Gauze: 言いたかねえけど目糞鼻糞 12” (2021, XXX Records)

Recently, copies of Gauze’s 6th album hit US shores. If you follow punks on Instagram, you’ve likely seen people showing off their copies. My sincere apologies to anyone who was hoping to get a copy from Sorry State. I dropped the ball and didn’t look into getting copies until it was too late, but hopefully we can rectify that in the future and carry the next pressing. Luckily for me, I could order a copy for myself from the venerable Velted Regnub distribution.

Much like when Gauze released their 5th album, the reactions I’ve seen online have been mixed. Lots of people are excited about this new chapter in Gauze’s legacy, but there are always haters. I’m not sure what people could be looking for in a Gauze album that they don’t hear here, but I love the record. I’ve seen several people say that the first song on the record is whack but the rest of it is good, but when I listen to the record, I can’t for the life of me figure out what’s so different about the first track. Maybe I’m missing something?

The word I keep coming back to when people ask me my thoughts on this album is “anthemic.” The anthemic qualities of Gauze’s music have always been cut off to me as someone who doesn’t speak Japanese, but I can tell by the way their fans sing along when I watch videos of their shows that their songs have always been anthemic. However, this new album seems to give the vocals more of a spotlight than previous records, with even a sung a capella part. Unexpected, but brilliant as always, if you ask me.

While I’m still formulating my thoughts on the record, I thought it might be interesting to reflect on what makes Gauze so great. Those of us who love Gauze revere them, which probably confuses people who have little context for their music. If I didn’t know better, I’d chalk up my passion for Gauze to the way I encountered them. I mail ordered a copy of their 7” on Prank Records when I was in high school, intrigued by the crisp graphic design and the fact that the band was from Japan. A year or so later at a show in Richmond, I complimented Jay from Hardcore Holocaust on his Gauze t-shirt and he encouraged me to buy a bootleg of GISM’s Detestation that had just come out. That record melted my brain as thoroughly as Gauze did, and a lifelong obsession with Japanese punk was born. I remember when I discovered eBay around 1998, one of the first things I did was search for Gauze records, and I ordered a very expensive import copy of their fourth album. As more information about Japanese punk hit the internet, I devoured everything I could and continued to expand my knowledge of the scene.

Back to Gauze. Even for those of us with a particular interest in Japanese punk, Gauze stands head and shoulders above other bands. Why? Here are four things I think contribute to Gauze’s legendary status:

Longevity

Having released their first recordings on 1982’s City Rockers compilation, Gauze is one of Japan’s longest-running punk bands. Their first album, 1985’s Fuck Heads, came out on the legendary ADK label, which was run by Tam from the Stalin. Their 1986 and 1991 albums came out on the equally legendary Selfish Records, the label that released much of the seminal music that shapes people’s understanding of Japanese hardcore to this day. Thus, Gauze is a throughline connecting almost the entire history of Japanese punk. Gauze’s longevity may mean even more for Japanese hardcore than it does for other scenes, given the deferential and courteous nature of Japanese culture and language. Also, while plenty of bands from the initial explosions of punk and hardcore are still going in some capacity, Gauze is one of the few who have done so with minimal changes in lineup and sound. Gauze has never put out a pop record, never made a video for MTV, and never deviated from hardcore’s narrow path. In other words, Gauze has never sucked.

Style

To put it simply, no band has ever sounded like Gauze. This is particularly true of everything they recorded after their landmark second album, 1986’s Equalizing Distort. When you drop the needle on a Gauze record, you know it is them instantly and without question. Further, while every semi-famous punk band has its imitators and acolytes, I’m not aware of any band that has cracked the code for how to write a song that sounds like Gauze. Plenty of people imitate Death Side or Bastard or Judgement with some success, but it appears Gauze is the only band that can make Gauze songs.

Mystery

Speaking of Death Side, Bastard, and Judgement, while all those bands have played reunion shows and even played in the US, Gauze remains indifferent to whatever the West might offer. Gauze toured the UK in 1989 (a live set performed in Scotland appeared as the b-side of their 3rd album) and played three US shows in 1996 (on this tour they recorded the Prank 7” that introduced me to the band). However, those trips seem to have satisfied Gauze’s international ambitions. While Prank wrangled a US release for their 5th album in 2007, finding physical copies of Gauze’s releases or seeing the band live has entailed meeting them on their turf. Even in Japan they seem to exist as a scene unto themselves, playing the same clubs again and again with seemingly no aim to expand their passionately devoted core audience. Press both in and out of Japan has been minimal, with the few Gauze interviews I’ve seen eliciting only curt and enigmatic responses from the band. In the absence of reliable info, legends about Gauze have proliferated in the rumor mill. My favorite of these is that Gauze practices consist of the band playing every song they have ever written without stopping, a feat of near-superhuman strength. Which brings me to my final point.

Musicality

Perhaps this could fly over your head if you aren’t a musician, but Gauze’s mind-boggling technical skill as players is a huge part of their appeal. Part of the distinctiveness of their sound is that few bands can play with anything close to their power and precision, which is more impressive since, at their gigs, they perform their songs in rapid-fire succession with no stopping in between. I’ve seen very few bands have the gumption to cover Gauze, and nearly all of those make it apparent why they shouldn’t have tried. While Gauze’s songwriting isn’t flashy in an Eddie Van Halen / Yngwie Malmsteen kind of way, they are mazes of sharp and dramatic changes in rhythm. Even remembering these changes must be a struggle, much less performing them with Gauze’s airtight level of precision. Not every hardcore band aspires to tightness, but if you have ever played in a hardcore band with that goal, Gauze is the unequivocal gold standard.

I’m sure other Gauze fanatics have their own relationship with the band, but those are some reasons the band remains so special to me. If you are lucky enough to be discovering Gauze for the first time, jump into their discography at whatever point you find most convenient. As I said, they have never sucked. Whether your jumping-on point is the rhythmic mazes of their fourth or fifth LPs, the classics Fuck Heads and Equalizing Distort, their punkier tracks on the City Rocker compilation, or something else, you’re going to get a taste of what makes this band so legendary.

The Drin: Engines Sing for the Pale Moon 12” (Drunken Sailor) I’d noticed a few people I trust hyping up this record by the Drin on Drunken Sailor, and I’m glad I took the time to check this out, because it’s a fantastic record. Originally released in a small cassette edition, Drunken Sailor plucked this gem from potential obscurity and gave it the wider release it deserved. Describing the Drin’s sound is difficult, because they don’t sound quite like anything I’ve heard before. I’ve seen a few people (including Will Fitzpatrick in the label’s official blub) mention Joy Division, but I feel like that does the Drin a disservice because they sound so completely different from the legions of Joy Division wannabees that have populated the punk scene for the past forty-odd years. Thankfully, you won’t hear any faux-Ian Curtis baritone vocals here, but you will hear a couple of tracks that have chord progressions that are familiar from Joy Division songs as well as some of the subtler elements of Joy Division’s sound, such as the heavily processed drum sounds and the steady motorik rhythms that powered so many of their greatest songs. But there are other ingredients in the stew too. I hear plenty of UKDIY pop in the Drin’s scrappy but accessible sound, and there’s a palpable (and non-cheesy) reggae influence that you hear in some of the heavy bass lines (see the standout track “Down Her Cheek a Pearly Tear”) and the frequent use of the melodica. It all adds up to a record that’s dense with distinctive atmosphere. Engines Sing for the Pale Moon really transports you to another place, and it’s a place I’ve been addicted to visiting ever since the first time I put this record on.

And I Don’t Want to Live This Life, Deborah Spungen

Growing up, my mom never let me listen to the Sex Pistols. When I first got into punk, she would tell me it was because the band was ‘yucky’ or that the bassist was a murderer. I can’t remember exactly when she finally came clean about her intense Sex Pistols hatred, but it was much later and coincided with her giving me this book.

In my mom’s early teen years, she dated Nancy Spungen’s brother David. They went to the same Jewish summer camp; he even went to her Bat Mitzvah. She never met Nancy and broke up with David well before Nancy was thrown into the limelight and eventually died, but my mom always remained close with the family. Her hatred of Sid Vicious’ band, I found out even later, was much less to do with the tragic death of Nancy but more about the fallout surrounding the tragedy. My mom never hid her distaste for the worship of that couple. She would always bring it back to the Spungen family and how the media attention after Nancy’s death almost ruined them.

I’ll admit, it was years after being handed And I Don’t Want to Live This Life, that I actually read it. Before I read it, I kind of shrugged off my mom’s intense emotions on the subject as yet another way for her to try and get the punk outta me. As my interest in punk faded, I forgot about this book on my bookshelf and picked it up one evening out of boredom. I read it in two days, completely unable to put it down. Deborah Spungen wrote this book just five short years after Nancy was found stabbed in a hotel room. It’s intensely emotional and raw. This book is 20 years of pent up anger, frustration, and sadness.

Nancy’s life was never easy. Growing up in the 60s and 70s, there were only very rudimentary understandings of mental health and she suffered heavily because of it. Reading it from a modern perspective is heartbreaking because you can see, very plainly, that medication and therapy would’ve at least partially prevented Nancy from leading such a short and painful life. Mental health has come a long way since the year she died, 1978, and the year this book came out, 1983, but there are still a ton of people like Nancy unable to get the help they need. We might have a thicker DSM5 than those years, but access to life saving mental health treatments are still hard to come by.

Even if you’re like me and not a fan of Sid Vicious or the Sex Pistols, And I Don’t Want to Live This Life is the heartbreaking background to one of pop culture’s most notorious toxic couples and absolutely well worth the read if you can find it in print somewhere.

Hello, thanks for reading and thanks for the support. I will write briefly about a record that I have been playing a lot. This week we got these hot-ass SYCOPHANT slabs in at Sorry State. I didn’t know anything about this release beforehand; I had zero anticipation for the release because of this. It’s always a great feeling to be completely caught off guard by a release. I love it so much. It’s also kind of whack this was completely off my radar since we carried the cassette version back in June of last year, whoops. I am not really a fan of the single-side 12” but I am glad this release now has a vinyl version, cos it’s way too good to only appear on cassette. The recording itself sounds excellent, especially the drums. Every instrument sounds clear and pronounced but somehow everything is blended well together into a nice wall of sound. I don’t mean the band is noisy by that wall of sound reference, but that each instrument seriously compliments each other. They bring out the best elements, making the band as a whole sound really full. It sounds like almost too pro haha but it is fucking excellent. Anyway, this band’s “style” is right up my alley, so it was no doubt I’d immediately like it. I am relatively easy to please if you are playing DISCHARGE style, but you must have riffs forreal... and SYCOPHANT has riffs indeed. Although they play like DISCHARGE with the constant D-beatage, it sounds like they have more similarities to the Swedish bands who followed suit. While they mostly remind me of DISCHANGE or MEANWHILE, some of the riffage is really reminiscent of TOTALITÄR. If you like any of those bands and I haven’t heard this record yet, I’d check it out now! But wait, that means everyone should listen to this record, cos who the fuck doesn’t like TOTALITÄR, right? Alright thanks for reading and I hope everyone is staying safe, peace!

Greetings to you all and thank you for clicking on our newsletter. We always appreciate it.

So, before I say anything else I need to apologize for a typo in my piece from last week about pioneering country singer Linda Martell. Somehow my brain had me type her album title as Color My Soul when, of course, the correct title is Color Me Country. Oops. Too many titles about people coloring things. Lol. Our website has been corrected but if you read the link via email and noticed that, I apologize. As a follow up to the story on Linda Martell, it seems that a documentary is being made on her by family members and should be ready this year.

Okay, on to this week. Plenty going on in the world, obviously. Things to bemoan and things to celebrate. The bad shit is just going to keep happening, so let’s concentrate on the good things. For me the good things this week that have made me happy have been my team Liverpool winning the EFL cup this past Sunday. We beat Chelsea in a dramatic game that went to a full penalty shoot-out. That’s the first of four possible trophies we are still in the running for this season. On Tuesday, it was Mardi Gras and to celebrate the spirit of New Orleans and carnival my DJ buddy Matt and I had a fun time with our Worldy radio show over on The Face Radio. I didn’t get to eat any pancakes though, unfortunately. Back when my sister and I were kids our mum used to make us dozens each. Delicious. Good times. The number one thing for me to celebrate this week however is the pleasure and pride I have from working here at Sorry State. I can’t tell you enough about how great it is. Daniel is without doubt the best boss ever. Seriously. And my co-workers are equally brilliant. I learn something new from them every week. Thank you guys.

The other week in the newsletter, Daniel talked about the BBC App that allows you access to the wealth of great radio shows etc. that they broadcast. How fantastic is that? Being British, I was particularly pleased. Daniel mentioned he has been listening to Marc Riley’s show and as a fellow Fall fan and ex listener to the show Riley had with Mark Radcliffe in the 90s, I will be checking out his latest broadcasts. I loved that late night show he had with Radcliffe. Always great music, always hilariously funny and somewhat in the vein of John Peel. I remember being sad when they finished their show. I even taped the last week of broadcasts and still have those cassettes as they had some guest bands performing. Tindersticks being one of them, a bad I liked a lot and have had the pleasure of seeing a few times. When living in New York, I even met them one day whilst I was hanging out at Beggars Banquet.

Anyway, back to Marc Riley. Daniel mentioning him made me pull out one of my favorite 45s this week. It’s a single Riley made in 1983 called Jumper Clown. Released on In Tape, which was his own label. He released another single the same year called Favourite Sister, which I have also. The label would release other stuff from his band The Creepers in addition to names such as The June Brides, Gaye Bikers On Acid and the great Frank Sidebottom.

Jumper Clown is a brilliant rubbish record. Cheesy organ sound, drum machine beats and Marc’s deadpan vocal. To most ears it probably sounds crap, but there is something about it that just makes me smile. Most Fall fans will dig it if they haven’t already heard it.

I was gifted my copy by a very good friend of mine, DJ Kevin Wyzzard. He scoured every store in New York City to find me a copy. Kevin is a great friend and a fantastic seventies glam DJ. He turned on some famous people to glam music with his English Disco party. He and I also hosted a night called Freak Out! That party was more focused on sixties psychedelic, though. Kevin, like Daniel, is a huge Fall fan and I am sure the two of them would get on like a house on fire if they met. Thank you Kevo for finding me that record.

I have no idea what a Jumper Clown is, but the single is fun and has a picture sleeve showing some cartoon guy reading a newspaper sticking his tongue out saying blah, blah, blah. The b side is a tune called Violins, and that’s cool too. It’s not expensive but will make a good addition to any Fall fan’s record collection or even a non-Fall fan too.

That’s all I have for you this week. Thank you for reading. Have fun with records. Support your local record stores and we’ll see you next time. Cheers.

-Dom

What’s up Sorry Staters?

So funny story, my buddy Alex and I went to go see Jackass: Forever the other night. On the way there, Alex was just playing tunes off of his phone in the car. This one song came on that just RIPPED, and I asked Alex, I sez to him: “My dude, what is this badass ripping hardcore with lyrics I don’t understand?” He went on to tell me that it was a track from the Rapsodie En France compilation. Funny coincidence, this 1985 compilation cassette literally just got reissued on LP courtesy of World Gone Mad Records in conjunction with the original label Jungle Hop. And now Sorry State has copies. My lucky day!

I’ll admit, I’m not super well-versed on French hardcore. I’d heard a Heimat Los 7” at some point years ago and really dug that. I’d also heard Rapt before, always associating their gnarly, noisy, speedy hardcore with bands like Lärm from the Netherlands. Then Rapt also has that split 7” with Final Blast, which Chris and Michael Hardy from Velted Regnub introduced me to. Honestly, Final Blast might be my favorite band on this comp. The catchy tuneful riffs kinda remind me of Zmiv or something like that. Maybe there’s a correlation between French and Dutch hardcore that catches my ear? Who knows? Heimat Los even has a song called “Amsterdam” haha. But this compilation is chock full of killer bands that I’d never really heard before. The first band, Les Vandales, has 3 songs that just fuckin’ kill, and I’m pretty sure this is the band that Alex played for me in his car. The fidelity of the recordings from band to band really varies. The songs by Les Bloody Fuckers sound really blown out, but are totally killer. Anyway, I could talk about every band, but I won’t get into all that. To me, the fact that this compilation was previously never properly released on vinyl is almost criminal. This is a snapshot of a (maybe?) relatively under-the-radar, but killer 80s hardcore scene. Every band looks cool and sounds cool. The reissue LP comes with a thick booklet with photos, interviews, and loads more, which looks totally rad. A lot of it is in French, so degenerates like me don’t know how to read it, but the photos are fun to look at.

If you’re unfamiliar with 80s French punk and need a good jumpstart on finding out what it’s all about, then I highly recommend you check out Rapsodie En France.

Oh and also, that Tower 7 gig in Richmond this Saturday is gonna be insane. Hope to see all of you freaxxx there!

That’s all I’ve got for ya filthy animals. As always, thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff

Cate Le Bon: Pompeii 12” (Mexican Summer Records, 2022)

Today it’s 85 degrees and sunny in North Carolina and I think it’s prompted many people to do some early spring cleaning. After driving all the way back from Denver with a big collection last week, the calls have continued to pour in, sending me all over North Carolina buying records. I’m way behind on email and other administrative tasks, and I’m also physically and mentally exhausted, my poor back aching after moving thousands of records. Things aren’t looking good on the rest front, either, as I’m hoping to drive to Richmond Saturday to see the big Tower 7 gig and then Charlotte on Sunday to see Judy & the Jerks. Wish me luck, folks.

Feeling scattered, I didn’t have a clear idea of what I was going to write my staff pick about this week, so I flipped through my recent arrivals stack and remembered I had been planning to write about this new Cate Le Bon album. Much like when I wrote about the BBC Sounds app a few weeks ago, I have misgivings about using my staff pick space to help prop up something that’s been getting plenty of attention from larger outlets like Pitchfork, but fuck it… I like the record.

I first heard Cate Le Bon’s music when I saw her play live. This happened at Raleigh’s Hopscotch Festival a few years ago. Hopscotch has a reputation as one of the more forward-thinking regional music festivals, and it’s always worth going. I know Hopscotch’s bookers keep an eye on the Sorry State newsletter and we can always expect a few of our favorite acts to appear on the bill. While it’s always fun to see the artists I most anticipated, often it’s just as exciting to wander around and see what’s happening, getting recommendations from friends about what they’re excited about and popping in to see what’s up. I’m pretty sure my friend Rich told me to check out Cate Le Bon’s set when she played Hopscotch a few years ago.

Hopscotch takes place in mid-September in Raleigh, when it is around 350 degrees outside with 800% humidity (that is, unless we’re being bombarded by a hurricane because, you know, that’s right in the thick of hurricane season). It’s hot and humid as shit, and you’ll sweat through your clothes just from walking around between venues. The problem only gets compounded if any of the bands prompt you to do any sort of dancing, slamming or otherwise. One big draw of catching Cate Le Bon’s set was that it took place in Memorial Hall, a traditional concert venue that’s set up for symphonies and opera more than rock bands. Which meant, importantly, air conditioning and cushy seats. I don’t think a full spa treatment would have been much more comfortable than sitting in a comfortable chair in an air conditioned space at that point in the fest.

Already feeling sweet relief course through my aching, overheated body, Le Bon’s set was revelatory that night. I hadn’t heard her music before, and between the perfect setting and just the right combination of mind-altering substances, I fell into her music like a warm bed. Her band dressed in concert black, she played a set drawn mostly from her then most recent album Crab Day, the stage littered with unconventional instruments that created a heady mix of modern-sounding synths and drum machines and strings and wind instruments that felt more at home in the fancy concert hall. It was one of those magical concert experiences that makes you a fan for life, and I spent an enjoyable few months after the gig listening to the majestic Crab Day.

I was looking forward to Pompeii, even checking out the digital singles released before the album. At first it sounded gentler and less angular than Crab Day, but at some point I got over that and now I revel in its sweetness. I saw someone mention that the record was influenced by Japanese City Pop, and I can see that in its placid yet modern grooves. While Crab Day’s art rock approach is closer to my usual preferences, I appreciate Le Bon’s songwriting so much that I’m willing to go along for the ride as she explores other sounds. Not having much frame of reference for Le Bon’s music, I can’t authoritatively tell you that this is the best album in its style to come out recently, but I can tell you I quite enjoy it, and that there’s enough grit mixed in with the sweetness to satisfy this tired, aging punk.

Scott Plant: Alone / With Us 12” (Ordinary Weirdos Records) Alone / With Us is the second solo EP from Scott Plant, following a lathe cut 10” from a few years ago. Through projects like Civic Progress, Broken Prayer, Droids Blood, and Canal Irreal, Scott has made some of my favorite music of the modern punk era, and his turn toward pure electronic music has not dampened my enthusiasm one bit. Indeed, it seems like Scott’s music evolves one step ahead of me, with him experimenting with new styles just as they’re coming onto my radar. Indeed, I’ve been listening to more and more electronic music lately, and Alone / With Us fits in with artists I’ve enjoyed (like Mandy, Indiana and Rakta, for instance) while carrying forward the things I love most about Scott’s previous music, namely his brilliant lyrics. The title of this EP is the name of the first two songs, and they seem like a matched pair here, the first song presenting a portrait of a loner who “hustles” in the “dog eat dog world,” while the second track shifts the perspective to a group (religious? professional? something even more sinister?) that targets those loners by offering them the sense of belonging they insist they don’t want but secretly crave. The music, like all of Scott’s music, is just brilliant. There are no guitars here, just driving electronic drums and a symphony of synths playing off one another with the deftness of a well-seasoned band. I’m not articulate enough to explain what is so distinctive about Scott’s music, but it’s instantly identifiable here and I’m as in love with it as ever. If you’re a card-carrying member of the Scott Plant fan club like I am, you need this, but I can’t imagine any hardcore punk kid with a curiosity about electronic music won’t love this.

Hello, if it wasn’t obvious I don’t have a therapist it will be evident after this week’s Staff Pick. Whenever I am down and depressed, I find it hard to listen to music. That is probably some unconscious self-destructive behavior that has been slowly programmed into me. A program that wants to negate any possible feelings of enjoyment, so that my idea of suffering can continue on as long as possible. It’s hard to break the cycle, the chain of depression. Whenever I am back, it feels like I never even left. Sometimes it’s hard not to believe life is a constant struggle with a few good times sprinkled in here and there. I don’t know, maybe that really is the case.

I like BURNING SPEAR a lot, especially ‘Rocking Time’. This is a record I can listen to no matter what my state of being might be. Honestly, it is therapeutic for me when I am feeling down. He mostly sings of struggle in his songs. I experience a lot of emotions when I listen to his songs, but in the end, I find it grounding. I know his struggles were far greater than mine, and it reminds me the world is a big fucking place. It reminds me I am just a very small piece of this world. I will come and go, while the Earth will remain. When I start to feel small, the feelings that plague me also shrink. It leaves more space for wonder... it allows me to remember my appreciation for the vast beauty and the scary power of the Earth we inhabit. It reminds me I am grateful for my existence, grateful for the experiences I have had and the love I have shared with those who are close to me. Maybe life is a constant struggle, but that should make the good times even more glorious, really. From my experiences, I have learned anxiety and depression typically come from dwelling on the past or worrying about what the future may bring. I worry a lot. When you worry, you are just letting the happenings right before you slip through your fingers. So, the worry of the future has suffocated any possibility of enjoying the now. But we must seize every moment for its great worth and experience, we must trust as little as possible in the future. Just remember to do as that great poet said back in the day and “Carpe deez nuts.”