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Hello and thanks for reading. This is my third attempt at my staff pick this week. I have a lot on my mind with the fest and GOLPE/ELECTRIC CHAIR tour coming up and of course I am dealing with last-minute obstacles. Originally, I wrote about the founding of our old house/venue spot The Bunker (R.I.P.), and how Jeff and I originally began our label together, Bunker Punks Discs & Tapes. I felt like my writing was a bit disorganized, and just a bit much. So I scrapped that altogether, and here we go instead. As usual, there are a ton of great new releases in stock this week at Sorry State. One of them is this HERESY reissue that I can’t get enough of. To be honest, I was not familiar with this release prior to this reissue. I heard HERESY as a teenager, but I have always just passed them over. Fuck, I have been missing out! I’m not sure why I passed them over in my younger days cos I was fan of the blast beats and they certainly blast at times. I wonder what wasn’t clicking for me? I’ve been listening to the CONCRETE SOX / HERESY split a lot as a result as well. Fuck, it is killer. Why did I shy away from CONCRETE SOX in the past? Maybe it was the metallic factor? Maybe I found the vocal style too off putting? As I get older, I try not to box shit in. I can imagine myself thinking the vocals were not brutal enough to match the music or some stupid juvenile shit. I’m really digging their 1986 LP as well. My homie Chris Hardy was always talking about that LP, but I still passed it over. Damn, I sure did fuck up, til now haha.
A few more things I have been enjoying this week are this killer KRIGSHODER compilation and this DELCO MF’s compilation!!! These are both bands I have written about in the past, and I am very happy to get their stuff on 12” format. When I was just a bit younger, I didn’t really pick up 7” compilations if had all the EPs already. However, as time goes on, the idea of flipping records less but hearing just as much music is much more appealing! Haha. The KRIGSHODER compilation was desperately needed in my opinion, as this band is unbelievably good while the actual tape version sounds pretty shitty. I’m sure I will write more about both these releases in a later staff pick, so I will move on to what I really wanted to talk about this week.
I can’t remember how long it was ago when Mattis from DISSEKERAD wrote me and proposed the idea of doing a 4-way split record. He said he wanted to do something old school, haha. It was late 2020 or early 2021 I’m guessing, and he said RAT CAGE and DESTRUCT had already agreed. Initially I didn’t like the idea of a split in general, but naturally I was excited cos members of AVSKUM and TOTALITÄR are in DISSEKERAD, haha. Of course, I think RAT CAGE is excellent, and I am a super fan of DESTRUCT, so there were other factors influencing my excitement. Everyone in SCARECROW pretty much immediately agreed to do the split. So we stopped writing for an LP, selected 3 of our favorites from what we had already written and wrote a brand new one intended for the split. We rehearsed the hell out of em while we could and throughout 2021 all 4 bands recorded. DISSEKERAD recorded the earliest, in May 2021. I guess I take the time to point this out, cos this split has really been in the works for ages. We even got a test press that we rejected due to a low hum in one channel. Amazingly though, they cut a new test in less than two weeks, and it sounded amazing. Still, though, the record was at the plant for over a year. This is where I will begin to lose track of my writing, cos there is so much that went into this. From the tracks themselves, to the amazing full-color artwork by Joe BB that was also adapted into the killer poster design by Alex D; I feel honored that Jeff and I released this record. It is the first 12" release on our label. Initially I told a story about how we formed a label and the releases that lead up to this LP. It’s quite emotional for me. I’m sure anyone reading this who came to The Bunker remembers it as a very special, unique place. We were so lucky. It did take a lot of work though, and that work evolved into Jeff and I creating a label together. I am happy now the name forever lives on with our label, Bunker Punks Discs & Tapes. I should probably just end it here, cos I can’t keep any concision regarding the compilation, as so much went into it. Before I go, I do want to say BPDT couldn’t be what it is today without Daniel/Sorry State. Before I worked here, I hand wrote all of our mail-order addresses and dropped them off. With the volume in which we do mail-order now, there is no way in hell we could do that without the technology and shipping supplies Sorry State has, that Daniel is so generous to let us use. Not to mention the space to store our releases and put them together; some people have to rent a spot for that kind of stuff, but we are lucky to squeeze our stuff into the midst of Sorry State’s warehouse. There is no way in hell I could fit an additional 1,000 LPs in my apartment comfortably. On top of all that stuff, we distribute tons of our releases through Sorry State. There is no way as many people would know about our label if not for Sorry State. That goes for so many other bands/labels as well. Daniel fucking rules, thank you so much dude. Anyway, if you want to check out the tracks, you can hear them here. You can grab a copy from Sorry State here if you want one, but also there is a limited to 50 t-shirt being printed by Joe BB that is only available here. There are not many left, so if you do want one be sure to act fast. Alright that’s all then. Thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone for the support. See you at the fest!!!