In the summer of 1969, two long-haired music fans in Los Angeles did something audacious: they pressed an album of unreleased recordings by one of their musical heroes and put it out on the streets.
The official record label wasn't amused.
Music fans were thrilled.
And the underground record label that would become known as Trade Mark of Quality was on its way.
In A Pig’s Tale, Ralph Sutherland and Harold Sherrick tell the story of TMQ—its records, its eccentric cast of characters, and the strange cultural moment that made the whole thing possible.
Before there was a Pigman, however, there had to be a particular time and place.
The following is the prologue to A Pig’s Tale.
A TIME AND PLACE
The 1960s was a unique time in history. It was an era of change and great upheaval in politics, events, and culture resulting in clashes between generations. There was a new generation coming of age with their own views of how the world should be. They were the “baby boom” kids of their WWII parents, who didn’t have a clue what was going on with their offspring, and it scared the shit out of them. It was a new world and their compass could no longer find north. Presidents and the government were lying to America and young men shouting, “Hell no, we won’t go!” were being sent, against their will, to the slaughter in Viet Nam. For what and why? It was a decade of protest, Black civil rights, revolution, riots, assassinations, anti-war demonstrations and, at the same time, a search for justice and peace expressed through free love and drugs, unprecedented creativity in new colorful art, design and fashion, innovative theatre and cinema, and most important to this story: music.
Music was a big part of this revolution. It was the glue that held it all together. It was the DNA essence in the minds of those kids screaming in the streets, making love or just stoned out of their minds at some love-in. Unlike now, music then wasn’t just some standalone tune you downloaded from “the cloud,” listened to with your earbuds, then just deleted when you tired of it. At that time, a long-playing record album was an artistic “concept” made up of songs. When one of the music icons of the day released a new LP, people couldn’t wait to storm the local record shop on that first day of release to grab a copy to take home, and to play it over and over on their stereo sound system, until every nuance on every track was etched into their brains. They held the album jacket looking at the cover, reading the back liner notes, listening to the lyrics and tunes, wearing out those LPs, until it became a permanent part of their psyche. It was part of their life. Even to this day, 50-plus years later, those music memories are deeply imprinted. Whatever was going on around or inside those young heads at that time, for better or worse, that moment is forever alive in that music.
The end of the decade was fast approaching. That groovy ‘60s “Summer of Love” airplane would crash land on December 6th of 1969 at the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco. At a free outdoor Rolling Stones concert, as they performed “Under My Thumb,” an 18-year-old Black man was killed by a Hell’s Angel in front of the stage. It was an ugly finale to a decade of hopeful optimism, tainting the memory of Woodstock the previous summer.
Our story here begins earlier that year as two bizarre events occurred in that July of 1969. A brave astronaut in a white space suit stepped down a ladder and actually walked on the moon. Meanwhile, back on terra firma, two long-haired music freaks in Los Angeles had put together a strange double LP record album. What the hell was it? The whole world knew about the guy on the moon. But very soon, many who were into the music of that time would hear about this mysterious record album which would first hit those smoggy L.A. streets like a small explosion. The very existence of this album would have been impossible without what had gone before in the 1960s. It was the product of a particular time and place unlike anything before. Was it a statement against The Establishment and those who wanted to control and manipulate the minds and lives of a new generation? Was it a big “Fuck You!” to those who would dare to tell them what music they should or could not listen to? Or was it just some crazy scheme cooked up by a couple of wacko record collectors? Whatever it was, when these two guys created this “underground” record album, they really didn’t have a clue what they had unleashed, or that the world of music and the record business would soon be dropped on its ear….
The Birth of Trade Mark of Quality
That mysterious 1969 record was only the beginning.
The following year, the now-famous Pig image appeared inside a circular logo bearing the name Trade Mark of Quality. TMQ—and Pigman—were born.
From the late 1960s through the mid-1970s, Trade Mark of Quality became a pioneering underground record label, releasing recordings that music fans weren't supposed to have and inspiring numerous imitators along the way.
A Pig’s Tale tells that story from the inside.
Across 336 full-color pages, Ralph Sutherland and Harold Sherrick trace the history of TMQ and reproduce the rubber-stamped and illustrated album jackets from its releases. The book includes more than 350 images as well as a complete discography covering more than 100 LPs and EPs, with artists, track listings, recording sources, catalog numbers, matrix information, colored-vinyl pressings, record labels, graphics, photographs, vintage clippings and more.
For record collectors, music-history obsessives, and anyone curious about the strange underground ecosystem that grew alongside the official record business, it's a glimpse into a world that could only have emerged from that particular time and place.
Explore A Pig’s Tale by Ralph Sutherland and Harold Sherrick at Genius Books.
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