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415 Records – Discography

415 Records ‎– Discography

This index will cover the label’s earliest releases


A. Singles and EPs (7″)

1. The Offs ‎– Everyone’s A Bigot / 0°
Label: 415 Records
Catalog Number: 911×39
Format: Vinyl, 7″, 45 RPM, Single
Released: 1978

Notes: Some copies came with an Insert


2. The Nuns ‎– The Nuns
Label: 415 Records
Catalog Number: SUB 01
Format: Vinyl, 7″, 45 RPM, EP
Released: 1978

Notes: “Savage” is a different (rougher) version than the one on the self-titled LP. All tracks recorded live at Keystone Palo Alto, early march 1977.

3. The Impostors ‎– Night Time T.V.
Label: 415 Records
Catalog Number: #3
Format: Vinyl, 7″, 45 RPM, EP
Released: 1979




4. Pearl Harbor And The Explosions ‎– Drivin’
Label: 415 Records
Catalog Number: none
Format: Vinyl, 7″, 45 RPM, Single
Released: June 1979




5. SVT ‎– Heart Of Stone
Label: 415 Records
Catalog Number: S0005
Format: Vinyl, 7″, 45 RPM, Single
Released: 1979

Notes: Side 1 recorded at Tewksbury Sound in December 1978; Side A recorded at Different Fur in June 1979.


6. The Mutants ‎– New Dark Ages
Label: 415 Records
Catalog Number: 34859
Format: Vinyl, 7″, 45 RPM, EP
Released: 1980

Notes: Three versions issued (no priority): green logo version (shown) has a large juke-box style hole and the logo on the front reads “THE MUTANTS”; red logo version has a small spindle hole and the front reads “the MUTANTs*”, version with no extra color screen printing reads “MUTNTS”, like the label.

7. Baby Buddha ‎– Stand By Your Man
Label: 415 Records
Catalog Number: none
Format: Vinyl, 7″, 45 RPM, 33 ⅓ RPM, Promo
Released: 1980

Notes: Promo “Not For Sale or Airplay”


8. The Impostors! ‎– Don’t Get Mad / It’s Better This Way
Label: 415 Records
Catalog Number: none
Format: Vinyl, 7″, 45 RPM, Single
Released: 1980




9. Jo Allen And The Shapes ‎– Cryin’ Over You / Lowlife
Label: 415 Records
Catalog Number: S-0008
Format: Vinyl, 7″, 45 RPM, Single
Released: 1980

10. VKTMS ‎– 100% White Girl / No Long Good-Byes
Label: 415 Records
Catalog Number: S-0010
Format: Vinyl, 7″, 45 RPM, Single
Released: 1980


B. LPs and EPs (12″)

1. SVT ‎– Extended Play
Label: 415 Records
Catalog Number: A0002
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 33 1/3 RPM, EP
Released: 1980

2. Units ‎– Digital Stimulation
Label: 415 Records
Catalog Number: A-0003
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 33 1/3, LP
Released: 1980


C. Compilations (all vinyl formats)

1. Various ‎– 415 Music
Label: 415 Records
Catalog Number: A0001
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 33 1/3 RPM, LP
Released: 1980

Notes: Contributors include: Readymades, Times 5, The Mutants, 391, Sudden Fun, The Donuts, SVT, The Symptonms, The VIPs, Jo Allen and the Shapes, The Offs.

415 Records

415 Records was a San Francisco record label created in 1978. The label focused its efforts on local punk rock and new wave music acts of the late 1970s through the late 1980s, including The Offs, The Nuns, The Units, Romeo Void, and Wire Train. Its name, pronounced four-one-five (not four-fifteen), was a play on both the telephone area code for the San Francisco area and the California penal code section for disturbing the peace (indeed, in some promotional material, the phrase “disturbing the peace” was written underneath the 415 logo). The label had a productive partnership with Columbia Records from 1981 until shortly before it was sold in 1989 to Sandy Pearlman, who retitled the label Popular Metaphysics.


Discography [coming soon]


History
415 Records was founded in San Francisco in 1978 by entrepreneurs Howie Klein, Chris Knab, and Butch Bridges. Klein was a writer and entertainment promoter, Knab owned an eclectic record store in the Noe Valley section of San Francisco Aquarius Records, and Bridges was a music collector and retailer. Klein and Knab had become friends when Klein did some photography for his friend Harvey Milk, whose camera store was next door to Knab’s Aquarius Records on Castro Street. They worked together on various radio shows around the Bay Area, including an alternative radio show on KSAN, and they started recording and promoting local musicians out of Knab’s record store.

Klein ran the label from a tiny office on 16th Street in the Mission, a district of San Francisco, where he kept a pushpin-covered United States map on his wall, bearing a sign that read, “All Bands on Tour All the Time.” Klein used his own late-night weekend radio shows to showcase his artist’s records and he promoted them all over the country to nightclubs, record stores, and a newly blossoming array of other alternative radio stations. His artists were part of the 1980s San Francisco rock underground, though Klein leaned more toward the accessible, fun, new wave bands than the thrash metal and hard-core punk bands who were also part of that scene. 415 was the first North American record label to focus on punk and new wave music and they featured mostly musicians from the San Francisco region, though the label eventually also included artists from other areas. The British label Stiff Records had done similarly two years earlier; marketing England’s emergent 1970s pub rock scene as punk and new wave and releasing their first record in August 1976.

415’s first release was a 1978 single by The Offs, entitled Everyone’s a Bigot, with 0° on the B-side (cat#911-39, 1978). Subsequent early releases included 7″ EPs by SVT (cat#S0005, 1979), The Nuns (cat#SUB01, 1979),and Pearl Harbor and the Explosions Drivin’ (uncatalogued, 1979). Later records included a 7″ by The Mutants (cat#34859, 1980), an album by The Units (cat#A0003, 1980), a 12″ 33⅓ RPM album by Romeo Void (cat# 415A-0007, 1981), a mini-album by New Math (cat#A0008, 1981), and various other releases for many other bands.