A Short History

 

Nobody cares…that's what we thought when we started Artifix Records. The ironic thing is that we've been putting out music in one form or another since 1985. Greg started releasing real-time low budget cassettes by his own bands and other local bands from the California high desert area of Victorville/Apple Valley during the boring year of 1985. Greg named the tape company after his own band, C.U.R.S.E., and put out several cassettes. The tapes were only distributed locally and few tapes were ever actually sold, although the tape company advertised in the Victor Valley College newspaper. The biggest seller was probably the C.U.R.S.E. 1987 demo tape which sold around 60 copies? There were big plans for the company, but due to bad local newspaper exposure and harassment by police, the tape company and our fanzine Disturbed Minds imploded out of frustration. After a few years of trying to sort out life, Greg tried to start a TV show about the local music scene, but the pilot show was only half finished when the money and interest ran out. Shortly after this fiasco, Greg decided to give the music biz another whirl and started Signal Sound Systems Records (SSSR) in 1991. Greg and Kim hooked up during this time and focused on bands from the Inland Empire and Orange County areas of Southern California. SSSR was the label that gave the Voodoo Glow Skulls their big break before moving on to Dr. Strange and Epitaph. SSSR put out around 14 releases which included several for the Voodoo Glow Skulls and others including Guttermouth, Large Hardware, Dead Lazlo's Place, Butt Trumpet and many local bands. SSSR received much attention during 1991-1993; despite this the label did not last. SSSR was trying to put out great records by unknown bands, but the punks were not buying them. After too many losses and too many scenes of drama between the label and bands, SSSR petered out around 1994. Fast forward to 2002…Greg and Kim were busy trying to exist in a world dominated by stupidity and not having much fun at it. Both of them liked the same old bands and wished that they would come around again. Greg thought "nobody cares" about punk bands of the past. The Killed By Death series and Grand Theft Audio's releases were big inspirations as they served to reintroduce many forgotten bands to the young punks of today. Thus, we decided to get our feet muddy in the music biz again. This time would be different. Instead of working with up and coming bands, we decided to only work with bands that were defunct and had played only during the seminal years of punk; 1976-1983. We felt that we were on a noble mission. Not only would we reintroduce old, mostly forgotten bands, but we would give them the proper archival treatment. All of our releases on Artifix Records come with several pages of biographical info, flyers, vintage photos, and so on. On our CDs we try include all studio tracks, demos, rare live songs and even vintage video when possible. It's 2006 and we are still going. We are having fun and really enjoying all the great music we've been able to uncover and wonderful people that we have gotten to meet along the way. We hope to bring you many more great releases in the future and hope that you will continue to support our efforts.