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What’s up, Sorry Staters?
In theory, this newsletter will be delivered to you readers on the day before Halloween. Man, crazy how my favorite month of the year has just whizzed past me. This is surely due in part to my brain being fully immersed in preparations for the Sorry State Anniversary weekend. Which, to reiterate from myself personally, I couldn’t be more happy with how the event turned out. Thanks to everyone who attended, all the bands who played, all the vendors, and just everyone who made our 10-year celebrations feel so special. It fuckin’ ruled.
So, speaking of the season, every time the Eve of Samhain comes kicking’ around, I always try to hype myself up and force myself to engage in holiday-appropriate activities. Honestly, I haven’t done a whole lot of that this year. I went with a group of homies to a pumpkin patch and had a jack-o-lantern carving party. I stayed in and tried to watch as many horror movies as possible. Last night, I went to a Halloween party at Raleigh’s local Long Leaf Lounge where my friends were bartending and DJ-ing. It was pretty low-key, but fun. There was a costume contest which had me laughing my ass off and I had an appropriately bright orange Aperol spritz or two.
What I am incredibly excited for on this Tuesday, Halloween night, is the show that I’m driving up to play in Richmond. Public Acid is planning on doing some special cover tunes. I really want to spoil them in this write-up, but I’ll save it. Golpe and Electric Chair are also playing, cycling their way back on their current East Coast/Midwest tour. But also, locals Destruct will rip it, and then Zorn from Philly will surely bring some proper theatrics on this All Hallows Eve. One thing I will spoil, my plan is to dress up like Captain Sensible from The Damned for my costume. Too obvious? What can I say? I love The Damned and the Captain’s guitar playing. I wish I could provide photographic evidence to show off for this edition of the newsletter, but I’m scrambling to get all the pieces together. Hoping the outfit comes together like I’m imagining.
Speaking of Captain Sensible, I’ve got a conveniently relevant idea for my staff pick. We recently acquired a collection from this dude who had just about a complete run of the Crass Records catalog. Soooo many singles, some of which are the more fringe avant-garde/electronic releases on Crass that I’ve never really taken the time to listen to. But one record I always forget about is the 3-song solo single by Captain Sensible on Crass, This Is Your Captain Speaking. While I don’t necessarily deem The Damned or the Captain as ideologically far-removed from bands I would expect on the Crass label, it still just seems so strange that this little moment happened. It’s just kinda… odd.
Reading the liner notes, it seems like this single came about as a result of a collaboration between the Captain and Penny Rimbaud. They share songwriting credits. Penny backs up the Captain on drums, and Captain sings and plays guitar, and I assume several other instruments possibly. But for me, what was a super cool discovery is that you can hear an incredibly harmonious chorus of female backup singers, and I only found out as I’m writing this that it’s Dolly Mixture doing the backup vocals! Especially interesting, considering Dolly Mixture has been floating around constantly in the Sorry State consciousness as of late because of all these newer reissues coming out on Sealed Records.
Musically, the songs on this single are bouncy and upbeat and super melodic, but also just totally out there. Boisterous and bombastic at certain moments, then dark and meditative at others. When I think about that this single was probably written and recorded around the same time as The Black Album and Strawberries, it was surely when the Captain was going through a musically bold and adventurous period. You can hear those psychedelic influences coming through, but also sort of medieval organ choral singing? Yeah, it’s pretty weird, but I’m totally here for it. It seems like a record Syd Barrett would probably be proud of. Then there’s also spoken word samples that seem to be referencing the Soviet missile crisis, so there are some political aspects to the record as well. I’m particularly partial to the final track “The Russians Are Coming” myself. Brilliant guitar playing. It’s a ripper.
Anyway, while my actual staff pick wasn’t particularly spooky, I made it relevant to my personal Halloween experience haha. Hope you all have rad plans for Halloween, even if it does fall on a Tuesday this year. The Silver Shamrock jingle “one more day til Halloween” is ringing in my brain over and over. Can’t believe it will all be over shortly. There’s always next year! Well, you know, hopefully.
That’s all I’ve got. As always, thanks for reading.
’Til next week,
-Jeff