Daniel's Best of 2025!

So, this is the Sorry State newsletter’s Best of 2025 edition, but as has been the case for the past few years, I won’t spend a ton of time talking about my favorite new releases from last year. Most of them I’ve talked in the newsletter already throughout the year, but once again I’ve also shared my picks outside the Sorry State ecosystem. I blew the deadline for Maximumrocknroll’s year-end lists in the fog of grief after Red’s passing, but I did get together with Mike from Analog Attack and Eric Anderson (from MRR, Cvlt Nation, and several other publications) to talk about our favorites of 2025 on Mike’s YouTube channel. You can watch that video here if you haven’t seen it already… it’s worth it not just for my picks, but Mike’s and Eric’s too! Here’s my list:

• Steroid: Chainmail Commandos 12” (Crypt of the Wizard)
• London Clay: Private View 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus)
• Necron 9: People Die 12” (Unlawful Assembly)
• Kaleidoscope: Cities of Fear 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus)
• Ultimate Disaster: For Progress… 12” (Grave Mistake)
• Anika: Abyss 12” (Sacred Bones)
• Haram: Why Does Paradise Begin in Hell 12” (Toxic State)
• Tàrrega 91: Ckaos Total 12" (La Vida Es Un Mus)
• Ayucaba: Operación Masacre 12” (Metadona)
• The Massacred: Nightmare Agitators 12” (Active-8)

Those are in no particular order, except for the Steroid LP, which is without a doubt my favorite record of 2025. There are few other records in my life that have given me as much joy as this one. I go into detail about all these in the video (and also drop a few honorable mentions at the end), but I’ll give a quick shout-out to London Clay and Anika, two new releases I didn’t get to talk about much in the newsletter. Anika’s LP sounds kinda like Nico singing for Dinosaur Jr while they’re covering the Bad Seeds, and it’s totally brilliant. London Clay tiptoes along the line between hooky UK post-punk/DIY and super experimental UK post-punk/DIY, with just the right mixture of each for my tastes. We’re down to our last couple of copies, but if I can get a restock from LVEUM, I might make it Record of the Week sometime soon and talk about it at greater length. As for the rest, you probably don’t need me to tell you how great Necron 9 or Ultimate Disaster or Ayucaba or the Massacred are… they’re on everyone’s lists for a reason.

With that out of the way, let’s get to my main topic: my 2025 in record collecting. I mostly write about older records in my staff picks, but I don’t get too nerdy about record collecting throughout the year. I’ve always seen myself as more of an accumulator than a collector, but looking back on my acquisitions every year is a nice opportunity to reflect on the state of my collection.

First things first, in last year’s piece I identified three main wants I hoped to acquire in the near future, and I nabbed two of them. Not bad!

I picked up both on Discogs, though I have to give a shout-out to Eduard from Mendeku Diskak, who provided a much-needed assist when Trump’s dumb-ass tariffs suspended all shipments from Spain (among other countries) to the US. The record I didn’t get last year was the Nerorgasmo 7”. I was planning on featuring that on my want list this year, but now that I see I’ve been fiending after it for well over one cycle around the sun, it has officially achieved the status of TOP WANT. If you can help me get one of these bad boys into my hands, please get in touch.

One collection I’ve been actively working on this year is my attempt to get every record by the Finnish band Vaavi. I’ve been meaning to write a staff pick about Vaavi forever, but 1. I don’t have much info about them and 2. I was reluctant to blow up the spot before I got all their records. But fuck it, here’s where I’m at right now (one or two of these might have been acquired in 2024… I don’t really keep track of that and can’t remember off the top of my head):

So now I’m mainly missing two Vaavi 7”s: EP:n Nimi and Kun Rakkaus Kuolee. I suppose I’ll also eventually want Ei Palata Voi Eiliseen, which the band released during a brief reunion in 1986, but that’s not a high priority. I also picked up a copy of the double LP collection Tytöt Hymyilee while I was in Finland this summer, though I didn’t include it in the photo since it’s not an OG artifact. It’s pretty alright and has a bunch of tracks from all of Vaavi’s eras.

Speaking of my trip… last summer I was lucky enough to visit Finland and Sweden again, and that’s where a majority of my record-buying happened. (I’m still paying off my credit card… ugh!) Let’s start with Sweden, since (despite a visit to Trash Palace), I went considerably less crazy there:

Actually, come to think of it I didn’t buy either of these 7”s in Sweden. D.T.A.L. was a hookup from a friend (I can’t remember but I think he might have had a double?!?!?!), and the Headcleaners I actually got from Sorry State. Jeff had a little hoard of rare records he was saving for a special occasion, and when I saw it, I was like, “I need that Headcleaners!” I still need Extrem P and the Picnic Boys split… one day. Ebba Gron completes my collection for the band, which I started on my first visit to Sweden in 2009, when I picked up their first LP, We’re Only In It for the Drugs. It’s all about the long game, folks!

And now Finland… whoa mama, I got some Finnish jams this year:

So, the heavy hitter 7”s in the photo I kinda got hooked up on. Terveet Kadet and Lama were more friend hookups… a homie upgraded their copies, and I was lucky enough to get the cast-offs, which is a-OK with me. Kaaos is the blue vinyl first pressing, and it was definitely a splurge at Trash Palace. Pohjasakka my friend Markku got for me for a great price when it turned up in a shop in his town. Most everything else, though, I got from shops in Helsinki. I love 77-style Finnish punk, and that’s most of what you see here. Nolla Nolla Nolla and Kollaa Kestää I knew but never really had any hope of owning, while a lot of the others are relatively new discoveries… some I bought semi-blind, just from seeing them on Discogs and other lists of Finnish punk classics. Fucking Pelle Miljoona! I think Jeff picked up a copy of that while he was in Finland this summer too.

I’ve been collecting Japanese hardcore records for at least 20 years, but I haven’t been able to add much to that collection lately. Still, I nabbed a couple of heaters:

I’m the third person in Raleigh to own that copy of the Geizz 7”… the other two passed it on because there’s a small jump on one track, but it doesn’t bother the king of the beater copy, i.e. me. And when that Juden Souchi flexi showed up in the mail, it included an original, unpublished photo of the band the seller hadn’t mentioned. Score!

Next up, a handful of heavy hitters I NEVER thought I’d own:

These bear some explanation. I always tell people I don’t fuck with original Misfits records, but there are exceptions. I own 3 Hits from Hell because, amazingly enough, we had two copies for sale in the shop at the same time and I figured I should keep one of them. This copy of Beware was on the wall at Academy when I visited New York this summer. As with most of my records, it was kind of a beater, yet it still sounded great to me and was priced such that I literally could not walk away without it. One perk of owning a record store is that I know, should buyer’s remorse strike, I can offload it pretty easily. No Thanks popped up on Discogs for an extremely attractive price and I smashed that buy button. It’s not the rarer red vinyl, but it’s minty as hell. And Urban Waste… I could write a novel (or at least a novella) about that one. It came from a store in Greenville, North Carolina, that acquired a collection of EXTREMELY cool records. The problem was they were totally trashed… most were water-damaged, torn covers, nary an insert to be found, etc. They looked like a pack of wild dogs had gotten to them, yet they were all priced as if they were NM collector’s pieces. Somehow I lucked out and nabbed the Urban Waste for a price I was willing to pay. No insert, a little scuffy, but it still sounds great and I ain’t gonna pony up for a NM copy any time soon.

Here’s a stack of rando 7” acquisitions:

Zmiv I think was another hookup… though I can’t really remember at this point. (I buy too many records!) Shout-out to newsletter reader Marko, who hooked me up with the KGB single after I mentioned it in my staff pick about the Punk Que? Punk comp LP… this record is fucking GREAT! Johnny Concrete I’ve wanted for years, but literally never saw a copy for sale… friend-of-a-friend Dee Dee hooked me up with that one and the Eyes, making Rhino 39 the only significant gap in my Dangerhouse collection. Nasty Facts I’ve wanted forever… this is a UK pressing, though, and honestly I was disappointed with the sound. Does anyone out there know if the US pressing sounds significantly better? It’s funny, after hunting for that 7” for well over a decade, I’ve seen several copies pop up on Discogs since I picked up this one. The sleeveless 7” is Silver Chalice’s “Wasted” single, which was Jeff’s staff pick just last week! If Jeff is holding out for a copy with the sleeve, he’s likely in for a long wait. (If anyone out there wants to photocopy theirs for me, I would be happy to do something nice in return.)

And now stray 12”s:

I’ve been looking for an OG of Abwarts’ first album for years, and one finally popped up (alongside a similarly minty copy of their second album) from a US seller on Discogs, and I was stoked. Essential Logic and Kommunity FK were from the same collection as Urban Waste, and both are trashed. Kommunity FK skips a bunch and I paid way too much for it, so I’m kinda bummed, but Beat Rhythm News finally completes my Essential Logic collection, and a beater is fine because I’m pretty sure I own 3 different reissues of that record already. A.O.A. / Oi Polloi I’ve been after for a few years… as you already know, Sealed Records reissued it late last year, and then of course an OG copy (a beater once again, but totally playable) walks in the store with a collection like 2 weeks later. The Gladiators is my cool reggae find of 2025… I seem to get one cool reggae record per year. Most of the rest is from eastern Europe (aside from La Broma De Ssatán, which I already wrote about in a staff pick). My friend Markku—he of the Pohjasakka hookup—introduced me to these two Greek records, and that Stress LP is my favorite new-to-me old record that I have discovered in many years. I have listened to it like a bazillion times since I got it. And the Διατάραξη Κοινής Ησυχίας compilation is the 2013 reissue… probably the most recent pressing included in this entire roundup, but it was hard enough to find that I have little hope of owning an original.

So yeah, there you go. One year in the life of a certified lunatic. I realize how completely insane I am, and I hope everyone takes this in the spirit it I intend, i.e. sharing my love of punk rather than bragging about shit I bought. I live a pretty spartan lifestyle, and aside from the constant takeout meals that keep me fat, I spend almost all my money (and then some) on records. I don’t think I’ve bought a new pair of underwear in like 5 years, but got forbid I suffer the indignity of listening to 80s Greek punk on YouTube. I love a deal, too, and as I’ve mentioned many times, I’m perfectly happy with a beater copy that plays through halfway decently. Here’s hoping plenty more of those are in store for me in 2026.

But before I go, I must update the want list for 2026!

• Nerorgasmo 7” (as I mentioned above, this is now officially a TOP WANT)
• Various: Navidades Radioactivas LP (Dro, 1982)… and the other Dro compilation while we’re at it!
• Pekinška Patka: Bolje Da Nosim Kratku Kosu / Ori, Ori 7” (with picture sleeve, please!)
• Various: Great Punk Hits LP (I’ve been holding out for one with an obi… it’s absurd that I don’t have this record by now)

Of course there are plenty more I’d love to have, and a lot more than that I won’t even get my hopes up about, but that’s what’s currently in my sights. If you can be of help with any of these, please hit me up through Sorry State! And to the rest of you: please don’t rob me! These records are all I have LOL.