Hey! Please come check out my list of classic Lookout full-lengths at The Big Takeover.
Lookout Records has finally been pronounced dead. While this comes as no shock, after getting wounded in 2006 and hemorrhaging most of it's lifeblood bands (Green Day, Op Ivy, Screeching Weasel, The Queers, Avail etc.), the label's been in a coma since the spring of this year but it is still a passing we should mourn. While I expect a lengthy postmortem by Lawrence Livermore and possibly a post-houmous autobiography to make for effective eulogies, I would still like to offer a heartfelt goodbye to a label that helped shape my taste in music. 
We'll begin with the now-unavailable 1992 compilation, Can of Pork, which shows how Lookout, despite its pop-punk reputation, ALWAYS had a diverse array of styles represented in their catalog. This diversity acts as a blessing and a curse in ever-varying proportions throughout the label's discography. Can of Pork brings the ska with Downfall (ex-Op Ivy'ers ), Los Rudiments and The Horny Mormons, the more hardcore sounds of Engage and Jack Acid, quirkier stuff like Pounded Clown and Lizards and even the bands here most often labelled pop-punk, The Mr. T Experience, The Lookouts, The Porcelain Boys, Pinhead Gunpowder et al, don't sound all that much alike. It sure ain't all hella rad but it's all got life in it.
Various Shitz - Can of Pork
1 Bad Trip Pounded Clown 1:54
2 Trinidad Brent's T.V. 1:40
3 A Promise is a Promise Lizards 1:47
4 Evolution Engage 5:30
5 Redneck Woman from Planet Mars Horny Mormons 1:49
6 Gotta Get a Job One Man Running 1:49
7 Kick Me in the Head The Lookouts 2:59
8 Void Anger Means 2:10
9 Piano Song from Hell Krupted Peasant Farmerz 3:41
10 Whiners Preachers That Lie 1:39
11 Sidetrack Porcelain Boys 2:52
12 Hole Drippy Drawers 3:02
13 Noble End Lagwagon 1:40
14 Martians Don't Skank Los Rudiments 2:41
15 The Future Rice 0:14
16 Learning How to Smile Blatz 1:52
17 Parents Are Really Weird Jack Acid 1:39
18 17 Reasons Fifteen 3:45
19 College Town Juke 2:18
20 T-Shirt Commercial Mystery Experience 1:11
21 Berthe Vagrants 5:00
22 Benicia by the Bay Pinhead Gunpowder 1:50
23 North Berkeley Downfall 2:26
24 Break The Wynona Riders 2:47
25 Dysfunction Spitboy 1:44
26 Why Quit Good Grief 2:04
27 Other Day Freefall 3:25
28 Two Sawhorse 3:31
29 Vive La France The Mr. T Experience 1:19
The AMAZING 22 page booklet that is included here, is a gift from the scanner of , Alex who runs a great Tumblr called Knife Ladder, which has posted lots of Lookout-related eye candy.
Whose your favourite Lookout band? Let us know in the COMMENTS section (which is where you'll find the Can of Pork link).
