Slash Records, the independent label that introduced Los Lobos, Violent Femmes, Faith No More and others to a national audience, is back in business.

The label makes its official return August 5th with Salute This, Vol. 1, a compilation that dusts off some of its impressive back catalog, including the Femmes' "Gone Daddy Gone," Faith No More's "Epic," X's "Los Angeles" and L7's "Let's Pretend We're Dead," while also spotlighting its newest signing, the Brooklyn based alt-rock/rap amalgam Shiner Massive and its reggae-dub offshoot Shiner Massive Sound System.

This time out, Slash has been rededicated as Slash/BiggMassive, its new name acknowledging founder and chief overseer Bob Biggs, and his new partner, Will Fulton, the driving force behind Shiner Massive. The goal, Biggs says, is to find the artists "that really want to make authentic music, authentic in their heart, and pull it into the middle of the marketplace and see if we can't make a big fuss."

The original Slash Records took the same approach. Formed out of a Los Angeles-based punk rock magazine in 1978, the label's earliest releases -- including X's first two albums (1980's Los Angeles and 1981's Wild Gift), the soundtrack to the 1981 punk-rock film documentary The Decline of Western Civilization and the self-titled debut from punk-infused roots group the Blasters that same year -- helped define the era.

Slash soon went national thanks to a distribution deal with Warner Bros., and over twenty years brought both acclaim and prominence to such artists as Los Lobos, the BoDeans, Del Fuegos, Violent Femmes, Faith No More, Grant Lee Buffalo, Soul Coughing, Imperial Teen and Harvey Danger.

In 1996, Biggs sold Slash to U.K.-based London Records, but he continued to run the label until 2000, when it became a casualty of the massive Universal/Polygram merger. Biggs temporarily left the business but licensed the name again this year.

Two decades after first founding Slash, Biggs' musical vision is much the same. "We thought it was about kicking the door in and changing the world," says Biggs. "I guess that stuck with me and I feel the best music comes out of that -- that rebellion. So that's why we came back, to do that again."

Slash/BiggMissive will open with a series of compilations -- Salute This, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 are already set -- to help reestablish itself, putting tracks from the label's archive next to songs from its new acts. Shiner Massive and Shiner Massive Sound System will then follow with full-length albums.

Biggs likens the Shine Massive collective to one of his past successes, Faith No More. "It's guitar-driven, rap-ish, but this has a little more jungle-y kind of music, electronic stuff, and a little bit of reggae in it," he says. "I just like that you can take all those things and get it into one record, and do it with a punk-ish delivery."

However, Biggs is not divulging who else he's set his sights on, citing competition in the business as a need to keep his interests secret. One thing for sure, it's a certain type of artist that can fit the Slash mold. "This is gonna sound ridiculous but when you get a really good artist, when you know someone's gonna work, it's that they can't do anything other than what they're doing," he says. "[If] you can't envision them holding down a straight job, then you've got a chance. I look at that more than a lot of other things. Because, in that, you learn what the commitment is, what the passion is, what the real belief is -- and you have to have all that if it's gonna happen."

NEAL WEISS
(July 10, 2003)