Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Combat Records- What's in a name?

Normally I don't click on ads on-line, but the other day I was looking at an article on the Knac's site and an ad came up for Combat records. I was curious so I clicked on it to see what kind of version of Combat this was. Now for those of you who may be unfamiliar with the name, Combat records was an independent label that put out a lot of metal and some punk albums from the mid 80's and into the early 90's. At one time Slayer, Megadeth, Exodus, Venom, Possessed, Nuclear Assault, G.B.H, the Exploited, C.O.C and a number of other bands released albums on Combat. They were probably at their peak during the early years of speed metal between say 85-87. I would guess they lost some of their business when speed metal rose in popularity in 88-90 because a lot of their bands left to go to major labels. Well, I was curious about this "new" Combat so I went to their site. Apparently they only have three bands currently signed and I have never heard of any of them. There was a short section on the history of Combat and they mentioned some of the bands that I mentioned above. However they did state that they currently have no intention of rereleasing any past Combat releases as they wish to concentrate on new bands instead. I think this could be read as " we have the rights to the name Combat records, but we do not own the rights to any of the back catalog". Actually I think a number of old Combat releases have been re-released by other labels over the years, but not all of them. So they are not re-releasing anything from the old Combat, they don't have any band or even any band members who were on combat back in the day and the bands they do have don't even seem to be in the same style of the bands from back then. So I really do not understand why they chose to use the name Combat records because anyone who knows the name is likely going to be disappointed that there is no link to the old Combat other than the name. Maybe I was just expecting too much or just living in the past or possibly a combination of the two.

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