Format: 2LP

There’s a lot to say about Soundgarden’s Ultramega OK, the band’s first studio album and SST debut, but I want to focus on the record. 

When Soundgarden signed with SST in 1988 it had recorded several demos of the songs that would end up on UMOK. The sessions were produced by Jack Endino, who recorded an album called Bleach by a little known band called Nirvana. (I have a story about that record that blew my tiny little mind, but you’re going to have to wait for the book.)

SST wanted Soundgarden to record at a 16-track mobile studio called Dogfish that Black Flag had used to record its second live album, Who’s Got the 10 ½? Soundgarden was familiar with the studio; they’d recorded an EP for Sub Pop with Dogfish. Long story short, Soundgarden never liked the final mix and even approached Greg Ginn about remixing it, who gave his approval. But life got in the way. Or, in Soundgarden’s case, rock superstardom. 

This week I received a copy in the mail of the remixed and remastered UMOKreleased by Sup Pop in 2017. It’s a gorgeous package with embossed cover, extensive liner notes from guitarist Kim Thayil and Jack Endino, new images, etc. The package is a double album gatefold with a bonus EP that includes remixes of many of the demos that Endino recorded. 

I won’t recount how the reissue came to be as that’s covered in the liner notes or how Soundgarden got its record back as that’s covered in the book, but I will say that it was released two months before Chris Cornell died. 

Thayil is generous in his notes toward SST but holding the package in my hands and listening to the album, I can’t help but think of it as a lost opportunity for SST. Nothing like it exists in SST’s catalog. No anniversary reissues, no special edition remixes, no boxed sets with bonus material.

Why? Because the owner of SST Records isn’t interested in running his business like a normal record label. To be clear, SST does sell vinyl reissues for many, but not all, of its top selling releases, but much of the catalog isn’t available on vinyl, CD, cassette, or even streaming services. It just sits there and that’s a shame. Although it took almost 30 years to finally make it right, the expanded edition of Ultramega OK is a shining example of a band and an independent record label working together to get it right.