In an era cluttered with music industry noise, Mint 400 Records stands as a beacon of authenticity. Mint 400 Records has made waves with its exceptional compilation albums, including full cover albums of The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" and Nirvana's "In Utero." Their latest offering, a compilation featuring 32 tracks from the '90s grunge, indie, and alternative rock era, epitomizes the label's eclectic approach. From Radiohead and Bjork to Alice In Chains and Soundgarden, this compilation captures the essence of a generation with exact replicas and innovative reinterpretations.
Mint 400 Records remains an oasis for musicians in a world often marred by industry noise, where music reigns supreme. Their latest compilation invites music lovers to join the journey, celebrating the purity of sound.
Today @ Blood Makes Noise we highlight some of the more Indie tracks from the compilation with Tom Barrett, The Brixton Riot and Tom Maroon who cover 90's classics from Folk Implosion, Lemonheads & Beck.
Jersey City Folk Musician Tom Barrett who now resides in Nashville:
Why did you pick the specific cover you did?
I’ve just always loved the song. I thought it’d be a fun activity not to reimagine it but to just try and recreate it. There’s so much going on with it, lots of different layers and textures. I didn’t want to mess with the feel too much. It’s a song I listened to pretty obsessively in my youth so I was able to do most of it from memory, apart from remembering some lyrics. I actually recorded a good chunk of it while in the waiting room at the Nissan dealership. Our car needed about a half-day’s worth of work, I had my laptop with me and just got cracking.
Why is the band you covered important to you?
Lou Barlow has always been a tremendously important influence of mine, I’ve always connected with his songs pretty intensely. I was already a huge Dinosaur Jr and Sebadoh fan by 1995 when I’d record covers of his songs on my four-track, so I was excited to find out there was yet another band of his for me to obsess over. And the more I learned about the Folk Implosion, the more endeared I was to the relationship between him and his bandmate John Davis, like how they’d split their songwriting and playing duties completely evenly. That idea was a huge part of their identity as a band in a way. One of the records even has “50/50” drawn somewhere on the cover. Their last record (One Part Lullaby) was a big one for me. Lou’s actually responsible for a few of my favorite records. He’s one of the pillars of my own musical infrastructure, a voice I can always turn on when I need some calm.
Tell us about the first time you heard that song?
I first heard it when I saw the video for “Natural One” on 120 Minutes. It was instantly catchy and the video had striking visuals. Very colorful with some memorable images, like the worms and that drinking bird and stuff. I was really excited when the song made it into the Buzz Bin and became a hit. I personally never got upset when that would happen, like “the band’s not mine anymore” or whatever. I always thought it was a good thing. More people were now listening to what I considered to be good music that meant something to me, it gave me hope and made me feel a little more understood by people or something.
Why was the 90's a magical time in music?
I don’t know, I can’t put it into words, they just were. Probably for the same reasons why other periods of history in music were magical for other people during their own times. For me, hearing bands like Sebadoh and Pavement and Guided by Voices and Built to Spill for the very first time at that age, and discovering labels like Matador and Merge and Drag City, I feel like it was my good fortune to have been around and in my early 20’s as it was happening. Indie rock in the 90’s was a revelation that kind of saved me, I think. It was music that sounded new and different, and it didn’t seem so style-conscious like other genres of rock and roll did. The bands were relatable, they looked more like me and less like your average rock stars coming out of the 80’s. There was also some degree of musical diversity among all the different groups, a nice cross-referencing of what were some fairly obscure earlier influences during that time. Because I’d follow all these bands so closely, I’d see and hear some older names get mentioned in interviews, like Silver Apples and Nick Drake.
Another huge reason why I’d say it was a magical time is that I would get to cross paths with so many amazing folks who would become lifelong friends, people I’ve known since my early twenties whom I still know to this day. We’d play music together, go see shows in Hoboken back when it was fun, go to house parties in Jersey City, get trashed and jam until 4am with the cops barely bothering us. Now we’re older, a stroll down memory lane is good once in a while, but mostly we go back and forth about what’s going on now and all the new bands. Most of them remind us of the old bands in some way or another. It’s nice.
The Brixton Riot is a staple of the Central Jersey Indie Rock Scene:
Why did you pick the specific cover you did?
We love doing these compilation record covers but the hardest part is narrowing down to a single song that we all can agree on covering. The Lemonheads is an easy choice - we've performed entire shows of nothing but Lemonheads covers - but even picking out a single Lemonheads song proved to be a challenge. Mallo Cup made the most sense in the end, as it combined the band's harder roots with the more melodic songs that would follow on the later records.
Why is the band you covered important to you?
There are a lot of parallel musical tastes in our band, but there are only a handful of groups that the four of us completely align on, and The Lemonheads is probably the perfect example of that. They provided a blueprint for what we wanted to sound like as a band - sometimes they are polished and sometimes they are rough around the edges, they can play soft pop ballads one minute and borderline hardcore the next, but all of it is melodic. The song is the most important thing when it comes to the Lemonheads, and I like to think we follow that same mandate.
Tell us about the first time you heard that song?
I think Steve gave me a copy of Lick on Taang! records many years ago, along with Lovey. I came in at It's A Shame About Ray but it was interesting to hear the band's early roots. The one riff that the song is most known for was the thing that probably stood out the most. The whole song shifts at that point and it only happens once and never repeats. It shouldn't work but it totally does.
Why was the 90's a magical time in music?
Personally, I think it's the sound of the records that makes me appreciate the 90's era so much. A lot of the overblown production techniques were being abandoned and you got to hear what drums actually sounded like on records again. There was a lot of that happening in the independent music scene but it was interesting to watch everything unravel and start again in the mainstream. It's hard to understand the importance of radio in today's world of streaming sites and YouTube, but that was the way you found new bands back then - especially if you were lucky enough to be in range of a good college or non-commercial radio station.
Tom Maroon is a Pittsburgh-based artist/producer whose expressive and energetic music combines glam, punk, and power pop influences into a uniquely cinematic style. Also a member of This Bliss
Why did you pick the specific cover you did?
I was determined to put my own spin on whatever song I chose to cover. I had a few different ones in mind, but when I went to record them, they just sounded like note-for-note replications of the originals. "Loser" felt more open-ended. It afforded me the space to have fun with the vocal ad-libs and the weird, one-chord, beat-heavy production. I could really inject my personality into every corner of the track. There's an element of comedic self-deprecation to everything I do in music, and few songs embody that idea better than "Loser" does!
Why is the band you covered important to you?
I admire the way that Beck refuses to be pigeonholed into one single genre. He's musically adventurous, despite his appearance and aesthetic being similar to that of your average acoustic singer-songwriter. I'm inspired by artists who bill themselves as a solo act, but draw influence from such a wide array of styles that their music defies categorization. His eclectic 90s output represents a general template that I want to follow with my own music.
Tell us about the first time you heard that song?
I was in the car with my mom when I was a kid, and we heard "Loser" on the radio. I was fascinated with it, but she turned it off after the chorus because she didn't like the negative lyrics! I forgot about the song for a while after that. Thankfully, I have a cool older sibling who brought it back into my life a few years later. I became obsessed with it when I was in 8th or 9th grade, working diligently to memorize all the lyrics. (My mom likes the song now.)
Why was the 90s a magical time in music?
In the 90s, the most popular musicians weren't trying to frame themselves as the glamorized, glossy image of a rock star that we had come to know in the 80s and 70s. I appreciate that it became cool to throw out the hair metal bravado, put on some flannel, and just write some beautifully minimal songs.