Yep Roc Records: Not busted

Yep Roc Records wasn’t a major player in the Whiskeytown saga; in fact, the label isn’t mentioned at all in the text of “Losering.” But some of the band’s music did come out bearing the Yep Roc imprint back in the day, on compilations the label released — including what I’d rank as the worst Whiskeytown recording ever to be commercially released. That’s “Busted,” a track on 1997’s Revival Volume II. “Busted” is a “track” rather a “song,” because it’s just 96 seconds of wanky in-the-studio noodling with Ryan freestyling about cigarette theft (a possible foreshadowing of some of the goofy rap stuff he would be posting on the “Cardinal Jukebox” some years later).

But don’t hold that against Yep Roc, a label that has put out a lot of fine music over the last decade and a half. Yep Roc is marking its 15th anniversary this weekend with a bunch of acts from its roster playing at the Cat’s Cradle. There’s a story about that here; and here is a 2000 feature, from back in the days when there were still record stores (remember them?).