I don't really know much about Matador. Was Liz Phair's first album on Matador? I like that.

There're Times New Viking, Cat Power, (Pavement), Mission of Burma, Yo la Tengo...

http://www.matadorrecords.com/bands/index.html

yes
and yes if by SFRTI you mean SFTRI

oh baby, they should have gone with SFTRI, and have mark Ryden or one of the other of long gone johns cool artbuddies do the cover

sub pop went bankrupt after the wolf eyes/postal service tour fell through.

Unwound, Boards of Canada, Chavez, Superchunk, Mogwai, Guided by Voices, Smog & Unsane were also on Matador at one stage or another.

Sub Pop just had a huge 25th Anniversary festival in Seattle (Redmond more properly at Marymoor Park) which included a Green River reunion (the videos are all over you tube, and they're pretty decent even, all of the guitarists played from both versions of the band, so they were pretty massive). They hung a huge Sub Pop banner on the Space Needle, which must have cost some real money.

That said, yeah, Sub Pop hasn't done anything new worth noticing in many years. I really like Wolf Eyes Human Animal album, and I'm not in love with the group by any stretch. And they resigned Mudhoney when Reprise dumped them, which has led to somewhat less mediocre albums from what I've heard, but I'm not exactly excited.

Matador has put out more good recent albums than Sub Pop by far, even if it's mostly by stalwarts such as Yo La Tengo and Mission of Burma. Sonic Youth should fit in perfectly with the likes of them, and I'm serious about crossing my fingers for a SY/Burma tour!

and Matmos too. Unwound were never exactly on Matador though I think they did some licensing, all of their actual albums came out on Kill Rock Stars. Vern's other band Long Hind Legs had a deal with Matador, but when they heard the record and it was instrumental electronica they refused to put it out (I know this from Verne directly) so somewhere there's a very interesting LHL album waiting to see the light of day.

They're not a label I have any particular interest in. They've had some good bands on it - Bailterspace, Graeme Downes (The Verlaines), The Clean, Chris Knox, David Kilgour, JPS Experience.

From that list I just posted, I'm guessing they were a Flying Nun distributor in America or something.

hey seeing you seem to know Unwound people, i'd be really curious to know what they're up to now. Are they planning anything solo at all? Have they completely retired and now work at Burker King or what? They were such a fucking great band. Raw and edgy. wow.

Prediction: Unwound reform.

^^^that would be awesome.

20th anniversary. Even though Sup Pop 100 was 1986.

i didn't like alot of bands on DGC.... guns and roses, anyone?

why does it matter that you don't like bands on the label.. you like sonic youth so thats all that should matter

Guns N Roses are amazing.

sonic youth/aerosmith split

skam
would be great. love it and it sounds just badass

I don't fuckin' care with whom they sign, all I want is a Sonic Youth record per year.

Troubleman doesn't have the distribution or the ability to promote to the way the band should be at this point, and Matador does... that simple.

I thought Drag City would've been a cool label for them to be on.

gawd, again?

matador = shitloads of good bands, shitloads of bad bands, more bad bands now than before but it's not them who are going to play the instruments or tell them "you know? you should sound like yo la tengo, get thurston and kim to harmonize on a track...ohh and maybe do an instrumental with a saucy title; man, you have too much energy on these songs, we were thinking you could maybe give it a little pavement attitude, that would be great".

i hate label hatred and label worship, it's just morons who make money off bands.

i wish they could have gone with kiddieriot...