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The first companion compilation to the documentary, The Smart Studios Story, about the legendary studio and the Midwest link to 30 years of independent rock and roll. If you've been touched by the music of Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, L7 and many others, you've been touched by the music created at Smart Studios. Volume 1 captures the earliest songs recorded at the studio in Madison, Wisconsin between 1983 and 1990 when Butch Vig and Steve Marker were reveling in the pure stink of a rock 'n' roll community that wasn't interested in what was happening on MTV. If you understand noise to be the sound that disrupts the expectations of the mainstream musical culture, then this limited collection is pure necessity. Indie bands in the mid to late 80s and early 90s were DIY before DIY became a cliche, and Smart Studios was the perfect outlet for a community of musicians whose idea of success had little more to do with putting on a local show for their friends than it did with catching the eye of an A&R guy with a coke spoon around his neck. The highest praise you give the cuts on this album is that they don't sound like anything. You'll hear echoes of the Ramones and the Kinks and roughly a thousand other bands, but Butch and Steve never set out to imitate anything. Smart's sound was the sound of innocence and diversity. Side one's noisy and raw - side two could almost pass for a compilation of Sixties singles that somehow never made it to radio. Smart had room for pop, punk, hardcore and harmony, and Butch and Steve brought a Midwest work ethic, humility, and some of the eighties' best ears. They listened hard and figured out how to make the bands make the records the bands wanted to make. The two would evolve into world-class craftsmen, but they never forgot that intuition and love of music, and noise, were what it was all about.

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