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Paul Drummond: 13th Floor Elevators: A Visual History book (Anthology Editions, 2020)

It’s been a while since I shared what I was reading, and this seemed like a good time as I spent the weekend plowing through this 2020 book on 60s Texas psych rockers the 13th Floor Elevators. Shout out to my mom who, when I failed to give her any gift ideas this year, plucked this from a years-old Christmas list I don’t even remember making.

The author of this book, Paul Drummond, also wrote the definitive biography of the 13th Floor Elevators, Eye Mind. I haven’t seen or read that book, but I’ve seen more than one person use the word “exhaustive” to describe it, so I assume it’s long and richly detailed. This book functions well as a biography on its own and there’s a good deal of text besides the pictures, telling the band’s and its members’ stories in a satisfying level of detail, but its main purpose is to document and share the group’s visual record in photographs, vintage show posters, ticket stubs, media coverage, advertisements for gigs and records, and any and every other place where the Elevators left their mark. As a piece of scholarship, it is a phenomenal achievement. There’s so much to see in this book, and it’s executed with the seriousness and attention to detail of an exhibition catalog from a world-class museum. Even familiar images from the Elevators’ records and their most famous gig posters come alive here, as they’re photographed like fine art rather than the flattened, amateurishly retouched versions you typically encounter on the internet. They certainly could have gotten away with less painstaking work, but I’m so glad they put in the extra effort, because this book really transports you into the Elevators’ world.

A few things strike me about that world. The first is the contrast between the world the Elevators presented in their music and artwork and what is documented in the book’s many photographs. As one of the first rock groups (if not the first) to fully embrace psychedelia, they helped to define the imagery associated with that sound, with its bright, saturated colors and its swirling and organic, art nouveau-influenced illustration and lettering styles. But when you see the photographs of the band in their environs, it all looks so dusty, dingy, and earthy. They didn’t live in a psychedelic wonderland; they lived in Texas in the 1960s. In many photographs of the band (particularly in their later years as their hair and beards grew), it looks like they could be a country rock group, as their world looks more like the faux-pioneer aesthetic adopted by bands like the Eagles and the Band. The Elevators weren’t reflecting their world; they were building a utopian alternate reality, one they sought to access through their music and the drugs they used. The other thing that strikes me—and this is an insight I owe to Drummond—is is how crudely executed much of the Elevators’ imagery was, which is part of what gives it its charm, particularly for someone like me raised on DIY punk. One fanzine review reproduced in the book complains about the artwork for Psychedelic Sounds, noting its chintzy feel and that the colors look more Christmas-y than psychedelic. Later in the book, Drummond notes that Easter Everywhere looks like a self-produced album from a hippie cult. The Elevators’ amateurish, exploitative record label International Artists gets most of the blame for the shoddy execution, but it also seems like a function of how early the Elevators were to all this. There wasn’t a rulebook or a template; they were making their own.

If you don’t know the Elevators’ story, it’s conveyed with fascinating detail here. Based in Texas, the group didn’t have the benefit of San Francisco’s liberal multiculturalism. The police viewed the Elevators as leaders of an insurgent group trying to corrupt Texas’s youth, and they made it their mission to stamp out the Elevators before the movement could take hold. They were aided by draconian drug laws that could put you away for decades for possession of marijuana and a culture where police brutality and corruption were the norm. Thanks to a drug bust early in their career, the band couldn’t leave Texas without written permission from their parole officers. Members were incarcerated repeatedly, with guitarist Stacy Sutherland serving multiple stints in prison and vocalist Roky Erickson notoriously shuffled into Texas’s brutal asylum system, where electroshock therapy and primitive pharmacological treatments certainly helped to shatter a mind already fragile from years of daily LSD use. It’s a sad story, and it makes you wonder what the Elevators could have done if they didn’t face such an uphill climb.

But the struggles, the missed opportunities, and the shoddy execution are much of what made the 13th Floor Elevators the 13th Floor Elevators. Despite his devotion to studying and documenting the band, Drummond is clear-eyed about their shortcomings, particularly in terms of their recorded output. This only makes this book more valuable, as there is no succinct document of the Elevators at their peak (despite how obviously brilliant and influential their recordings were). Instead, we have to triangulate from the available data, imagining what it would have been like to experience one of those magical nights when the sound, the vibe, the high, the environment, the company, and everything else came together perfectly.

Cosey Mueller: Irrational Habits 12” (Static Age Musik) Originally presented as a self-released cassette, Static Age Music does the world a favor and commits this brilliant new full-length from Berlin’s Cosey Mueller to vinyl. Static Age has brought us a bunch of great contemporary German electronic music lately, and Irrational Habits fits that trend. The songs feel like dance music because they’re built around primitive boom-bap rhythms, crisp, powerful, and placed right at the front of the mix. On first listen, you might think the best thing about Irrational Habits is the seedy, Berlin night club vibe it lays down, but there’s more to it than that. It’s not pop music per se, but Cosey has a way with a hook. A lot of those hooks appear as guitar riffs, which stand out because they contrast so sharply with the rest of the music. The rhythms and synth textures are cold, dry, and mechanical, but the guitar lines are drenched in Jesus and Mary Chain-esque reverb and played junkie-cool, sagging way behind the beat like Thunders after a particularly potent dose. That move is executed most memorably on the highlight “Tu Mir Was,” but it’s all over the record. The vocals, while understated and often drenched in effects, also provide highlights, like in the aforementioned “Tu Mir Was,” but also in “Dog Salon,” which has a B-52’s-ish surreality I like. The propulsive EBM-ish foundation keeps me edging the volume knob ever higher when I listen to Irrational Habits, but the pop peaks really push it to the next level.

Hi Sorry State fam! How is everyone doing? Good, good. Things are pretty chill on my end. I’m just out for a walk on this gloomy, kind of chilly day. I’m stalling because I have a shit load of cleaning I need to do! But at least I have some new records to listen to! Such as my staff pick!

It’s Pura Manía’s new EP called Extraños Casos de La Vida Real. That’s a mouthful. Right when I slapped this on the turntable it kicked my ass and woke me right up! “Oh I’m gonna like this”, I said to myself. To be honest I probably said it out loud. I talk to myself a lot. Probably an abnormal amount. Anyway, I’ve packed several orders with this record so it seems to be popular!

These guys have been silent for a while after putting out their last LP in 2017 (Cerebros Punk). The band has members from Canada and Mexico, which likely presents some challenges, but that’s just a wild guess. What matters is this EP right here. A symbol of global punk unity, this is a three way split release by Japan’s Discos Peligrosos, NYC’s Roachleg Records, and Mexico’s CV Recs.

In a word, this record is electric. It’s the equivalent to the “boom” emoji. You know the one. The orange pointy cartoonish symbol in comic books with words like boom! bang! zing! zang! Don’t mind me, I drank a Celsius a minute ago. Shout out to the limited edition flavor, Mandarin Marshmellow. It’s my favorite.

Back to the record. It’s four songs, hovering around 13 minutes or so. A lotta bang for your buck! It’s a really catchy, high-energy, sing-a-long type of record. You’ll get the point about 10 seconds in with the opener, El Viaje al Interior del Cuerpo. That song is about as anthemic as it gets. I love me some woah-oh-oh moments as I find them to be really unifying and positive. With that said, I don’t speak Spanish, so for all I know they’re singing about kicking babies, and here I am calling it feel good music. But regardless, I feel good when I hear it.

Seriously though, the band has fearlessly mastered a more musical style of oi! punk on this EP, with some really standout guitar and bass parts. The guitar parts make me think of Blitz. Particularly on their cover of the Screamers song, 122 Hours of Fear (i.e 100 Horas de Miedo). Admittedly, I’ve never heard the original, but the cover is a ripper! I think the band has a late 70’s California punk sound, combining elements of different sub-genres of punk. It’s eclectic but it feels fresh and exciting.

This is a really likable record so I’m confident that anyone who likes high-energy anthemic punk will dig it. Thanks for reading and until next time!

-Angela

Hi and thanks for reading. It's been a minute since I wrote. I was out sick for a bit, and then Daniel got sick too. I'm not writing about any new releases this week unfortunately, cos I haven't spent much time with any of them yet. I have been really looking forward to the DEEF reissue on General Speech, and also the new NIGHTFEEDER 7" that we got in stock recently. I've only had time to spin those just once each, so today I am writing about MALIN HEADS. At the risk of sounding like a poser, I will be writing unashamedly. I don't really know much German hardcore/punk. I can name maybe like a dozen bands. I'm pretty sure MALIN HEADS was my introduction. I discovered them while on tour with my old band with Jeff. We were at Arrow's Aim in Gainesville, and that's where I picked up a copy of their first EP Probegepogt Aus Spandau. As I was flipping through a 7" bin, I passed over it cos I had no idea what it was. As I passed it, Jeff asked If knew it and also informed me it ripped. Obviously, I bought it. I will pick up almost anything a friend suggests to me in that context. I never really thought about it until now, but this type of thing happens often when I got to record shops with friends, where someone is flipping and another is kinda looking over their shoulder and there is conversation about what dank shit is floating around in the bins, know what I'm talking about? Haha. Anyway, from there I checked out the other bands on Pogar (the label who originally released that MALIN HEADS EP). Somewhere in there I heard more shit like VORKRIEGSPHASE, UPRIGHT CITIZENS, SLIME, and THE BUTTOCKS. I know SLIME and BUTTOCKS are pretty early bands. A close friend of mine living in Germany told me about SLIME after we toured Europe a few years ago. It's funny, I was just talking to some friends the other day about "ACAB." I know this acronym is wildly popular now… and it's possible some young punks don't know what band my friends and I associate this slogan with. I mean obviously ACAB was not invented by a band, but I always thought 4 SKINS was the first band to do a song called ACAB. I'm pretty sure that came out in 1982, right? Well fuckin' hell, SLIME released a track called ACAB in 1981! I had no idea. If someone knows anything earlier please let me know. Or maybe I am wildly mistaken, and 4 SKINS had been playing it live before SLIME.

Getting back to MALINHEADS, their first EP is such a banger. Their second EP entitled Medical Fame followed a few years later in 1986 and I think its also an excellent record. The sound is noticeably different though. They have another release the followed that, but to be honest I don't even remember what it sounds like. Their first EP was reissued, and I am not sure why Medical Fame was not. For many years that reissue I held me over until one day I was able to land an original copy of Probegepogt Aus Spandau. I guess when I say original, I mean an 80s pressing. The cover of the record I had gotten was not the first press according to Discogs. And as of late, some pretentious asshole added a new version that he has, and of course he states THIS is the first press, haha. I knew there was a different cover for the "first press," but I have always wondered if there was actually two different pressings or just some different versions of the cover. I was actually chatting with a German friend, and he sent me a photo of his copy that he got in the 80's. It's yet another different version than what is listed on Discogs.

There was a record shop called Vinyl Boogie in West Germany, and they seemed to have distributed all the Pogar stuff. I was actually just poking around Discogs, and it seems the owner of Vinyl Boogie was also the same person who operated Pogar Records. Interesting. I wish I knew more. I'm not sure how true this is, but one guy told me he was there at Vinyl Boogie when the MALINHEADS records arrived, and they quickly threw together the covers of the "first press" cos they didn't have anything prepared. I'm not sure if he meant only those very early copies (which seem to be few, and printed on colored paper,) or if he meant they made an entire run of covers with the same design printed on regular white paper. According to Discogs, the was a repress the same year as the original. On this sleeve, they took the back cover photo from the first press, and that became the front cover of the repress. I just wonder if there really were two pressings, and/or how many copies exist of each cover. That leads me to why I really decided to write about this today, haha. I've shared this cover from my staff photo on Instagram before, but I didn't get any info on it. I've searched the internet to the best of my ability, and never came up with shit. I did see an old Ebay listing where a copy sold with this same cover, but a part of me wonders if this was by chance the same copy that eventually ended up in my hands? I bought this copy just a few years ago from a German record shop. What this is, is the repress sleeve, but for some reason MALINHEADS is not printed across the front. What the fuck? I have endless questions, and I am out of time, haha. Sorry my write-up this week seems directionless and really in the end I am just hoping someone will reply and let me know some info on this record! Haha. Cheers and thanks for reading.

Hi Sorry Staters. How are things? Mustn’t grumble right? We all could run down a shopping list of woes most weeks, but nobody wants to hear that, so we’ll just assume and pretend that the world is doing great despite the evidence to the contrary and keep calm and carry on.

This past week was both Mardi Gras and Saint Valentine’s Day. I didn’t celebrate the latter but had fun spinning some funk and soul records from New Orleans to mark Fat Tuesday on the radio show I do. Here at the store, there has been plenty to keep my mind occupied and stimulated music wise. We’ve been getting lots of cool records across a wide spectrum of genres. Personally, I listen to and enjoy all sorts of stuff and can easily switch from punk to bluegrass to funk to hip-hop to disco to jazz to prog to psych and back again. Depending on my mood of course. But variety is the spice of life as they say.

This week Daniel and I bought a bunch of 70s, 80s and 90s soul, funk, disco and pop records from a nice lady whose husband had been a DJ. We managed to find a few interesting and fun things. A lot of Prince. Some Madonna rarities. A lot of picture sleeve 12” singles and a few cool electro boogie singles from the early 80s. I have been particularly digging that latter genre recently. I’m finding more and more great tracks on singles and albums from that period that I either wasn’t aware of or had overlooked. Particularly pleasing for my point of view is that for the most part these records aren’t too expensive or out of reach. Sure, there are plenty of electro and disco records that command top dollar, and rightfully so, because they are brilliant and/or rare, but most records made during this era were pressed in the thousands, tens of thousands, millions even. Meaning that they are out there and findable. These days it seems a lot of music lovers and record collectors are putting too much concentration on the holy grails and ignoring the low hanging fruit. They could be feasting but choose to go hungry. Ha.

However, I get how the appeal of a 12” single isn’t shared by all. Just like a 7” single, especially without a picture sleeve, some folks just find them too much work to appreciate and when digging for records too daunting and overwhelming. It’s true, you do have to put more effort into playing singles and in that respect it’s why 12” singles ultimately ended as they began, as a DJ tool. It’s in that original concept of creation that you find the magic. Much better sound (usually), extended mixes, remixes, dub mixes, instrumentals, acapella versions and maybe an exclusive track. For Deejays they’re obviously perfect, but for fans and collectors just as desirable and essential in my opinion.

As I write this piece it is Sunday and minutes to deadline, so I had better get on with it. We had a great Friday and Saturday at the shop whilst I was working and honestly, I got rocked on Saturday. I counted over thirty people at once in the store a few times and it was busy almost the entire time, although with little lulls. Anyone who works retail knows what I mean. One minute the place is packed and then it’s like a bell goes off and everyone checks out at once and the place empties. Quiet for a moment and then off we go again. I love that we were able to make so many people happy with their purchases. Records aren’t just groceries or pharmacy items; they are life itself and represent the most important things in our existence. Seeing the pleasure in people’s eyes when they are getting a cool record and talking to them about it is absolutely the best feeling for me and why I do this.

There were so many stories like that this week. It’s so cool and why record stores are to be loved and cherished. To coin the title from the book on Bomp! which succinctly puts it “saving the world one record at a time”. Greg Shaw is an American hero just like Billy Miller at Norton and music lovers owe so much to them both. They’re certainly my heroes. Both backed it should be noted by amazing women partners. There might be something in that old saying. Ha! Looks like it works well for people I know and I sure as hell do not know how to look after myself, but that’s another story. Going back to the 12” singles, a lot of those did make our shoppers happy and so I feel good about that, and it backs up my feelings on the subject. If you are reading this and are local, there are still lots more goodies to be found and I still have a small batch left to process that will hit the floor next week.

As for me, I too had a record moment over the weekend. I’m literally about to be buried in records and certainly not short of anything to listen to at home or at the store, but did finally cross a long time want off the list. One of our friends brought in a small but interesting and varied collection of records to sell and both Jeff and I found something we had coveted for years amongst them. This particular dude always brings us good shit. As do many of our cool friends. We thank you all and are glad that we can provide a place where your treasures can be passed on to others to enjoy and help us keep the lights on and put a few bucks in your pocket at the same time. You may hear from Jeff or Daniel about the record that they both wanted, but the one that made my eyes light up was the soundtrack to the 1970 film Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls. Released by 20th Century Fox, directed by Russ Meyer and written by Roger Ebert.

This cult movie has been well documented over the years in articles and podcasts and deserves a deep dive if you are unfamiliar. The story behind it all is quite fascinating. I would highly recommend you watch the movie first and foremost if you haven’t already. Not to give away too may spoilers, it’s a terrific kitschy spoof follow up to the 1967 hit film Valley Of The Dolls that tells a similar tale of three young women coming to Hollywood in search of fame, this time as musicians in a groovy rock band. Given free reign by the studio, who only demanded it be made as cheaply as possible and that it pushed the R rating to an X, director Russ Meyer, he of Vixen, Mudhoney, Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and many more cult classics, along with Chicago Sun-Times film critic turned screenplay writer Roger Ebert, put everything plus the kitchen sink into the picture. It’s got it all: sex, drugs, music, violence, satire, all in glorious 1970 color with everyone dressed mod and groovy. The violence aspect and the brutal climatic ending of the film baring clear and intentional reference to the Manson murders the previous year that had shocked Hollywood and the world. Sharon Tate was one of the three stars in the original Valley Of The Dolls, of course.

The soundtrack is cool and features songs that the fictitious band called the Carrie Nations perform in the movie. Also featured in the movie are real-life band Strawberry Alarm Clock, who play themselves and have a couple of songs on the soundtrack album. The dreamy theme to the film is performed by soft-pop group The Sandpipers. Production and song writing comes from noted composer Stu Phillips, who had scored the music to Ride The Wild Surf in 1964 and had founded Colpix Records, which had hits from everyone from Nina Simone to The Monkees. He also made a series of easy listening records during the 1960s for Capitol Records credited to the Hollywood Stings Orchestra that cover The Beatles and The Beach Boys. In the 70s, his credits would include The Six Million Dollar Man and Battlestar Galactica, so he was no slouch.

The best songs on the soundtrack are the songs that the girls sing in the band. Here is where it gets interesting. The songs were lip-synched by the actors in the movie, but were really sung by Lynn Carey and Barbara Robison. Lynn Carey from Los Angeles began her career as a model and actress and developed into a good blue-eyed soul singer who made some decent records with Canadian Neil Merryweather in the early 70s. Their first is under their own names, but the next two came out as Mama Lion. The die-cut cover to the one called Preserve Wildlife is pretty great and must have influenced Tori Amos and Belle And Sebastian in their choices of album artwork. Go Google it and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Barbara “Sandi” Robison was born in Las Vegas and began singing on the Los Angeles folk scene and later became the singer with pop-psych group The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, who had regional hits but never really got big outside of California.

However, when it came time to releasing the soundtrack album, there were legal disputes over royalties which resulted in Lynn Carey not being able to appear on the record. Her vocal parts were then hastily re-recorded by another singer named Ami Rushes, who apparently now renounces her pop star past and is a Christian Gospel minister and singer. So, in the movie you hear Lynn Carey with Barbara Robison, but on the record it’s Barbara with Ami. There is a promo 45 that came out with two tracks from the movie and the label lists Ami Rushes as the artist. I’ve never seen a copy of this in the wild, but would love to find one. Some people have suggested that the album versions are not just the same backing tracks with new vocals, but new recordings all together. Certainly, the consensus is that the movie versions with Lynn Carey singing are the better takes, but the soundtrack versions don’t completely suck in comparison.

In the early 2000s, Harkit Records put out a version of the soundtrack that had those movie versions along with other songs and cues that were in the film but not on the soundtrack. Finally, fans were able to hear what they had heard in the film. I’m glad I picked up a copy of that release when it came out, and although I have some complaints about the sound quality, it did complete the missing elements and came with a nice poster.

On playing back the copy of the original, it seems that I might have to deal with sound quality issues with this too. It sounds great, but I did notice a couple of moments of distortion and in a couple of spots (luckily between tracks) a weird sound is heard for a split second. I assume this is a manufacturing issue and I will need to find another copy now to compare. Also, another deciding factor in me buying this copy is that the previous seller had plastered three different stickers on it stuck down with super glue. On trying to remove them I slightly damaged the artwork. Luckily, I was able to fill it in with black marker as it was over an all-black area of the jacket and at a glance you would never tell. LoL. Little tricks you can use. Regardless, I felt more than compelled to take this copy after that.

Of the tunes, the two that stand out are the rockers, Find It and Sweet Talking Candyman, along with the hippy Come With The Gentle People. These links are taken from the movie and if you watch them, they’ll tell you more about the music and the film than I ever could.

Thanks for reading and hopefully we’ve steered at least one of you to something you’ll enjoy. Cheers and see you next time -Dom

What’s up Sorry Staters?

I’ve had a couple of wild weekends since the last newsletter. Daniel was cooped up in bed sweating bullets, and obviously was way too damn sick to get a newsletter together last Monday. Honestly, that worked out in my favor because my brain space was plenty occupied without having to think about writing a staff pick last week. Now we’re back baby!

Since last time around, Public Acid’s new record Deadly Struggle has finally been released out into the world! That record had been slow cookin’ in the oven since Spring of 2022, so we were all stoked to finally get it out there. We had a “soft launch” party in Richmond, which was a total blast. All the Virginia homies repped hard for us dummies. Then the next day, we packed way too many people into a van and made the drive up to DC, which was also a killer gig. I’ve been really stoked to receive all this friendly and positive feedback from homies and strangers about the record. And for those of you Sorry State readers have snagged a copy from us thus far, thanks so much!

Just a few days ago, I was in Richmond yet again. Scarecrow went up to play with Physique, Destruct, and a local band Fried Reality, who I’m pretty sure I hadn’t seen before. I gotta say, I thought Fried Reality totally ripped. Hope to see them at more RVA gigs in the future. Destruct crushed, as always, and Physique was insane. Scarecrow brought a few of our freshly repressed red vinyl copies of our first EP Revenge along with us. Stoked we’ve got that record available again. Hopefully soon Sorry State will have some copies!

Alright, now on to talking about records I’ve been listening to. Sorry State recently stocked a bunch of reissues of punk classics from Radiation, Puke N Vomit, and maybe even another distributor that we haven’t carried stuff from in a long time. It’s gotta be at least 100 fresh titles. Funny enough, one of the records I was most excited to see come into the store was The Mating Sounds of South American Frogs by Peter and The Test Tube Babies. Maybe I’m wrong, but I get the sense that a lot of folks out there, even those who are fans of Peter and The Test Tube Babies, usually don’t reference this record as one of the better moments in their catalog. Maybe people don’t even like this record? I dunno. But personally, I just love it.

Elements of the gruff, Oi!-inflected, street savvy sound of the band’s early material still work their way onto this record. Still some funny lyrics that are a bit cheeky, you might say. But even as Mating Sounds is their 2nd full-length record, I think it’s the band’s first proper studio album seeing as Pissed And Proud was basically a live album. Perhaps this is a strange comparison, but in many ways it feels like this is Peter’s Machine Gun Etiquette moment of sonic development. They exchange the beer-sloggin’ lads chant-along stylings of “Banned From the Pubs” to a much more decidedly melodic, ambitious approach to songwriting. That said, the vibe is also a little rough around the edges, not unlike their No Future label mates The Blood. The record feels more “produced,” I guess I would say. Lots of clarity in the production, super tight musicianship, big reverby drum sounds. It feels like the boys went into the studio and threw caution to the wind. Even the album artwork might make a London punker scratch their head a little bit: “Fack off, mate… South American frogs? What are these wankers thinking?”

The immediate distinction between Mating Sounds and the band’s earlier No Future stuff is noticeable right off the bat. The haunting intro of the first track, “September Part 1”, enters with the atmospheric chirping (which I assume are “mating ritual” sounds?) of frogs and slowly fades into this propulsive drum beat and bass. But when it launches into this frenetic guitar melody, it straight up gives me chills. In almost concept album fashion, they reprise this intro on the very last track on the record with “September Part 2”, with an added intensity and more layers of the harmonized choral vocal refrain repeating, “I can’t waaaait until September.” It sounds like they have some female vocal accompaniment adding density to the Test Tube Babies’ gang vocal. It’s fucking rad.

Most importantly for me, the guitar playing on this album is absolutely incredible. I wish I was more familiar with the guitarist, who is credited as “Greenback” on this record. I think his actual name is Derek Greening? I think he played guitar in the band from the beginning -- and no disrespect to the early singles haha – don’t get me wrong, I love “Run Like Hell” as much as the next guy, but it’s clear Green was holding Back. See what I did there? Hehe. This record is not just scratchy, fizzy guitar power chord riffs and Chuck Berry leads. It’s so obvious he’s a great player and his abilities are under-utilized on the early material. The guitars are super loud in the mix and have this beautiful, lush tone. Moments of these incredibly catchy leads soar over subtle layers of arpeggiated acoustic twelve-string underneath in tracks like “No Invitation.” He manages to create these melodic hooks that practically take center stage instead of the lead vocal. I find myself walking away from listening to this record finding the guitar melodies are more important, memorable and foundational to the songs than the vocals or lyrics. From memory, I might even have trouble providing the title of any particular song on this album, but I could easily hum you the guitar part. Glorifying the guitar in this way might make it sound like I’m totally diminishing Peter’s vocals, but of course there are still great sing-alongs on this record. Probably my favorite track on the record “Blown Out Again” is the perfect blend of a signature guitar hook announcing itself as a focal point, but then also squeezing in a big, attention-grabbing vocal hook. Even some subtle layered synth textures? Wild stuff.

I could talk all day about the multitudes contained within the brilliant Mating Sounds of South American Frogs. Strange and unexpected for a staff pick? Perhaps. But, while often I hate to overuse the moniker of “underrated”, maybe I’ll say this record just deserves more love.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. As always, thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff

Public Acid: Deadly Struggle 12” (Beach Impediment Records) Public Acid returns with the much-anticipated follow-up to 2020’s Condemnation EP. Perhaps I don’t need to post a disclaimer, but I will anyway: two members of Public Acid have worked at Sorry State and I feel a close connection with the band and each of its members. So maybe I’m just gassing up my buddies, but ignore my praise for Public Acid at your peril, because I think they’re one of the best and most important bands in the current hardcore scene. The other night I was talking to a friend about how, when a band is on a hot streak, it’s important to recognize what’s happening so you can savor it. It’s a feeling I get once every few years, and often I’ll get into a band so heavily that they start to define that period of my life. Direct Control, Double Negative, and Government Warning were bands I felt that way about, and I feel that way about Public Acid right now. If you’ve seen them live in the past few years, you know they’ve matured into a total fucking wrecking ball. I’m not the only one who recognizes this. After the Sorry State 10th Anniversary Weekend last fall, several people independently commented to me that there was a palpable change in energy when they took the stage. Many people, myself among them, were expecting Public Acid to make a really great record sometime soon, which brings us to Deadly Struggle. You can listen to the record and decide for yourself, but for my money this thing is a fucking masterpiece. The fast songs are blinding, the slow parts are unholy, and it feels both timeless and appropriate to its moment in the way great art should. While Deadly Struggle is unmistakably hardcore punk, it doesn’t sound like anything else. Sure, there are reference points for certain things they do, and Public Acid is also part of a wave of bands like Tower 7 and Salvaje Punk making ugly fusions of raw international underground hardcore and metal, yet Public Acid stands alone. Like I said, I’ve been around the block a few times, and I think I know when a band is at the top of their game. Deadly Struggle is not a record you want to sleep on.

What’s up Sorry State readers? I hope everyone is having a nice week. This coming Friday, I’ll be departing for a road trip that spans from the mountains of North Carolina to the muddy banks of the Mississippi in Memphis while catching some Billy Strings shows along the way. It’ll all be capped off with a Sunday night performance at The Ryman in Nashville, which I’m still in disbelief that I actually have tickets for. Since I’ll be making the voyage to the Mother Church, I thought it would be fitting that this week I write about the Father of Country Music, Mr. Jimmie Rodgers. Jimmie is known for his yodeling, which understandably, might not be everyone’s cup of tea. I remember the first time I heard yodeling was when I was in elementary school in Nashville. We had a school assembly to watch this girl perform who was on America’s Got Talent or some similar TV show for yodeling. Obviously America did not select this yodeling little girl to be their new champion, but that didn’t stop Walnut Grove Elementary from booking her. I remember hearing it and thinking it sounded pretty funny, but also kinda intriguing? Fast forward 15+ years and I still feel the same way. It does sound kinda funny but also nice. It’s a very natural thing and pretty much anyone can yodel, but to convey some sort of emotion with it is where the talent steps in. Jimmie’s yodel is a very high, lonesome sound, almost like a coyote howl. The man had a short and tough life, so it’s no wonder these blues were flowing through him. He was working as a brakeman for the railroad when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1924 and by 1927, had to stop working due to his declining health. Following medical advice that stated he should live somewhere high and dry to ease his symptoms, he moved his family to Asheville, North Carolina. This led to him focusing more on his recording career and his time working on the railroad was very influential to his sound and the subject matter of his music. He continued his musical career until his untimely death in 1933 at the age of 35. The amount of timeless music he recorded in this short time is staggering and continues to influence country, folk and bluegrass artists even today. His presence even remains in pop culture. The movie O Brother Where Art Thou features the main characters, The Soggy Bottom Boys, performing a version of his song In the Jailhouse Now. This record is a compilation of some of his more popular tunes, my favorites being My Rough and Rowdy Ways and Peach Picking Time in Georgia, both songs Doc Watson would commonly cover (and now Billy as well.) Who knows, maybe I’ll have a real full circle life moment and get to hear Billy do some yodeling down at the Ryman in Nashville. Either way, I’m looking forward to traveling through the great states of North Carolina and Tennessee and hearing the music the land had such a huge part in developing.

Hi Sorry State friends! Hope everyone is doing well! I’m doing ok. I just had a very weird 24 hour type flu that I slept through most of and woke up feeling completely normal. Unfortunately, something is going around because almost everyone I see on a somewhat daily basis has been or is currently sick. Hope ya’ll are staying healthy! So in last week’s newsletter I was talking about a record I bought that I was super excited about, and it just came! So I’m gonna talk about it.

Unfortunately, I don’t have another giant bag of chips costume to throw on while holding this Minor Threat record like I did with my last Minor Threat score! But I finally landed a 1981 copy of the first Minor Threat EP! It’s the third pressing and I’ve had my eye on it forever. I’ve done daily Minor Threat checks on Discogs to see if anyone has listed a second or third pressing, even though a first pressing is currently listed at the reasonable price of over $4,000. Ha!

Anyway, I made an offer to a seller a couple months ago and he politely declined, but noted my offer was indeed fair. But wouldn’t you know, he just re-posted it at $100 less! It probably would’ve sold had Jeff not alerted me in time. I asked a couple questions, mulled it over for about 90 seconds, and sealed the deal. I had been nervously anticipating its arrival, hoping it arrived in the expected condition and had zero issues that would affect play. And it did not disappoint! So I played it about 10 more times full blast with glee.

It felt good to move this record from my want list to my collection. I always keep an eye on the other pressings, but I am very content. This record is my favorite hardcore record of all time. It has most of my favorite Minor Threat tracks on it. Nothing does it for me quite like the bridge in Screaming at a Wall. If I had to pick favorites, that’s my favorite on the record. Followed by Filler, Minor Threat, I Don’t Wanna Hear It, Small Man, Big Mouth. Honestly, every single song is about as good as the one before or after it.

I feel like I am kind of repeating the sentiments I expressed when I wrote about the In My Eyes EP, but both EPs make me so happy. There are a lot of old bands I love but don’t play that much because I don’t feel like being transported to the time in my life I first heard the music. But I never feel like that with Minor Threat. It always feels like the right time to put it on a Minor Threat record.

I actually found Minor Threat after Fugazi. And I actually found Fugazi through Kurt Cobain’s tennis shoes. He had purposely misspelled the name Fugazi on the toe of his Converse to make fun of another artist. And so it began. I became so intrigued by Ian MacKaye and everything Ian MacKaye-adjacent. I learned about the whole idea of DIY punk and punk for no profit. Crazy stories like how he rode his bike to some nice restaurant to meet with an Atlantic Executive and turned down a 10 million dollar deal presented to him. He set the DIY bar so fucking high, but it goes way beyond that.

I imagine that when you don’t indulge in any vices or money, you have a giant surplus of energy and passion to put into music. And subsequently, that music will be fire. I could go on and on and on, but suffice it to say I was well-primed to be blown away by Minor Threat, and I was. I still am.

I’m stoked and broke, my friends. And well worth it. Do yourself a favor if you don’t own any Minor Threat, and just grab the whole catalogue. You can probably get through it in an hour!

Thanks for reading! Until we met again.

-Angela

Hey there Sorry Staters! What’s happening? We appreciate you stopping by and taking a read of the newsletter. Always.

So, last week I tempted fate by mentioning football and right away my Reds go and have a terrible day at the office. Typical. I’m sure that raised a laugh from some of you out there reading. That’s okay, trust me I see the funny side too.

Anyway, this week there were some interesting new arrivals awaiting me when I came to work after my weekend off. I’m not sure whether my colleagues will touch on any of them, but the one that I would like to talk about is a compilation of the singles released by the independent punk label Groucho Marxist Record Co:Operative from Paisley, Scotland in the late 70s/early 80s. The label only put out four singles, but packed a lot of quality and variety across those eight sides of vinyl. When I was back in Glasgow last year visiting my cousin, we drove past Paisley as it is so close and just the other day, I was looking at a photo of the Walrus Fountain in Paisley that my cousin took. Couple that with a recent listen to The Vaselines and I was perfectly primed for some good Scottish pop and punk sounds. This compilation did not disappoint.

GMRC was run by a printer named Tommy Kayes, who was a member of a Clyde side anarchist group. Local politics, police suspicion and ties to Rock Against Racism were the main influences and driving forces behind the label and the bands that they recorded. Across the four singles, eight different bands/artists are represented, the first two singles being various artists EPs.

Musically, the sound is D.I.Y. punk and typical of the try anything approach that similar labels and bands were adopting across the land. XS Discharge come across like a mix of The Clash and Buzzcocks with a dash of Public Image Limited for good measure. Defiant Pose sound like The Undertones and could easily have been on Good Vibrations. Mod Cons kick the collection off with a humorous but true song about the state of 70s council housing. It’s a catchy number and you could see it being a hit if the lyrics were about girls or something other than damp flats.

Other than the shorter run, GMRC share a similar aesthetic as labels like Good Vibrations and a host of other independent labels that were circumventing the mainstream and doing it for themselves. As I began writing this piece in the store, Jeff and I were listening to a couple of Crass comps which collected all the demo tape submissions that they received from around the country. They’re called Bullshit Detector and are worthy of adding to your collection if you don’t already have them. There are quite a few gems across the two volumes we played, but we thought the second set was the better. If we had to pick. I love all these regional compilations that document the scenes outside of London and the other major cities. So much creativity and talent on display and, when outside of the mainstream, often weird. Weird is good of course and so is being able to say whatever you want without fear of being censored. Songs about real-life issues, politics etc. is what you get, and that’s exactly what infuses every tune that GMRC released in their brief two-year lifespan. A quote from Tommy taken from a fanzine interview perfectly sums up the label’s philosophy: “No way do we cater for happy consumers, who clock in the following morning, content because they had a fun night. We are anti-specialists: you don’t need big promoters to organize gigs, IPC to publish fanzines, professionals to take photos, record companies to make records, lawyers to tell you what’s right from wrong.”

Every track is a winner here and based on prices for the original singles that’s just not the opinion of a few shut-in collectors. They are not completely out of reach though, especially if you live in the UK and can find a local dealer, but perhaps this comp will increase interest and more people will be on the hunt now. Or not, you never can tell. I admit ignorance to the label and the songs, but I am sure more seasoned punks out there are long aware of these great records. Clearly, the good folks at Sealed Records were and many thanks to them for the great job that they have done on this release. The record sounds good first and foremost, so good job there, but the packaging is the hero here. You get a whopping 40-page 11x11 booklet included which is full of press clippings, photos, essays, track information and zine interviews. Very cool and informative. Get this one in your cart pronto. We have a few copies in stock currently, but you don’t want to sleep on this one.

Okay, that’s it from me. Thanks for taking the time to read the newsletter. I’m sure my colleagues came through with their writings. I’m not blowing smoke when I say that I look forward to reading what they are into each week, as they always educate and entertain me.

Peace and love - Dom