Lookout!
| Lookout Records | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Founded | 1987 |
| Founder |
Larry Livermore David Hayes |
| Status | defunct |
| Distributor(s) | Mordam Records (1988–2000) |
| Genre | Mostly punk rock, pop punk and alternative rock |
| Country of origin | United States of America |
| Official website | http://lookoutrecords.com/ |
Lookout! Records was an independent record label, initially based in Laytonville, California and later in Berkeley, focusing on punk rock. Established in 1987, the label is best known for having released the seminal album of Operation Ivy and the first two albums by diamond-selling punk artists Green Day and for having pioneered the American punk sound of the 1990s.
Following the departure of co-founder Larry Livermore in 1997, new ownership took the company in new sonic directions from its trademark "East Bay sound" but proved unable to match the label's early success. In 2005 the label ran into financial difficulties after several high-profile artists rescinded the rights to their Lookout! Records material. After a period of rapid contraction the label slowly expired, terminating operations and removing its music from online distribution channels early in 2012.
During the fall of 1984 Larry Livermore (née Larry Hayes), a resident of the small town of Laytonville, California of countercultural proclivities, felt the urge to opine about the problems of his community and the world in a small-circulation periodical. Thus in October of that year was launched a circulation magazine called Lookout, the first issue of which was typed and photocopied with a "press run" of just 50 copies. Opposition emerged to the controversial local topics upon which Livermore opined and so he turned to the theme punk rock, a form of music he had followed in the late 1970s.
Livermore began to reacquaint himself with the ongoing punk music scene by listening to the Maximum Rocknroll (MRR) radio show, broadcast weekly from Berkeley and featuring prominent scenester and future fanzine publisher Tim Yohannan and his cohorts. Livermore also decided to start a band, drafting a 12-year-old neighbor to play drums — given the punk rock name "Tré Cool" by Livermore. Cool would later gain fame as the drummer of Green Day.
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