I doubt Rick Rubin would've expected that he would be birthing the career of one of the most prolific audio
engineers in recent years when he signed Barkmarket to American in late 1991. This New York-based noise-rock
trio fronted by Dave Sardy was loud, artsy and unafraid to make music that could barely be described as
commercial, with complex time signatures, sheet metal percussion solos and mic-peaking screamed vocals.
American reissued Barkmarket’s debut album Vegas Throat, produced by Sardy himself, in early 1992 as the
group went to work on a second album, leaving critics baffled yet curious to the band’s potential.
1993’s Gimmick and 1994’s Lardroom EP saw the band return in full force, with Sardy once again taking the
production helm and taking as much advantage of the better equipment available as he could. Despite being
arguably even stranger releases than Vegas Throat, the nearly-industrial rock singles “Whipping Boy” and
“Dumbjaw” from Gimmick and “I Drown” from Lardroom all received a good bit of MTV airplay and the releases
were surprise hits with critics. These were the ones to put Barkmarket on the map… kind of.
The group’s next release, L Ron, wouldn’t come out until 1996, not because of band disputes or label troubles,
but because Dave Sardy was finding other work. After both producing Cop Shoot Cop’s fourth album Release and
engineering The Cult’s self-titled sixth album in 1994, other artists began to take notice of just how
proficient Sardy was with audio equipment. Between 1994 and 1996 Sardy would work as a producer and/or mixer
for groups like Skeleton Key, Orange 9mm, Helmet, the Red Hot Chili Peppers (on multiple releases) and Slayer,
with the consequence of this being that it majorly cut into his time spent with his band.
Despite L Ron showcasing the band at their most efficient both in production and musicianship, being praised as
their best album yet and selling decently well, alongside Sardy confirming that a fourth album was in the works,
the band unceremoniously split in 1997, as Sardy’s engineering duties were simply becoming too much to balance
with the group. Sardy is still a prolific producer to this day, having worked with a wide range of artists from
LCD Soundsystem, System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine and Marilyn Manson to Fall Out Boy, Oasis, the
Rolling Stones and Johnny Cash. He has also found success as a film composer, writing the scores for films such
as Zombieland, 21 Jump Street and The Beekeeper. While Barkmarket may be seen as just a footnote in Dave Sardy’s
abundant career, their music is still worth investigating if only to see where one of the biggest audio engineers
of the past three decades got his start.
Rick Rubin loves Flipper. The first release on Def Jam was an EP by Hose, a band Rubin was in that was blatantly
trying to ape Flipper’s sound, and he had also played in a Flipper tribute band. So when he heard that the
intentionally lethargic, dissonant and patience-testing “punk” group had reunited in 1990 with new material
after splitting three years prior, he couldn’t sign them to American fast enough. This seemingly paid off the
following year, when Nirvana hit it big and the news broke that Kurt Cobain was a huge fan, shortly after which
American reissued their cult-classic first album, Generic, with promises of a new album the following year.
That album would arrive in early 1993 as American Grafishy, to… whatever the opposite of fanfare is. The album
was clearly a band trying to replicate the sound of their glory days, and the album’s cleaner production, more
upbeat songwriting and lighter lyrical themes were a stark contrast from the nonstop noisy nihilism the band
had become (in)famous for. The album was met with general apathy from critics and consumers alike, repelling
old fans and failing to draw in newcomers, and the band would break up again before the year was over, after
their bassist died of an overdose - the same reason they disbanded in 1987.
However, American still held the rights to Flipper’s back catalog until the label split from Warner Bros. in
1997, and Rubin used this to reissue their singles collection Sex Bomb Baby in 1995, to equal amounts of
inattention. Despite the group’s (and Rubin’s) best attempts at breaching the mainstream, trying to sell
Flipper’s overwhelming musical negativity to a mass audience was a futile effort, though it at least helped the
group’s early material gain a larger following and further solidify their places as punk cult classics.
The music of British label Too Pure would eventually fully migrate to America after the label struck a deal
with American that eventually led to them forming a US division, but before that we had Elektra gaining
distribution rights to Th’ Faith Healers in mid-1992. By this point the only Too Pure artist to leave the
label’s native London was PJ Harvey, whose bluesy indie tunes had already found international critical acclaim
and secured her a deal with Island Records that would ultimately last until 2022. With that it only makes sense
that American majors would be pursuing the rest of the label’s catalog… which at this point was only three
other bands - Th’ Faith Healers, Stereolab and Moonshake. Pickings were slim, and while the next year Elektra
would obtain Stereolab, after indie label Matador nabbed Moonshake, the major had to make do with the Healers.
And with that, Elektra brought over the band’s debut album Lido in late 1992. To call it commercial would be
less than accurate; in case the album having a cover of Can’s “Mother Sky” didn’t make it obvious, the Healers
were clearly fans of late-60s and early-70s krautrock, with the album consisting almost entirety of distorted
melodies played ad nauseum with minimal repeated lyrics drowning in a sea of lush noise. Conventional song
structures were nowhere to be heard, with most songs having a single verse and each song having mechanical
melodies that built upon themselves without ever really changing, each being an exercise in maintaining a
groove and doing the most with the least. While the album received the PJ Harvey-adjacent acclaim Elektra was
hoping for, its unconventional take on just about everything indie rock made it a hard sell, and the band
struggled to find gigs with larger bands, often playing alongside other semi-popular indie-label groups like
Superchunk and Unrest.
The band’s second album Imaginary Friend came stateside in early 1994, and while Elektra correctly predicted
they would have another critical darling on their hands, this second effort was an even harder sell to consumers.
All the minimalist, repetitive noise melodies of the previous album were pushed as far as they could go here,
resulting in an album that saw the band reaching their creative peak and their commercial nadir, culminating in a
20-minute closing track in which the band sees how far they can stretch a single melody before it breaks. Even
securing tour dates as an opening act for the Breeders at that group’s peak of popularity couldn’t help the
Healers shift any more units.
The group split not long after, but seeing as Elektra had already partnered with Too Pure again to bring
Stereolab stateside to much greater success, this wasn’t a big loss for either label. While Stereolab is easily
the most memorable of Elektra’s deals with Too Pure, Th’ Faith Healers helped pave the way for that group’s
future success, and the band lives on both through a massive cult following and as a historical stepping stone
in Too Pure’s quick rise to indie fame in the early-90s.
Of all the industrial bands to get signed after Ministry and Nine Inch Nails proved the genre had commercial
potential Cop Shoot Cop was perhaps the strangest. Having a lineup of two bass players, no guitarist, a guy
with a sampler and a drummer who also banged pieces of sheet metal together, CSC wreaked havoc in their native
NYC with their discordant, metallic sound and ruthlessly satirical and political lyrics. What really made them
seem profitable, though, was their unexpected success in the UK, where the band became somewhat of a surprise
hit for indie label Big Cat, inciting Interscope to sign them stateside.
The first results of this partnership were 1992’s Suck City EP and 1993’s Ask Questions Later, both of which
saw the band at its poppiest yet, which is to say they were still pretty harsh. While the dark edge of both
their sound and lyrics were still present in full force, the song structures were noticeably more melodic,
almost theatrical, leading to the singles “Room 429” and “$10 Bill” getting a good bit of MTV airplay as
somewhat of a breather among heavier industrial groups. The album sold decently well and was warmly received by
critics, who noted the group’s combination of harsh sounds with more conventional song structures. The group
was on their way to bigger and better things…
…or at least bigger. The next year saw CSC add a new member - a guitarist. This, combined with a smaller
presence of samples and a much cleaner production sound (courtesy of Barkmarket’s Dave Sardy), ensured the
group’s next album would be much more accessible. Release was exactly that, being more or less a heavier
alternative rock album with industrial undertones. Critics and fans were mostly apathetic, arguing that this
change in sound cost the band most of its identity and charm and relegated them to just another industrial
group, in a time where they were starting to become much more common. This didn't seem to dampen anyone’s
spirits though, and the band got to work on their fifth album with an expected release date of 1996.
Then that year things just kind of fell apart. Reports are conflicting - Ashley states Interscope had treated
the band poorly and the band refused to let the label release the album, while every other member states the
label had been nothing but supportive and that the album was nearly done. Either way, this resulted in Ashley
quitting the band. The remaining members still tried getting the album released, at which point Interscope
dropped them, perhaps fearing an identity crisis from a band who had already undergone a shift in sound now
being without a frontman. The album eventually found release on a local label as Red Expendables, and with
all the other members going on to form or join other bands (and in some cases finding greater success), it
seems unlikely Cop Shoot Cop will ever reunite, though their music still maintains a sizable cult following
among industrial fans.
Tad had built a reputation for themselves as being among the earliest grunge groups, as well as one of the
heaviest, having played sludgy, deep-country doom metal dirges since the mid-80s. With their reputation as
one of the forefathers of grunge, along with their appearance in the film Singles and the fact they originated
from Sub Pop - the same label that birthed Nirvana - it only makes sense that Tad would be under the major
label magnifying glass. The group would end up signing with Warner Bros. subsidiary Giant in late 1992, in the
first of what would become a string of misfortunes for them.
The group made their major label debut with 1993’s Inhaler, featuring production from J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr.
Despite this connection to a newly-popular group, and the surprisingly positive reviews the album got, Tad’s
brand of harsh machismo grooves and irreverent, darkly humorous lyrics remained a hard sell. On top of this,
the group’s frontman, Tad Doyle, wasn’t exactly a figure young grunge fans idolized, being an over-300-pound
powerhouse who deliberately went against the “rockstar” image and simply did what he wanted. Even a tour
opening for Soundgarden the following year couldn’t net the band better sales, though that wasn’t what soured
their relationship with the label - it was a poster for said tour that featured an edited picture of Bill
Clinton smoking a joint, which Giant objected to and dropped the band on the spot upon being made aware of it.
Such filth!
Fresh off the biggest tour of their career and having lost both their record deal and their guitar player, who
split after said tour, Tad spent most of the year getting by however they could. All hope was not lost though,
as in late 1994 the band secured another deal, this time a joint partnership with Elektra and EastWest
(ironically, both also subsidiaries of WB). It was here the group released easily their strangest album,
Infrared Riding Hood, being an odd Frankensteinian cocktail of seemingly every popular metal and grunge band at
the time, with songs ranging from somewhat radio-friendly to deliberately off-putting and confrontational. The
label had faith in them, though, advertising the album alongside a new release from Clutch, a bluesy stoner
metal group that was decidedly a much easier sell. Everything seemed to be looking good…
…then EastWest fired A&R representative Wendy Berry - the person who had signed both Tad and Clutch. Both
groups were dropped on the spot, and the two albums, which had both been out for barely a month, were deleted
from the label’s catalogue, instantly putting them out of print. With lukewarm reviews from critics and the
album’s removal from shelves nixing any chance the band had of promoting it themselves, this was the beginning
of the end for Tad, who soldiered on almost entirely as a live act until 1999, only releasing a few singles in
the four years following their being signed and dropped by two major labels in less than three years. While the
band never reached mainstream success despite their best efforts, and frontman Tad Doyle has shot down any
chances of a reunion, Tad is often cited as one of the best grunge acts to never hit it big, as well as a
cautionary tale of just about everything that can go wrong with major labels seeking out the next big thing.
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