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What’s up Sorry Staters? Shit, it’s been so long since I wrote anything for the newsletter. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, I’ll leave for you to decide. I do try to pass on my enthusiasm for good music and hopefully that comes across regardless of how eloquent.
So, since the last time we met here so much has happened. I was finally able to make the great trip back home to England and Scotland to see my mum, my sister and her family and my aunt and my long-lost cousins. It was a magical month, and I had a great time. It had been way too long since I had seen my loved ones and some of the places that I grew up around. It was a bit of a head fuck to be honest, being away for so long and back in a land and culture I hadn’t experienced for almost a decade. A lot has changed in that time, but a lot has remained the same. It felt good to be back and my batteries were recharged. A lot of the time was spent walking dogs along beaches and country paths and honestly, I couldn’t have been happier. My mum lives a mile from the sea and on the edge of the New Forest, a beautiful part of Southern England, so there’s plenty of great places for nice walks and I surely don’t have to tell you how gorgeous the Scottish Highlands and coastlines are. Growing up, I used to spend every summer holiday up there and the experience shaped me in so many ways. I was very emotional when it came time to leave to say the least. I must make sure it’s not so long before I return next time.
Believe it or not I didn’t do much record shopping and only visited a few spots. The best of which was one in my very own hometown of New Milton in Hampshire. An ex Royal Navy man and punk called Simon has a fabulous shop in the back of an antique and collectors’ emporium. His place was small, but not an inch was wasted. All killer and no filler titles and in top shape. He wasn’t giving stuff away and his prices were appropriate for top shelf items, but there were plenty of great affordable records in there. I couldn’t fit LPs into my luggage, so resisted the temptation on a few things, but did end up going through some of his singles and ended up buying a few picture sleeve 45s and bringing them back here to Sorry State. Some of you who came to shop during the anniversary festival snatched up most of them and I was happy to see them go to good homes. Just cheap and cheerful stuff, but you don’t often see UK singles over here.
Now that I have mentioned it, I must talk about the Sorry State Shop 10th Anniversary Festival. Wow! Simply fantastic. What an amazing experience. Such fun. So cool having so many incredible bands and punks in town. Thank you, thank you to everyone who played, worked and partied with us. Thank you to all that came by the store during the weekend and especially on Saturday when Jeff filled the bins with punk banger after punk banger. So many great records. Big shout out to him for making that happen. What a guy. He really worked so hard on making the festival a success and of course played in several of the bands throughout the weekend. And worked the store the day after. A true punk warrior.
The same can be said about Usman. I can’t tell you how much I love and respect these guys. Usman has the energy of a thousand Energizer bunnies and is still out on the road with our friends from Italy, Golpe. God bless him.
I love my brothers and sisters here at Sorry State so much and they all worked so hard preparing for the festival whilst I was away. I felt bad about being gone for so long, but contributed some ideas and did my best to pitch in and get up to speed once I returned. For my part, I of course worked the store and did get to play some records between bands as the DJ for the shows at Kings. Big shout out to Kelcy for her usual stellar job running sound and the bar tenders who looked after everyone.
Naturally, the biggest thank you must go to our illustrious leader, the Lord Daniel, the Doctor, the Professor, the coolest and kindest guy on the planet who created all of this in the first place. I’m honored to be a small part of the Sorry State world and so massive thanks to him for everything he does, big and small, every single day. I’m so glad the festival went off so well and it really warmed the cockles of my heart to see Daniel having so much fun and enjoying being around his people. It certainly was a terrific gathering of the tribes and hopefully something that might happen again. Cheers again to everyone involved.
Now that we are back to normal? Are we ever? There’s always something happening. We are still celebrating Halloween, All Saints and Day of The Dead as I write and before we know what we’ll be talking about Thanksgiving and Black Friday Record Store Day releases. However, there are loads of new releases and reissues of older gems that are already here in the store that we can talk about. Where to start? The mini newsletters of the past couple of weeks have highlighted a few standouts. We are all fans of Institute here at SSR, some longer than others. I’m still catching up on the back catalogue, but their latest titled Ragdoll Dance is a winner. If you loved member Mose(s) Brown’s side project Peace De Resistance as much as we did, then you’ll find lots to enjoy on Ragdoll Dance.
Another band whose previous releases I am catching up on is The Serfs. They have just released their third LP on Trouble in Mind and it is excellent. From Cincinnati, Ohio, they play a cool blend of synth-punk and industrial leaning electro sounds. The first one or two tracks are more guitar based punk songs, not a million miles away from the type of thing Institute are doing, but by third track Beat Me Down the electro side of the band takes over. There’s some really nice synth sounds on that song and next one Spectral Analysis. That vibe continues on side two, and for DJ’s playing to a more progressive dance floor they should find some new faves here. Songs Club Deuce and Electric Like An Eel caught my ear. Good stuff from these guys. Check them out.
Whilst we’re in the synth mindset and if that’s your bag then you should check out a nifty new compilation called Yu Wave. It features long lost tracks recorded in the former Yugoslavia during the early 1980s. Lovingly put together with informative liner notes (why such a small font though?) by the Castra label, there are gems a-plenty on here. Nice minimal synth-pop and new wave goodies that I am still familiarizing myself with, but will be dipping into for our Worldy radio show. It’s so cool that records and recordings (often only on tapes) like these are getting wider recognition. There really is still so much great music from around the world that is only recently getting heard and appreciated by us the modern audience. Pretty cool for us.
I’ve been loving how much new music we have been getting in, but really dig being turned on to older stuff that I was unfamiliar with. Perhaps I should have known better, but you can’t keep up with everything. Case in point, I wasn’t aware of Japanese band Slicks from the 90s, but was enjoying a used copy we had of a compilation of their records. Very Sex Pistols influenced, and the production is clearly 1990s, but as someone who lived through that era, not a bad thing at all. I liked what these guys were doing in the same way that I enjoyed another 90s era band that Jeff and I were playing recently, The Briefs. Their Hit After Hit LP is a lot of fun and worth checking out if you are not familiar. But don’t take my word; read Jeff’s pick.
What I would like to recommend to you in the spirit of lost treasures and mentioning Japanese punk bands is the reissue of INU: Don’t Eat Food! LP. Again, lovingly reissued with liner notes and photos by label Mesh Key Records, this is a must listen to anyone interested in the Japanese scene and great post-punk sounds. Originally released in 1981 by the final incarnation of the short-lived band, the album is touted as being one of the greatest Japanese punk albums of all time, and yet has remained almost unknown by the rest of the world. Unless you have an encyclopedic knowledge of Japanese punk like some of the Sorry State staff, that is. I obviously had never heard or seen the record, so have been loving getting to know it these past couple of weeks. I don’t want to regurgitate copy taken from other reviews, but suffice to say it lives up to its reputation. The band came from Osaka and the same scene that Aunt Sally came out of, so if you have been intrigued by Daniel’s love of Aunt Sally and Phew and his great writing on those records you should probably add Don’t Eat Food to your playlist.
The reissue sounds great and again comes with terrific liner notes, lyrics and photos. Very informative. This is the sound of a young band, out of step with the mainstream and forging their own path. Leader and songwriter Kou Machida was still a teenager, as were the band, but he was writing clever and witty lyrics and singing them in the distinctive local dialect, deliberately going against the grain. You’ve got to love characters like this.
I’m the worst person to articulate properly what a record sounds like and perhaps Doctor D can break down the musical aspects of the songs in a way that you can hear the music through his words, but the record is a punk record, post-punk/new wave, being strictly more accurate and will no doubt please many of you out there if you aren’t hip already. I liked the tracks Dumdum Bullet and Old Man, Old Woman to name two. It’s a grower though, and repeated listening is revealing the nuances and new favorites. Worth investigating for sure.
Okay, that’s enough blather from me, although I feel there’s so much more to talk about. Thanks for taking time to read, thanks for supporting us and thanks for loving good music.
We love you. Cheers – Dom