News

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! It’s been a busy week for me. I’ve been putting a lot of miles on the old Subaru between going out to look at used collections and heading down to Charlotte yesterday to catch the first date of the big Invertebrates / Public Acid tour. They were amazing, of course, and if you have the opportunity to see them, you definitely should not miss it. I’m planning on hitting the Richmond show in a few weeks too, so hopefully I’ll catch the first and last dates of the tour. It’ll be interesting to see how they develop over that time, though both bands are already so blistering that it’s hard to fathom them getting better.

As for news in Sorry State land, of course we have plenty for you this week. We have some ripping metal from LA’s Paranoiac as our Record of the Week and a heap of new arrivals from across the globe as usual. And we have a fresh round of staff picks for you, with Usman making his much-anticipated return to the fold. So let's get into it!

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Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! Another week, another big stack of records to tell you about… I decided to focus on some hardcore rippers in our featured section, so if you’re craving something heavy and intense be sure to check out those recommendations. We also have a soft announcement for the next Sorry State release, a boatload of new titles in the distro, and a fresh round of staff picks. Plenty to keep your eyeballs occupied.

I also wanted to mention that last week we officially completed the purchase of the shop from our landlord! I wanted to mention it in the newsletter since so many of you contributed to our down payment by buying records and (in some extremely generous cases) donating money to us. It was not an easy process and (as I documented in my staff picks throughout April and May) it basically caused me to have a nervous breakdown, but now it’s officially done and I’m excited to turn a big chunk of my attention back to running Sorry State to the best of my ability.

Thanks again everyone! Now let’s get down to business…

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Skitkids photo by @xmoroccox

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State newsletter! I hadn’t planned on taking last week off from the newsletter, but I guess I underestimated how much traveling back from Copenhagen would wear me out. We’re back on track this week, though, and even better we have the long-awaited return of staff picks! I’m sure you’re all curious what the SSR staff has been up to and listening to.

The other big news is that the new Zorn album, Return to Castle Death, is officially out today! That means you can listen to the whole thing on Sorry State’s Bandcamp and/or your favorite streaming service.

As usual when we skip a week of the newsletter, we have a HEAVY new arrivals section for you chock full of new and reissued punk from all over the world. I go through them pretty quickly below, but hopefully I’ll find to talk about some of them at a greater length in the Featured Releases section in the coming weeks.

Other than that, it’s all systems go here at Sorry State. So buckle in, enjoy the read, and treat yourself to some new music.

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Zorn photo by @hi__d

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State newsletter! Sorry to clog your inboxes twice in one week, but as usual we try to make it worth your while to open our emails. The new Zorn album going up for pre-order on Monday was pretty big news, and now we have a pretty solid edition of the newsletter to get you over this week’s hump day. As I mentioned last week, we’re still ramping back up after a little time off, so mine is the only staff pick this week, but it’s a LOOONG one where I tell you all about my travels since last week. I hope you enjoy it!

We also have plenty of new arrivals to tell you about. Roachleg just dropped a killer new record from “Italo-American” punk band Mirage, we just got in a cool shipment from Europe with the new DHK album, we have a very important hardcore punk reissue as our Record of the Week, a couple of rippers in the Featured Releases section, and even more than that to tell you about. So, on with the show…

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Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! As I mentioned last week, we’re kind of easing back up to speed with the newsletter after taking a couple of weeks off. This week I’m actually putting together the newsletter from the road (more on that in my staff pick) and rather than try to coordinate everyone’s staff picks internationally, this is a very heavily Daniel newsletter. I hope that’s OK! It’ll be the same next week, and then we should be able to get totally back to normal the following week.

As usual, there’s plenty to tell you about on the record front! This new Meanwhile record is a scorcher. It arrived just before I left for my trip, so I was able to get it downloaded to my phone, where it has been on constant repeat. I can’t get enough! We also have two very different (but equally cool!) releases from Itchy & the Nits and Demonstrate in the Featured Releases section, and a ton of new arrivals to tell you about from labels like Neon Taste, Ugly Pop, Iron Lung, Goodbye Boozy, the brilliant Station Model Violence LP from earlier this year back in stock, and plenty more.

So what are you waiting for? Read on!

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Hello friends! Apologies to those of you who have been checking your inboxes, impatiently anticipating a new issue of the Sorry State newsletter for the past few weeks. I’ve been struggling with some health issues that put me out of commission for a while. If you’ve been reading my (Daniel’s) staff picks lately, it’s the same mental health troubles I’ve been talking about there. Unfortunately things got worse before they got better, but I’m hopeful I’m now now moving in the right direction. Also, I feel like I’m always apologizing for not getting back to people, but if you’ve contacted me over the past several weeks, you probably haven’t gotten a reply. I’m working on getting caught up, but it’s going to take a while.

As for the newsletter, I’m easing back into it with a somewhat abbreviated version this week. No staff picks, but I managed to write up a Record of the Week for you… hopefully you’re wise enough to have checked out Indikator B already (and, if you were lucky, catch them on their recent US tour), but if you were waiting for Sorry State’s ringing endorsement, here it is.

Most of what you’ll read below are updates on new stock to hit the distro, which (along with the shop) has been plugging along at full steam while I’ve been gone. There are a TON of excellent new and reissued records to tell you about… there are at least half a dozen records there that fully deserve a Record of the Week nod. So read through and find some new music to treat yourself to. It would help us out a lot.

I’m about to head out to do some traveling, and the plan is to keep sending out these abbreviated newsletters from the road, maybe telling you a bit about my journey. That’s the plan, anyway. It feels strange to be leaving for a trip so shortly after being out for a while, but this was planned months ago and everything is non-refundable. I think a change of scenery will do me some good, though.

Oh, and if you’re reading this from in or near Raleigh, come see Fentanyl, Steramines, Sunyata, and Besitos Wednesday night at RUMAH! It’s gonna be a good time.

Now, on to the goods…

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Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter. I’m a day late again this week… if you’ve been reading my staff picks, you can infer why, but I assure you that even if I’m having trouble keeping up with my SSR duties, the staff is continuing to kill it getting new stuff up on the website and your orders shipped out with the quickness. Speaking of new stuff coming in, it’s a big week for cool reissues, with a stone-cold classic and a deep cut banger from Sealed, some essential Japanese hardcore from General Speech, and some of that under-the-radar 80s USHC we love from the Spanish label B-core. We also have some killer 7”s—each in a very different style—in our Record of the Week and Featured Releases sections, and a bunch of the new international punk releases you expect in the new arrivals. So let’s get into it…

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Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State newsletter! We’re arriving in your inbox super late this week. Part of that is because this is a pretty darn massive issue of the newsletter. That tends to happen when we take a week off like we did last week, since there’s twice as much to cover in terms of new releases. But also it’s a busy and kind of difficult time for me (Daniel, who puts together this newsletter and writes most of it), so apologies if you’re waiting on me to reply to an email or get back to you about something. I’m doing my best to get on top of things, and I’m sure I’ll reply to everyone soon.

In the meantime, though, there’s SO much to tell you about this week. Our Record of the Week and both of our Featured Releases this week are all pretty unique, each of them super punk, but not in the early 80s hardcore way we focus most on here at Sorry State. They’re all worth checking out, so I hope you’ll read what we have to say and perhaps give them a listen. This week we also have news on some cool European imports, including a new distribution partnership with Spain’s Discos Enfermos that means just about all the label’s currently in print releases are now available from Sorry State, as well as two new releases on the almighty La Vida Es Un Mus from the UK. The new arrivals section is bursting with new and reissued punk music from all over the globe, and we also put a ton of fresh used stock on the website this week, with lots of great bargains to be had. We also have a fresh round of staff picks and other punk junk for you to read, so let’s get into it.

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Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! It’s a busy week with a ton to tell you about. We have a pre-order for a new release on Sorry State from Helsinki, Finland’s Yleiset Syyt. Record Store Day is this Saturday, and we’re carrying a couple hundred of the Record Store Day exclusive releases. Alongside helping us release the new Yleiset Syyt album, La Vida Es Un Mus brings us another new release of their own: the new album from Tokyo’s UK82 rippers Raw Distractions. We also have some tour news, a bunch of new pre-orders, new distro stock, some staff picks… all the stuff you come to Sorry State for. So let’s get to it!

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Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! Sorry the newsletter is a day late, but I didn’t manage to finish things up before the Indikator B / Totalna Tama gig in Raleigh last night. Both bands were great, and I strongly recommend catching the tour if you get a chance.

I’m sure you’ve all been waiting with bated breath to hear about the results of last week’s big sale and I’m pleased to tell you it generated the money we needed! To say I am overwhelmed and humbled is a massive understatement. I wish I had the time to write personal thank-you notes to everyone who stepped up and bought something, but things are just too crazy right now. But seriously, thank you to everyone who helped us out. Many of you made some very big purchases and many also just gave us money rather than or in addition to buying something, which I never would have expected. The whole thing is not yet a done deal as we still have to get approved for the loan to cover the rest of the sale price, but hopefully my next message you to about this will be in a few months’ time when the sale has closed and Sorry State officially owns the shop. I hope everyone who helped us out gets a chance to visit the shop sometime and see what you helped to make happen.

I got a lot of really nice messages of encouragement, but in general I’m taking the huge response to the sale as an endorsement of what we’re doing, especially with this newsletter. It seems like y’all want us around for a long time, doing our best to stock the latest and greatest punk rock from across the globe and giving you our personal opinions and recommendations in your email every week. I’ll do my best to keep up my part of the bargain.

Speaking of which, we’re back to business as usual this week. The Shaved Ape LP is still up for pre-order, but if you want the limited color vinyl, you probably shouldn’t wait too much longer. We also have some big preorders that are now shipping and a heap of other new arrivals to tell you about. So let’s get back to doing what we do…

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Photo: Daniel, Seth, and Osamu (RIP) building fixtures before the store opened, fall 2013.

Before we get into the usual newsletter bits, I have something I wanted to talk to you about. The short version is that Sorry State is buying the space that houses our shop! This is kind of unexpected but very exciting and also extremely overwhelming and stressful. We could really use your help coming up with the cash for the down payment, so we’re having a big sale to generate some funds.

Now for the longer version:

A few months ago, Sorry State’s landlord informed us they had decided to sell the property that houses our downtown Raleigh shop. Sorry State has been in our current location since we opened in 2013—13 years!—and we really did not want to move. While I haven’t mentioned it to anyone but the people who work here and a few close friends, Sorry State’s future has felt pretty up in the air for the past few months. The landlord put our space on the market at the beginning of the year, so we’ve had potential buyers coming in for viewings for the last few months. That’s been enormously stressful, watching strangers poke around our closets and cabinets while our future hangs in the balance. No one who viewed the space seemed interested in providing cheap rent to a punk record shop, so I assumed we’d be facing either a huge rent increase or eviction. However, after a lot of ulcer-inducing back-and-forth, Sorry State is now under contract to purchase our space! (To be clear, we’re just talking about our retail space—the shop floor and our small back room—not the whole building.) I probably don’t need to tell you this is huge for us. Sorry State will have a permanent home, and we’ll gain many of the benefits homeowners enjoy, most importantly a monthly payment that isn’t subject to the whims of the market. We hope to continue doing Sorry State for many years to come, and owning our space will go a long way toward making that a reality.

Now that we’re under contract, our next hurdle is coming up with the money for the down payment. This is a huge amount of money for us. The down payment is equivalent to over TWENTY times our monthly rent. It’s not an insurmountable obstacle, but it’s a lot… especially at this time of year, when sales are typically slower and Record Store Day bills are starting to arrive. Of course, I’ll be emptying my meagre savings account and looking under every couch cushion in the vicinity, but those things alone won’t get us over the finish line.

We’re not asking for a handout… this isn’t a matter of life and death, and we wouldn’t want to take money or attention from charitable endeavors that need it. But, at the same time, we could really use your business right now. If you’ve been thinking about buying some records, we’d love it if you did that pretty soon! If there’s a recent release you’ve been meaning to pick up, a classic you don’t already own, or if you just wanna splurge… anything you could do would be awesome! Even if you only have a few bucks, you can always pick up some cheap new-to-you music in our clearance and used sections. We also have gift cards if you want to treat a friend or save your record splurge for later. Every dollar you spend with us moves us toward our goal.

We have a couple of enticements for you, too! First, today we’re launching a pre-order for the Shaved Ape LP on Sorry State, which we know a lot of you are going to want. Second, we have some discount codes for you. If you spend $100 or more, enter NOLANDLORDS to get 15% off your order. If you really want to put a dent in our down payment, spend $300 or more and enter NOMASTERS to get 25% off your entire order! (Note: gift cards ARE eligible for the discount.) If you’re local, we’re doing the same deal on everything in the shop. Both deals will last through this weekend, April 5.

Even if you can’t help right now, I want to thank everyone for your support over the years. Sorry State wouldn’t be here without our employees, customers, vendors, bands, and everyone else in our community. Thanks so much for all you’ve done and continue to do to keep us going.

Now, on to the newsletter…

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Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! Let’s start this week’s issue by wishing my dog Patti a happy 5th birthday!

My wife is at a ceramics conference in Detroit this week and I couldn’t bear to leave my little girl home alone on her birthday, so she’s hanging out at the SSR warehouse today, which I think everyone loves. Hopefully I can get this week’s newsletter out relatively quickly so I can hit the pet store before it closes and get her a big ‘ol bully stick and some freeze-dried chicken so she can celebrate her big day in style.

As for the world of recorded music, this week we once again have three hardcore rippers for our featured releases. What can I say? I like the stuff. And two of the three are from our neighbors just up the road in Richmond, where you can find one of the biggest and most vibrant punk scenes in the world. Though we currently have an epically long list of packages we’re expecting, our mail carrier’s loads have been light this week, so there isn’t a ton in the new arrivals section. But we make up for that with news on the next Sorry State release (the long-awaited return of Shaved Ape!), a new pre-order from Choncy on Feel It Records, a fresh round of pre-orders, and similarly fresh new batch of staff picks covering, as usual, a very broad range of music. We also have a first this week, with a staff member’s spouse taking over their pick… thanks so much to Danny’s wife Molly for her contribution! The whole of this week’s issue is well worth a read, if I say so myself.

So let’s get to it!

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