The Formative Years - Ebullition Records
The first time I heard about Ebullition Records was when there was talk around the campfire of that a gentleman that was known to me as a Maximum Rock’n’roll / No Answer zine contributor, i.e. Kent McClard, was planning to release a full length of one of my favourite bands from Orange County, California, i.e. Inside Out. Having evolved from the more rudimentary Hard Stance, Inside Out channelled everything I love about hardcore from NYC and DC as they further infused it with their idiosyncratic skewed riffing and the way Zack de la Rocha delivered his manically sincere lyrics.
Unfortunately the full length on Ebullition Records never came to fruition and Inside Out released its only 7” on Revelation Records instead , however, it put Ebullition Records firmly on my radar and when the first release on the label saw the light of day, I was not disappointed: Downcast’s fantastic debut 7” “Hate comes easy” set the tone. Accompanied by the ninth issue of No Answers zine, it was the perfect combo to herald the advent of Ebullition Records and unleash an array of genre-coining releases by bands that stylistically traversed territory between screamo, emo and contemporary hardcore punk, with the common denominator being a commitment to DIY ethics.
Having honed his craft by writing for MRR and No Answers, Ebullition Records eventually launched its own fanzine Hearattack in 1994, which was not only affordable and served as a thought provoking forum to not only introduce the labels’ new bands and releases, but the label’s ethos and quickly ascended to become a veritable mouthpiece and thinktank for a new wave of bands and that set out to counteract the commercialisation and infiltration of punk in the wake of Nirvana’s success.
Meeting some of the protagonists on trips to the US and during the first European tours of Ebullition Records’ bands only intensified my interest along with the fact that Kent McClard took a hardline stance against distributing his or other records with barcodes to not have his releases become available through mainstream chain stores, which necessitated for the listener to find Ebullition Records and its bands as it deliberately operated off the grid in a bid to keep unwanted mainstream attention out of the picture and keep things within a self-defined microcosm.
