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What’s up Sorry Staters?

If you remember last week, I was just talking about how much I’ve actually been enjoying the summer heat for once. But just as I say that, all of a sudden it feels unseasonably mild outside just in time for August. This week has been gloomy, sometimes a bit rainy, and borderline chilly when it gets dark out. Very strange. I know it’s just a false sense of comfort before the brutal heat returns and lasts until October. But as a result, I’ve been listening to a lot of moody, vibey, yet comforting tunes. I walked into work today before writing this, and after experiencing grey skies, I decided Blitz’s Second Empire Justice would be a nice listen.

My staff pick is a little different, though. Yet again, I recently made a pitstop to our friends over at the Pour House record shop. Like I mentioned in a previous newsletter or two, I’ve gotten some cool records there lately. To my surprise, Pour House once again got a killer batch of used punk records! (I may or may not know the source of said recent punk records suddenly appearing at our sister shop *wink*wink) Some of the records I scored may be saved for a future newsletter. But one record I was stoked to grab within the last week is a copy of Nightmare City, the debut full-length by The Alley Cats.

I’ve always loved The Alley Cats’ Dangerhouse single, as well as their track contributed to the Yes LA compilation. But for whatever reason, even when I’ve stumbled across the band’s LPs while working at Sorry State or while visiting other record stores, I’ve never taken them home. Shame on me. A few months back, I remember Daniel writing in the newsletter about his recent acquisition of the 2nd Alley Cats LP, Escape From Planet Earth. After Daniel similarly mentioned an Alley Cats record eluding him, I realized I must not let this one slip. This copy I got of Nightmare City looks minty fresh with the insert too, so I was stoked. I’ve heard this record many times, but I was looking forward to digging deeper into the record on my home stereo with more focus and attention.

How would I explain The Alley Cats? I usually associate them with the first wave of punk bands emerging out of Los Angeles in the late 70s. Still, they’re kind of an oddball band, I suppose. They’re a 3-piece—guitar, bass, and drums, obviously—with guitar player Randy Stodola and bassist Dianne Chai alternating lead vocal duties. They’re a bit quirky, both lyrically and musically. Sometimes rockin’. Sometimes more mellow. Surfy? Boogie-woogie? Nah, maybe that’s a bit far. But they seem like an odd duck compared to say… X, I guess. But yes, still more straightforward and easier to digest than Black Randy.

The album opens with the title track, “Nightmare City,” which sets a much more brooding tone than one might expect. This cold, droning bassline grooves over a propulsive, almost anxious, drumbeat. Right-hand hi-hat dexterity throwin’ the fuck down. Randy and Dianne sing the lead vocal in unison, giving a sense of haunting, otherworldly atmosphere. A recurring theme seems to be “the city at night,” where the next couple of songs have street scene titles like “Night Along The Blvd” and “King of The Street Fights.”

Randy sings lead on these geographically titled songs, giving these esoteric, poetic musings. His voice is definitely… peculiar, I would say. I feel like his approach to a vocal falls somewhere between the stylings of Lou Reed and Fred Schneider haha. I must admit, while I dig the quirkiness of his voice from time to time, I much prefer the songs where Dianne sings. In between these two streetlight serenades is a song called “One More Chance to Survive”, and once I hear Dianne’s voice start singing, I’m like, “oh fuck yeah.” I can’t help it! Can we also take a moment just to appreciate Dianne Chai? One of the unsung heroes of that early LA scene. Great singer, shredding bass playing, full of charisma. I feel like she’s a bass player’s bass player, playing with aggression and grace not unlike Suzi Quatro.

I think Nightmare City is a great record throughout, but side B is really where I get hooked. Overall, I think the energy just picks up. But my feeling this way may be partially due to my familiarity with the first couple of tracks. Side B opens with a reworking of their Dangerhouse single “Nothing Means Nothing Anymore”, opening with that unmistakable surfy, almost Dead Kennedys-esque intro riff. What’s cool is that unlike the single version, Randy and Dianne sing dual vocals once again, rather than just Randy singing, which I think sounds totally killer on this song. Then the band follows that up with serious fire, launching into a new version of their cut off of Yes LA, and for my money, their MEGA-hit “Too Much Junk”. They play a lean, mean version, amping up the tempo and making the arrangement much lighter on its feet. They are cookin’, man, lemme tell ya. If you’re unfamiliar, this song has gotta be one of the band’s most straight-ahead rockin’ tunes, with a bluesy, circular earworm of a riff and HUGE hooky sing-along chorus. I must say, even for the raging tempo and urgency with which they recorded this LP version, I think I still prefer the Yes LA version. I think the slower pace works better, because you can feel the groove is more in the pocket. I also think Dianne’s vocal performance is stronger and more classic sounding. Maybe that’s just me.

The last few songs are great too. “Give Me A Little Pain” is a super melodic, up-tempo New Wave number that feels like it should be playing in the background during the night club scene in a John Hughes movie or something. “Black Haired Girl” is maybe the sleeper hit on this record, such a rager. Powerful riffing that hints at what sounds like the style that a lot of the Huntington Beach and Orange County bands would adopt not too soon after.

Nightmare City was released in 1981 on the Time Coast label. Funny enough, Time Coast is a Los Angeles indie imprint that I mostly associate with the early releases by Ratt. Yes, THAT Ratt. Hey, that was LA, baby. Then later, Time Coast would release The Zarkons, which was the post-Alley Cats new wave band with funky outfits. The Alley Cats would only release one more full-length, which I mentioned previously. That 2nd LP came out on MCA, and I imagine the band’s attempt at major label success wasn’t the most fruitful. Escape From The Planet Earth has some bangers on it. Funny enough, when I checked Discogs today, it looks like a reformed Alley Cats released a record in 2025? With Randy Stodola being the only static member. Wild. But for me, Nightmare City should have been recognized as the band’s tour de force. It’s like a classic of the era, but I rarely hear people talk about it. I hate to use the term “underrated,” because I hear it so often that the term doesn’t hold much water. The Alley Cats’ importance does feel a bit understated, I would say. They should be championed as the shredding musicians, great songwriters, and outright outer space weirdos that they are. Gotta love an underdog story though, right?

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. Go check out The Alley Cats if you’ve been resisting all these years. A misshapen part of the LA punk puzzle. As always, thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff

This past December, my wife came down with pneumonia just before Christmas, so we didn’t get to visit any family. Thankfully, I didn’t get sick, but I still had to stay at home… I didn’t know if I would get sick at any moment, I was afraid of transmitting germs to elderly relatives, and Jet also needed me to stay home and take care of her. Thankfully, that’s all long behind us (Jet made a full recovery), but it meant that when we got together for our annual family vacation last month, we had some Christmas gifts waiting for us that no one had been able to give to us. My mom gave me a big stack of books, and I wanted to write about this one for my staff pick this week:

Michael Azerrad: The Amplified Come as You Are (HarperOne, 2023)

I’m sure I’ve said this in the newsletter many times before, but I am a Nirvana baby. Nevermind came out a few days after my twelfth birthday, and it was perfectly timed to hit me with full impact. I had loved rock music since I was a little kid and was already curious enough about it to have gotten deeper than what MTV and radio were feeding me (skateboarding had made me hip to Suicidal Tendencies and I was also exploring Slayer and Metallica), but Nevermind struck the perfect balance between the tunefulness the mainstream trains you to like and the more aggro / dangerous sounds I was getting interested in. I jumped on the Nirvana bandwagon relatively early in Nevermind’s ascent and I stayed with them for the entire ride, listening to all of their albums incessantly. Even today, hearing Nevermind takes me right back to where I was then… I can remember what shoes I wore, the boom box I played it on, and exactly how my backyard was laid out. Those were formative times.

Other Nirvana fans probably remember that Michael Azerrad wrote a book called Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, which came out in 1993. It was the first book-length biography of Nirvana, and it was timed to coincide with the release of In Utero so that it could ride the wave of publicity surrounding that album. I definitely read Come As You Are at the time, probably multiple times. I developed my taste for reading about music as a teen, and back then it was tough to find a book that wasn’t about classic rock, which wasn’t of much interest to me. I still read books about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones because I wanted to know about music, but the music I was reading about didn’t mean that much to me. Honestly, I didn’t even really know it. My parents were really young and listened to contemporary rock radio, not the oldies stations that so many of my friends’ parents listened to. I remember reading a book that analyzed the Beatles songbook in excruciating detail, but I’d never heard 90% of the songs they were writing about. I suppose that primed me for listening to the You Don’t Know Mojack podcast, where I still listen to hours-long dissections of later-era SST releases I haven’t heard and probably won’t ever take the time to check out.

Anyway, the conceit of the book I’m writing about, The Amplified Come as You Are, is that Azerrad is revisiting Come as You Are, reflecting on the book, analyzing and updating what he originally wrote. It’s a full reprint of Come as You Are, but every few paragraphs Azerrad’s 2023 voice (set in a different typeface) interrupts the narrative. Given when Come as You Are was written—In Utero hadn’t even come out, so obviously no one knew Kurt would take his own life, that Dave Grohl would start the Foo Fighters, etc.—there is a lot to update. I heard an interview with Azerrad on The Music Books Podcast and the conceit sounded interesting when he explained it, and it is indeed a gripping read. I haven’t been able to put the book down.

A few things stand out as key themes in The Amplified Come as You Are. The first is suicide. It’s staggering how much suicide came up in the original Come as You Are. It feels like on almost every page Kurt is saying he’s going to kill himself or making some sort of reference or analogy to suicide. As Azerrad notes again and again, the signs were right there for anyone to see, but it seems like he and everyone else dismissed it as Kurt being melodramatic or just depressed, but with hindsight it’s clear that he was thinking about suicide almost constantly, normalizing the idea and getting used to it in his own mind, paving the way for him to actually do it. The lesson, of course, is that if you know someone who does the same thing, heed those warning signs. Try to help them, or at least listen to them. Ignoring those cries for help only reinforces the sufferer’s idea that no one cares and they won’t be missed. I’m not a psychologist or a counselor, but if you care, just try to do something.

That leads to the second big thing that strikes me about the original Come as You Are, and that’s how young and immature the members of Nirvana were. Kurt was 24 when Nevermind came out, and the other members of the band and most of the other key players in the story were around the same age. I’m 45 now, and I often still feel lost, alone, and totally without perspective. I look back at what I was like when I was 24, and I think about how self-obsessed, narrow-minded, and immature I was, and that’s kind of how Kurt was too. Azerrad notes repeatedly Kurt’s pattern of passive aggression. If he wants something from someone, he never tells them directly, but acts hostile to signal something is wrong, then descends into a deeper spiral of anger and alienation when the target of his displeasure doesn’t do what he wants. There’s this hilarious quote from Dan Peters (the drummer for Mudhoney, who was also briefly the drummer for Nirvana) where he blithely sums it up: “their communication skills at that time were kind of not happening.”

(An aside about Dan Peters. One thing I’d kind of forgotten that this book reminded me of is how fucked Nirvana’s treatment of Dan Peters was. They had kicked Chad Channing, the drummer on Bleach, out of the band and started playing with Dan Peters. They played one show with Peters and wrote and recorded the song “Sliver,” and were just about to leave for a UK tour. Just before the tour, they secretly auditioned Dave Grohl and decided they wanted him as the drummer. They didn’t tell Peters until literally the last minute… he had already done press and taken publicity photos with the band in advance of the tour. Kurt even, during an acoustic radio appearance, said on the air that the band had a new drummer when they hadn’t even told Peters yet. This is all pretty fucked, but it made me think of a personal story. One of my ex-wife’s good friends was Dan Peters’ niece, and when she got married, Peters came to the wedding, which I also attended. I didn’t talk to him directly as I was too shy, but I eavesdropped on some of his conversations, and it seemed like all anyone wanted to talk to him about was Nirvana and Kurt. These were total norms at the wedding, people who almost certainly didn’t know Mudhoney, so to them he was just this guy who had known Kurt Cobain. Peters insists his experience with Nirvana wasn’t painful, but surely it must have been, and worse I’m sure he has to revisit it all the time in situations like that wedding.)

This portrait of Nirvana and Kurt—dark, dysfunctional, immature—is so different from the version of Kurt I recently lived with as I listened to The Cobain 50 podcast a few months ago. (I wrote about my first impressions of the podcast in a previous staff pick, but I stayed with it for the whole series and enjoyed it.) Azerrad notes repeatedly how eager Kurt was (at least in some contexts) to secure his underground bona fides. Usually this meant downplaying his interest, as a young man, in heavy metal and classic rock and emphasizing his connections to the punk underground. Kurt’s list of all-time favorite albums, which was the basis for the The Cobain 50 podcast, is totally pitched this way. While some personal touchstones like Aerosmith and the Beatles appear, the bulk of the list is K Records-approved, politically progressive underground groups like the Raincoats, Kleenex, and the Marine Girls. There was so much of that music on the list that I kind of came away with the impression that Kurt was deeply ingrained in the Olympia scene that introduced him to all that stuff. But Come as You Are paints Kurt as kind of a redneck interloper to that scene, holed up alone in his apartment smoking cigarettes and experimenting with heroin while the rest of the Calvinists (Kurt’s derisive term for the followers of K Records founder Calvin Johnson) played kickball and listened to Talulah Gosh or whatever. Kurt was enormously self-conscious about the poverty and lack of cultural sophistication he grew up with, and that self-consciousness sometimes manifested itself as a need to impress more cultured or sophisticated people, though at other times he lashed out at these people, knowing he’d never truly be one of them. That’s something I can absolutely relate to, and I wonder if it’s one reason I latched onto Nirvana so thoroughly when I was young.

Also like Kurt, I have struggled with the depression demon my entire life. While The Amplified Come as You Are has totally engrossed me, it’s also left me in some pretty dark headspace. I’ve had some personal changes in my life over the past few weeks and months that I’ve been ruminating on and struggling to make sense of, and the portrait of depression in the book calls to me like a siren song. While I’ve been in some pretty dark places in my life, I’m lucky to have something in me that pulls me back from the brink. (Or maybe I’ve just been lucky so far?) Part of Kurt’s brilliance surely came from the fact that he could and would dive deeper into the void. The Amplified Come as You Are makes me feel like I’m following him further down there than I ever would have ventured myself, and it’s fucking scary. After all, he didn’t come back. So yeah, great book, but trigger warning: it’s fucking dark.

If you are struggling or in a crisis, you can call or text 988 for help or chat at 988lifeline.org.

Lame: Lo Que Extrañas Ya No Existe 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus) La Vida Es Un Mus brings us the second album by this European hardcore group. I didn’t hear much chatter about Lame’s first record, 2023’s Dejad Que Vengan—with members spread across a few European cities, I don’t think Lame played a ton of gigs in the interim—but I hope people take more notice of Lo Que Extrañas Ya No Existe because it’s a unique and interesting record. The backbone of most songs are the sturdy, often mid-paced riffs that leave a lot of breathing room for dynamics. Take, for instance, “El Palco Del Horror,” which trudges along with a chunky, Fang-esque groove, walking that line between being simple enough to sound classic, yet not reminding you of anything in particular. For me, though, the stars of the show in Lame are the drums and vocals. Like the riffs, the drum patterns are spacious rather than dense and never showy, but when you listen closely they’re filled with interesting rhythmic accents and always complement the riffing in unexpected ways, giving these songs a textural richness that more straightforward drumming would surely lack. And Lame’s vocalist is a ball of charisma, with a ranting style that reminds me of early Negazione because it sounds like she’s winding herself up, each line growing faster and more impatient until she reaches a breaking point. This pattern forms another axis of tension in the songs that can complicate what’s happening instrumentality in interesting ways. Take the title track, where the vocals slowly ascend a ramp of intensity while the instrumental parts cycle through iterations of quiet/loud, the patterns overlaying one another in a way that gives the track a kind of cinematic breadth. Like the album as a whole, it’s vicious and punk as fuck, but with subtle artistry that reveals something new with each listen.

What’s up Sorry State readers? I hope everyone is having a nice week. This week I will be writing about the Grateful Dead, so probably 99% of y’all can stop reading now. I honestly wanted to write about something else cause I know most people reading this couldn’t care less, but it’s what I’ve been listening to the most lately and this year marks 60 years of the bands formation and we just randomly got this cassette from a collection so why not let it rip? I get it; the most popular, mainstream Grateful Dead stuff is from the late 80s/90s and it’s pretty bad, hokey, whatever you wanna call it. Unfortunately, that’s a lot of people’s first and only impressions. Not saying everyone would like the earlier material, but I think some people would be surprised to hear what the Grateful Dead sounded like in their early years, specifically ’65-’70. Today I’m writing about the album released in 1973, Bear’s Choice: History of The Grateful Dead (Vol. 1). The “Bear” in the title refers to Owsley Stanley, who recorded this material at a couple different live shows three years earlier in 1970 at the Filmore East in New York City. Owsley provided quite a few “extracurriculars” for the band as well as acting as the band’s soundman at this time. The album starts off with excerpts from a very laid-back acoustic set by the band, mostly covers including Katie Mae, Dark Hollow, and a version of Wake Up Little Susie that I’ve always been particularly fond of. The second half of the album features only two songs, mostly due to the first one being a ripping 18 minute cover of Howlin Wolf’s Smokestack Lightning, followed by Hard To Handle. The band’s lead man at the time, Pigpen, has a bluesy, raw voice that really lends itself to these tracks. Anyway, if you’ve ever been “Dead-Curious” I’d say a great place to start would be here and the Live Dead album. Don’t knock it till you try it!

Hi and thanks for reading. I still have not really been listening to records lately. My life has been a mess, and I am trying to get myself under control. I still have a stack of records I need to listen to that I brought home from Finland and Sweden back in June. I have been reading some books here and there in my free time. I’ve been listening to BIG L and MOBB DEEP quite a bit, though. I have some of their records, but I have been listening to them online while I work. They are classics in my opinion, although I don’t always agree with the topics and language they use, haha.

The photo I used above is the foldout poster I mentioned last week from the LAMA Väliaikainen 7”. If you still haven’t grabbed one of these box sets—what are you waiting for?! A Sorry State supporter from Finland, Joona, wrote me after my last staff pick and let me know some cool trivia about LAMA’s track Väliaikainen. I was not aware this song is actually a cover of a Finnish songwriter named Tapio Rautavaara, and it originally came out in 1955. Wild. I know the Finns love cover songs, but this still caught me off guard.

The DEATH SIDE reissues have finally arrived at our HQ. It sucks you can’t order them from us at the moment, but I am hoping we can get some more copies soon. Daniel and Jeff have been chipping away at the mail-order queue, so if you haven’t gotten a tracking update for your copy, I am sure you can expect an update before the week is over. I wanted to mention this here cos I was SUPER impressed with the packaging on this one. The massive booklet is so nice and well-done. Nice work, Paco!!! This reissue has been needed for ages now.

I picked up one of these DESTRUXION AMERICA 12”s last week. This record isn’t doing anything new, but I think it’s a good listen. While I hear some similarities to other contemporary bands, I do hear something else going on in there I don’t really hear from bands these days. If you haven’t heard this one, check it out!

We got these STRUL LPs in stock the other day. STRUL has been around for a while, and I initially checked them out when Jeff and I released the SLAN 7” in USA. STRUL and SLAN share one member, and both bands make some ripping Swedish hardcore. When I initially checked out STRUL they didn’t really stick out to me, but this new LP Fuck Strul is a certified ripper. Jeff and I jammed a copy in the store the other day and I had to grab a copy. If you haven’t checked this one out yet, I would suggest it cos you’ll likely need a copy as well.

Oh yeah, I don’t think I have mentioned FRIGÖRA here yet. This is another reissue that has been needed for ages now. Their 7” and Dance of the Plague Bearer LP go for big bucks on the secondhand market these days, especially for being 90s records. I don’t have either of those records, so this one was even more essential for me. Aside from compiling all their material, General Speech added three unreleased tracks to this record. So sick. I don’t have a copy yet, as I mail-ordered directly from General Speech cos I had to get that limited color vinyl on this one, haha. If you aren’t familiar with FRIGÖRA, you can stream the entire reissue here. I know this style isn’t for everyone, but it hits the spot for me. Alright, that’s it for this week then. Thanks for reading, and much love to my friends out there.

Hey there everyone. Thanks for taking the time to check in with us this week. Hopefully it serves as a distraction from the horrible news and bs that’s all around us these days.

We have had a lot of cool shit come through the store in the last week or so. Restocks on current bangers, reissues of classics, and more obscure deep cut titles. One that caught my eye and has proved to be a winner is my pick for you this week. It’s a compilation too, and anyone who knows me will tell you I love a good comp.

Various Artists – All The Young Droids (Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985). School Daze

This is a lovingly compiled collection of obscure and under the radar synth pop and DIY sounds from a bygone era. It has been curated by Phil King, bass player from Lush (among his many credits) and put out by Glasgow-based label School Daze, which is a subsidiary label to Night School Records. They have done a nice job indeed. Twenty-four tracks of synth-based pop and punkier sounds from artists whose names, for the most part, will be known only to the keenest collectors of music from this period. Almost all the tracks originate from the United Kingdom, but there are one or two Euro and World entries included for good measure. The collection comes with a nice booklet, reproducing sleeves and providing artist and track information. The copies we received were on pink vinyl, and there is supposed to be a clear version too. These are stated to be in a run of just 500 each, but there looks to be a more available black vinyl pressing. Obviously, once we sell the copies we have here, there is no guarantee that we will get more of the same, but hopefully we should get something. Should demand require it, naturally.

Synth pop, I know, isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. Often looked down on by some, as a genre it’s almost a poor cousin to the cooler punk and guitar-based styles of the day. Every genre has good and bad examples of the respective music. I would argue that, if anything, a lot of the synth-based music being made during this pioneering period of the late 1970s and early 1980s was far more progressive, new and exciting than a lot of the stodgy rock music being made then. I’ve always had a soft spot for it, probably beginning with my love for Soft Cell, Human League, Heaven 17, OMD and the like. I still dig those records out and enjoy them to this day. I’m not opposed to pop music at all. A good tune is a good tune at the end of the day.

On this compilation, the focus isn’t on the known names, but rather those who were on smaller labels and those who just put out one or two records independently. There are some names, like Ian North from Milk ‘N Cookies fame, who might be recognized, but probably not this track by him. One of my favorite tracks is “I’m On A Rocket” by Harry Kakoulli, who was in Squeeze. His contribution is potentially the more post-punkish of the set and has guitars on it too. Great cut that sort of reminds me of the stuff Elton Motello was doing. Kakoulli released one album in 1980 under his name and it’s not too bad. It includes the Rocket track and a couple of other good ones. You should be able to find it cheaply, especially in the U.K.

For me, the cuts that work the best on the compilation are those like Kakoulli’s which are less than obvious synth pop. Out of the twenty-four tracks, it’s the ones that pull out all the pop cliches that are the least interesting. You’ll always have one or two tracks on a double LP collection that aren’t your faves, especially when digging into more obscure selections, but thankfully on this one there aren’t many. I’ve only had the record a week or so and played it a few times, but didn’t hear anything that made me say, “this sucks.” Naturally, individual experiences will vary, but dollar for dollar this set is great value in my opinion.

For archivists, historians and just those interested, the full-size color booklet is a treasure trove of information. Informative notes, photos, record sleeve scans and even a rundown of the electronic instruments used on the records heard. Phil King is no stranger to curating compilations of this nature, but on this one he has done an exceptional job I believe. Kudos, sir. It sounds great too. To make the package even more attractive, you will find some real rarities and some unreleased tracks that those of us stateside are very unlikely to stumble across in the wild.

I’ll leave by repeating the quote from NME music journalist Nick Kent that is printed in the booklet.

“And then came the rise of synth pop: blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended: not with a blood-curdling bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”

Hilarious. He thought he was being clever by putting down the music, but of course, as we all know, electronic music wasn’t the end of pop, rock or anything else. It continued to grow and evolve and spawn a whole new culture. Whether you like it or not. The dinosaurs of bloated ‘60s and ‘70s rock are the ones that sound dated now and barely hold up, whilst a lot of the “new” music made back then still sounds fresh today. I’ll take Depeche Mode over Foghat any flippin’ day, mate. Kent was also wrong in thinking synth-based music was new. He obviously hadn’t heard of Wendy Carlos or Delia Derbyshire or picked up a copy of Switched On Moog, which coincidentally we had a copy of the other day, and I was jamming in the store and sold right off the turntable. Don’t be a Luddite. Sewing machines didn’t end the world, and neither has a Moog synth. Will we eventually be killed by robots in the future? Possibly. But for now, let’s enjoy the noises they can make.

Cheers and see you all next time.

-Dom

What’s up Sorry Staters?

Even when there’s nothing eventful happening, life seems to feel like a blur. Whenever I manage to escape my routine, I’m actually enjoying enduring the heat outside this summer, believe it or not. Trying to be within proximity of as many charcoal grills cooking veggie burgers and drinking as many beers by bodies of water as I can. Because Daniel was on his beach trip, we skipped a newsletter last week. So, what have I been up to? I guess I drove up to Richmond with a crew of people to go see Alvilda about a week ago! They were so great live. It was like a dream, or “a movie” as the kids say. A welcome joyful escape. My good buddy Eric Chubb opened the gig with his new band The Crazed where, rather than beating the life out of a drum set, he actually took on guitar and vocal duties. They covered “Walking Out On Love” and I saw the Alvilda ladies singing along. Pretty cool. Look forward to seeing what that band does next.

Now for my staff pick. Rather than talking about joyful dreamscapes, I’m going to talk about cold, heavy darkness. I will admit that I felt quite sad when Ozzy passed away. I did have a lil session of blasting some Sabbath along with the first couple Ozzy solo records. Those records are still special and were very formative for me. Especially when I was learning guitar, my dad was basically drilling into my head that Randy Rhoads is the gold standard and God’s gift to awesome rock guitar playing. Haha. I still love Randy’s playing. But along with my rotation of Ozzy listening, I’ve been throwing on this newly reissued album Tears by Sacrifice.

My familiarity with Sacrifice was somewhat limited. Just to be clear, we’re talking about the Sacrifice from Japan, not the Canadian band. I’ve always been drawn to Japanese heavy metal, my interest starting with more accessible bands like Loudness, but then moving onto Flatbacker, Sniper, and heavier stuff like Sabbrabells. In my exploration, I maybe had some vague awareness of Sacrifice’s first album Crest of Black from 1987. But of course, I’d never gotten my hands on a copy. I would later learn that this album is deemed sort of a “cult classic” for Japanese metal. Most of the Japanese stuff I’d heard was still glam-adjacent or still rooted in what I think of as more Scorpions-influenced rock. Even the more speed metal stuff still had flashy, soaring vocals and guitar work that was decidedly Judas Priest-esque. I discovered that Sacrifice’s sound is much darker and heavier—scary, even.

After Crest of Black, Sacrifice released two more albums that were only available on CD format in their initial release. Bitter Lake Recordings, a label that reissues a lot of great stuff, managed to finally release these long overdue Sacrifice albums on vinyl for the first time. My journey with Sacrifice really began with their 1990 album Total Steel when Bitter Lake reissued that record back in 2020. The evolution from Crest of Black to Total Steel moves from the brittle, cultish, Venom-esque metal sound of a band’s early stages to a much more polished, tight and crispy production. What’s funny is that even though I guess I could have easily gone and checked the band’s Discogs page, I didn’t really know another step in the Sacrifice trilogy was awaiting me. Honestly, I’m kinda happy my initial experience hearing Tears was throwing the actual record onto the turntable for the first time.

What can I say about Sacrifice’s sound? I guess you would describe them as a thrash metal band. But I think a hallmark, signature element of the band’s sound is how dirgey the riffs are, like these gritty, plodding chugs played with groove and restraint waiting to explode. Makes me clench my teeth. Like, I would say a good portion of Sacrifice’s songwriting is mid-paced, low and grunting. But like insanely powerful. The word I want to use is like “muscular?” These riffs make me feel like a scary dude in the back of a smoky motorcycle club with humungous biceps is slowly walking over to punch me repeatedly in the face. I would, for example, describe a lot thrash guitar playing as being very biting and sharp. The guitar playing on this record is like blunt force trauma. It feels like being bludgeoned. If you wanna know what a go-to Sacrifice riff sounds like, just listen to the guitar intro of “Time Slips Through In Front Of Your Eyes” with the way the beat kicks in, and there you have it.

On the first epic track, “Never Land Never Again,” this boiling intensity, which is played in the pocket at a slow groove, finally grows into this grandiose outro with the tightest double-kick drum work you’ve ever heard, only to devolve into this slow, doomy, almost ceremonious completion. I feel like this crescendo-like building of song structures is masterful. But then, the band amps up the energy on the 2nd track, “Breaking The Silence of The Night,” which is like if you took the punkified Motörhead-influenced foundation of G-Zet, but then covered it in stainless steel armor. I gotta say, for the guitar tone being so gritty and blunt, I love guitarist Hiroyuki Murakami’s lead playing. In contrast to the riffing, his solos are these bright, meditative, intelligently structured melodic flourishes. Literally goosebump inducing.

From what I can decipher, it seems like Sacrifice was mostly driven by bandleader and lead vocalist Akira Sugiuchi. His voice is so unique, totally raspy like he’s been preparing to go on stage by chain-smoking cigarettes and drinking a fifth of Jack Daniel’s. He rides over the top of the instrumentation with these throaty, abrasive, bellowing screams from the underworld. That said, the vocal arrangements, along with the chanted gang background vocals, are super catchy. Like how the huge chanted vocal hook of “Do I Fight For God” follows the rhythm of the riff. I can just imagine Sacrifice playing back in the early 90s and seeing a sea of studded, leather-clad fists in the air just shouting along.

Apparently, Sacrifice has recently reunited and they just played a couple shows in California. In true DIY underground love fashion, I think they only played with punk bands! Like I think The Dark played the show. So rad. Damn, really wish I’d known so I could have seen them… Oh well!

Anyway, I feel like these records should be considered underground metal classics. Maybe with these two 90s albums finally getting the proper vinyl treatment and being available outside of Japan, Sacrifice may finally get the credit they deserve. Hope you Sorry State readers give Tears a chance based on my description. Or not, whatever haha. As always, thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff

Let’s take a break from all this punk nonsense and go for something a little different this week:

Stray: S/T LP (Transatlantic, 1970)

Stray was from London and formed in 1966, releasing this self-titled album, their debut, in 1970 on Transatlantic Records. I know basically nothing about the members of Stray or what they got up to in the years between 1966 and 1970, but one thing I really love about this album is that you can hear all four of those years of massive development in the rock world in Stray’s music. It’s hard to overestimate how much happened in that short period. In 1966 Revolver was the hot new Beatles album, but by 1970, Led Zeppelin had three albums out, Black Sabbath had two, the Stooges Fun House had come out… the 60s were fuckin’ dead, man!

Not so for Stray, though. Or at least not completely. Stray’s leadoff track, “All in Your Mind,” feels like it comes from that perfect moment in 60s rock when the era’s best artists had been fully trained as hook-generating machines, yet they’d also grown up a little, maybe turned on, and gained some artistic ambition. The songs got more complex, but kept their big pop hooks. Records like the aforementioned Revolver, the Kinks’ Face to Face, and the emerging freakbeat scene with bands like the Creation and Pretty Things feel like the musical antecedents of “All in Your Mind.” Maybe it’s the word “Mind,” but my brain also jumps to another favorite from late 60s London, the Open Mind.

That’s hardly the entire story with Stray, though… in fact, I don’t think anyone would call Stray a freakbeat band, as the emerging hard rock scene and the high psychedelia of 1967/8 are also fundamental ingredients on this album. For starters, “All in Your Mind” isn’t a concise two-minute pop tune, but a 9-minute-and-fifteen-second labyrinth of a song. Trust me when I say, though, that those nine minutes fly by. I think that’s where the pop song craft training comes in… Stray gets freaky with it, but keeps the song exciting and packed with hooks and melody. (There is a three-and-a-half-minute single edit of “All in Your Mind” out there, but I haven’t heard it.) “Around the World in Eighty Days” is more in that high psychedelia mode, its huge chorus hook and lyrics evoking a sense of childlike wonder reminding me of so many progeny of Sgt Pepper’s. Side A then ends with “Time Machine,” which starts off with a Sabbathian crunch and wanders into a sitar-emulating fuzz guitar solo, a heftier, more substantial take on the raga rock descended from “Within You Without You.”

I’ve seen Stray described as a hard rock band, but aside from “Taken All the Good Things” and “Only What You Make It,” their songs generally avoid the blues / Cream / Yardbirds influence that shaped so much proto-metal. Instead of the blues licks and structures, what Stray takes from that sound is the density, the insistence of the rhythm, and the sheer volume. In blues rock, vocals can often seem like an afterthought, and the guitar solo is typically the gravitational center of the song. But, like I said, Stray’s songs, for all their stretched-outness and heaviness, still feel like pop tunes with short instrumental hooks and vocal melodies as their basic building blocks.

So yeah, check it out… a fantastic and pretty unique record, I think. Oh, and I should also mention that Stray is often cited as one of Steve Harris from Iron Maiden’s favorite bands (Maiden even covered “All in Your Mind”), but I can’t hear much of a musical connection myself. Don’t let that dissuade you from checking this out; just don’t expect it to sound anything like Iron Maiden. And if you can track down an older pressing, the packaging is pretty cool, with the band’s logo die-cut into the jacket to show the inner sleeve. The inner part of the cutout has been ripped away on my copy, but you can just see how the band’s logo is stylized into the outline of a cat… pretty neat.

Frigöra: Fullständig Frigörelse 12" (General Speech) General Speech Records brings us a vinyl discography with bonus material from these mid-90s Japanese crusties. To be honest, I wasn’t too familiar with Frigöra before this record. I knew them as that Japanese band with Swedish lyrics, but I didn’t know their music because it fell into one of my blind spots. In 1995-1998, when these records were coming out, I was still listening to NOFX and Pennywise, and by the time I got hip to Japanese punk a few years later, these records were nowhere to be found. Eventually I’d grow obsessed with finding out about older Japanese punk, but Frigöra weren’t far back enough to have the vintage patina of 80s bands or even early 90s groups like Bastard. I’m pleased to learn all about Frigöra today, as I probably appreciate their music today more than I would have at any time in the past. Fullständig Frigörelse captures two iterations of the band with different rhythm sections, the first of whom recorded a self-titled 7” and a split with Diskonto, and the latter their 12” EP, Dance of the Plague Bearer. The earlier version of the band is as steeped in 80s Swedish hardcore as you might expect. While they have Mob 47’s insane tempos, they also capture some of the magic from the Shitlickers EP, particularly on their 1995 self-titled EP, which has something of the uniquely desperate tone that only Shitlickers had. Frigöra’s sound changed a bit for the 12”, the new drummer playing with less groove, the rhythms getting more fractured, and the guitars incorporating multiple distorted tones for a wider sense of dynamics. While the cover art and title might make you think Dance of the Plague Bearer is a stenchcore record, it really points the way toward bands like D-Clone and Lebenden Toten who took the Disorder / Confuse / Gai sound into the psychedelic stratosphere. Fullständig Frigörelse is packed with General Speech’s typical care, with crisp graphics and a fold-out insert that reproduces the graphics from the original release with nothing in the way of heavy-handed historicization.

Major brain fog has come over me this week, so this might be a short one! I hope everyone has had a great week and has picked up some really great records. I have been really nostalgic recently when it comes to music; honestly when am I not? I seem to always go back to the records I listened to in high school and college to try and grasp a glimpse of how fun those days were, not having a care in the world. Having to be an adult with bills sucks. Summertime also makes me want to listen to a lot of pop punk from the late 90s and early 2000s.

The Huntingtons—High School Rock. I never thought I would own this record, as older 90s Tooth & Nail Records are becoming very hard to find and very expensive. I was lucky enough to stop by this shop in Wilmington on the way to beach and there it was on the wall, and signed by all the members. I knew I could not leave the store without it! This band is legendary for one big reason. Joey Ramone ended up doing some shows at CBGBs before his death. If I remember correctly, he had a bunch of bands submit recordings of them doing Ramones songs as some sort of competition to see what band he would front as what would become his last time playing live at CBGBs before his death in 2001. The Huntingtons have had numerous Ramones cover albums put out on Tooth & Nail Records and Burnt Toast Vinyl, as well as a bunch of original records on those same labels. High School Rock is one of my favorites, if only because it’s the first one I heard from the band back in the late 90s. This is as good as it gets when it comes to Ramones style pop punk. Please check them out if you haven’t heard them. There is also a video of the show on youtube. Until next time. Thanks for scrolling all this way down at the bottom to read my pick this week!

What’s up Sorry State readers? I hope everyone is having a nice week. It’s been hot and rainy here in Raleigh, but what’s new? Almost a year ago, I wrote about the Norman Blake album Whiskey Before Breakfast. Coincidently, I finally just came across a copy of his 1972 album, Home In Sulphur Springs. Another album full of some of my favorite songs he’s written and some incredible picking. I really love all the instrumental tracks on here, especially Warp Factor #9. Usually once a week on one of my days off, if the weather is nice, I like to go on a hike at Umstead State Park here, especially in the summertime. This song always makes me think of cruising down the trails there alongside the river and the light shining through in patches through the canopy of the forest. I probably just listened to this song while doing this one time and it’s secretly burned into my memory, but also the instrumental just gives off so much emotion and paints a vivid picture, all without lyrics. My favorite track on here, though, is Randall Collins, which is the song that originally got me hooked on Norman Blake via Billy Strings. It’s just such a cool song. Other highlights on the album include Cattle In The Cane, Ginseng Sullivan, and Bringing In The Georgia Mail. This record is essential if you’re into this kinda music and I’m happy to finally own a copy.

Hi and thanks for reading. I got my LAMA box set in the mail the order day, and I want to write a bit about that. But first, I wanted to briefly mention these two reissues we have back in stock. I wrote about BARN AV REGNBUEN and SISTE DAGERS HELVETE about one year ago, when we returned from tour with some distro copies. PUBLIC ACID also played at Blitz in Oslo on the way to K-town like we had done the year before. I met up with my homie Bård again and I grabbed a nice stack of his reissues to restock Sorry State. Both of these bands rip, especially BARN AV REGNBUEN. Compared to other Norsk bands I think they are a bit underrated. Bård explained to me that the sound on SISTE DAGERS HELVETE was improved from the original pressing, as the band was not happy with the original pressing on Rock-O-Rama. They had a few compilation appearances, which are included on this reissue as well. BARN AV REGNBUEN compiles their 7” on X-Port Plater, their absolutely raging flexi that was released the year after, and some bonus tracks that I have no idea where they came from. If you don’t have these reissues already and like Norwegian hardcore, I consider them essential!

Moving on, I think LAMA was the first Finnish hardcore band. I could be wrong, or maybe it’s just a matter of opinion. Maybe this opinion is crazy to a Finn, haha. I know they weren’t full-blown distorted like KAAOS or CADGERS, but they certainly walk a fine line between punk and hardcore. LAMA began in the late ‘70s under a different name and their first record came out in 1980. RATTUS was another Finnish hardcore band who began in the late ‘70s with their first record coming out in 1980 as well; however, the sound was not nearly as pummeling as LAMA. RATTUS kinda had a ’77 sound up until their legendary 1982 Rajoitettu Ydinsota EP, at which time they were clearly under the influence of DISCHARGE. I am not sure what LAMA’s influences were early on, but on their 1983 7” Ajatuksen Loppu I can certainly hear some DISCHARGE.

LAMA was from Helsinki. They released four 7”s and an LP between 1980 and 1983. I’m not too familiar with their line-ups and related bands, but I know they had some ties to UNICEF. UNICEF was just a drunk punk band who was also from Helsinki, and they had a revolving line-up. I read they didn’t like to be paid at gigs, instead requested to be paid in booze—Sorbus more specifically, haha. It’s funny the title track on their sole 7” is actually a Skrewdriver cover sung in Finnish… Rane Raitsikka was in UNICEF, and he was also playing bass in LAMA. He was not an original member though; the only record he played on was Ajatuksen loppi. He got his nickname from Epe, the singer of LAMA. The name came from when he had placed small bombs he found at a construction site in Lepakko between some tram tracks. Juha “Jusa” Ranta was also in UNICEF and LAMA. He was not the original drummer of LAMA but he played on all their 80s records (I think).

So, these LAMA 7”s have been reissued before. Back in the ‘80s the original label who released them all, Johanna, compiled them onto a 12” entitled …Ja Mikään Ei Muuttunut. Svart had previously done a reissue of this as well, actually. Back in 2009 Finnish label Combat Rock Industry reissued all the LAMA 7”s in their original format. I don’t have any of those pressings, but to me it’s always cool when stuff is reissued on their original format. One could argue the 12” compilation is better cos most of the 7”s have only 2-3 songs each on them. But their third 7”, Väliaikainen, has four tracks alongside one of the coolest foldout posters ever. These 7” reissues have been hard to come by, and you’d likely have to pay over double the original retail cost to secure a copy on the second-hand market. I think they were each limited to 500 copies.

Svart always keeps the cost of box sets considerably low for what they contain, and I really appreciate that. They reproduced the LAMA 7”s sleeves quite well and the sound is excellent. The discs sound nice and crisp, and the bass really carries through. The box itself is fairly flimsy, but I don’t care about that. I kinda dislike box sets in general and put the actual box on a shelf never to be seen again, and then I file the records individually, according to country, in alphabetical order.

Svart has a pre-order up for LAMA’s s/t 1982 LP now. They’ve previously reissued this, but again like most LAMA reissues, coming across a copy of that in the USA in the last handful of years has not been so common. If you don’t have that one, you’re definitely gunna need it too—and Sorry State will certainly have copies. Continuing about LAMA reissues, I wanted to point on that we have some copies of this LAMA live cassette Onks Marko Täällä? from 1982. This is kind of a nerdy archival reissue. You’ll probably never see one of these in the wild, so it’s great that the Finnish Hardcore label gave this one an official reissue, and on its original cassette format.

Alright before I go, for a long time I thought Väliaikainen (1981) was my favorite LAMA shit, but lately I really lean towards their 1980 debut Totuus Löytyy Kaurapuurosta. Hilariously, the title track ended up on an 80s television ad for some Finnish oatmeal brand named Elovena. It’s not actually LAMA playing the song in the commercial and they’ve altered the song a bit, but it’s still a pretty good laugh. Alright, I think that sums it up for this week. If you haven’t gotten your copy of the LAMA box set yet, what are you waiting for?! Cheers and thanks for your support.