News

Howdy Sorry Staters! Thanks for clicking on our newsletter. As always, we appreciate it. Daniel works super hard to make sure we give you plenty of cool stuff to read and look at each week. He really is a beast the way he cranks out his workload and always writes from the heart and honestly about the bands and records we are championing. Give him a slap on the back, buy him a drink or just say thank you next time you see him or talk to him. He deserves it.

I’m just super grateful to be a part of the Sorry State world and can say that working here has been a lifesaver. Music is my salvation and I love nothing more than being around records and music people. My health, wealth and personal life might be a shambles, but working with such cool and talented people here along with our interactions with our friends and customers gets me through the day. You can’t beat being around great music all day and putting records into the hands of those that appreciate them is such a reward. Truly.

Being a music evangelist, enthusiast, record nerd, DJ and keeper of random trivia, there is no other place for me than a record store. I’ve been fortunate enough to work at some good ones over the years, but with all due respect to all the great stores out there past and present, Sorry State is number one in my heart. Lol.

When not in the store slinging vinyl, I do still occasionally get out and do some DJ work. Not as much these days since the pandemic, but hopefully moving forward there will be more opportunities. A gig came up last week that I was happy to do, and which was a lot of fun. It was a fundraiser for Democratic North Carolina Senate candidate Cheri Beasley in the form of a dance party which took place after the televised debate she had with her opponent. Hosted by the good folks at Hummingbird at their event space, it was a great success and I felt good supporting and being a part of the night. I was one of three DJs for the night and had the honor of being behind the decks when Cheri Beasley arrived and had a little dance. As it was a dance party, I had brought some good disco and funk bangers to spin but also brought some popular faves that I wouldn’t typically play out much due to them being so well known. This wasn’t the gig for deep cuts so much, and sure enough the tunes that got the floor filled and people dancing were the hits.

One such record that I haven’t played out in years because we’ve all heard it a million times, but that was perfect for the night, was Ladies’ Night by Kool & The Gang. I know, I know, you are probably raising your eyebrows, but have you listened to that record in full recently? Loud? At a party? With some red wine fueling you? Lol. Well, have you? Let me tell you, it sounds great. Those horns punch magnificently. What a groove from start to finish. A big hit for a reason, along with the song Too Hot that appeared on the Ladies’ Night album released in the fall of 1979.

Kool & The Gang’s story began back in 1964 in Jersey City, New Jersey with the Bell brothers and five of their friends who formed an instrumental soul and jazz band called the Jazziacs. They changed their name a couple of times during the next few years and played mostly as backing for local and visiting vocal acts, eventually settling for Kool & The Gang in 1969, suggested by their new manager Gene Redd as an alternative to Kool & The Flames which was thought to be too close to James Brown’s Famous Flames. Gene Redd had just started his new label De-Light Records and signed Kool & The Gang and their career truly began. Their 1970 debut self-titled album was still all instrumental, but the band realized they needed to add vocals and stage presence if they were going to succeed. Over the course of the next few albums, two of which were live records, they began gaining their confidence as vocalists and songwriters. Although not disco devotees themselves, they picked up on the underground sounds becoming popular in the clubs and on their 1973 album Wild And Peaceful gave the world the song Jungle Boogie, which along with the tune Funky Stuff were big hits and hinted towards the sound of disco about to explode across the country and world.

The group continued throughout the rest of the decade, achieving a good amount of success and releasing several records. It was during this time that they cut the all-time classic Summer Madness that went on to be a popular hip-hop sample best used by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince for their mega hit Summertime. A tune so good they released it as both a studio and live version. It wasn’t all chartbusters though, and for a brief time towards the end of the decade they saw their star diminish somewhat. Perhaps the move to overtly disco sounding records and the addition of strings wasn’t the best move for them and realizing this they sought a way back to their original harder funk sound but still being appealing to a wider (and white) audience. The group did this by aligning with a new producer, Brazilian Eumir Deodato ,who helped develop the poppier side of the band by keeping the catchy hooks and danceable beat and by bringing onboard James “J.T.” Taylor as a dedicated vocalist. The first fruit of this new set up was Ladies Night, and thus launched the most successful era of the band’s career. Amazingly, this was their eleventh album. Although the group would undergo more changes over the years, by 2021 they had released a total of twenty-five albums, which included nine number one R&B hits and a pop number one with the song Celebration. Quite some feat and testament to their enduring appeal.

I’m not going to BS y’all and say I have all their records, but certainly have their 1970s records and the early to mid 1980s ones. There are bangers to be found on all of those, and I would encourage you to investigate. They don’t typically run too expensive and aren’t that tough to find. We probably have a copy of Ladies Night in our bargain bin right now.

Besides the gig this past week, I was a little busier over on The Face Radio. Before our regular show Worldy, Matt and I did what the station calls a “side hustle” show where the DJs play music not in their wheelhouse or stuff that they don’t get to spin that often. Both Matt and I love country music, so we did a whole two hours of country, western and bluegrass music. It was a lot of fun, and two hours wasn’t nearly enough time to play a fraction of the records that we both wanted to play. Despite a technical problem at the top of the show which affected the first few minutes, once we got going, I think we had a good one and perhaps you will enjoy listening if Americana and roots music is your bag.

My love of all things America and particularly the legends of the Old West has been with me all my life, and was set into stone during the two incredible tours my parents took my sister and I on back in the day. My dad, who didn’t listen to too much music, did like country music and his favorite artist was Hank Williams. When he was a young man, he sailed to America on the old Queen Mary with his brother and spent five years or so working and traveling around the States. This was in the early 1950s, when Hank Williams was at his peak of popularity, and I am sure my dad was exposed to his music and honky-tonk country during this time. His love for this period of country music was passed on to me, and I always try and pick up good records from this period when I see them. One such record that got played this past Monday on the show is one of my favorite Hank Williams albums called Honky-Tonkin’. This one has some of my all-time fave Hank tracks on it as well as sporting an awesome cover. It includes the big hit Jambalaya (On The Bayou) to start things off then goes right into I Won’t Be Home No More, Honky Tonk Blues, I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive—a song with some of the best lyrics ever—and that’s just the first side. Side two keeps going with more classics, including the immortal Mind Your Own Business. It’s almost a greatest hits record. I guess technically my copy is a 1960 repress as the original 1954 release was an eight track 10” record that was expanded to an LP with twelve tracks in 1956. I honestly prefer the cover to this version over the 1954 release, although that one is cool too, but the newer art is just a little better in my opinion.

I have a few things that my dad and I bonded over. Our love of western movies and country records were probably the biggest, and every time I hear an old Hank Williams record, I imagine my dad back in the 1950s sitting in some bar listening to the jukebox or driving on the highway dialed into the local radio station. The music entered his DNA and was passed onto me, and here I am all these years later still digging it. I picture him up in heaven honky-tonkin’ and having a good time. I almost didn’t mention any of this, but coming into work this morning, John Scott had a Hank Williams record playing, and so it confirmed my decision and I hope you’ll join us in some classic country appreciation this week.

Okay, that’s all the blah, blah, blah from me this week. Thanks for reading and as always, I hope you have fun spinning whatever record you have on your turntable. Cheers and see you next time.

Footnote: I had a beater copy of Kool & The Gang’s Wild And Peaceful in my bargain bin boxes and gave it a wash, and John Scott and I jammed out to it at the end of our shift. It looked like an ice rink but sounded great. That record is chock full of bangers. Gotta love how they made records back then.

-Dom

This week I thought I had a pretty good plan for my staff pick, but as the week wore on, my plan crumbled. However, I’m going to go with it anyway. It just won’t be as tidy as I’d envisioned.

Earlier this week we got in a nice collection of ’77-era UK punk singles at Sorry State. I am a sucker for singles from this era, and whenever they come in, I’m always looking to fill holes. There were a few in this collection I needed, including the final single from Menace, The Young Ones. Menace flies under the radar for many people (Jeff was just telling me he’s pretty sure he’s never listened to them), probably because they never released an album during their initial 1976-1979 run. They only put out four singles during that time, with a fifth, The Young Ones, released after the band split. I’m not sure how I discovered Menace—it may have been just buying old UK 7”s I didn’t already know—but I’ve always kept an eye out for their records.

I was prepared to write about how Menace wasn’t all that great, but I like them anyway. That was the first part of my plan for this staff pick to fall apart. Scarecrow had a gig in Charlotte on Thursday, and since I was the only one who wanted to come home after the show, I ended up driving to the gig by myself, which meant about five hours alone in the car. While I was driving, I decided I’d refresh my memory of Menace. I dialed up G.L.C. (R.I.P.) on Apple Music, which compiles all five singles from the band’s original era. Pretty much as soon as I hit play, I thought to myself, “what was I thinking? Menace fucking RULES!”

In my head, I’d written off Menace as an unremarkable oi! band. Listening back it’s easy to see why I might have done that, since they share some characteristics with the skinhead set, mostly a penchant for singalong terrace chant choruses on tracks like “Carry No Banners.” However, Menace isn’t as dunderheaded as, say, the 4 Skins. The band began in 1976, and as with Cock Sparrer, you can hear an earlier era of rock and roll peeking around the edges of their sound. The title track of their first single, “Screwed Up,” is a perfect example. It has this Stones-y swagger that’s a bit like the early Cock Sparrer stuff or Slaughter & the Dogs. Ditto for “Executioner,” with its infectious, Who-inspired stuttering chorus. As each track started, I’d think to myself, “oh yeah, THIS one!” and start singing along to every word. The only mediocre track, in my opinion, is the a-side to the single I just got, their cover of the Cliff Richard song “The Young Ones” (which punks know better as the theme song from the 80s British TV show The Young Ones). This band was too damn good to give over precious vinyl space to a novelty cover tune.

Which brings me to the other part of my plan that got blown. My staff pick was going celebrate the fact that I now owned original copies of all five Menace singles, but it turns out I don’t own GLC. Shit! I could have sworn I had that already.

Looking at Discogs, I noticed GLC is on Small Wonder Records. “I have a lot of records on Small Wonder,” I think to myself. Clicking through to Small Wonder’s discography, I see I have about half the records the label released during their original run. So, once I complete my Menace discography (which has now leapt forward on my list of priorities), I may have to take a stab at getting all the original Small Wonder releases. Which reminds me that another single I picked up in this batch helps me toward my goal of getting every No Future Records release. But that’s a staff pick for another day…

Verdict: Time to Resign 12” (Phobia Records) Time to Resign is the debut record from this new Swedish käng band featuring members whose names you might recognize from similar groups like Meanwhile, Dischange, No Security, Disfear, and many more I’m sure (ask Usman, he’ll tell you). The sound, fans will be pleased to hear, is what you’d expect from this crew, but something about Verdict feels more vital and less off-the-cuff than other projects from the post-Totalitär Swedish hardcore underground. The first thing you’ll notice with Verdict is the vocals, which are hoarse, snarling, and captivating. The lyrics are in English, which is relatively uncommon for Swedish bands of this ilk, and they’re excellent, conveying a mix of anger, disgust, and horror at the current condition of the world, riding the fine line between being direct and more evocative and poetic. The music is pitch-perfect käng, so meticulously composed that it feels almost claustrophobic at first, but when you listen closely, you hear the inventiveness on display. As with Totalitär, the riffing ranges from super catchy (“Hypocrisy,” “Bound to Fail”) to straightforward and brutal (“Lock Down Society”), with the rhythm section executing a range of different d-beat grooves and tempos to match. Verdict constantly changes things up and keeps them exciting, knowing just when to shift gears into something like the standout “Dark Thoughts,” which speeds up the groove from Discharge’s “A Look at Tomorrow.” I can’t believe Time to Resign is 15 minutes long… it feels like half that, and every time the record ends I’m left wanting more.

What’s up Sorry State readers, I hope wherever you’re reading this, the fall weather has come around like it has here in Raleigh. With it being October and Halloween approaching, I wanted to switch things up and write about a movie this week for my staff pick. When it comes to horror, I like the older, campy stuff like the Evil Dead series or psychological thrillers like The Shining. The movie I’d like to talk about today is a bit of both, the 2018 psychedelic action-horror film, Mandy, directed by Panos Cosmatos and starring Nicolas Cage and Andrea Riseborough. I love when movies are completely out of left field and this movie is exactly that. It’s hard to describe why I like this movie so much, but I can start with the fact that it’s different from any other movie I’ve seen before. Nicolas Cage is fully unleashed in this one in the best way possible, and when his performance is on point, he’s one of my favorite actors. I don’t want to spoil too much of the movie here, but I want to talk about at least the first part of it, so if you want to go into this movie completely blind, stop reading here.

The film takes place in 1983 near the Shadow Mountains of the Mojave Desert in California. The main character, Red (Nicolas Cage), works as a logger and shares a (really cool) cabin in the middle of the woods with his girlfriend, Mandy (Andrea Riseborough), who works as a gas station cashier but in her free time is also an artist and author. Between the conversations the two have and Mandy’s writings, you can tell they’re both a little out there and seem to have been through a fair share of shit in their lives. One day when Mandy is out on a walk, a van full of some very strange looking individuals drives by her and she catches the attention of the man sitting in the passenger seat, who happens to be Jeremiah, the leader of the cult these people are a part of. Side note but the cinematography and some of the shots and the effects they use on them are so well done and this scene, paired with the incredible and haunting score, is one of my favorite examples. It really fills you with a sense of dread and anxiety. It later cuts to a scene of Jeremiah telling one of his loyal disciples that he “needs” the girl he saw today on the side of the road. That night, a couple of the members drive out in the van to an empty field and one of them gets out and blows an ancient looking ocarina which fills the air with red smoke and summons the Black Skulls, a demonic biker gang. One of the cult members offers up a human sacrifice and a jar full of highly potent liquid LSD, in exchange for capturing Mandy and bringing her to the leader. A member of the Black Skulls accepts the offer, and the scene is set from there. I’m gonna stop talking about it there and let you watch the movie if you want to find out what happens, but if this sounds like it may be interesting to you and up your alley, I promise you won’t be disappointed. It definitely might not be for everyone, but if you love a weird, original, and creative movie, I highly recommend it.

Hello there all you lovely Sorry Staters. How’s it going? Thanks for clicking on our newsletter and supporting us. I missed you last week as I was off sick unfortunately and feeling like complete crap. I do not do well when I get sick with flu symptoms and can barely function. Things might have been more bearable had I been able to binge watch TV and stream music etc, but last week my internet went out and couldn’t get repaired until just this past Tuesday. It was a combination of the passing hurricane and other factors that led to the delay in my being reconnected. Not to cry like a baby over first world problems, but man it sucks not having the internet. Especially when you are sick at home. It’s probably not a good thing that we rely on it so much, but that’s where we are at. Anyway, I tried amusing myself with playing records, but when you are lying sick on the couch covered in blankets and cats, getting up every fifteen minutes or so to flip a record doesn’t work. Of course, I could read a book and did try, but when I’m sick, I find it hard to concentrate and either kept having to reread the same page or nodded off. After a day or two like this, I couldn’t stand it and needed to watch a movie or something.

So, I searched my last remaining DVD archives and pulled out the collection of James Bond movies that I have. I used to have tons of DVDs and CDs, but most are now gone. Thankfully, I hung on to these classic Bond films. I have all the films starring Sean Connery and Roger Moore plus my personal favorite On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which was the one-off starring George Lazenby. I f’king love everything about James Bond. Growing up when I did, the Bond films were easily one of the biggest movie series ever and each new one was a cinematic event. The older 1960s films were shown regularly on TV each year around the holidays and my Dad and I would always enjoy watching them. As a child I was a veracious reader and read all the Ian Fleming penned Bond novels. Just like the rest of the world, I had Bond fever. How could you not? To anyone of a certain age these films are almost part of our DNA now.

My Bond marathon included watching the extras that each DVD had, and I was surprised that there were a couple of mini documentaries that I hadn’t watched. Some interesting information about the making of the films and the people behind them. I also get a kick from watching the period TV and cinema ads and trailers. Takes you back.

One of the documentaries focused on the music made for the films and all those great title songs. The Bond music is great and a big part of the appeal of the films. Hard to pick a favorite really and not something I would want to be forced to do. Obviously the Monty Norman penned 007 theme is killer and all the John Barry composed music is such a part of the experience, but what made each new Bond film special were the opening titles created by Maurice Binder along with the new title song. Shirley Bassey belting out Goldfinger. Unforgettable. Nancy Sinatra singing You Only Live Twice, perhaps my favorite. Paul McCartney and Wings doing Live And Let Die, awesome.

I mentioned perhaps one my favorite of the films is On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and part of the reason is the great soundtrack. The music for the ski chase scene is so good. As to is the title theme, although with this film they didn’t use a star vocal. However, Louis Armstrong sings We Have All The Time In The World, and it is used during the film. Composer John Barry states that song was his favorite too, and in no small part because it was Louis Armstrong singing and what a huge honor that was for him to have him sing a song he wrote. OHMSS also stars Diana Rigg, fresh from her stint on the classic TV spy show The Avengers. She’s great in the film and drives a nice Mercury Cougar convertible in several scenes. The car buffs amongst us always get a kick out of the cool ass cars used in Bond films.

Talking of cool cars brings me to the last of the films I watched during this recent marathon. The Spy Who Loved Me from 1977 featured a beautiful white Lotus Esprit that also doubled as a submarine in the film. Pretty cool. I have a particular fondness for this Bond film as it was the first one that I went to the cinema to see when it came out. I can remember very vividly going to the local community center in my hometown that screened films with my Dad and watching it. I didn’t have many opportunities to do cool and fun stuff with him, so this memory is a cherished one. As I was watching the film last week, I paid closer attention to the music. This score was produced by Marvin Hamlisch who gives it a sophisticated disco vibe. I didn’t care too much for the theme song, Nobody Does It Better sung by Carly Simon, although I have warmed to it over the years, but I did really enjoy the updated 007 theme titled Bond 77, that incorporates those funky disco sounds. As a piece of music, it worked well and made me pull my soundtrack LP to jam it a couple of times. For me, the best part of the soundtrack.

Not really a staff pick from me, but more a statement of love for everything James Bond and spy theme related. Over the years, I have collected the film soundtracks, but in addition, I love finding any of the knock-off records that came out in the wake of the movie success. There are tons of albums recorded by known and unknown artists all covering the Bond music in a host of different styles. There are some particularly good jazz ones out there. I probably have a good two dozen of these type of albums. Some better than others but all with something to offer. I’m always on the lookout for a new one. The most recent addition was one done by Johnny Pearson called Impressions Of James Bond that has him playing the 007 theme on piano in a jazzy style. I liked it. You can find this record in a variety of different covers and all cheaply. Most of these records aren’t expensive when you find them, and I have found most in thrift stores and record store bargain bins.

Thanks for the brief indulgence and keep an eye out for those Bond soundtracks next time you are out digging. There really is some great music to be found on them. See you next time.

-Dom

What’s up Sorry Staters?

So, the season of the witch is upon us… I dunno if any of you fiends and ghouls are like me, but every time October rolls around, I start getting really excited. October is always my favorite month of the year. The air starts getting cooler, Spirit Halloween has opened its doors down the street, and all I want to do with my time is watch trashy horror flicks on VHS.

For all the grainy, lowbrow Grindhouse films I binge, there are a few more classy, high budget gore romps that make their way into my list of films to watch every year. I kicked off the 1st of the month with Dario Argento’s classic Demons. When I posted about this movie on social media, I jokingly referred to it as the “Negazione of zombie flicks.” Daniel even commented and asked me why I described it that way, to which I responded, “Uh, cuz it’s Italian and it rules!” Hahaha. But of course, the movie is similarly intense and unhinged. While Demons was directed by Lamberto Bava, Argento produced the movie and surely provided some strong credentials for the movie’s notoriety. I’m sure many people are familiar with Argento’s artsy and moody take on horror in films like Suspiria and Inferno. Demons is definitely a more old-fashioned, fun-filled escapade, but beautifully shot and cleverly done. Real quickly, the plot basically revolves around a couple of teenagers who, along with another colorful collection of characters, are given tickets to a free screening for a movie. The audience slowly begins to realize that a mysterious metal mask, which they see in person in the lobby of theater AND depicted in the film, that transforms the characters in the movie into demons is doing the exact same to all people trapped inside this movie theater. And then chaos ensues. It’s great!

One of the main things I wanted to mention about the movie, though, is that in addition to film’s sparse synth-based score, there’s a killer heavy metal soundtrack! A deep cut by Motley Crue plays in one of the early scenes. Funny enough, there are these punker characters that appear mid-way through the movie, cruising the city streets while snorting drugs out of a soda can through a bendy straw. While they’re driving around, “White Wedding” by Billy Idol is playing on the car stereo. Only the most badass tunes are acceptable for these delinquents! Haha. There’s a killer scene where one of the main dudes comes out blazing into the aisles of the movie theater riding a motorcycle while wielding a katana to slice up demons, and “Fast As a Shark” by Accept plays in the background. It’s so sick. “Fast As a Shark” is the ripping opening track on Restless And Wild, which is my personal favorite Accept record. While not listed on the soundtrack, a sleeper banger “Night Danger” by the Danish metal band Pretty Maids plays during the scene where the hostages are tearing apart the theater trying to escape. There’s some Saxon, some Scorpions, tons of fun and heavy rippers to accompany the bloody entertainment contained within.

Hopefully, me talking about horror and heavy metal isn’t too boring for any of you Sorry State readers out there. Expect more spooky-themed musings in the weeks to come as we countdown to Halloween. That’s all I’ve got this week. As always, Thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff

7 Seconds: Old School LP (Headhunter Records, 1991)

The other day Angela, Jeff, and I were working at the warehouse together. Angela was listening to this new Operation Ivy bootleg LP we got in, and between that and Jeff pricing a stack of used Casualties records, the conversation turned to music we were into as teenagers. Before I knew it, Angela was blasting Less Than Jake for like an hour straight. Less Than Jake was my favorite band for a couple of years when I was in high school. I listened to Pezcore incessantly, and I would have thought I could still sing along with every word. It turns out that I remembered some parts, but most of it seemed only vaguely familiar to me. I guess it was like 30 years ago at this point! Still, it choked me up a little to remember so many nights of driving to the beach with my best friend Billy, blasting “My Very Own Flag” and “Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts” and singing along at the top of our lungs, stopping at the Waffle House at like 4AM and driving home as the sun rose, still jacked on shitty coffee.

I always say that 7 Seconds is a band I’m glad I discovered when I was younger, because their sunny melodies and somewhat naïve politics would grate on my ears hard if I heard them for the first time as a full-grown adult. Somewhere in the punk network at my high school, someone passed me a dubbed tape of Walk Together, Rock Together, and I just loved it. At the time I was listening to a lot of Minor Threat and a lot of Screeching Weasel, and 7 Seconds seemed to fit in the sweet spot between them, with some of SW’s goofy poppiness and some of Minor Threat’s speed and aggression. I always kept an eye out for 7 Seconds records when I was shopping, but after picking up Soulforce Revolution and Ourselves, I realized there were some 7 Seconds records I didn’t want to own (nowadays I think those albums have their merits). I needed a more strategic approach.

I entered college in 1997, just as computers and the internet became ubiquitous. By my second year of college, I still didn’t own a computer, but both of my roommates did, and whenever one or the other of them wasn’t at home, I was on one of their computers reading about punk and scoring things on ebay that I still tell tales about today. Once I realized 7 Seconds had a bunch of records before Walk Together, Rock Together, I set about chasing it all down. The Crew was easy to get and pretty mind-blowing when when I did. It was rougher, faster, and punker than Walk Together, but just as easy to sing along with. Two compilations of earlier material were even more exciting. Alt.music.hardcore (talk about a dated title!) collected the songs from their early 7”s, and if The Crew turned up the rawness and aggressive knobs from Walk Together, these earlier recordings cranked them even further. Of course today I own all those original 7”s, but I still blast Alt.music.hardcore with surprising regularity.

And then there’s my staff pick from this week, Old School. The recordings that make up Old School were meant for 7 Seconds’ debut LP, which was supposed to be called United We Stand, but it never came out. A few of these tracks came out on a 7” titled Blasts from the Past, but they scrapped most of the songs from this session and re-recorded them for The Crew and other records. I did some quick googling, but I wasn’t able to find any info about why they scrapped these sessions. Does anyone know if there’s somewhere I can hear that story? Why hasn’t anyone made a book or a movie about 7 Seconds yet? Get on that, punk nostalgia industrial complex!

Making your way through the 7 Seconds’ discography is all about how the band balances their impulses toward hardcore aggression and big pop melodies, and for me Old School is where they achieve the perfect balance. Only a handful of tracks have blatant, Sham 69-style singalong choruses with lots of whoa-oh-type singing, and even those are backloaded onto the end of the record (“Red and Black,” “Clenched Fists, Black Eyes”). The more straightforward hardcore songs that make up the rest of the album benefit from the band’s songwriting chops, but the emphasis is on getting across that feeling of pissed-off rambunctiousness. “Wasted Life (Ain’t No Crime)” sounds like it might have drawn some musical inspiration from early Minor Threat, and tracks like “War in the Head” and “You Lose” are just perfect early 80s US hardcore.

The song that was doing it for me as I blasted this while driving around this week, though, was “Diehard.” “Action’s being taken cause of this / you fucked with us, and now we’re fucking PISSED!” Maybe I’m a little too far from my Less Than Jake fanboy days to sing along with those songs, but driving around this week yelling along to “Diehard,” I felt like I’d been transported right back to 1998, when I was a dumb-ass teenager hearing this stuff for the first time.

Totalitär: 1998-2002 12” (Skrammel Records) Do you need Sorry State to tell you how great Totalitär is? Probably not, but I’m about to do it anyway! Like 1986-1989, which Skrammel released a few years ago, 1998-2002 collects several 7” EP from its titular years. You get 1998’s Klasse Inte Ras and Vansinnets Historia, 2000’s Dom Lurar Oss, 2001’s Spela Bort Allt Du Har, and 2002’s Allting Är På Låtsas. As Usman wrote in his staff pick, it’s far from a comprehensive overview of Totalitär’s output over this period, but it doesn’t have to be… getting five killer, hard-to-find records back into print is a fine mission as far as I’m concerned. You can never go wrong with any Totalitär record, but I’m fond of the era of the band captured here. The earlier records have a certain charm and I like that they’re more open-ended with their sound (though the later era of the band still has plenty of unexpected moments), but they’d locked into a thing by this period and perfected a sound that is wholly their own. A song like the title track to the Dom Lurar Oss EP is everything that’s great about Totalitär boiled down to its essence, and there are plenty of other moments that are just as strong. Whether you’re getting this because these are records you love and you want to have them compiled in a convenient format, or whether you’re adding these tracks to your collection for the first time, if you like Totalitär (and who doesn’t?), you’ll play the fuck out of this thing. As with 1986-1989, the packaging is no-frills by today’s punk reissue standards, but that’s in keeping with Totalitär’s total focus on the music (an approach they share with the almighty Out Cold). There are, however, two photo collages on the back that offer a rare glimpse into the people who made this music, and there are also some pretty hilarious photos of some unique merch items. 28 tracks of hardcore punk perfection.

What’s up Sorry State readers, I hope everyone has had a good week. On Tuesdays when I come into work, I like to flip through the 7” section and see what catches my eye. This week a copy of Vatican Commandos’ Just A Frisbee caught my attention when I noticed on the hype sticker it referred to the band as “Darien, Connecticut hardcore punk legends.” This piqued my interest cause Darien is the town I was born in and where I spent the first couple years of my life, so I decided to check it out. To give a little back history, Vatican Commandos were formed in Darien and were active from ’82-’85 (until a reunion show 25 years later in 2010). Just A Frisbee is the second EP released by the band and even features cover art from a then eighteen-year-old Rob Zombie. I threw it on the record player and was almost immediately hooked. The first song, (We’re) Tipping Cows, is self-explanatory. It’s a song about sneaking up on sleeping cows and tipping them over and it’s fucking awesome. This album features some pretty sweet drums and really catchy basslines and riffs. It’s just a lot of fun to listen to, and knowing it was made by a group of dudes from where I grew up makes it even more enjoyable. Snag a copy of this first reissue of the EP in almost 40 years.

Hey Sorry State readers! I hope you’re doing well. I don’t get out much, but I just read that we’re supposed to get some tropical cyclone type shit here in Raleigh? I hope I’m wrong because it sounds a bit dramatic to me. Time will tell.

On to the music. I’m doing something different this week. When I was listing albums on our Discogs site, I was sifting through some boxes of records and I came across Tegan and Sara’s Hey I’m Just Like You. Side note: this album is available to buy from our Discogs site. It’s a damn fine looking and sounding copy with the printed lyric sleeve, just saying. Moving on…

Anyway, I can’t say I know a ton from Tegan and Sara, but I like a few albums, and this is one of them. It’s their NINTH studio album. With this one, I think the sister duo made a really smart and timely move by re-recording demos of songs they had written back when they were teenagers and admittedly had a Kurt Cobain shrine. I have a Kurt Cobain shrine too. I call it “my record collection” and it’s one expensive fucking shrine.

So on this album, you can certainly hear their teenage hearts starting to realize that life can be kind of shit, but they aren’t quite at the point where they know life can be really shit. It’s cool to hear these coming of age songs re-recorded through the lens of experience and wisdom the band has acquired over a couple decades. I imagine it’s like going back and reading your teenage diary and making it sound less cringe. The thing about Tegan and Sara is that I always longed for a much more angsty sound, but angsty doesn’t always have to sound angry. That’s something that took me a long time to realize.

It’s interesting to listen now to the music they made as teens, knowing that they were holding in so much about their sexuality and how they felt about it. On songs like Don’t Believe the Things They Tell You (They Lie), they figure out that the cliche things your parents tell you when you’re young to make you feel better may not actually apply to you. Sara wrote that particular song in the late 90s when she was 15 and going through a period of self-hatred. If that wasn’t a theme of adolescence in the 90s, I don’t know what was. But, good news, I guess revisiting that period of time captured in those songs (while re-recording these demos) was actually really healing for Sara. I don’t know anything about writing music, but when I forced myself to read my high school diaries, it was not therapeutic whatsoever. It was more like “holy shit, you’re the same person, but just… older.”

Please Help Me is a favorite track on this album. Call me crazy or call me 100% correct, but I’d be very surprised if Taylor Swift didn’t listen to a lot of Tegan and Sara as she was doing the indie girl transition. Hold My Breath Until I Die is another good one. It has an unexpected, yet subtle, Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac feel to it. It may be the most mature sounding track on the record.

Yes, the music sounds like teenagers wrote it, because teenagers wrote it. Even if it’s been re-recorded. I think it’s a pretty brave thing to do to go back 20 years and work with that music again, because they weren’t just making their old music sound better. They were also revisiting the pain and confusion embedded in that music. Hot damn, is this a case study or a staff pick? Told you I was going down a different road today. It’s called Existential Crisis Avenue.

All in all, it’s a pretty cohesive poppy record with some nice synthy choruses. It’s a pleasant listen, and oddly nostalgic. Which makes no sense because this wasn’t my vibe growing up. If my mom didn’t bust into my room with a worried look on her face before telling me to “turn that crap down,” it wasn’t on my playlist. However, one nice thing about getting older is going back to music you discarded or overlooked, and discovering you kinda like it now.

But really, someone should buy it on our Discogs. It’s looks and plays great. It’s aesthetically pleasing (which is what drew me in in the first place) with its high contrast black and white art work, and matte textured jacket. I will also write you a special note when I fill your order.

Thanks for reading! See you next week!

-Angela