Turn It Around!

Background and production

In the summer of 1987, Maximumrocknroll decided to put together a compilation album to raise money for the Gilman Street Project, the first wave of bands from the local Berkeley, California DIY punk scene centered on the 924 Gilman Street venue. Hayes also saw this as a chance to document the bands, as almost all of them had no recordings available at that point. Initially wanting to record it at 924 Gilman Street, Hayes set up a "Battle of the Bands" concert in July where the bands played a number of their songs and the compilation tracks would be chosen later. However, the recording went out in the middle of the concert, so Hayes took this as an opportunity to choose the bands and songs beforehand. The only recording saved from the concert was the Yeastie Girlz track "Yeast Power", which was engineered by Radley Hirsch and later featured on the compilation. With everything chosen, most of the bands set out to record their songs with Kevin Army at Dangerous Rhythm Studio in Oakland, California in August. Corrupted Morals recorded its track at Art of Ears Studio in San Francisco and Nasal Sex went to Creative Sound in San Jose with Dick Dias. After the recordings were done, George Horn mastered the album at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley.

Packaging

The title, Turn It Around!, was chosen by Maximumrocknroll founder Tim Yohannon as a reference to the punk scene and them trying to "reestablish a sense of community" within it. "At a time when the scene is plagued by mindless violence, intimidation, vandalism and general stupidity" Yohannon said, "when it's all becoming more like the mainstream than an alternative, there are groups of dedicated people who are determined to fight back and revitalize things." The front cover was taken by Cammie Toloui of the Yeastie Girlz and, although the man on the front is unknown, he is referred to as "Walter" on the back cover. Hayes handled the layout and packaging, and put together an extensive booklet of the bands' pictures and lyrics to all of the songs and sent the artwork to Positive Press in Oakland to be printed. It was later decided before release that the compilation would be on two 7-inch records, which Hayes said was a "statement, maybe we're trying to set an example to get people off of their asses and create something." He further stated that "Most distributors won't even take 7-inches to begin with, so we're obviously not in it for the money." The album was pressed at a pressing plant called Alberti in Monterey Park, California.

Release and influence

Turn It Around! was released in early October 1987 with an original pressing of 2,000 copies that here numbered. The album was a success within the punk scene and it served as an introduction to the scene for many fans. Its initial pressing sold out by 1989 and was out of print for the next two years. In September 1991, Hayes reissued Turn It Around! on his own label Very Small Records. This version did not come with the booklet and did not have the original cover intact, instead cutting up images from the booklet and pasting them together to make the artwork. It was also released as one LP rather than the original double 7-inch. This was because of the length of the album, as each original 7-inch was about 15 minutes, resulting in its poor sound quality.

In recent years, Turn It Around! has been regarded as a classic punk compilation album and proved to be influential to many later Gilman Street bands. Many people of the scene have given it praise as well, including Chris Applegren of Lookout Records, who called the compilation "legendary" on his blog. Billie Joe Armstrong, vocalist-guitarist of Green Day, has also cited it as an influence, stating in an interview with Time magazine in 2010 that it was a "pretty big record for [him]".

Personnel

Corrupted Morals

Sweet Baby Jesus

Isocracy

No Use for a Name

Crimpshrine

Operation Ivy

Stikky

Nasal Sex

Yeastie Girlz

Rabid Lassie

Sewer Trout

Buggerall

Production