Martini Records

Louisiana record label formed in 1988 by LSU business students David Zimbler & John Arrizza. Noting a void in the local recording industry, the two intrepid entrepreneurs formed Martini Records and released Mislabeled, the first progressive compilation record in Louisiana since the early ’80s. The watershed release documented a cross section of the alternative music scenes in Baton Rouge and New Orleans and featured seven area bands. Zimbler and Arrizza followed the successful release with individual records by two of Mislabeled‘s bands, Lower Chakras and Multiple Places. Other bands represented on Mislabeled include Overhang, Shot Down in Equador, Jr., Tabula Rasa, Beyond Einstein’s Eulypian Bats, and the Black Problem. The album’s artists have little in common other than geographic proximity and a commitment to music that extends beyond commercial considerations. One gets the feeling with Mislabeled that underground music scenes from across the country c. 1988 would sound much the same: noisy, eclectic and positively determined.