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Hi Sorry State friends! Hope everyone is doing well! I’m doing ok. I just had a very weird 24 hour type flu that I slept through most of and woke up feeling completely normal. Unfortunately, something is going around because almost everyone I see on a somewhat daily basis has been or is currently sick. Hope ya’ll are staying healthy! So in last week’s newsletter I was talking about a record I bought that I was super excited about, and it just came! So I’m gonna talk about it.
Unfortunately, I don’t have another giant bag of chips costume to throw on while holding this Minor Threat record like I did with my last Minor Threat score! But I finally landed a 1981 copy of the first Minor Threat EP! It’s the third pressing and I’ve had my eye on it forever. I’ve done daily Minor Threat checks on Discogs to see if anyone has listed a second or third pressing, even though a first pressing is currently listed at the reasonable price of over $4,000. Ha!
Anyway, I made an offer to a seller a couple months ago and he politely declined, but noted my offer was indeed fair. But wouldn’t you know, he just re-posted it at $100 less! It probably would’ve sold had Jeff not alerted me in time. I asked a couple questions, mulled it over for about 90 seconds, and sealed the deal. I had been nervously anticipating its arrival, hoping it arrived in the expected condition and had zero issues that would affect play. And it did not disappoint! So I played it about 10 more times full blast with glee.
It felt good to move this record from my want list to my collection. I always keep an eye on the other pressings, but I am very content. This record is my favorite hardcore record of all time. It has most of my favorite Minor Threat tracks on it. Nothing does it for me quite like the bridge in Screaming at a Wall. If I had to pick favorites, that’s my favorite on the record. Followed by Filler, Minor Threat, I Don’t Wanna Hear It, Small Man, Big Mouth. Honestly, every single song is about as good as the one before or after it.
I feel like I am kind of repeating the sentiments I expressed when I wrote about the In My Eyes EP, but both EPs make me so happy. There are a lot of old bands I love but don’t play that much because I don’t feel like being transported to the time in my life I first heard the music. But I never feel like that with Minor Threat. It always feels like the right time to put it on a Minor Threat record.
I actually found Minor Threat after Fugazi. And I actually found Fugazi through Kurt Cobain’s tennis shoes. He had purposely misspelled the name Fugazi on the toe of his Converse to make fun of another artist. And so it began. I became so intrigued by Ian MacKaye and everything Ian MacKaye-adjacent. I learned about the whole idea of DIY punk and punk for no profit. Crazy stories like how he rode his bike to some nice restaurant to meet with an Atlantic Executive and turned down a 10 million dollar deal presented to him. He set the DIY bar so fucking high, but it goes way beyond that.
I imagine that when you don’t indulge in any vices or money, you have a giant surplus of energy and passion to put into music. And subsequently, that music will be fire. I could go on and on and on, but suffice it to say I was well-primed to be blown away by Minor Threat, and I was. I still am.
I’m stoked and broke, my friends. And well worth it. Do yourself a favor if you don’t own any Minor Threat, and just grab the whole catalogue. You can probably get through it in an hour!
Thanks for reading! Until we met again.
-Angela