ICONOCLAST INTERNATIONAL

ICONOCLAST INTERNATIONAL RECORDS & TAPES
What: Label
Where: Tucson, Arizona
When: 1981-83
Who: Lee Joseph

Lee Joseph was the mover of the Tucson punk scene. He ran the Roads to Moscow record store and was the bass player for The Suspects, The White Pages, Suzan and the Erotics, Jonny Sevin, E.S.S. and Audience Abuse. In 1981 in order to release the tape of Sin of Detachment (him and Chris of Les Seldoms) he founded one of the first Tucson independent punk label: Iconoclast International.
The Iconoclast published from the minimal-wave of Sin of Detachment to the art-punk of Les Seldoms, the devo-esque synthwave of Jacket Weather to the hardcore punk of E.S.S. and the noisey Corporate Whores. To cover the underground local scene IC released two comps, "Valley Fever" (a punk-experimental tape with Les Seldoms, Urban Guerillas, the amazing Chromatics, Phantom Limbs...) and "Town Without Pity" (with Rotte Kappele, Clean Dog, Yard Trauma and others). At the end of 1983 Lee Joseph moved to California and the label morphed into Dionysus Records, jumping on the bandwagon of the 60s garage psych revival.

IC 8201 - Sin of Detachment - The Beauty Within (tape 1982)
IC 8202 - Les Seldoms - What I Did With My Friend (tape 1982)
IC 8204 - AAVV - Valley Fever - A Taste of Tucson's Underground (tape 1982) [here]
IC 8205 - Jacket Weather - It's a Wonderful War (tape 1982) [here]
IC 8208 - E.S.S. - Espionage Sabotage Subversion (tape 1982) [here] 
IC 8302 - Jacket Weather - When Shadows Move (12'' 1983) [here]
IC 8303 - Jim Parks - Lifeboy (tape 1983)
IC 83?? - The Corporate Whores - Revenge of the Whores (tape 1983) [here]
IC 83?? - AAVV - Town Without Pity (tape 1983)
IC 83?? - The Seldoms - Last Tape (tape 1983)
IC 83?? - Yard Trauma - Reptile House (tape 1983)
"Yard Trauma are a very versatile band, in that they deliver slices of industrial, psychedelic, and garage punk material. Aside from a few live tracks, the recording is very! good (like most Iconoclast tapes). These guys are not ordinary!" [review on MRR]

"2 hours south of Phoenix is Tucson. Tucson's scene isn't huge, but it's grwing bigger all the etime. The place to play here is a dive called The Backstage which has been having punk gigs practically every week for about 3 years now. The hangout for Tucson's punks is a small record store called Roads to Moscow, located on the University of Arizona campus. Lee Joseph, the guy who works in and manages the store operates his Iconoclast International cassette tape label out of there.
So far he's got about 10 releases, which ranges from dirge to psychedelia to trash. As far as the bands go, we've got bands to fit the basic factions (hardcore, psychedelia, art-noise). [...] Rotte Kappelle and Les Seldoms take care of the psychedelic faction. R.K. have just released a great tape on Iconoclast, and Les Seldoms, who've been around for 2 years now, have some real old and bad stuff of theirs on an EP out on Subterranean called "Arizona Disease" (Les Seldoms are a completely different band now). Yard Trauma (a Throbbing Gristle-type trash combo) and Clean Dog (an art-punk-media band who include Flipper and Noh Mercy covers in their set) comprise the arty faction." [from Maximum Rock'n'roll n.3 jan-feb 1983 by Slitboy (of Slit fanzine)]