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Cro-Mags: Age of Quarrel 12” (1986 Profile / Rock Hotel Records)

This week Age of Quarrel is getting a new Record Store Day reissue (which we’ll have in stock), so now seems like a good time to get into my feelings on the record. Just to say up front, I love this record and I endorse it. I’m so stoked to have it back on the shelves that I ordered 100 copies, but since Record Store Day is Record Store Day we only got about 20. Anything we have left will hit our webstore at 8PM our time on Saturday and they’ll go quickly, but if you miss out, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding a copy at or near retail price if you put in a little work. We’re all people who will put in a little work to get a good record, right?

Back to Age of Quarrel. It looms large in hardcore’s history, representing a fork in the road. After Age of Quarrel, a certain segment of hardcore splintered from punk and began evolving as its own more or less distinct subculture. Not that Age of Quarrel came out of nowhere—antecedents like Victim in Pain and the Abused’s Loud and Clear EP landed years earlier—but something crystalized with this album. While it’s grounded in punk, I’m torn on whether I’d even consider it a punk record. It’s something else, though it still keeps enough of its essential punkness that I get hyped listening to it, even though the modern bands the Cro-Mags have influenced interest me very little.

As I said, I want to share my Age of Quarrel story. Like a lot of teenagers on the east coast of the US in the mid-90s, my pathway to underground music passed through the straight edge hardcore scene. It was huge when I was growing up in eastern Virginia so it’s unsurprising that it was the first DIY scene I made contact with. There were kids at my school who wore Judge and Youth of Today t-shirts, and that clued me into the visual aesthetic. I remember walking around the oceanfront in Virginia Beach one day and, while poking around the touristy shops, finding a bunch of flyers for upcoming shows. While I didn’t recognize the bands’ names, the typography, photography, and other graphic elements tipped me off I was seeing a flyer for a hardcore show. I knew I had to be there. The gig was Ten Yard Fight and a handful of local bands playing in a basement in the University area of Norfolk, just a couple of blocks from my school. (Aside #1: Maybe one day I’ll write my story about what that show felt like from my perspective, but suffice to say I was hooked. Aside #2: Next month my band Scarecrow is playing a show on that same street where I saw Ten Yard Fight in 1995 (or was it 96?). That will mark the first time I’ve ever played a show in the area where I grew up.)

I spent the next several years pulling the straight edge hardcore thread. It was an easy thread to pull in the pre-internet days because of what I realize, in retrospect, is very strong branding. When I saw the college letters, the heroic live photos of bands yelling emphatically, and the clean, balanced layouts, I knew what I was going to get. Which was cool because the worst thing in the pre-internet age was buying a record only to find out that it fucking sucked. (Actually, I still buy records that suck all the time, so maybe I’m just a sucker.)

The next step in my journey is that I went to college, got the internet, and started pulling that thread a little harder. I dug deeper, finding more interesting stuff. While Minor Threat was one of the first punk bands I heard and someone made me a tape of 7 Seconds pretty early on, I knew little early 80s hardcore. Researching through the internet, I learned that there were a lot of bands from the 70s and early 80s that were more exciting to me than the original youth crew bands, let alone the modern-day copycats (of which there were dozens, if not hundreds, at the time). I also learned that the youth crew scene had an older brother who did drugs and led a far less clean cut lifestyle. This older brother was New York Hardcore.

Somewhere in here I discovered a fanzine called Hardware. I haven’t looked at an issue of Hardware in years, but, as I remember it, the people who wrote that zine literally worshipped the Cro-Mags. They treated them as gods and originators, analyzing their every move as if they were members of a religious cult, and the Cro-Mags were their leaders. I recall the Show Reviews section of Hardware being primarily in-depth analyses of Cro-Mags gigs. Did they play the Clockwork Orange intro? Who went off the hardest during “Malfunction?” I’m pretty sure I read all this stuff before I heard Age of Quarrel (though eventually I did and was appropriately floored). I took these stories to heart too. I remember at one point considering going to see the Cro-Mags in Baltimore, but deciding against it at the last minute because, essentially, I was scared. I had been to the venue before, so I knew there would be no escape if the gig turned into a giant brawl. Which, of course, seemed entirely possible, perhaps even probable.

This seems like a good place to say that I could not give less of a fuck about the drama surrounding this band. That shit is for people who like soap operas and professional wrestling. Like every good punk, I listened to the entire Evolution of a Cro-magnon audiobook on tour, on a ridiculously long drive from Minneapolis to Seattle. I encourage you to do that, but I’m comfortable with my policy of, whenever I see John Joseph or Harley Flanagan’s name on the internet, scrolling right past it.

Fast forward a few years and I’m in my phase of caring about nothing but hardcore from the early 80s. I can’t remember why or how, but around this time I came across a CD called Before the Quarrel. This is when I really and truly fell in love with the Cro-Mags. Nowadays any Joe Schmoe can find this out with a few clicks, but at the time I did not know that Age of Quarrel was originally a 13-song cassette that featured most of the same songs, but a different recording. And, to be frank, the recording fucking smokes the Age of Quarrel album.

The Age of Quarrel album has 1986 written all over it, with “big” production that might have sounded cutting edge at the time (I don’t know; I was 7), but sounds dated and downmarket now. The Age of Quarrel cassette has a dry recording that pushes into the red. It sounds just like the Bad Brains ROIR tape, which makes sense because the same guy—Raleigh, North Carolina’s own Jerry Williams—engineered both recordings. John Joseph’s vocal performance is also a lot better on the cassette version, sounding meaner and more unhinged. I can’t seem to confirm this now, but I swear I read once that he had a cold when he did his vocals for the album. Poor guy, getting sick on his big day.

The Age of Quarrel cassette version also laid bare for me how much inspiration the Cro-Mags took from the Bad Brains. Copping so many moves from the Bad Brains is a bad look on most bands, but the Cro-Mags pulled it off. It helped that their drummer Mackie was one of the few people who could play with anything approaching Earl Hudson’s combination of complexity, groove, and power. (In fact, Mackie later joined the Bad Brains.) The Age of Quarrel cassette sounds, to me, like Bad Brains and Discharge in a head-on collision, taking the speed, precision, and grace of the Bad Brains and marrying it with Discharge’s relentlessness. Talk about a winning combination.

I know I’m hyping the original cassette version, but I am sad to tell you there is, as yet, no definitive vinyl version of the Age of Quarrel cassette. It has been bootlegged several times, though those bootlegs are hard to find and pricey. Given the current state of affairs in Cro-Mags-land, I wouldn’t expect an official reissue soon. Even this Record Store Day pressing of the Age of Quarrel album is controversial since multiple members of the band claim ownership of the master recordings and everyone insists they’re not getting paid royalties. I’ll break my rule and link you to Harley’s instagram post about the issue. Oh, and if there was a definitive vinyl version of the AOQ cassette (I nominate Radio Raheem for this job), that would be something I’d line up and camp overnight for.

So, back to the Age of Quarrel album. It’s not as good as the tape, but it’s still really fucking good. As I said before, the Cro-Mags re-did the tape with “better” production, but they also added several songs. “Seekers of the Truth” and “Street Justice” are fine, but I wouldn’t consider them among the Cro-Mags’ best songs. However, the album version of AOQ has an ace in the hole, and that’s “We Gotta Know.” Again, the inspiration comes from the Bad Brains as “We Gotta Know” sounds like it’s modeled on “I Against I,” with a mood-setting instrumental intro that transitions into a fast, grooving verse then explodes into a massively catchy chorus. The shredding guitar solo also reminds me of “I Against I,” but “We Gotta Know” doesn’t have a breakdown, while “I Against I” does. Anyway, even if that definitive reissue of the AOQ cassette happens, I won’t be able to throw away my copy of the AOQ album until they unearth some crazy raw demo version of “We Gotta Know” and put it out as a 7”.

So yeah, that’s where I sit with Age of Quarrel. Given my distaste for everything the Cro-Mags are in 2021 and the music and culture they inspired, I feel like I need to defend myself for liking this album. But, I’m telling you, it fucking rips.

What’s up Sorry Staters?

So it finally happened… After patiently waiting out the pandemic, there was a gig this past weekend. I definitely had nerves leading up to the show, partly because it was my debut playing 2nd guitar in Public Acid, but mainly just because it was the first big social event I’d engaged in since lockdown. The show took place in Richmond and it was outside, which made me feel better. But the sheer amount of people and the energy in the air was a bit overwhelming. I’d be lying though if I said I didn’t have a blast. It was so good to rage, drink beer, and (most importantly) talk to old friends I hadn’t seen in over a year.

I spent a couple days in Richmond leading up to the show. A good portion of the people in Public Acid I’ve known for a while because they’re transplants from the Greensboro scene. Hanging with those dudes just reminded of those old days playing gigs in GSO. Spending time with Chubb, Wiley Mar, and of course Mad Merm made me realize I was in the presence of 3 out of 4 members of the legendary punk group Wriggle! Wriggle came up in conversation a couple times while we were hanging, so this inspired me to pop my copy of the demo in the cassette deck when I got back to Raleigh. So yeah, I think I’m gonna write about Wriggle for my staff pick.

Before I’d really gotten to know them, I can remember back about 7 or 8 years ago when some of the guys from Wriggle came into Sorry State one day. We used to have a plastic tub by the register where we’d just toss freebies like stickers or promo posters to give away. One of these punks from Greensboro asked if they could drop a couple of their demo tapes in the free bin. I thought to myself, “Sure, whatever.” After they left, I remember picking up one of these tapes with yellow artwork of a worm spelling out “Wriggle”. I honestly thought to myself, “what the fuck is this?” But then, the next day I walked into work and Daniel, already excited, basically yelled at me “Dude… did you LISTEN to it?? It sounds like No Labels!!” We blasted the tape over the speakers in the store and I just remember being blown away. I also just remember thinking why would these dudes just wanna give these tapes away? Then again, I think it was super cool that they didn’t really seem to care one way or the other.

I remember the tape being raw and blown out in a way that felt fresh. That sort of lo-fi 4-track sound that I associate with that whole Midwest scene of bands wasn’t really in vogue yet I don’t think. It was rude, raging, super punk and perfect. Wriggle really gave me that exciting feeling in my gut when I would hear 80s hardcore I hadn’t yet discovered. Then when I listened closer, I heard amazing lyrics like “I saw Jesus today -- after I huffed some glue!” So killer, so genius. Later on, Daniel re-released their demo tape and Wriggle became part of the Sorry State stable of artists.

Listening to my Wriggle demo the other night, it still sounds just as raging as I remember. It’s unfortunate that a lot of these great bands that came out of the small community of punks in Greensboro never really put out proper records. I miss those days sometimes, but I’m also happy that I’ve maintained friendships with all those punk ass mofos.

If you’re unfamiliar with this gem of NC hardcore, go take a look back at the Sorry State catalog and give it a listen.

As always, thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff

Howdy Sorry State Gang. Are you keeping well? I hope so. Sorry that we missed you last week but sometimes we are just super busy behind the scenes doing our best to get you all sorts of cool and fun records to buy. Visitors to our actual store can attest to that, as in addition to the new shit we have bins deep of great used records. Not to brag, but our selection kicks ass. You can come in here at any time with just a dollar or daddy’s credit card and always find something. This week we will participate in Record Store Day again and there are a bunch of cool releases that should get some of you excited. We’ll be dropping in your socials with some of our highlights and Daniel in particular has some thoughts on his picks. So, busy again but we can’t be flakes and drop out for another week and not find the time to write to you guys. We appreciate you reading and hope that now and then one of us might steer you towards something worth checking out. We are all music lovers at heart.

Last week I was still caught up in the drama of the Euros and England advancing to the final that I probably would have recommended a Chas & Dave record. That might be a vague reference to anyone not British or a complete Anglophile. Chas & Dave were a household name in the early to mid 1980s in England providing good time Cockney knees-up music. I always liked a song they had called The Sideboard Song. Check it out to get a taste. Anyway, as we now know England lost to Italy in the final to a limp penalty shoot-out and instead of coming home as in the Three Lions song, football went to Rome. I have mixed feelings, like many, over several aspects of the Euros but I am glad they went ahead, and I enjoyed watching as many games as I could. The big problem was with the racist scumbags that made up a section of the English fans who booed the National Anthems of the other countries and particularly booed the England players themselves for taking a knee against racial injustice at the beginning of the games. Then in the aftermath of the final all the horrible abuse that those players had directed at them. Just so sad and maddening that there are so many simple-minded people out there that feel emboldened and justified to act this way in a so called civilized society. Anyway, fuck those people; let’s talk about music. Music, like football, is a great unifier and breaks down barriers between people and will always be my religion. Luckily for me I was able to get together with my good friend Matt, a football (soccer) coach and host of Worldy with Matt Pape over on The Face Radio on Monday and spin some records with him on his show and work out my feelings about it all through music. I played mostly Italian artists to celebrate the Azzurri. If you like good tunes and can put up with me falling over my words, go take a listen. Cheers.

For my pick this week I jumped off of a conversation Jeff and I were having in the store recently about our mutual enjoyment of a funky Jimmy McGriff record called Electric Funk that we were playing in the store. Jeff mentioned that he really liked the sound of the organ and I told him that I did, too. Plenty of space on my record shelves is occupied by organ based albums by the likes of the aforementioned McGriff, Jimmy Smith, Shirley Scott, Lonnie Smith, Groove Holmes, Charles Earland, Brian Auger, Bill Doggett, Georgie Fame, John Patton, Billy Preston, Johnny Smith, Booker T. Jones and Jack McDuff. These are the more obvious names, but there are a few others that I can’t think of right now. Point is, I like me some organ in my music and preferably the sound of a Hammond B-3. That Electric Funk album is a good one and has some tasty grooves along with a terrific cover but instead I am going to pull one from my Brother Jack McDuff section called Moon Rappin’ that was recorded in 1969 and released on Blue Note the following year. It’s such a great record, and I was super happy to score a copy during my New York days back in the 00s as it is not an easy one of his to find and has always gone for a lot more than the majority of his catalogue. Due in a big part from the commercial failure of the release and the apparent dislike from critics and fans who didn’t appreciate the concept and sound of this particular album. Instead of his usual down home grits ‘n barbeque funky organ sound, McDuff chose to make this album a concept album about his conversation with the moon and his response to the recent moon landings. The sound is more rock influenced and contemporary funky. His organ actually takes third place to the real stars of the record, drummer Joe Dukes and bassist Richard Davis who just kill it. The drums sound amazing and the patterns are terrific. The bass is upfront and stays funky throughout. To modern ears this record is much more appealing, and it took hip-hop DJs and producers to rediscover and sample the record to bring it to the attention of a more appreciative audience. It’s for this reason that you’ll probably have to pay top dollar to get a copy, unfortunately. During all my years habituating in record stores and digging in the wild I have only seen copies a couple of times. During the 90s and 00s compilation LPs and CDs came out with tracks taken from it and there have been complete CD reissues and just one vinyl reissue oddly. I can’t flex completely on this one because my copy, although released in 1970 and a gatefold, is on the black and blue Liberty Blue Note label as opposed to the classic blue and white Blue Note label. It still sounds great.

The album is a five tracker that clocks in at around thirty-five minutes and thus doesn’t outstay its welcome. However, in this case we would want some more. McDuff’s next album To Seek A New Home was also more of a fusion concept record than straight jazz and is a good one too but features a different line up of musicians and gets into more exotic and cerebral territory. It does have a good funky jam called Hunk O’ Funk on it that’s pretty cool.

Back to Moon Rappin’. In addition to the stellar work from McDuff, Dukes and Davis, special mention must be given to guitar player Jerry Byrd who provides some tasty wah-wah pedal licks and to avant-garde vocalist Jean DuShon who appears briefly on two tracks. There are some unknown horn players also on the session adding little fills here and there. McDuff arranged the tunes and produced the session and did a great job. It all comes together well.

I like the record from start to finish and there isn’t a dull track among the five. Monster title track Moon Rappin’ is a highlight and album opener Flat Backin’ sets the scene and lets you know what’s in store. Go check ‘em out and see what you think. For jazz heads, beat diggers and organ groovers, this is a good one for you I promise.

Thanks for reading as always. Be good and see you next time. Peace and love – Dom.

Hello,

And again, I don’t have much time. I’m sorry. The most important thing in my mind for newest releases I wanna mention is the English Dogs: To the Ends of the Earth 12” re-issue! I think this is my favorite of their releases. I like the previous EP a lot, but I tend to gravitate towards this one. It’s not the metallic elements that make me favor it over the first EP, but simply that I don’t have a copy of the first EP haha. To the Ends of the Earth needed a re-issue for some time in my opinion, as well as Mad Punx & English Dogs. I regret not picking up one of those bootlegs with the pixelated ass covers haha. Anyway, they had done Forward Into Battle officially some years ago, and pretty much since then I’ve been waiting for this re-issue to happen!! While Sorry State does not yet have copies, we definitely will in the near-future!

I neglected to mention a handful of things last week aside from the smokin’ Infra 12" so let me touch on a few. The first one is The Bristles: Ban the Punk Shops 12"! The Bristles fucking rule. My favorite of their releases is the Boys Will Be Boys EP. It’s a bit “meaner” than their first EP and the Ban the Punk Shops cassette. So yeah, this 12" is super cool cos it’s the first time it’s on vinyl. It was originally released as a cassette on legendery Ägg Tapes. The sound quality on the LP is great.

The second thing I wanted to mention is Bootlicker’s new 12"! I first heard Bootlicker on their Who Do You Serve EP. I think this EP is killer. The sound is powerful and the riffs are great. It reminds me a bit of Bloodkrow Butcher. To me each of Bootlicker’s records sound pretty different from each other. While their first EP really caught my ear, I didn’t care to much for the two EPs that followed. But that all changed when I heard this debut LP. It is fucking killer, check out it! Alright that’s all for now, gotta get back to bustin out all these Zorn EPs! Thanks for reading, ‘til next time...

The other week, after reading Daniel’s SSR Pick, I was inspired to dig through my 7”s and brush the dust off some of the first 45s I got. At my second record store job at ((redacted)), I dug through every nook and cranny of the store and listened to anything with an interesting cover. There was a LOT of terrible music. Even with the duds, my favorite part (and where I found the most music I loved) was the 7”s. More specifically, the massive amount of WXYC radio copies the store had. I’ve seen those letters at other local record stores; WXYC is (was? I don’t listen to the radio anymore) a triangle staple and I feel like I own a piece of it with these lil records that started my collection of 7”s.

Bugskull: Fences

This is definitely me giving in to my whiny emo vocal love. I know it’s not for everyone and gets kind of grating but, hey, I’m the generation that grew up with the worst of it. I definitely didn’t start appreciating MY ROOTS (90s emo) until I started collecting these radio records.

Gravitar: Evil Monkey Boy / She Not Heavy, She My Brother

Feedbacky, gritty, and fuzzy. This came out the year I was born. Now that I’m listening to everything in succession, I’m realizing there’s a theme. Lots of feedback and mushy sounds. I don’t know much about WXYC in the 90s but I like to think the records in my list were on rotation with the same DJ.

Various: Smells Like Smoked Sausages

Tasty, tasty early 90s garage-y compilation from Sub Pop. My absolute favorite thing about radio copies are the notes from jockeys. Someone didn’t give a shit with this copy and wrote on every surface. I’ve snuck in a few radio copies on my Monday used drops, but the ‘Rat Music for Rat People’ one of y’all snatched up a few weeks ago has my absolute favorite notes.

Guzzard: Glued

Speaking of great notes. Along with the funny annotation, I really enjoy these two tracks. I didn’t really consider myself a garage and/or grunge fan; I guess most of the ones on this list fall in that category. Something about them just HIT for me.

Future Crimes: S/T

I didn’t know about this Raleigh gem until after they broke up, unfortunately. This probably, most definitely, isn’t one of the radio copies but I got it around the same time so I’m going to lump them together. I mean, this speaks for itself. Listen to it!

WPTF: First 50 Years

From a different radio station altogether, I found this in a stack destined for the thrift store when I first started at Sorry State. This is such a cool little piece of Triangle history; it includes the town song (I didn’t even know we had that?) and tons of other tidbits. I looooove finding NC-specific records and have found a small stack of, of course, country titles more so than anything else. That’s for another newsletter.

I’ve written about podcasts several times in my staff picks, but I haven’t been listening to them as much lately. For whatever reason audiobooks have been doing it for me when I want to hear someone jibber jabbering at me while I’m driving. However, earlier this week I checked my podcast app and saw that one of my favorite shows, Garbage in My Heart, had devoted an entire episode to North Carolina music. I listened to that right away and enjoyed it. As I was listening, I kept thinking of things I wanted to sayand rather than send an email to Alex from GIMH I thought I’d make it my staff pick in case anyone else cares about this shit. I hope you’re reading this though, Alex, and hit me up if you want to continue the conversation!

Before I get into the episode, I should note that Garbage in My Heart is one of the best punk podcasts going. If you’re a regular Sorry State customer, you’ll almost certainly like the music Alex plays, particularly if your tastes include or lean toward garage and (Total) punk. I’ve learned about so much great music from this podcast and even when I’m familiar with most of the tracks it’s a great listen.

Also by way of preface, Alex mentions on the episode that this is the first of a series of episodes, each of which he’ll devote to music from a state where he has lived. Like myself, Alex grew up in eastern Virginia and moved to North Carolina later (I think he said his dad was in the Navy, and the military and shipbuilding were the major industries there in the 80s and 90s). Alex moved to NC as a teen and I didn’t come here until 2002, after I had finished college and spent a year wading into the capitalist hellscape. I’m hoping Alex devotes an episode to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. It would be a challenge, but a cool one. Hit me up if you want any input on your playlist Alex!

Now onto the tracks. Alex starts the show with a mini-set of North Carolina music we released on Sorry State. He says some very nice things about me and Sorry State and I am, of course, flattered. Honestly, I never set out to document North Carolina music, but somehow I’ve done a lot of it. I don’t claim that Sorry State comprises any kind of comprehensive overview of North Carolina—just an idiosyncratic smattering of output from my circle of friends—but after spending 20 years putting out records from this place, I hope we at least warrant a mention alongside labels like Merge and No Core. It is an honor that someone with Alex’s breadth of knowledge about music sees us as that important.

After the Sorry State segment, Alex has a set of North Carolina garage punk. Appropriately, this set started off with a track by Charlotte-area band The Paragons called “Abba.” This is simply one of the greatest garage-punk songs of all time, up there with songs like “You’re Gonna Miss Me” by the 13th Floor Elevators. We carried a bootleg of it a while back and Dominic mentioned that there has been another edition recently. What a fucking track! The other tracks Alex plays are great too (you gotta give Link Wray a nod), but I want to mention one group Alex didn’t play: the Cykle. The Cykle was from Lumberton, North Carolina, and released one sought-after album. If you want an original copy, prepare to drop over a grand, I still harbor hope of encountering one in the wild. Oddly enough, if I remember correctly one person in the Cykle was Rich Ivey’s uncle (Rich Ivey of ISS, Whatever Brains, Das Drip, and many other projects, not to mention a staff pick a little further down in this very document). Rich even has a shredded original copy. Anyway, no disrespect to anyone from Lumberton, but if you’ve ever stopped there when you’re traveling down I-95, you’d be surprised any kind of interesting rock music had ever come from there, much less a total fucking monster of a garage LP that’s right up there with any freakbeat classic you want to throw at it.

As an aside, and with full acknowledgement that this is well outside Alex’s punk-oriented focus, I would be remiss not to mention that we’re barely scratching the surface of North Carolina’s rich musical heritage here. More famous musicians than you can count are from here, not least among them John Coltrane and Nina Simone. The amount and quality of music that has come from North Carolina’s large black population would take a lifetime of intense study to understand. The state also has rich traditions of Appalachian music and I’m certain there are entire populations with incredible histories I don’t even know about. We talk a lot about white men with electric guitars in this space, but there’s a whole wide world out there.

Next up, Alex gives us a smattering of 80s punk, heavy on the hardcore but also featuring the Th’Cigaretz (an early Raleigh punk band that featured Jerry Williams, who moved to New York and ran the 171A club / rehearsal space / studio, served as sound engineer at CBGB through much of the 80s, and recorded the first Bad Brains album and the Antidote EP among many other records) and Flat Duo Jets (whose singer/guitarist Dexter Romwebber pretty much provided Jack White with his entire sound and image). This set didn’t include my favorite 80s NC hardcore band, No Labels. Have I leaked word that Sorry State is working with No Labels on a reissue? We’ve been pecking away at this project for a few years, but it’ll be a while before it’s in your hands because we want to take our time and do a really good job, hopefully with a Radio Raheem-esque package featuring top-notch audio quality and a big booklet full of archival material.

Alex’s next set is devoted to what he calls the “Dark Ages” of the 2000s. This is when I moved to North Carolina, so I was familiar with most of these bands. When If first moved here I didn’t know anyone so I went to a lot of different kinds of shows trying to make connections and find music that excited me. I saw the Crimson Spectre many, many times and they were one of my favorites… energetic and catchy, like a more hardcore version of Kid Dynamite or something like that. There was another cool, albeit short-lived, band I liked called Uwharria. Pretty sure I saw Dead Things a few times; I certainly had their CD. By the time I moved here I was uninterested in metalcore so I’ve never listened to Undying, but the people who took part in NC’s fertile metalcore scene repped them hard. The track Alex played seemed to have a heavy At the Gates influence and reminded me of Darkest Hour, a band I loved in the late 90s.

Alex mentions that some of the music he played in this set came from the Southern Punk Archive. Alex expresses some confusion about what the Southern Punk Archive is. To my knowledge, it’s a project affiliated with the library of the University of Mississippi and it is helmed by filmmaker John Rash (check out his documentary on the band Negro Terror), who (not coincidentally) played bass for Crimson Spectre. Right now the Southern Punk Archive has an Instagram account featuring tons of punk ephemera and a Bandcamp site several hard to find releases (though I’m not sure why the Action Patrol discography is there… I fucking love Action Patrol but unless I’m mistaken they were from Richmond, Virginia). The Southern Punk Archive implies a wide geographic and temporal scope, but as of right now there’s a heavy emphasis the central NC scene of the 90s and 00s that John Rash was a big part of.

I am aware of, but didn’t really take part in, a bunch of other punk-related scenes in North Carolina. Throughout the 90s there was a club in Garner, North Carolina (just south of Raleigh) called the Caboose that hosted a lot of shows but seems to have been a sort of spiritual home for the Confederacy of Scum-type bands. North Carolina had a healthy hardcore scene in the 90s with bands like Gnosis and Inept whose music took cues from the trends of the time. Many people who had been involved with the 80s NC punk scene also kept playing music and many of them still do. Some of that music connects with the Merge Records / indie scene (for instance, Kevin Collins from Subculture and Days of was in Erectus Monotone, who released several cool records on Merge), while another branch whose hangout was the Raleigh club King’s took more inspiration from 60s and 70s garage and hard rock. There was also a big screamo scene in NC in the 00s, with Raleigh’s Black Castle being a key band. Rabbit holes about for the curious.

I’ll stop here, noting there are many people who know way more about this shit than I do. I’m pretty sure Rich Ivey is an NC music deep head (despite, like Alex and I, being a transplant from Virginia!) and could give you way more detail than I have here. But yeah, support your scene! Today’s hangs are tomorrow’s history.

Hey there Sorry State gang. As we approach July 4th, allow me to wish a happy Independence Day to all of our American readers. Have a great weekend regardless of your nationality. As an Englishman living in America, the significance of the holiday is not lost. Not that I “celebrate” the 4th but my birthday is two days later so sometimes it can be a festive couple of days.

This particular week I’m personally still caught up in all the excitement and drama of the Euros and getting to finally see England beat Germany in a competitive match. The first win in my lifetime. The last time was back in 1966 when we won the World Cup, two years before I joined the world. I tend not to get too crazy over international football; club footie is where it’s at and my allegiance will always be to Liverpool FC first and foremost. That being said, watching the world’s top players compete against each other in tournaments like the Euros, Copa America and the World Cup is a treat and never fails to entertain and excite. This last week saw some amazing games and results and I’m sure there will be more to come. I’ll be cheering the team on this weekend when the quarter final matches take place. My club has several players representing their countries in both the Euros and Copa America and it’s great to see them in action and I wish them success. Just don’t get injured.

Last week I gave a nod to the debut album from The Streets, an album that couldn’t be more British unless the vinyl was made from Marmite and so for this week, I am again going to pull from my UK shelves, although this time going back to the swinging sixties and the halcyon days of that historic win against Germany and England’s first and only World Cup trophy. On the day of the recent victory this week I had a CD playing in the car that was a collection of releases that came out on the independent UK label Saga. They specialized in licensing and releasing mostly classical music and were one of the first indies to offer budget priced releases and to undercut the monopoly that the major labels had on the market. At some point in the mid-sixties, they began cashing in on the pop market and commissioned a series of pop-soul and rock records. Some of the more interesting titles have gone on to be collectors’ items and can be pretty hard to score as originals.

The standout release for most is my choice today: The Five Day Week Straw People.

Recorded in late 1967 and released in 1968, this was a one-off project written by the songwriting team of Guy Mascolo and David Montague and was meant to be a reflection of the life of a typical working-class person, with the album representing a weekend snapshot. Each song details a moment in that person’s Friday night to Monday morning. A loose concept type of affair. For musicians a trio was put together consisting of John DuCann on guitar and vocals, Jack Collins on drums and Mick Hawksworth on bass. The Saga budget wasn’t going to allow expensive studio time and so the album was recorded in a London schoolroom pretty much in one session with very little overdubbing and multi-takes. By all account’s drummer Collins hadn’t even heard any of the songs before he turned up for the session.

As is often the case with these types of things, out of meager circumstances and conditions still great things are achieved. The resulting record is a terrific slice of sixties British psychedelia. There are strong pop and mod leanings but also some toughness too. Several tracks have a heavier guitar approach and are more like the sound of Cream and other heavy rock acts that were starting to take over the scene. The guitar playing is ace throughout and no surprise as John DuCann was no slouch. He was fresh out of mod freakbeat Gods The Attack and after this helped form Andromeda with his Straw People band mates and then more famously played guitar in Atomic Rooster. Bassist Hawksworth in addition to the aforementioned Andromeda also played in underground heavy rock legends Fuzzy Duck. As for drummer Collins, he also played on another cool Saga album from The Magic Mixture. That record is quite collectable too as it has some good psych tunes on it, sounding sort of like the stuff The Pretty Things were doing as The Electric Banana. Collins, whose real name was McCulloch, came from Glasgow and was the brother of Wee Jackie McCulloch the guitarist who at fourteen was shredding like Jimmy Page for freakbeat legends One In A Million.

The cover for the Straw People album has a very quintessential sixties psychedelic artwork and suits the music therein. For me, side one is the stronger side, beginning with the great title track and following up with two of the better songs, I’m Going Out Tonight and Gold Digger. John DuCann’s guitar work is excellent here and you can clearly hear the direction he was heading in with some of the heavy leads he throws down. Because the record was recorded in a classroom, it has a lot of echo and reverb but that demo like quality actually adds to the charm, I think. The songs are quite ambitious and perhaps given more time and a proper studio etc. they could have been made to sound even more epic, but everyone involved managed to do a great job. In the spirit of the great Joe Meek who made space sounds in his front room years before, the results far exceed their humble origins.

I definitely recommend you give this one a listen and to check out some of the other bands I mentioned if you are not familiar with them. The Attack singles are essential, as is the One In A Million double-sider. We had a reissue of the Fuzzy Duck album here at Sorry State a while back. If I had more time and space, I would talk more about the Magic Mixture album too, but you can do some research on your own time for that one. It’s worth exploring.

Okay, time to go to press, so I will close out here. Thanks as ever for reading and I hope you enjoy my choice for this week. Here are links to my two favorite cuts for you to check out:

Pop a sugar cube and enjoy. Until next time, cheers - Dom

Hello again,

Thanks for reading. I don’t have much time right now but I wanted to mention this 12” from Infra that come out recently. This 12" is what was originally two separate cassettes released in 2019 and 2020. The A side has a much more slick sound. I lean towards the B side cos it sounds much more gnarly. This band is from Bogotá, playing UK82 style HC. It’s fairly “melodic” but keeps up the pace, sometimes it reminds me a bit of Puke (Sweden), one of my all-time favorites. Im droppin a link at the bottom - if you dig it, be sure to grab a copy from our webstore! We actually managed to stock the limited color versions!! Alright, thanks again to everyone for supporting Sorry State. ‘Til next time...

David Bowie Narrates Peter and the Wolf

I’m running super behind. I have a half written SSR pick about the gang of radio 7” copies I have but I haven’t been able to complete it. Next week! For now, I’m keeping it short and sweet and sharing one of my recent favorite finds at work. I’m realizing a lot of weird trends in my buying habits now that I do nothing but browse Discogs, work at Sorry State, and listen to my embarrassingly large section of unplayed records.

I’ve talked to a couple friends and I’m apparently the only one who has very vivid memories of learning about classical music through Peter and the Wolf when I was in elementary school. Through collecting Scholastics Records releases, read along books, and just generally things made for children, I’ve found a ton of different pressings of this piece. I love the variations of cover art and narration but this one I found a few weeks ago takes the CAKE.

I don’t know a ton about David Bowie, but I consider myself pretty familiar with his work and I had no idea he narrated Peter and the Wolf in 1978! I was doing my usual dig for a daily soundtrack and stopped on David Bowie’s name because it just felt like a David Bowie kinda day. I didn’t read the cover or our price tag until I was back behind the counter and I immediately stopped whatever else I was listening to. AND THIS SHIT IS ON GREEN VINYL! Fuckin’ sold. As I listened to this a few times, I can safely say this is my favorite rendition of Peter and the Wolf I’ve heard so far! Some of the other versions I’ve heard are way too childish or way too stuffy. This fits snuggly in the middle of the two; maybe not the most interesting thing to elementary school aged me, but 27-year-old me is all about this shit. Best discovery ever... well, this month at least.

I’ve dropped the ball on scooping OG copies of Floridian synth-punk architects FUTURISK’s eps too many times to count, so this new triple 7”+flexi box from the ever-reliable Minimal Wave Records is a very welcome addition to my summer jam stack. For the uninitiated, Futurisk was a surprisingly early, surprisingly Southern, synth trio from the lowest depths of the Sunshine State. Led by British ex-pat Jeremy Kolosine, the group zealously cobbled together influence from Ultravoxx and John Foxx, Roxy Music, The Normal, early Human League and all that other fancyboy UK stuff while their 20-year-old FL peers were jammin’ dumbdumb rock like a buncha dumb jocks.

What made Futurisk stand out from typically colder UK acts, though, was its reliance on a real life, sticks’n’skins DRUMMER. It’s kind of like what Gary Numan was doing with Tubeway Army, but closer still to the American West Coast’s early electro-art-punk (Screamers, Units, Nervous Gender). Basically, it’s DIY AF.

And while it’s surely affected and brash, it’s also earnest as hell. Kolosine & Co. sound adept—albeit sufficiently minimal—on their studio-recorded debut 7”, 1980’s “Army Now,” but by the time Futurisk self-tracks its new-wavier “Player Piano” EP in 1982, its naivety can’t be ignored. THANK JAH FOR THAT. Precision is for the birds, and the birds are fucking stupid.

“Player Piano” is simultaneously one of the best American synth records, one of the best American DIY (punkish) records and one of the best outsider basement wavers from any goddamned country. If you already have the extended “Player Piano” 12” that Minimal Wave dropped in 2010, this boxset is 100% musically redundant, but if you appreciate playing dress-up with solid reproductions of expensive old rares, this here’s your shit. The box, booklet and previously released outtakes are pretty cool, too.

This new fan-made hardcover book about The Fall, Excavate!, is ALSO pretty dang cool. It’s comprised of a bunch of short, pedantic essays about The Fall and Mark E. Smith, and it’s exactly as pretentious as it should be. Included also are smatterings of hen’s teeth ephemera (fliers, lyrics, letters, oh my!) and a nifty visual discography of all the band’s LPs. If you happen to have a coffee table, meet your new coaster. This thing rules.

Also, also, also my buddy and I were record shopping the other day (at Sorry State, of course!), and he asked if I’d heard the above-pictured LP by Genocide. I said I had not. He said I needed to buy it. I did. It’s a collection of pre-Repulsion demo tapes, and IT IS RIPPING AS FUCK. It was a $29 bootleg culled from the used racks, and it’s probably difficult to find a copy at this juncture since it’s like 10 years old, so I guess my third staff pick would be some advice: LISTEN TO YOUR FRIENDS. They just may turn you on to some radical grindy 80s death metal you’ve never heard before. Peace!

Guru Guru: Hinten LP (1971, Ohr; reissued 2021 Play Loud! Productions)

I’m short on time this week so I’m not able to give you a full on essay, but I thought I’d take a moment to hip you to something I’ve been listening to. Last week we got in copies of a new reissue of Hinten, the second album by German group Guru Guru.

Longtime Sorry State aficionados will know that I like a lot of 70s krautrock. I like the heavier, more rocking stuff like Can and Amon Düül II and the spacier “kosmiche” sounds of Manuel Göttshing / Ash Ra Tempel, Tangerine Dream, and Popol Vuh. Whenever new reissues by those groups pop up I try to grab a few copies for the store, mostly so I can buy one for myself. While I pride myself on having a solid Krautrock / Experimental section at Sorry State, I must admit that the releases there don’t turn over quickly. Oh well. You gotta follow your passion, though, right?

Back to Guru Guru. I was familiar with the albums that came out before and after this one: 1970s debut album UFO and 1972’s Känguru (which I think many people regard as their shining moment). I like those albums, but I’d never heard Hinten until we got this reissue in at the store. I was hoping to get another cool krautrock record I could put on while zoning out in the evening, but Hinten hit me way harder than I expected it to.

The thing that sticks out about the record is heaviness, particularly of the drums. Guru Guru’s approach is similar to Can in that they took the instrumentation of heavy psychedelic rock in the Hendrix mold and paired that with an improvisational approach borrowed from the avant-garde / experimental end of the jazz world. Songs are built around one or two simple motifs (sometimes a melody, but more often a groove), the band does their thing until they run out of steam, and then the song’s over. Can maximized this approach by recording tons of jamming and editing the results together into mind-bending albums that leaned on the members’ skills in music composition. Guru Guru’s music feels less edited and more jammy, but there aren’t any moments where I feel like they’ve lost the plot.

Like I said, my favorite part of Hinten is the drummer Mani Neumeier, who just wails. I wonder if the drums sound as up front and as forceful on the original as they do on this reissue, but this thing just slaps you in the face. While Neumeier’s approach isn’t as intricate as Jaki Liebezeit from Can, his propulsive power is undeniable. If you’re into the way Amon Düül II smacks you in the face on Yeti, add this to your list of krautrock classics to hear, or better yet pick up this reissue at Sorry State.

What’s up Sorry Staters?

This week I’m gonna try something different and talk about a movie instead of a record. On a whim, I watched the Minnesota Hardcore documentary the other night. I believe the documentary was put together and released through the state of Minnesota’s PBS station. How cool is that? Kinda makes me wish all public broadcasting services would release punk content in every state!

Minnesota Hardcore was initially broadcast as a 7-part docuseries, but now all 7 episodes have been merged together into what they call the “Binge Episode”. And of course, binge is exactly what I did. I’ll admit that at first I was worried that the documentary would have coverage focused heavily on Husker Du and The Replacements and not much else. And naturally, Husker Du was the first band introduced, but I was pleasantly surprised at how thorough the list of bands was. I was pleased to see featured segments about my personal favorites like Final Conflict and Willful Neglect, but also several bands that I’d never heard of before.

The episodes that covered some of Minneapolis’s local venues was super cool, revealing several amazing photographs not only of local bands, but also from when hardcore bands of the era would tour through. This one photo of Mecht Mensch I’d never seen before had me drooling. While I was familiar with the legendary 7th Street Entry club, I was less familiar with Goofy’s Upper Deck, which emerged from an unutilized space on the 2nd floor of fairly conventional local bar. Then the documentary gets to the segment about when Discharge played there. Wow, so rad. It was especially funny to hear different talking heads in the movie argue about who was better that night: Discharge vs Husker Du!!

The feature about Michelle Strauss Ohnstad and her show booking byname Garage Productions was also pretty amazing to learn about. Many of the gigs Ohnstad put on were booked at the Whittier Park Community Center, including one that literally made me shout out “Whoa!”—it was Raw Power from Italy and Riistetyt from Finland on the same bill… Crazy! She even gave some special attention to when she booked Corrosion of Conformity, which I was particularly happy about. I think she said she paid them $20 or something haha.

Having played there on tour a couple times, I feel like I do have some awareness of the current local bands and the contemporary hardcore scene in Minneapolis. I thought the documentary could have had a more accurate and cooler looking representation of current Minneapolis hardcore than the footage they chose to use. But, it was still cool they included contemporary coverage and didn’t a form a narrative like, “This happened in the early 80s and then it died.” Felix Havoc had a couple pretty powerful quotes during his talking head segments.

Anyway, my brain feels fried today, so I don’t know how eloquently I described and endorsed this cool Minneapolis Hardcore documentary. Is it as good as the Detroit documentary from 6 months ago or whatever? Probably not, but it’s definitely an interesting watch.

Watch it here: https://www.tptoriginals.org/mn-hardcore-the-binge-episode/

That’s all I got. As always, thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff

Hello to all of you reading this week’s Sorry State Newsletter. How’s it going? Good, I hope. Thanks for dialing us up again.

In the grand tradition of doing your homework on the bus going to school, here I am attempting to write my staff pick with the deadline clock ticking. Sounds of the Jeopardy tune playing or for those of you in the U.K. perhaps the Countdown one. To add to the pressure, I put my back out last night and am still hobbling around in some pain. No big deal. I’m used to some sort of ailment with my body these days. Funny but not funny. Anyway, I was wondering what record to celebrate this week and share with you and ended up going for one of my favorite albums from the last couple of decades and one that is about to hit the twenty-year mark in 2022. It’s a record that captures a distinct moment in time in U.K. music and culture. I’m talking about The Streets: Original Pirate Material from 2002 on Locked On.

Not an obscure choice I know and maybe not a record or an artist that a lot of you care about but there is no denying this record represented grass roots culture just as much as previous iconic albums from the like of Primal Scream or The Stone Roses or The Specials or The Sex Pistols, to throw a few names out. Each of those bands created and released an album that encapsulated a moment and has gone on to be cornerstones of U.K. music in recent decades.

The Streets was the name given to the project orchestrated by up-and-coming English musician Mike Skinner from Birmingham. The sound was that of U.K. Garage or UKG for short. The genre of music that was derived from U.S. house and named after the club Paradise Garage. I won’t try and front and give you a detailed history of the scene and pretend that I was intimate with it. I had already moved to New York by 1998 when the first UKG records began making waves and storming not only the clubs and pirate radio but also mainstream radio and the pop charts. Briefly though, during the 1990s, U.K. DJs were experimenting with changing the pitch on house records instrumentals and adding in vocal samples and other effects. Chopping up the track and changing the beat etc. They were getting their hands on all the interesting tracks coming from America and particularly from a DJ named Todd Edwards from New Jersey who is often credited for being one of the first to dabble in the new genre. Buying imports though is expensive and so inevitably homegrown DJs and producers began making their own tracks and by 1998 the records being released were distinctly British and different to their American and European cousins. By the beginning of the new millennium UKG went from being an underground sound played in pub back rooms on off-nights to a national and then world phenomenon. Names like Craig David, So Solid Crew and Artful Dodger became household names. Perhaps one record that if I had to choose as an example would be DJ Luck & MC Neat : With A Little Bit Of Luck. That song and video is a perfect snapshot. Check it - https://youtu.be/F5PXdScoOrg

Come 2002 and the original UKG scene was just about over and about to morph into dubstep and grime, but the release of Original Pirate Material still rode the high-water wave that was just peaking. It’s sort of like the Nevermind of the genre in some ways. The album cover art showing an urban block of flats has become iconic. A nod to pirate radio stations that often operated out tower blocks, their antennas hidden amongst the others on the roof tops.

A side note – I would recommend watching the comedy series People Just Do Nothing which is follows the lives of the characters running a pirate radio station. It’s very funny and pretty spot on.

When I first got my copy of this record as an import on release day, the hype sticker on the front said, “You’re listening to the future,” and twenty years later, I would say Jockey Slut magazine got that exactly right. Over the years whenever I pull the record out for a spin it still sounds just as fresh to my ears. The mark of a great record is to transpose time and place but at the same time to still sound distinctive and exact and to be able to be enjoyed years after it was made. This is one of them. I still laugh at the humour and stories of everyday living portrayed. Like U.S. hip-hop, these songs are drawn from stories of real people and their lives that at the time were not being represented in mainstream music. The newspaper of the streets, as it were. Full of cultural references and particularly language and slang. Hard to describe but totally enjoyable regardless of whether you understand exactly what they are going on about.

Skinner launched a career that is still ongoing off the back of this record and has released another half dozen albums since then along with the most recent just last year. Being English, I’m clearly biased but his appeal is universal as has been proved by his success. Do yourself a favor and get locked on. I’ll leave links to a couple of highlights for you.

https://youtu.be/I4iAw81MpU - Let’s Push Things Forward

Okay, that’s my lot. Not a detailed bio of the artist or the genre I know, but you can discover all you need to know on the ol’ internet if you are interested.

Cheers and until next time - Dom

Hello,

Thanks for reading and thanks for supporting Sorry State. It means a lot. But yes, please skip past my writing unless you wanna hear me blabbing in an incoherent fashion. To start, since the last Newsletter we got Nog Watt EPs in!!! I think they arrived that Thursday, I can’t remember. I’ve been anticipating this release since I first heard about it like three months ago, you can read what I wrote about it back in March if you’d like, but I will just say again, this record belongs in every single record collection on planet Earth, so be sure to pick one up!!! As I write this we just got a big ass box from Radio Raheem in... so keep yer eyes peeled for some hot shit on the site. Radio Raheem does a killer job; I’m sure you know this already though. I got a copy of the United Mutation reissue they did when it first came out, and my dumbass finally just opened it like three weeks ago. It’s some top-notch shit. I wish every reissue was like this. The Molde Punx reissue was killer in the same way with beautiful packaging and helli bonus shit. I heard Radio Raheem was doing Antidote and I have been pretty stoked to get em in stock. As I walked by Jeff and Dom unpacking the parcels Jeff made a joke about the song Foreign Job-Lot, and then I suddenly remembered that Antidote was the NYHC band I liked but stopped jammin some time ago cos of that song. I was like fuuck. I did see the vocalist isn’t white? Jeff said he thought he was Puerto Rican. They have an anti-Nazi song, too. Maybe it is just a song of satire and I don’t understand cos I don’t know much about the band.

Dunno if you saw the Instagram post I made this week with ‘90s HC bangers, but i’m just gunna mention some of that shit that I think is a bit “under-rated.” To start, Bacteria is absolutely disgusting. If you like mad raw, the kind some of yer friends simply can’t handle, this is probably right up yer alley. This band was actually just a side project, when a member of C.F.D.L. (Japan) was living in England in the ‘90s. This tape came out in the ‘90s but the 7" was a 2000s reissue. State of Fear was another EP in the photo. Both their 7"s are so damn good; the second one is really nasty and urgent. The first one is equally as nasty, but more groovy. I’m sure a lot of people know State of Fear, but I think the EPs are a bit under-rated for how good they are. One of the guitarists played in bands before and after, that I am also a huge fan of: Disrupt > State of Fear > Consume > Deathraid > Nightfeeder (I wrote a bit about their demo cassette and you can read here if you’d like) This was the only US band I put in the photo haha, I think the ‘90s was a bit better overseas but maybe I just don’t know shit. Or I just know how I like my hardcore haha. Another band who I can’t get enough of that was in the post was Crocodileskink. I first heard this band cos of their split with No Security. It instantly became a favorite split release of mine and I tracked down the rest of their EPs as soon as I could haha. Dispense is killer shit from Sweden. I discovered this band on yet another occasion raging at the Hardy Boys. I think this shit is definitely underrated. But this shit it top-notch, blow-the-fuckin-doors-off käng. Staying on the topic of Sweden, the Cumbrage / Dismachine split is insane. I wrote about this EP a bit when we had a used copy on our Discogs store, you can read here if you’d like to know a bit more about the EP. I gotta wrap this shit up so I’m gunna write less haha. This Insane Youth EP is my favorite of their releases!! It’s so good. I remember when Forward stayed with us, Souichi the guitarist of both Forward and Insane Youth told us some cool trivia. It was late as fuck and we were all drinking and smoking in the kitchen, and I said fuck it ima bust out my Insane Youth EP. I know that is silly as hell, but whatever I wanted to show the dude how much I loved his stuff. Luckily he seemed happy I presented it haha. When I showed him, he opened the cover and pointed to the vocalist “Gen” and said, “Kawakami.” My mind was blown haha. He said Kawakami loved to be in bands and was in too many, so he would use different aliases for projects. I don’t have it with me but on another Insane Youth EP for “Gen” it just has a silhouette of a person haha. Here’s the photo from this EP. I know it looks like Kawakami but not having any idea he was in the band I easily looked this over for years. The Disclose / Insane Youth split makes much more sense haha.

Text

Alright, just two more quick ones. Dischange, no I actually don’t think this band is underrated but maybe it’s a band you’ve overlooked cos the name is pretty bad? Haha. They did change to Meanwhile later. Check it out, and the demos especially. Alright, best for last: Under Threat. I had no idea they had EPs too until just now so I have no idea what they sound like, but Bomb Scars is killer. It’s just straight-forward, not-give-a-fuck raw HC. They were from Brazil. The rest of the bands I wrote about were Swedish and Japanese. Okay that’s all then, maybe you heard summin new? Thanks for reading, ‘til next time...

Modern Industry: Man in Black 7” (1983, Toxic Shock)

I have a soft spot for records in less than perfect condition. While I have accumulated plenty of minty records over the years, I kind of prefer the ones that don’t feel like they’ve been sealed in a vault for decades. I like my records to feel lived-in a little, to have some personality. I have so many records with missing and tattered sleeves, radio call letters, and other “defects” that would drive some collectors mad, but these flaws make me love them even more, especially when it means I could pick up the record for a bargain price. Recently someone posted a small collection of hardcore records on Discogs saying that the jackets had heavy wear and radio call letters but the vinyl looked great. The list included a few important wants, so I jumped on the deal. It turns out that all the records came from the library of WTJU, the college radio station at the University of Virginia, the state where I grew up.

The lot of records included a few really cool originals whose music I already knew, but I took chances on some cheaper items too. This 7” from California’s Modern Industry was one of the chances, and I think it paid off. If you read the stuff I write for Sorry State, you’ll know I have a taste for hardcore punk that’s a little odd or quirky, and Modern Industry fits that bill. At their core, the four songs here are death rock-infused punk that’s of a piece with Christian Death’s first album, 45 Grave, Legal Weapon, or the Burning Image 7” that Going Underground reissued a few months back. It’s about 20% death rock, 80% SoCal hardcore, and that’s a mix that’s close to perfect to my ears.

Where Modern Industry deviates from the formula, though, is their use of some very odd keyboard sounds. The keyboards aren’t on every track, but when they appear they lend the recording an extra dash of spookiness. A gearhead could tell you how they achieved this sound, but it’s not one I’m used to hearing in punk or death rock… it sounds like a 60s Hammond organ through one of those rotating Leslie speakers. It sounds old and weak, like it could break down at any second. The whole recording is raw, but the keyboard sounds extra rickety. In contrast to the grand theatrics of bands like the Damned, if Man in Black was a movie, it would be an Ed Wood, no-budget production.

While I don’t recall hearing Modern Industry before picking up this 7”, interestingly enough after the band broke up 3/4 of the members formed the Abandoned with Tony Adolescent, whose Killed by Faith I chose as my staff pick a year and a half ago. Drummer Mark Duda also played in the Flower Leperds, another favorite with a similar sound. I guess if my research skills were better I would have heard Modern Industry years ago, but finding a cool record in this haphazard way is a lot more fun.

What’s up Sorry Staters?

So of course, I’m once again late to the game getting my staff pick written this week. As I’m writing this, I’m currently standing at the front counter at the store while Dominic is blasting an 80s-era Bootsy Collins record. Honestly, it kinda rules. Then it hit me! Somewhat relevant to the funky grooves we’re throwing down here at the store, I figured out a record to talk about that I was digging on super hard recently.

First, some personal news: after a brief sabbatical, I just moved into a new apartment in Raleigh! I’m stoked. And after breaking my back moving heavy furniture and piles of boxes, naturally my first order of business was to set up the stereo and break out all my records! I wanted to have background music that energized me to unpack all my junk. One of the first records I decided to throw on to christen my new digs was No Matter How Long The Line Is At The Cafeteria, Theres Always A Seat! by Austin’s own Big Boys.

I’ve had a lot of love for the Big Boys since I was teenager. Anything that aesthetically combined 80s hardcore and skateboarding was always like cat nip for me. Even seeing the Big Boys getting some love in the Skate Rock episode of Jeff Grosso’s Love Letters to Skateboarding got me stoked. And as much as I dig their earlier records, there’s something about the Big Boys 4th 12” that was really hitting me the other night. While the blend of funk into the Big Boy’s brand of hardcore was present from the beginning, I think the flow of the sequence on No Matter How Long the Line… is nearly perfect. But I gotta admit, not unlike the Bad Brains’ reggae tracks, I didn’t much care for the funk influence when I was younger. I’d be raging with a clenched fist to “Brick Walls” or “Apolitical”, but then “Hollywood Swinging” would come on and I’d kinda groan. But where I was once blind, now I see. Not only do I love when they bring the funk, but I don’t think the hardcore songs would hit nearly as hard without them. I always think about how the “punk meets funk” crossover show happened in DC, where the bill was Minor Threat (their last show I believe), Big Boys, and then the Go-Go band Trouble Funk. Big Boys were hanging out in Texas and were clearly as pumped on the underground Go-Go movement as they were on hardcore punk. Pretty cool.

The other night you could catch me groovin’ out while putting away my plates in my new kitchen and howling along “DAAAAAAANCE, LIFE IS JUST A PARTY!” Helped put a big ol’ grin on my stupid face while getting my new place straightened up. Still got more work to do, but I’ve got plenty of records to jam while I do so.

Short and sweet this week. But if you need some music to feel good while raging at the same time, then I highly suggest you blast some Big Boys. Hell yeah.

That’s all from me this week. As always, thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff

Hey there, Sorry State friends. Thanks for clicking on our Newsletter again.

So, another Record Store Day is in the books, with the next drop coming in just a few weeks. It was great seeing so many of you come by the store last Saturday and I hope everyone scored something cool. Whatever your opinions on RSD are, it can’t be argued that there wasn’t another very broad array of releases appealing no matter what your tastes. It reminds me that for vinyl records, if it is a noise that can be recorded and represents aspects of popular culture and human existence, then there is indeed a record capturing that. That for me is the beauty and wonder of records. It’s not necessarily just straight music.

Here at the store when buying collections and trading with folks, we really see the full spectrum of sounds recorded and pressed on to vinyl. Yesterday, Jeff was pricing up some records that were all about drag racing and featured the sounds of the speedway and engines revving and roaring. In these pages Rachel wrote about the awesome Vincent Price record of him talking about witchcraft and reciting spells. I mean, who wouldn’t want to hear that?

Rachel has fast gained the reputation at Sorry State Towers for being the go-to for the weird and wonderful and a great example of digging for the obscure and esoteric. So, taking a leaf out of her book, I thought for today that I would throw something a little different at you.

With so many records to choose from chez moi, (probably over 10,000) you would think it would be easy to pick something cool to write about. I have some good ones, but I tend to feel uneasy about flexing and bragging about objects that I own. Sure, some of them might be valuable but really it is just about the music and the enjoyment gained from playing them that counts most. Also, in this modern, post-everything era with so much information at our fingertips, a lot of great records have been written about a gazillion times already and what were just a few years ago obscure records are now known by seasoned heads and newbies alike. Adding to my sense of indecision this week is the fact I’ve been struggling to concentrate due to lack of sleep from construction of a road behind where I live waking me up too early. At 7 AM the sounds of trees being felled and cut up and the beeping of heavy vehicles backing up fills the air and continues all day. It makes listening to music a little challenging.

Another distraction has been all the football being played right now. In Europe, there is last year’s postponed Euro 2020 tournament taking place and in South America there is the Copa América going on. It’s been futbol golazo morning, noon and night.

So instead of some rare psych, soul or jazz, it’s to the bargain bin for my pick this week for a sorbet palette cleanser and a record that celebrates the life on the ocean waves called appropriately Songs & Sounds Of The Sea released by National Geographic. It’s literally a record of old sea shanties sung and played authentically with ocean sounds layered underneath and I love it. Rachel and I bought it a while back from a small collection that a lady brought in one day and had to arm wrestle over who was going to get it. As the ex-mariner, I won that one with the proviso that future horror themed records and odd ball stuff she’d get first dibs on.

The songs on this are less the pirate songs of yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum and more traditional songs of sailors and passengers making the long ocean voyages to the New World. Like folk songs throughout the ages, these songs tell the story of the people of the time and give an insight into what life was like in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The gatefold package contains a great booklet with not only the song lyrics but historical context and information and includes some great photos and pictures. There’s a great diagram of a clipper detailing all the parts of the ship. Nerd stuff for sailors. Banging. As someone who spent his youth in the sea scouts and went to sea for almost a decade, this record resonates with me. My past life self was very much at home.

This is obviously more of a personal pick this week as I certainly don’t expect many of you out there to share my interest in such things but if you are I highly recommend this release. It is not expensive or hard to find but is one of the better of such things out there. Here’s a link to a song to give you an idea. The song here, Dreadnought, is apparently quoted in Kipling’s Captains Courageous for those of a literary leaning.

Thanks for indulging me here and I should be back to records featuring music from the last few decades next week instead of the past century or two. Still, I had fun playing this and reading the liner notes and it’s stuff like this that always has me checking the bargain bins of stores for similar fare. Records are truly the best and always your best value for entertainment and enrichment. Get out there and keep digging.

Peace and love - Dom

This Kärsä zine is so damn cool. Unfortunately there is virtually zero English in the entire thing. I will say if you are a fan of Finnish HC like me, this zine is a must regardless of the language barrier. And, if yer a bigger fan of Finnish HC than me you probably already know what this Kärsä zine is all about, cos I had no idea til I got one in my hands. It appears this zine is actually a compilation of zines from a series with the same name that was originally released in the early 80s. It’s packed tight with loads of cool photos, interviews, and ads from the time. So sick. Also inside is a fold-out HIC Systeemi poster AND a flexi!!! The sound quality isn’t the greatest; they are live recordings. But H.I.C. Syteemi fucking rules. When my obsession with Finnish HC began, they were a band I had unfortunately overlooked for years.

H.I.C. Systeemi formed in early 80s. I feel like this band does not get as much love as other Finnish HC bands who are just as good, or maybe I just think that cos I didn’t get into em until much later. I think most people probably know them from the legendary Propaganda ‘83 and Finnish Spunk Hard Beat compilations. (It’s kinda funny their tracks appear after Bastards on both compilations.) They also have a track on the Lasta-EP compilation, which I don’t think is talked about nearly as much as other Finnish comps. It has actually just been reissued this year but I don’t think there are any copies circulating in the States yet. While I enjoy their comp tracks, their LP Slut is where it’s at!!! I couldn’t find the entire record on youtube, but those three tracks should give you the right idea, although there are no groovy tracks on that upload and HIC Systeemi really knows how to fuckin groove for real. I didn’t know about this LP until more recently. It was when I was raging with the Hardy Boys and Michael tossed Slut on, and my ears instantly perked up. A common theme in my life...

Moving onto another band who the Hardy Boys truly got me into is Rattus. Yeah of course I knew who Rattus was. They are legendary, but I never took the time to give them a good listen. When I met the Hardy Boys, they would never shut the fuck up about the time Rattus came to their town and blew the fuckin’ doors off at the skatepark. I wish I could’ve been there. I think Daniel was. The first Rattus I ever heard was Rajoitettu Ydinsota but the record that really got me hooked is Uskonto On Vaara. Holy shit, this record is insane. I remember being at the Hardy’s raging on yet another occasion and Michael tossed this one on. I was so drunk but vividly remember the punishing tone and relentless riffs. It was everything I wanted. When I woke up the next day, it became my mission to find a copy for myself. Not too long after, I was able to secure it from Joint Custody in DC!

While my favorite release is Uskonto On Vaara, what I really meant to write about is this Rattus compilation that was originally released as BCT#8. For fun I included a photo of the original BCT tape and catalog! Did you know Chris BCT was interviewed somewhat recently? I did not know until the other day. It’s a fun listen. You’ll hear some cool stories and info about BCT as a whole. The person interviewing him originally did the art for the Rattus BCT tape, too! This “re-issue” tape sounds pretty killer (yeah some tracks deep in the B side don’t have the greatest sound though), but it does sound much better than the link I shared. The label shifted the track list a bit from the original tapes to make the sides more even. He also told me they wanted to start with the “real” tracks rather than the “humour” tracks that BCT#8 originally began with. The link I included actually omits those joke tracks too. Regardless of the tape quality, the zine and poster it comes with are to-die-for. The zine is a reproduction of a 1985 issue done by Vote V. himself. Don’t sleep on this. I can’t wait to see what’s next on this label, everything so far has been so exciting!!! I hope there are still some copies left in stock of these titles when the Newsletter comes out. I will leave you now with a cool Rattus tape ad in the original BCT catalogue. Thanks for reading, ‘til next time...

Zulu: My People...Hold On & Our Day Will Come

Am I... talking about a new(ish) release? Something not on vinyl? Something you can BUY ON OUR WEBSITE? What the fuck? No bargain bin for me today!

I generally refrain from talking about music on here because, well, my coworkers do it much better than I ever could. I’ve made it super clear my interest in records lies in my hoarder tendencies and interest in historical physical objects. But, I don’t know man, I’ve been listening to these two Zulu tapes on repeat since we got them in when I first started.

I usually hate sample/talking heavy music but Zulu does it so well. It’s impactful and hits you right in the gut. These cassettes came out last year, while everyone was still focused on race in America (gotta love the 21st century short attention span…). There’s only so much I can say on content as a white girl, but the way the music and the speeches interact with each other evokes so much emotion I feel connected to something I know I’ll never experience or fully understand.

When the initial pre order and release of this cassette pair came out, y’all ATE IT UP but I still feel like more people should listen and buy this shit!! I’m a little contradictory because I don’t have a cassette player so I’m (im)patiently waiting for some sort of vinyl release. But any of y’all that collect cassettes and don’t have these two in your collection, YA FUCKIN UP!!