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Hey everyone! Thanks for clicking on our newsletter. Hopefully, a few minutes reading about cool shnazz will distract from the doom scrolling. It’s been another bonkers week with more extreme weather events, economic upheaval and horrible hateful actions from the current regime here in the U.S. Thank God for music. We need it more than ever.

Whilst working with Jeff last week at the store we were listening to a bunch of different things and at some point, via YouTube suggestions, we found ourselves playing a few tracks by Californian garage band Public Nuisance. At first Jeff thought I was playing more from my favorite Arizonans, The Resonars, who totally nail that sixties sound. He wasn’t wrong in thinking that the recordings had a more modern feel to them, however Public Nuisance was indeed a sixties band and the tracks we were playing were recorded in the winter of 1968 and January 1969. They do sound great, full and powerful and loud and rocking. What’s even more astounding is that these tracks remained unreleased and virtually unheard until the early 00s. There have been lots of obscure records rediscovered over the years and lots of unreleased recordings such as acetates have had a second chance to reach appreciative ears, but there probably hasn’t been a group that had so much strong material as these guys, and had it remain unreleased for decades. The reason is a bit of a story, which is worth hearing, but more importantly for lovers of late sixties garage and psych. This is one set of tunes you need to hear.

Public Nuisance was from Sacramento, California and shared a similar story to countless other garage bands. They began as high school friends who, just like everyone else, got swept up by the British Invasion and Surf music. They were more Anglophile than most, and first started playing gigs as The Jaguars and mixed in more obscure British bands’ material into their sets. They were big Pretty Things fans. Throughout 1964 and 1965, they would play the typical teen dances and fairs up and down the valley, honing their craft. In early 1966, an opportunity to record came up and they cut two songs at Ikon in Sacramento and a 45 was issued under the new name of Moss & The Rocks. It’s a decent but typical teen folk rocker single and didn’t make much of an impact. Six months later, the band, bankrolled by one of their parents, travelled to Gold Star Studios in Hollywood and re-recorded the same two songs. They were released on the Chattahoochee label, but again failed to have much of an impact.

Soon after that, in the fall of 1966, the guys decided to change their name to Public Nuisance and continue in a heavier direction. Their image also changed along with the heavier sound, and they began appearing all in black with the hair getting longer on at least two of them.

The area had quite a few notable bands they would share stages with. The New Breed, Oxford Circle and Kak were locals and part of the scene, and Public Nuisance held their own alongside those groups besides opening for touring national acts like The Doors, who Public Nuisance opened for in July 1967 at the State Fairgrounds and by all accounts blew the headliners of the stage. Other big names the band opened for were Buffalo Springfield and Sonny & Cher, plus a set at the Fillmore East with The Grateful Dead on the same bill.

During the fall of 1967, the group made three trips to San Francisco where they recorded a bunch of tracks that supposedly had them sounding like a cross between The Seeds and The Pretty Things. Unfortunately, those tapes have been missing almost from the time they were made, and very few can testify to the contents of them, but judging by what was to come a year later it seems more than likely that they might be good.

Meanwhile, a friend of theirs, Gary Shiro, along with DJ Johnny Hyde, had a record label called World United that had released records from Oxford Circle and The New Breed. That label folded, but Shiro got The New Breed signed to famous producer Terry Melcher’s new label called Equinox, and it was through these connections that Public Nuisance were given the chance to record demos for Melcher’s consideration. Thus, in September and October 1968, the group travelled to Sound Recorders in Hollywood for two sessions. Melcher liked what they recorded and signed them in November. The band (now down to a trio) recorded a dozen new songs during December of that year and continued with sessions in January 1969. As strong as the demos are, it’s a testament to the band and their ambitions that they so quickly had even better fresh songs for what was intended as their debut album. Aided by engineer Eirik Wangberg, who really made them sound big and full and seasoned, the record was mixed and mastered and ready for release.

Here’s where the story comes to an abrupt halt. In August, the Manson murders took place. Sharon Tate and her guests were staying in a house that belonged to Terry Melcher. He had been Manson’s intended target, the lunatic being angry that Melcher hadn’t come through with a supposed record deal for Manson. Naturally, Melcher was scared shitless and went into hiding and along with that went all the projects and business that he was involved with. So, no more Equinox and no more record deal and album release for Public Nuisance. The guys soldiered on totally dejected for the rest of 1969 with a couple of different rhythm guitarists, but finally packed it in as the new decade dawned.

That might have been the end of their story and the world might not have heard them had it not been for the championing done by Joey D at Frantic Records, who for years was shouting from the rooftops about how great Public Nuisance was. It was through his efforts, along with other key names in the sixties garage psych world such as Alec Palao and the band themselves, that a super double album set titled Gotta Survive was released in 2002. The CD was out on Frantic, and the vinyl version was released via Shadoks Music, the fine German label that specialized in rare psychedelic reissues. That double vinyl release also came with a bonus 7” E.P. with the four Moss & The Rocks cuts.

At the time of this rediscovery of Public Nuisance, I was working at Rockit Scientist in New York City and can vouch that everyone was going nuts when they heard the music. We sold loads of the CD and vinyl version. It’s justified. The unreleased album and the previous demos are all so good. Banger after banger. It’s hard to pick a favorite. I know I was blown away. So too was Jack White, who would go on to reissue a version of the intended album on his Third Man label ten years later in 2012.

I’m the worst at trying to describe music and how it sounds, but also subscribe to the opinion that everyone should just listen and discover for themselves. You don’t need some journo telling you when to appreciate a guitar riff or drum roll or whatever. Suffice to say, there’s plenty to love and enjoy about Public Nuisance. If you dig sixties garage with an Anglophile influence, then these guys should be right up your street. Maybe you have been turned on to them already, but it has been twenty-plus years since the first rediscovery, so perhaps there are some of you out there not aware of them that will appreciate the steer. Either way, go check them out. Here’s a YouTube link to play the full CD release.

For the record, my favorite Public Nuisance songs are Gotta Survive, Love Is A Feeling, Small Faces and America.

Okay, deadline approaching. Happy listening everyone.

Sláinte – Dom

What’s up Sorry Staters?

My energy feels a little low this week. I’m just gonna jump right into my staff pick and keep it brief:

I had no plan for what to write about for this week’s newsletter. These cassettes just arrived today. 3 volumes of mixtapes compiling French post-punk and new wave, each tape a different span of years. It’s funny with mixtapes like this, because as the listener, if you’re previously unfamiliar with the material, you’re kinda diving in blind. Each of these tapes has fairly minimal packaging, and while there’s a tracklisting with the various artists, there’s no album artwork or liner notes explaining where these recordings came from. I popped in the first tape, which spans 1980-1983. Within 10 seconds of the first song, I already knew I was going to enjoy it. The first song “Unisex” was really good. But then the following track “Electro-Menager” by Edith Nylon was even better. As I continued letting the songs wash over me track by track, there was a lot to take in. My general feeling, at least from this first compilation tape, is that a lot of these bands must have been on major record labels. The production on most of these songs sounds incredibly crisp and hi-fidelity. No lo-fi bedroom avant-garde noise punk, as far as I can tell. Not yet, anyway. Hyper melodic, often quirky, great lush synthesizer sounds, catchy hooky vocals… So yeah, I’m just loving it. Who knew? I love those Mexican Tecno Pop compilations on Dark Entries, and to me, these cassettes are of comparable quality and could use a vinyl treatment as well. Who knows if that will happen. Also, whoever made these tapes did an excellent job with sequencing of songs when compiling these bands. For me, the compilation flowed really well and kept me interested. I’ve only listened to the first cassette so far, but I’m curious what the following volumes spanning from 1984 all the way through to 1989 hold in store.

That’s all I’ve got. Check these out!

‘Til next week,

-Jeff

Hello Sorry Staters! The weather has been beautiful and here in North Carolina. The pollen is starting to come out in full force! It’s a win-win, really; allergies bring beautiful flowers and the birth of my favorite time of the year, spring! This week I haven’t been listening to too much music just because life can be busy like that sometimes. I have, however, started digging into more Japanese music, specifically dream pop/shoegaze.

One band that came up over and over while reading blogs and reviews is “my dead girlfriend” (not to be confused with the American manga of the same name). The band formed in 2005, releasing a couple of demos before compiling them on a CD in 2007 called 6 songs from the happy valley. Then in the next year they released sweet days and her last kiss. This was a collaboration album between my dead girlfriend and another Japanese shoegaze band called ShoujoSkip.

Over the next few years, it seems like they really tightened up their sound and explored new soundscapes by adding some synth and back-and-forth vocals between Ishikawa and Ideta, really honing in on the “noise-pop” aspect of their sound. My dead girlfriend’s most popular album and one that made it overseas to the western world is Hades (The Nine Stages Of Change At The Deceased Remains).

This album is just amazing and could stand up to any more popular shoegaze band in the past decade. It’s lofi shoegaze at its best without losing the authentic feel from the first few records. I hope everyone that is into shoegaze/dream-pop will check this out and let me know what you think! Anyway, until next week! Later Nerds!

Hello and thanks for reading. This week I wanted to write about these Brazilian hardcore classics. I don’t know a lot of Brazilian bands, but I feel like OLHO SECO is one of the most popular hardcore bands that I do know, alongside RATOS DE PORÃO. Botas, Fuzis, Capacetes was OLHO SECO’s debut 7”, and it has been reissued a few times since it originally came out in 1983. This 7” has got that track “Nada,” and I feel like that song is the epitome of Brazilian hardcore, haha. Maybe that is super ignorant of me, but I feel like everyone and their mother knows that song. I have this split 12” on New Face where those songs are compiled alongside their s/t 7” and some live tracks. Oddly enough, I was just interviewing a band and one of the members mentioned this Brazilian band who I had never heard of, FOGO CRUZADO. I discovered after that OLHO SECO has a split 12” with them that came out in the early 90s. It looks like the OLHO SECO tracks are the same on both splits and they also used the cover of Botas, Fuzis, Capacetes on both splits too. When I saw that, it made me think the tracks from the first 7” and the studio tracks from side A of the s/t 7” were from the same session. I am not sure about that, but it sounds like it when you hear it all back-to-back on the compilation.

I remember how I first heard RATOS DE PORÃO, but I can’t remember who introduced me to OLHO SECO. I remember that I bought this Grito Suburbano compilation 12” cos it had OLHO SECO on it, and that’s what introduced me to INOCENTES. It also introduced me to CÓLERA. Their tracks might be my favorite on that record. The guitar tone is nuts. It’s so fuzzy it will have you convinced there is dust on your needle, haha. On this compilation, it sounds like INOCENTES might be influenced by RAMONES more than DISCHARGE. They give you a taste of a some hardcore though. Two of their four tracks go pretty hard, while the other two sound like IGGY POP or some shit. Now when it comes to their 7” Miséria E Fome – that’s my shit right there. It sounds like they took influence from RATOS DE PORÃO or DISCHARGE and it’s so damn good. I feel like this was the sweet spot for the band. After this, it’s like these other influences took over and you can’t hear hardcore in there so much anymore. It’s a cool LP, but it does not rage like the 7” to me. It kinda reminds me of some So-Cal punk shit, actually.

Again, I don’t know anything about Brazilian punk/hardcore. I don’t know if INOCENTES had line-up changes and that resulted in the sound changing as well. But I read something significant about their songs on Miséria E Fome, though. They actually recorded enough for a 12”, but due to government censorship they were not able to release them all. They recorded eleven songs, but apparently due to their strong protest lyrics they were only allowed to release the first four songs. Luckily, that entire session was finally released in the late 80s so we can hear it all today. It’s a shame they had to trim it down, cos the entire session is so damn good!

I am super happy Morrer Discos / Sub Discos has put these two records back in print, especially cos the originals are hard (AND expensive) to come by. A few months ago someone listed a copy of Miséria E Fome for sale on Discogs. It was priced a little high, but they were located in the USA. I actually bought another record off the seller, but I didn’t pull the trigger on the INOCENTES cos of the price. When I saw we had these reissues in stock and how nicely they were done, I started itching real bad for that OG copy, haha. Well, the seller had “make an offer” on the record – so I decided I would offer fifteen bucks less, and if they declined it, I would buy it anyways. So, I made the offer and less than a half hour later I get an email saying my offer was declined. I was like ah shit, oh well it’s just $15 more and I headed back over to the Discogs page. But the listing was no longer there. I was like, “Oh fuck man, maybe they realized they already sold it? Shit.” Or my offer pissed them off? I don’t know, it could be anything. It was hard not to wonder and hope they’d re-list it later. I decided I would check again later and then try to forget about it. So, later that day I check and still no luck. But this time I noticed the sales history changed..it no longer said the last sale was a few years ago, it said it sold that very day—for that original listing price I saw. Are you fucking kidding me???! That was a hard one to get over. I should have just coughed up that extra dough. Never forget: “I don’t regret a single record that I have bought; I regret the ones I did not buy!”

Hey there Sorry Staters! What’s cooking’? It sure is a messed-up world right now. Not that it hasn’t always been, but at least up to now we could all agree on what was up and what was down and whether the sky is blue, and grass is green. Not anymore. We’re truly in the upside down or Bizarro World. My anxiety increases daily. I’m just hoping that I won’t be affected negatively in my musical taste and will still be able to tell a good tune from a duff one, no matter what the genre.

These past few weeks have certainly found me spinning a wider variety of records for my listening pleasure. My recent revisit to my Sound Library records and particularly the section devoted to Italian recordings took me on some nice little journeys. I also found myself finally being able to appreciate some of the more adventurous tunes on records that I had previously found tough going. It really is true that you often must be in a certain place in life and have certain experiences and exposure to a wide spectrum of sounds to appreciate a particular piece of music. I would have never listened to half the stuff I do now when I was a teenager. Jazz Fusion? Progressive Rock? Are you serious? Do me a favor. Yet here I am this week playing some rare Italian Prog and digging it.

With that said, my pick for you this week is a record that came out in 1970 in Italy on RCA called The Feed-Back. Credited at the time as self-titled, it soon became known that it was a recording by Il Gruppo or The Group. They are the Gruppo D’Improvviazione Nuova Consonaza, an all-star collective formed in 1964 by experimental composers of the avant-garde. They had in their ranks Ennio Morricone, to throw a name out there that most will recognize. Their mission was to develop new techniques in playing and recording music through improvisation and experimentalism. Generally speaking, musique concrete, free jazz and modern classical are not my jams and this is what you’ll find on the majority of The Group’s recordings, but on The Feed-Back they got a little funky and hip and tapped into the “underground” sound. They weren’t young dudes though by 1970, with most of the players approaching their 40s or older.

The star of the show on the session was without doubt the drummer. Everything is built around his very upfront tight and groovy patterns. Many have compared the beats here to those on Krautrock records from the likes of Neu! And Can. That’s fair, but I wouldn’t want to say they were as good or better. It’s a journalistic kind of thing to say, but does fit. The drummer here was Enzo Restuccia, who was a session man at RCA Italiana and who frequently played on scores for Ennio Morricone, among others.

The rest of the musicians, including Morricone on trumpet, jam around the drum patterns. There’s guitar, bass and piano, along with various percussion to fill out the sound. Only three tracks and done within thirty minutes. It won’t change your life, but whilst it’s spinning it sort of hits the spot.

Original copies of this record fetch high price tags, which is understandable as it didn’t get a huge release back in 1970 and copies are scarce. The pedigree of the players behind the album certainly adds to the allure and brings more people into the chase, and because it has beats you also had producers and DJs on the hunt for it. I first heard a cut from the record years ago in a DJ set that this fellow was playing, and sometime after got a track on a compilation of rare tracks aimed at the DJ and collectors looking for beats and deep cuts. I pretty much gave up on ever finding a copy or being able to afford one if I did, and had forgotten about it. Fast forward to last year and whilst window shopping on Discogs I stumbled upon a guy in the US who had a reissue for sale at a very nice price. So, I bought it and am glad I did as even this reissue isn’t that easy to find stateside, and typically sells for more than what I paid for it. The repress was done by the fantastic Italian label Schema in 2014. They did a great job. Remastered from original tapes, it sounds fine to my ears, although I don’t have an original to compare it to. They did a nice job with the sleeve repro and even chuck in a CD copy for you to go digital. Cheers. An OBI is included with some brief notes and credits the musicians, which the original never did. I need to search for an English translation to the Italian liner notes, however. That might have been a nice touch as a small insert perhaps on the repress, but I quibble. The internet will have the translation somewhere.

Like I said, this won’t change your life, but if you have found that life has twisted your melon recently and you are partial already to some 70s prog and krautrock, then there might be something for you here. Either way, it’s a quick listen and still worth it and that’s my final answer.

Okay, deadline approaches. Back to listening to more Roy Ayers and New York Dolls records.

Cheers and see you next time - Dom

What’s up Sorry Staters?

Another week, another newsletter, amirite? I remember feeling like I was being kind of a downer in the opening of my newsletter write-up last week. Sorry about that. I feel very much the opposite today. I feel like I’ve made some healthy choices for myself lately. But, this isn’t my journal, so y’all don’t care! Ha.

Some exciting news: Public Acid announced that we’re playing K-Town Hardcore Fest in Copenhagen in June. I’m so pumped. Last year’s K-Town was one of the best weekends my life, no joke. So yeah, I’m ready to do it all over again. I don’t even think I’ve mentioned, but Public Acid is also playing Noise Annoys in the UK in May, so the beginning of summer is lookin’ to be a good time.

I’m predicting that my line of thinking while writing this staff pick will be kinda all over the place this week. Apologies in advance. I’m kinda not picking one record specifically. Actually, I wanna begin by talking about a couple movies. If you read my staff pick last week, you’ll know I talked about The Outcasts singles collection on Radiation. In that write-up, I talked about Northern Ireland and the whole scene revolving around Good Vibrations Records. After that newsletter came out, Daniel approaches me at work and says, “Man, have you seen the Good Vibrations movie?” Of course, me being the uncultured neanderthal that I am, I had not seen it nor did I have any idea that the movie existed. That night, I watched it on streaming. And I loved it! For my money, Good Vibrations is one of the better music-related biopics I’ve seen in recent memory.

The movie mainly centers around the owner of Good Vibrations, Terri Hooley. I’ve seen so many music biopics not unlike Good Vibrations where the acting is super cringey. As opposed to like the CBGB’s movie, which comes across as so corny. It annoys me that the costuming of how people are dressed and how the actors portraying the band look while performing feels cartoony or like parody. But on the contrary, the club scene where Terri goes and sees Rudi play for the first time actually feels pretty believable! Well, maybe not, but it didn’t make me wince. It captured how uplifting and exciting it was for Hooley to discover something new. Also, the backdrop of social unrest and “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland didn’t feel too heavy-handed, but rather provided a strong sense of atmosphere, giving context for what the feeling on street was like behind the music scene. I just thought it was really well done. I recommend checking it out if you’ve never seen it.

So, I guess this will be kind of a twofer. Watching that Good Vibrations movie has been making me crave super melodic punk that puts me in good spirits. And dare I say… power pop? Oof, that term is just the kiss of death, isn’t it? I’ve used that line before. Don’t care. I always think it’s funny. Unrelated, I was revisiting my Die Kreuzen records a couple weeks ago, and randomly stumbled across this documentary on YouTube called Taking The City By Storm. The subtitle is the “birth of punk in Milwaukee’s punk scene.” I watched the movie on a whim. Funny enough, the movie cold opens with grainy footage of Die Kreuzen on tour in 1985, stranded at a hotel in the middle of nowhere with a tour van that won’t start. Very relatable haha. But this opening was a bit misleading, I’d say. I assumed a good chunk of the movie would be about hardcore. Die Kreuzen does appear in the movie of course, but the emergence of hardcore doesn’t happen until the last third of the movie. If I’m being honest, I think I would probably categorize a grand majority of the bands featured in the movie as “power pop” or more underground music than straight punk.

The documentary takes the viewer way back to the vibe of the music scene in Milwaukee in 1972. The movie starts off talking about a band called Death (not to be confused with the Detroit band). As I might’ve guessed, all the members of Death met because they were fans of The Stooges. The documentary establishes Death as the catalyst for the underground music exploding. The way the narrative evolves is super interesting, stitching together key figures in the community in a manner that feels incredibly in-depth and personal. The movie talks about this guy Jerome Brish, who seems like he was a strong personality and real instigator in the music scene. A lot of the bands discussed in the movie I had never heard of, one of them being Jerome’s band In A Hot Coma. Funny enough, even before the movie mentions this, I recognized the keyboard player from In A Hot Coma. Turns out, this woman Jill Kossoris would end up leaving In A Hot Coma and become the lead singer for The Shivvers! Much like many other cities, the scene in Milwaukee seems like it was incestuous. While watching the movie, I was like “I called it!” I remember loving The Shivvers reissue on Sing Sing Records when I first heard it many years back. So needless to say, watching this documentary got me on a binge of jamming The Shivvers once again. And tying it into the Good Vibrations theme, Sing Sing also did reissues of Rudi, Protex, etc. It’s all connected, my friends.

What point am I trying to make exactly? I dunno. This is where my head’s been at with music, I suppose. So yeah, check out these movies and jam some Rudi, Protex, and The Shivvers. I highly recommend the Shivvers song “Please Stand By”. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. As always, thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff

Various: Greetings from Bulgaria cassette (Aon Productions, 1996)

This week I have another item from the big haul I picked up at Vinyl Conflict a couple of weeks ago. Now, I’m not a big collector of vintage cassettes. They’re too easily counterfeited, and even if they are truly what they purport to be, magnetic tape is prone to oxidation and other types of decay and damage that make me wary of sinking money into them. But there have been a few occasions when I’ve lucked into a stash of old tapes, and they’re definitely fun to pore over. While records feel like a mass market medium—you usually have to make at least a few hundred of them, which changes the way the artist interacts with their audience—tapes are more intimate. While a personalized mix tape is like a letter from one person to another, looking at and listening to hand-duplicated tapes can feel like the pre-internet version of eavesdropping on a group chat, getting a window into a small community with its own in-jokes and idioms. I love that so many 80s and 90s metal bands circulated rehearsal tapes, workshopping their ideas and getting feedback from trusted sources before they took their ideas to the masses.

The cassette I’m writing about today is called Greetings from Bulgaria, and it’s one of several hand-duplicated compilation tapes I picked up from Vinyl Conflict. According to Discogs, it was released in 1996, and from what I can tell the tape was compiled by Ivailo Tonchev, the person behind Aon Productions, who primarily released cassettes by Bulgarian bands, though they also put out a couple of compilation 7”s and cassettes by Scandinavian bands like S.O.D. (the Swedish one) and Valse Triste. The “pay no more than £2” note on the j-card flap indicates this copy reached me via Mitsey Distro, a tape distro apparently based in Sheffield. I’m curious about how that connection was formed and how this tape found its way into the world (maybe at some point I’ll find an ad for it in an old MRR when I’m scanning ads for the newsletter), but that information may be lost to the sands of time. It seems, though, that there have always been people like me who are interested in music from off the beaten path, and I probably picked it up used for the same reasons someone would have picked it up from Mitsey Distro thirty years ago.

The tape starts with a recording of an old Bulgarian political song, meant to set the background atmosphere as an example of the only music one could hear in behind-the-iron-curtain Bulgaria. It’s kind of what you’d expect, somewhere between a religious hymn and a military march, and it’s hard to imagine how it might excite anyone. It’s sounds like music not meant to express anything really, but merely to lend authority and mystique to the state. After hearing nothing but that all your life, hearing raw and expressive rock and roll must have felt like a total revelation.

The liner notes don’t say this explicitly, but the tape’s a-side features Bulgarian bands from before the Soviet bloc collapsed in 1989. Most bands have two tracks, and the tape’s liner notes give some basic information about each band. A lot of them sound like second-wave UK punk bands, making the music it seems natural to make when you first pick up electric guitars and drums: basic beats and chord changes and a ton of passion. D.D.T. sounds kind of like Warsaw-era Joy Division, and Aon Productions later released a more extensive compilation of their recordings. U.Z.Z.U. is a little more complex, reminding me of Post Regiment’s early recordings with their commanding vocals and darkly melodic guitar riffs. Review is another standout who actually released an album on the state-run label Балкантон. The recordings are all very raw, and some of the masters are clearly damaged with drop-outs and other problems, but I don’t mind at all. It feels like these are transmissions from another world, and I’m grateful to have them at all.

The b-side of the tape features bands who, by and large, were contemporary with the compilation and presumably still active when it came out in 1996. I hate to say it, but this side of the tape is a lot less interesting. The bands on the a-side are all punk bands and they don’t sound all that different from the punk bands rich western countries produced, but there’s something special there. I’m really projecting here, but I’m guessing maybe the 80s bands had heard a few examples of punk rock, but mostly they knew punk rock was loud, fast, and angry, and they filled in whatever other gaps they needed to make their music with their intuition and with knowledge they inherited from their own cultures and backgrounds. The 90s bands, on the other hand, sound kind of like carbon copies of western bands. Several of them are straight edge bands playing various styles of youth crew and mosh-oriented hardcore, and there’s a band called Just a Product that sounds like they were weaned on the same Lookout! and Epitaph catalogs we Americans were choking down. I was going to shows by 1996, and by and large these bands sound exactly like the local and regional bands I was seeing as a teenager. I’m sure it was great for Bulgarians to have access to so much more music after their 1989 revolution, but I can’t help but feel like something was lost. I guess that’s capitalism’s main rub: it opens up a theoretical world of choice, but somehow that always gets reduced down to just a few generic-ass options.

So yeah, Bulgarian punk… who even knew it was a thing? I’m thrilled to know even this little bit about it, so kudos to the folks who originally made this cassette and to all the people exploring the wide world of music, homogenization be damned!

Hello Sorry Staters! We have seen some great weather and sun and I think we have finally gotten rid of the snow for this winter season. I hope everyone can go outside and get some sun on their face and enjoy some great weather! We have been restocking a lot of great records for ya’ll this past week, including one of my favorites, the Prison Affair EPs and the split with Research Reactor Corporation! After reading Daniel’s pick last week talking about about watching old videos of Headbanger’s Ball on YouTube, I thought it would be fun to chat about some skate videos that bridged the gap between me listening to christian punk in my early formative years to watching skate videos on the weekend and discovering bands like the Sonic Youth and The Sundays.

One of my favorite videos that I always go back to watch even in my early 40s is “Welcome To Hell” by the mighty Toy Machine Skateboards. The video starts out with an animation of the Toy Machine logo laughing in slow motion and sounding very creepy, and I know as a 16 year old watching this video with friends I thought “oh hell yes, this is going to kick ass.” Out of nowhere Lard starting playing the background and the video blasts into non stop back to back clips of the Toy Machine skate team flying off of ramps and rails. I was hooked by not only how fucking cool skateboarding looked, but the power of the music behind the scenes.

The soundtrack of this video included so many great bands and songs that I had never heard before. It was my first introduction to bands like Sonic Youth, The Sundays and Lard. It was the first time I had ever heard Black Sabbath outside of hearing it or seeing it on MTV. Even though I could not skateboard, I was obsessed with the culture and the music scene that pushed all the music that I still love today.

What’s up Sorry State readers? I hope everyone has had a nice week. As spring approaches and the weather heats up, I find my listening habits start to change too. It’s hard not to crave some good rhythm and warm sounds while enjoying a nice sunny and 70 day. This past week I picked up the newest release from Analog Africa, Gnonnas Pedro & His Dadjes Band - Roi De L’Agbadja Moderne 1974-1983. I’m a sucker for the world/international section in a record store and we had just got in some cool new arrivals at Sorry State, but this one really caught my eye/ear. A very high quality 2LP release that includes a nice gatefold jacket and an incredible booklet that includes a bunch of great interviews, photos and biography about the man himself. Not that I’m usually super in depth with my reviews, but I don’t have much to say about this one other than it’s really good music and I’m glad I discovered it. My favorite tracks on here would probably be Agbadja Moderne No2 and Gbeto Enon Mon. I wasn’t too familiar with Analog Africa before this other than the African Scream Contest compilation, but their releases are definitely gonna be on my radar going forward. I’ve already found some past releases that definitely catch my attention like the Cameroon Garage Funk compilation. Luckily, it seems the label has most, if not all, their releases available on their Bandcamp for your listening pleasure. Definitely check this out so you have some fresh new tunes to enjoy this spring/summer.

Hello and thanks for reading. I recently acquired this AVSKUM tape, and I wanted to write about it. This is the kinda shit that gets me weak in the knees! I never thought I would see a copy of this in real life, let alone have a copy of my own! I have no idea how many of these tapes were made, but I know it’s at least around 200. The tapes are numbered on the inside, and I have seen up to the number 198 online. I feel like AVSKUM is a band that needs no introduction. They began during the first wave of Swedish hardcore and have (more or less) kept it up since. I previously wrote about them when Prank did the recent reissue of Crucified By The System. I talked about how essential I consider that record, but I also mentioned how much I LOVE their unreleased material. They recorded for their 7” in February of 1984, but there were several recording sessions between July 1984 and September 1985 that were never properly released. Luckily, all that stuff was later compiled onto LP and CD releases, though. If this is all new to you, you can listen to most of these unreleased and early sessions here.

Anyways, this tape is a live AVSKUM performance recorded at Blitz, legendary Norwegian squat. The audio is not from the soundboard, but if you love AVSKUM, it will certainly hit the spot. Yeah, you can hear the crowd sometimes between songs, but AVKSUM sounds like they are on fire!! When I actually got this tape in my hands, and I realized this gig was recorded April 1985 - my mind started to race! I wondered, “Would they play any tracks from the unreleased Mortarhate 12”?” That session was recorded only five months later, and they are some of my favorite songs AVSKUM has done. I thought more as I examined the j-card, “Would they play stuff I have never even heard before…?” Between the 7” and the Mortarhate session they recorded several times, but just like the Mortarhate session, none of this stuff was released. Ah actually, Really Fast Vol 3 features AVSKUM, and they didn’t use any 7” tracks. I am not sure which session those songs are from without looking it up, which I won’t do right now... I know they appeared on a ton of cassette compilations as well, but I am not that familiar with these comps off-hand either. Anyways, most of this unreleased stuff was compiled onto a CD in the 90s by Finn Records, so luckily it could be heard and in one place. Then, later in the 2010s, Skrammel released a double disc compilation that included everything on that Finn comp plus even more unreleased shit that I didn’t know existed. Some double disc compilations like that can get old, but I don’t think AVSKUM is a band I could ever get tired of.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to hear any tracks from the Mortarhate session on the Live at Blitz tape. They play the entire Nov. ’84 session, two songs from the July ’84 session, plus two songs from the 7”. But oh baby… there sure was a song I had never heard before! On the Skrammel comp there were a bunch of songs or alternate versions of songs I have never heard, but this track “Violence is Solution to Create Peace” doesn’t seem to appear anywhere aside from this cassette. I dropped that link above to the cassette, so you can hear it as well if you have not. I could be crazy, but the song sounds really similar to “Gold Digger,” which is recorded later on the Mortarhate session. I know it’s not the same structure, and they drop the guitar solo, but maybe they decided to rework the song or something. They play “Glöm Aldrig Hiroshima” a bit differently than they did on the record as well. Alright, I should wrap this up. Before I go, I wanted to drop this link to this translated interview with AVSKUM. It doesn’t look like I shared it last time, and if you don’t know about it already, it’s a fun read. Cheers and thanks for reading.

Hi Sorry Staters, thanks for clicking on our newsletter and checking in with us.

It’s been another crazy week and honestly what happened in the White House on Friday still has me in shock. Really? This is the America we live in now? Aligning with the dictators of the world. My God! To think of all the people who have given their lives for their country to protect democracy here and around the world only to have these horrible traitors act so shamefully. It is beyond comprehension. We are in a constitutional crisis in America and a third of the population at least seems to be cheering on as the place burns. Sad. Very sad.

With all that in mind, trying to think straight and write a pick for the newsletter is even tougher than normal. I honestly couldn’t even write home for money right now, but I’ll give it a go.

Just quickly first, a mention about a record that has been out for a few months now but was missed by me when it came to the store originally. It seems we had a color variant which sold out quickly and a black vinyl version which, although listed on our webstore, didn’t make its way to the store bins. Shame on us for missing that. Anyway, last week Jeff and I were talking about the popularity of the Alvilda record, and he mentioned he thought that another French language record we got in was just as good or even, dare he say, better. That was Coeur A L’Index from Belgium and their debut titled Adieu Minette. As soon as I put it on, I knew instantly that I liked it. Great C86 style DIY pop-punk which should easily appeal to fans of Chin Chin, Dolly Mixture and bands on Slumberland Records, just to give you a rough idea. As always, Jeff called it. If you were slow on the ball like I was, we still have copies on black vinyl in stock. Check it out.

Okay, for my main pick this week I had to go with a terrific collection of reggae and dub that is focused on the productions of Dennis Bovell. It’s called Sufferrer Sounds and is out on the Disciples label, a subsidiary of Warp Records in the U.K. The compilation concentrates on tracks that were produced and released during and around the time that Dennis Bovell was involved with the South London sound system known as Sufferer Sound in the late 1970s. It’s a wonderfully curated compilation and sequenced to play as an album almost, even though tracks are pulled from different releases. There are rare B-side version dubs, lovers rock beauties, powerful rockers and roots cuts, all with the genius production touch from Dennis Bovell. I think it is great and will certainly be one of my faves of the year, I am sure. I won’t go into a deep dive on Bovell here, as I have neither the time nor the brain power to do him justice, but Lord Daniel is a big fan also and I know he picked a Dennis Bovell record before for a staff pick here in the Sorry State newsletter, so perhaps pull that one up to read a more in-depth history. Suffice to say, if you have listened to a Slits record or watched the film Babylon or loved the dub poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson, then, whether you realized it or not, you have experienced the magic of Dennis Bovell.

Back to this collection. The label has done a great job in the sound restoration and the pressing is a good one. I have been cranking it at home and at the store and can testify to the top job done by the mastering engineer. These cuts potentially have never sounded so good. Many of them are rare and hard to find (and expensive) so it’s a blessing to have them compiled here. For those wondering how things might have played and sounded at Sufferer Sound with DB at the controls all those years ago, this is a fantastic approximation. Comes with liner notes and a few photos along with track-by-track recollections from Dennis himself. Killer stuff and essential for all lovers of 70s dub reggae. I’m loving the dub version of Take Five and Angelique’s Cry with the DB version that closes out the album. Beauty and toughness combined.

Okay, short and to the point this week. Thanks for reading and supporting music and the arts.

Cheers - Dom

What’s up Sorry Staters?

I’m kinda in a weird mood today. But I won’t use this vehicle to shout my thoughts into the void. Not much to report on the personal front this week. I’ll dive right in:

Honestly, sometimes I feel guilty when I do these write-ups for the newsletter and don’t take the time to write more about new releases by current bands. It’s not that I’m disinterested… or am I? I can’t tell anymore. For some reason my brain capacity feels dedicated to digging deeper into classic punk at the moment. Maybe it’s because hearing these records elicits a feeling of time capsule-esque nostalgia I’m craving that I won’t be able to obtain from current punk? No idea.

This week, I’m talking about yet another reissue from the batch of stuff we got from Radiation a couple weeks ago. I don’t know what it is about The Outcasts that has deterred me over the years. Maybe it’s because whenever I would see the black and white band photos on the cover of their records, there’s the one skinhead looking dude and I assumed that The Outcasts sounded like Last Resort or something. The band doesn’t even look like skinheads in every photo. And don’t get me wrong, I can tolerate some Oi!, but I’m extremely picky. First of all, learning that they were from Belfast in Northern Ireland was a surprise to me. I don’t know why. There’s no reason I should be expecting a proud display of the Union Jack anywhere near this band’s artwork. At some point in my early 20s, I heard “Self-Conscious Over You” for the first time and I was totally baffled by it. I was like, “WHAT? This is what The Outcasts sound like??”

While I liked that 7” single just fine, I didn’t dig much deeper into the band’s catalog for a while. Funny enough though, I was watching yet another episode of Analog Attack’s What Are You Listening To? podcast a couple weeks ago. I’ll be honest, currently I can’t remember which episode it was or who the guests were ha. But there was a discussion about the early Belfast punk and power pop scene. And specifically, someone was talking about Good Vibrations Records. Of course, I have familiarity with this label—The Undertones and Protex have always been big favorites of mine. Now, I wish I were smarter. I never think to run down the list of releases on a label’s catalog. Good Vibrations’ handful of 15 or so singles from 1978 to 1979 is just an amazing run of tunes. To some of you reading this, you’re probably like, “Duh, Jeff.” Haha. But here I am in my 30s hearing Xdreamysts for the first time being like “Fuuuuck this rules.”

Anyway, back to The Outcasts: I think I had a total misconception about this band. Not only is a song like “Self-Conscious Over You” poppy, but some of the choruses almost sort of have the feel of a 60s doo-wop hit. Funny enough I’d never heard the band’s single on IT with “Fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-frustration”, along with the first several tracks on this Radiation comp. They kinda sound like a rougher, more rockin’ 999 to me. But then the band’s other Good Vibrations single “Justa Nother Teenage Rebel” is so great. The production and songwriting on this single feels immediately “sweeter” to me. Proclaimed the “bad boys of Ulster” on Radiation’s hype sticker, it’s kinda funny and interesting to think about this incredibly hooky and earnest teenage anthem being the backdrop for a genuinely rough and gnarly street scene. Aside from the “street anthems”, I think I was just surprised by the sort of shameless love song aesthetic of the band. Still with sort of a “tough guy” approach to love songs though, like “Love Is For Sops” and “Love You For Never”. For NEVER, ha. They have a sentiment in common with the Dead Boys in one of those songs. Come to think of it, I do need lunch pretty soon… But then digging into some of the songs I was less familiar with, one of the more aggressive tracks “Gangland Warfare” has this ending refrain that got me raging, pumping my fist and singing along: “Gang fights! Saturday Night! Whoa-oh!” It rules.

When you flip to the B-side of this singles collection, you get into the band’s singles from the early-to-mid 80s. This side of the record definitely feels like a distinct era from the band’s earlier material. More minor key, more anthemic UK82 style songs. I remember getting to the track “Mania” and I was like, “oh fuck, I know this song.” Wouldn’t haven’t even guessed it was the same band. I start to lose interest slightly, at least compared to the bangers from the early singles. But there are some cool tracks on side B for sure. “Angel Face” is a little rough for me… but hey, to each their own. When I looked up the cover art for “Angel Face”, with its super new wave looking color scheme, and homeboy with his Teen Beat looking photo sporting charged hair and flexing his gun, I was like, “ah, I see.” A little extra cheese sprinkled on top compared to the earlier material.

This record was a super fun listen, and cool for someone rather uninitiated like me to dig into. The LP comes with a big foldout poster. On the back cover, there’s fine print that provides some info about the release dates of each single. My only complaint about this collection is that I would have loved an insert with all the cover art from each single and maybe a little more information. But hey, why complain? I’ll leave it there. Thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff