C.I.A. Records is an independent label founded 4.5 decades ago by members of the Houston, Texas punk band Really Red.
It emerged from people’s garages, back yards and warehouses, nurtured by strong friendships, a vibrant underground music scene, single-room strip mall record stores and a handful of non-commercial radio stations.
In the late 70’s and early 80’s, the label filled an urgent need to confront institutional violence perpetuating a culture of fear that dominated Houston at the time. Over four decades it's grown into a platform for musical experimentation and risk-taking that continues to uphold a broad range of ideas, experiences and perspectives today.
It has been, is now, and always will be a vanguard for transgressive music from Houston and beyond.
IT WAS 1978 IN HOUSTON, TEXAS.
Billboards lined the freeways, cluttering a camel-colored, benzine-clouded skyline. Jose Campos Torres had been beaten by Houston police, tossed into Buffalo Bayou, and left there to drown. Stadium rock dominated the airwaves, all spandex pants and empty lyrics, propped up by mega-labels angling for the souls and pockets of 18-to-24-year-old white boys.
Young people were in fact pissed. They needed, and created for themselves, music and art that slung away bullshit, that could dispense of the violence society was forcing upon them. It was this spirit that gave rise to Really Red, and CIA Records.
A brief history
by CIA co-founder Bob Weber
“Our band, Really Red, was fired up and focused. We began writing our own songs inspired by the noises coming out of the UK, East and West Coast scenes, and other places. Boredom with the big label music biz inspired us to make some dramatic turns.
After losing a guitarist, we became the 4-piece group we were meant to be: with John Paul Williams playing bass; Ronnie “U-Ron” Bond singing and writing lyrics; I played drums; and the guitar belonged to Kelly Younger.
Our local inspiration was the then-infamous Legionnaire’s Disease. They took a page from the Sex Pistols’ book by invading Houston discos and long-hair clubs. Legionnaire’s Disease was non-stop theater, living and working out of a storage warehouse in Montrose and crawling out at night to expose the oil and gas capital of America to sarcastic lambast and Jerry Anomie’s dick.
Really Red scheduled a recording date at Magic Rat Studios. With five songs and some cash from live shows, we had to decide how to package and present them. The D.I.Y. approach was the only option for artists and musicians starting out, no matter how talented or primitive. The resulting ‘Crowd Control/Corporate Settings’ 45 rpm 7” was pressed at Wakefield Manufacturing in Phoenix. When we listened the first time, Kelly was unimpressed, and the band was already moving on with other projects.
Meanwhile, our Austin connections broadened; ATX was becoming a hi-tech center and was decades into being the Outlaw Country alternative to Nashville. But it wasn’t ready for the likes of the Dicks and Big Boys.
So emerged C.I.A. RECORDS.
Sometimes it was Completely Ignorant Adults, or Capitalism Invaded by Anarchy, or Caucasians In Action…whatever spilled out.
Starvation Dance Productions was supposedly our booking and promo vehicle. Shepherd Wong Music was adopted for publishing. We had high hopes.
Naturally, Mydolls joined C.I.A. - nearly all female and fiercely political, they were pioneers, especially for Houston at the time. John Paul rented out an abandoned embalming facility for Really Red’s rehearsal space. Other bands joined in and subleased from him, including AK-47 and the Plastic Idols. Ronnie Bond and Jim Craine opened Real Records, a record store in a mini strip mall on Shepherd Street. Kelly Younger brought the muscle and the beer. We hired Red McDaniels, the old man who lived next door, to be a security guard. He joined us in an early band photo.
The infamous CULTURCIDE came in, to put ‘Year One’ out on vinyl. Other irregular groups found us: I’LLBEONTHEFONETOYOU, Doomsday Massacre, Marching Plague, and the Introverts. We obviously didn’t have a business plan.
After Really Red’s demise in 1984, Ronnie Bond worked with Steve (a wizard!) to assemble the RR album Rest in Pain’s master tape and LP cover art. John Paul and Kelly moved on with their lives. I helped produce the R.I.P. album while getting sucked deeper into my professional career as a chemical engineer for what was then Ethyl Corporation.
Ron Bond left Houston on a train for the West coast, eventually ending up in Seattle. After short stints drumming for Culturcide (’85) and Anarchitex (’86), my mind expanded a bit. David Notarius and George L. Shea teamed up with me on an odd adventure [date?]. More than 60 submissions came in after we mailed letters, made phone calls, put ads in a few magazines, and spread the word, looking for material. The Dog That Wouldn’t Die, an alternative compilation of Noize and postpunk was born.
It was fascinating to see reissues come together and the odd bootlegs or borrowed tracks show up in mix tapes or compilation LPs over time. Angry Neighbor and HotBox Review were labels that burned bright for a while. Then, Anarchitex reformed for the 2009 AXIOM 20 Year Anniversary celebration (Axiom was a beloved venue that hosted underground bands of all varieties in the late 80s-early 90s). ATEX recorded 16 tracks at SugarHill Studios with Andy Bradley and a CD version was released.
Five years later, I got shipped to South Korea for my job. But during that time, I worked with Alternative Tentacles on the re-release of the entire collection of Really Red’s “Teaching You the Fear” (2015 release). Out of the blue in 2019, Alan Villareal contacted me about doing a tribute version of it. He had “a backer” who turned out to be Dr. James (Jim) Craine. Ed Rudy (HotBox) helped us from his Zen temple in Bangkok.
Things shifted significantly after that. Jim reactivated Starvation Dance Productions, the DBA under which CIA Records now operates. The POPEBOY Collective, the Chadbourne/Gonzalez Collusion, David Dove/Jawwaad Taylor, Antiquated Views of the Future, and collaborations with Awe Full Records on Tim Sternat’s MANIFESTATION series came into being. And now, the journey continues, with Scott Ayers’ musical mastery and the Infrequencies hovering and meddling with your brains this year and beyond.
It never ends until you die.”
~ Bob Weber
September 3, 2022
If you’d like to know more about CIA Records Houston, contact University of Houston’s Special Collections Library, where you can make an appointment to see CIA’s archive of historic materials - photos, letters, contracts, original copies of reviews, flyers, albums and more.