Which guitarist founded the punk label SST Records?

Guitarist Greg Ginn founded the punk label SST Records. He originally created the company as Solid State Tuners, a mail-order business selling modified surplus radio equipment, and later repurposed it to release music by his band Black Flag.

SST became a crucial independent label in the American punk and hardcore scene. When other labels failed to release Black Flag’s recordings, Ginn used his experience with pressing, printing, and mail-order distribution to issue the Nervous Breakdown EP in January 1979. The label then expanded beyond Black Flag, releasing influential records by the Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Bad Brains, Saint Vitus, and Sonic Youth.

The other choices are associated with important punk labels: Jello Biafra co-founded Alternative Tentacles, Brett Gurewitz founded Epitaph Records, and Ian MacKaye co-founded Dischord Records. None founded SST. Ginn’s label helped build the nationwide underground network that shaped American indie and alternative rock in the 1980s.