts such as Big Black, Jesus Lizard, and Butthole Surfers have since dispersed (the latter after a long, painful, and well-publicized legal dispute with Rusk), Touch & Go and Quarterstick still reliably release fine records by some of the best bands around. Late 90s successes like Black Heart Procession, Brainiac, Blonde Redhead, and June of 44 paved the way for recent critical favorites like the Shipping News, New Year, and Enon, proving that while these two labels’ heydays may be behind them, there is still a very bright future ahead.

Label Roster Highlights:: Big Black, Jesus Lizard, Butthole Surfers, Scratch Acid, Urge Overkill, Rapeman, Slint, Shellac, Polvo, Seam, Don Cabellero, Girls Against Boys, Brainiac, Delta 72, Man or Astroman?, Blonde Redhead, Silkworm, Dirty Three, Black Heart Procession, New Year; (Quarterstick) Henry Rollins, Mekons, June of 44, Rachael’s, Shipping News, Calexico, Tara Jane O’Neil.

Fifteen Essential Releases:
Slint - Spiderland
Butthole Surfers - Locust Abortion Technician
Big Black - Songs About Fucking
Jesus Lizard - Liar
Rodan - Rusty
The Mekons - I Love Mekons
Girls Against Boys - Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby
Shellac - Terraform
Don Cabellero - II
Brainiac - Hissing Prigs In Static Couture
The Shipping News - Save Everything
Dirty Three - Horse Stories
Rachel’s - The Sea and Bells
Calexico - The Hot Rail
Enon - High Society