Outsider Records’ Insider Status Pays Off Nicely

Honesty is the best policy, or so Outsider Records partners David James and Dave Salinger recently discovered. The team, which has thrown shows at the now-closed Clipper in Long Beach for the past year and a half, was asked by Flipside Records to pick up exclusive distribution for its entire record catalog (which includes the first album, “Stereopathetic Soulmanure,” by local club hero Beck).

“They approached us because they heard we didn’t rip people off,” James says. “It also helped that we’d booked so many Flipside bands at the Clipper.” Such artists as the Cheifs, the Crowd, the Mad Daddys and Clowns for Progress (who just picked up a tour with the Mighty Mighty Bosstones) are included on the roster.

“Another cool thing is we’re going to be re-releasing an album called ‘The Big One,’ a compilation of what were at the time unknown bands,” James says. The record contains such now well-known bands as the Offspring, Green Day, L7, Mr. T Experience, Clawhammer, Down by Law and PopDefect. Have fun, boys. . . .

Iowa’s Chicken Hawks, a garage quartet with a female lead, ricocheted through town last week, performing at Al’s Bar and Moguls, while recording its new record for RAFR and guess who’s producing it? Sally Browder, who produced the multi-platinum-selling Offspring record “Smash”--arguably one of the best-produced records to come out of the early mid-’90s. . . .

Put on my scoping goggles at the Queen Mary last week for the Tuesday night dance club, the Muthaship, and gotta say, it’s one of the most inventive scenes in years. While lads dressed as lasses pole dance at the venerable Studio City transvestite hang, such bands as Gabba Gabba Hey (an excellent Ramones cover band) and Groovestone can be found performing. The audience ranges from Valley hipsters to full-blown drag divas such as El Fabulosa, who should win a prize for getting so gussied up on a Tuesday eve. Coming this Tuesday to the club is the all-female band It’s Me Margaret (all the ladies out there should know why that name is so hot). . . .

Science at the Pink in Santa Monica celebrates its one-year anniversary on April 26 (that’s a Sunday for all you churchgoers out there), and here’s why you need to be there: The drum ‘n’ bass club has invited two deejays from the U.K.: DJ Trace, who is a pioneer in the dark jungle sound called Tech-Step, and DJ SS, who records for Formation Records. Plan on things getting down lights-out dark.