Staff Picks

What’s up Sorry Staters?

Have I now taken a couple weeks off doing my staff pick? Sorry about that. I haven’t given a personal update in a while. Not that any of y’all care. Or maybe you do. If not, forgive me while I shout into the void:

I’m feeling even more exhausted than usual. Yet somehow, also more motivated than usual as well. I think constantly being on the move with a sense of purpose is healthy for my brain chemistry. I’ve been in the process of moving stuff out of my apartment. And it’s funny, because as I’m sitting here writing about that I’m doing this, I don’t even think I’ve discussed it with Daniel at all haha. There’s just been a lot going on, so maybe it hasn’t come up naturally in conversation. My landlord has arbitrarily raised the rent at my place each year I renew my lease. And this time around, I really just can’t afford to live there anymore. So yeah, somewhat related to the whole situation with Daniel finally buying the store, FUCK landlords.

Anyway, I don’t mean to complain. I’ll basically be flying by the seat of my pants for a while. Which is kinda scary, but I’ll also be traveling a lot in the next few months, so it’s all gravy. But all this kinda ties into what I want to talk about for my staff pick. We’ve had quite a few local people who reached out to us to unload a big chunk of their record collections. Which got me thinking a lot. I remember within the last year or so, I would take a look at my records and have thoughts to myself like, “Man, I think I’ve reached a point where I just CAN’T get rid of any more of my records. I need ALL of these.” Haha. But lemme tell ya, as I was stuffing my LPs into boxes and lifting these things, I was like goddamn… I wish I had less records. They’re so damn heavy. And moving those things fucking SUCKS.

In one of the collections that Sorry State just acquired, the guy had a bunch of punk and hardcore stuff from 10 or 15 years ago. A lot of bands which I still own records by, but have not revisited in quite a long time. The other day when I was working the counter at the store, I decided to grab a big stack of these records and throw them on the turntable. For many of those records, as I was blasting them in the store, I just thought to myself, “Damn, this STILL rips!!” I was jamming Vaaska’s Ruido Hasta La Muerte, Omega’s Blasts of Lunacy, and not to mention modern classics like the Herätys LP. Listening to some of these late 00s/early 2010s Swedish punk records has got me feeling extra hyped about seeing Skitkids this summer. Yeah baby. All these records scratched that itch, and still got me raging in the same way they did over a decade ago. Not sure what that says about me. It’s probably just because they’re great records. That said, there are several hardcore LPs from that era that just really don’t hold up for me.

Funny enough, in not just one, but two of the used collections that Sorry State purchased recently, each dude had purged copies of both Total Control LPs. It’s weird timing, because Iron Lung has just reissued both of these records and sent a big ol’ stack of each to Sorry State. Probably to piggyback off the release of the Station Model Violence LP, which is good thinking. Henge Beat is great, but particularly Typical Systemwas a record I listened to death around the time it first came out. It’s one of those records I heavily associate with Sorry State first opening. The record came out midway through 2014, feeling like it was just months after the store first opened its doors, and it functioned almost like my soundtrack for that period of time in my life.

In some ways, even more-so than raging hardcore records, records that are more pop-oriented can either age really well or really poorly. Listening to Typical System again now, all the songs feel fresh to me again. More ethereal, contemplative synthwave soundscapes are accompanied by huge, energetic melodic hooks. The record makes me feel nostalgic to some degree, but (do I dare to say?) it also feels pretty timeless. I’m really enjoying the Station Model Violence record, especially because I love how guitar-forward it is. The jangliness is ever-present. But there’s something uniquely non-rock’n’roll and atmospheric about Typical System that I really enjoy. Granted, I know that Total Control and SMV are not the same band. I’m just making a point of comparison here. There’s a lot of peaks and valleys on Typical System, but I’m walking around downtown Raleigh on this gloomy afternoon with the last track “Safety Net” stuck in my head. I’m sorta feeling like I need one of those at the moment. But it’s all goose, as a dear friend of mine would say.

Anyway, not the most in-depth analysis I’ve ever written, but maybe this will be at least somewhat interesting to some of you readers. Those Total Control records are available from Sorry State on our webstore as we speak. So, if at some point you were like the local folks I mentioned and decided to purge those records from your collection, and now regret it, today’s your chance to get reacquainted. As always, thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff

Apologies to anyone who doesn’t find my staff pick an appropriate place to document my ongoing struggles with mental health, because that’s where we’re starting again. It’s been a rough week for me. Money has always been a very negative trigger for me. I so envy people who grew up with a healthy attitude toward money, because talking and even thinking about money is apt to make my brain go completely haywire. I wouldn’t say I grew up poor, but my parents lived paycheck to paycheck throughout my childhood, and while they were often clearly stressed about money, they never talked about it with or even in front of me. Consequently, money became, for me, a boogeyman, a shadowy presence that could manifest at any moment and completely ruin your day or even your life. I’d like to think I’m a smart guy, but I have trouble applying logic to financial matters. I can never seem to see the potential for a positive outcome, and instead I’m left cowering in fear of the boogeyman, my brain an ineffectual lump of fear and insecurity.

I’ve been dealing with a lot of grown-up business stuff as part of the process of buying the store, and it’s really been stressing me out. Like, a lot. I’m not even sure why, really. If something happens and things don’t turn out the way I expect, I’m sure we’ll find another path forward, and no matter what happens my friends and family and everyone who is part of the Sorry State extended universe will be with me wherever the road leads. But that’s not what the voices say, and the voices are loud right now. And thanks to my fucked up relationship with money, I don’t talk about it with anyone. I just whisper cryptic fragments and complaints into the megaphone that is this newsletter.

When you’re feeling down or stressed, what better way to counteract that than by revisiting the music of your favorite band? I was talking about the Fall with Tom from Static Shock Records a few days ago, and that prompted me to pull out the record I’m writing about this week. Before that, though, a quick story. Tom was telling me about how he sold his Fall LPs before he moved from England to Canada and was regretting it because he had really been feeling the band lately. Then I remembered that, way back in 2010 (if I remember correctly), Tom gave me a copy of the Fall’s second album, Dragnet. I was about to drive his band the Shitty Limits on their second and final tour of the US, and before they flew over, I mentioned casually that I was looking for an original pressing of Dragnet. Even though it was just a few days before they left, Tom managed to source a copy and gave it to me as a gift when they arrived. He apologized because it was a little beat up, which was no bother to me, but then years later I came across a pristine copy in the bins at Chaz’s in Durham (shout out Chaz and R.I.P. Bull City Records, which had its final day of business this past Sunday). I rarely keep duplicates of records, but the copy Tom gave me held so much sentimental value that I never got rid of it. And now, over a decade and a half later, I get to send that copy back to Tom to fill a gap in his collection. Lovely how that worked out.

I could easily write about Dragnet_—in fact, it would be cool to share with you the Dragnet-inspired coffee mug my potter wife made me a while back—but I’ll have to save that for another day. Because today I wanted to write about another record Tom and I were talking about: 1983’s Kicker Conspiracy_.

The Fall had a penchant for releasing records in weird formats. I’ve heard some people speculate this was a semi-intentional act of sabotage to keep their records out of the charts, since the main singles and albums charts never seemed to know where to put a record like Slates, a 10” EP that might be the Fall’s single best record. Whatever the reason, Kicker Conspiracy certainly fits the bill. It’s four songs spread across four sides of 7” vinyl… a double single? A maxi-EP? A single with a bonus disc? Who’s to say, really? If you’re trying to put the Fall’s music into boxes and categories, you’re on a fool’s errand. Maybe that’s what the weird formats are all about?

Even the side designations are idiosyncratic. Starting with side AA, the title track is, in my estimation, a very good to excellent Fall song. While it’s from 1983, it sounds more like the Fall of a few years earlier, and much about it is prototypical early 80s Fall: the rockabilly tinge, the driving bass line, and the catchy chorus with Mark’s trademark falsetto yelp. The lyrics are about professional football / soccer, and that’s something I know absolutely nothing about, so perhaps that’s the reason it doesn’t resonate with me as much as other tracks, but musically it’s banging and memorable as fuck.

Side AB, though, is the real gem in my book. “Wings” might be in my top five favorite Fall songs. It’s odd in that, while most Fall songs have the bass at the musical center, “Wings” is built around a guitar riff, and an absolutely brilliant one at that. It’s this mysterious, haunting thing that repeats for the entire song, but I never get tired of it. I think they could play it for another ten minutes and I wouldn’t mind. And while the bass isn’t the lead instrument, the way Steve Hanley moves around that guitar line is just beautiful, and as eloquent an example of his brilliance as you’ll find. The rest of the band plays it understated, which leaves a lot of room for the lyrics and vocals, which are outstanding. At the beginning of the track, we hear that the song’s speaker “purchased a pair of flabby wings” (what an image!), and from there it gets way, way weirder. Gremlins, time travel, paradoxes, “incorrect things…” I have no idea what to make of the whole thing, but the words and images tickle my brain in the most pleasing way. Like all the Fall’s best music, it’s a song I could listen to for the rest of my life and never feel like I’ve figured it out.

The second disc of Kicker Conspiracy features two tracks from the Fall’s many Peel Sessions. The first, on side BC, is “Container Drivers,” one of the most recognizable songs from their third album, 1980’s Grotesque. This Peel Session version is a little different from the album version, but not notably so. Great song, but I can’t think of much to say about it here.

Then you get the big closer on side BD, “New Puritan.” This is the song Tom called out when we were talking about the record over email, and it’s kind of a mythical Fall song. While there is a pretty great version on the canonical live album Totale’s Turns, this Peel Session version is the only time the Fall recorded “New Puritan” in a studio. Musically, it’s in that minimal and haunting vein a la “Wings.” The lyrics, though, are what really fascinate me, because they find Mark E. Smith talking about the music industry, and maybe even the Fall’s place in it (as usual, it’s hard to tell). “Bands send tapes to famous apes” seems typically cynical in the manner of _Grotesque_’s “C ‘n’ C-S Mithering,” but then there’s the famous couplet that so succinctly summarizes the dilemma of the perpetually ahead-of-the-curve artiste:

The conventional is now experimental

The experimental is now conventional

Preach it, brother! And then there’s this verse:

Why don’t you ask your local record dealer how many bribes he took today?

What do you mean “What’s it mean? What’s it mean?”?

"What’s it mean? What’s it mean?"

Putting aside for a second that the record dealer writing this has never once in my life been offered a bribe (I’d love one! I’m broke!), I love Mark shouting with increasing agitation, “what’s it mean?” It’s like I was saying about “Wings:” I love the way it tantalizes me with these cryptic details, but playfully withholds anything that would enable you to pin it down, to say clearly what it “means.” That’s the game, but it’s not really a game because the space between confusion and understanding is productive. Maybe it’s where imagination lives? As if to illustrate his point, this verse comes at the end of the song:

I curse the self-copulation

Of your lousy record collection

New puritan says “Coffee table LPs never breathe”

When I hear “the self-copulation of your lousy record collection,” what I take it to mean is that when a record is successful, a wave of copycats will swoop in and try to replicate its success by copying it. It’s the same process by which the experimental becomes conventional, and it suffocates the imagination and the artistic impulse. What’s a “coffee table LP?” One that sits on your table to show your taste rather than being played? Maybe? Maybe not! That Mark E. Smith is a wily one, and I’d like to think he’s somewhere in the great beyond, smirking at us trying in vain to figure it out.

What’s up fellow Sorry Staters! Not much going down in my neck of the woods these past couple of weeks. I hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather wherever they are! I know I have briefly mentioned this band a few picks back, but they have been playing everywhere I go because the album is so catchy and fun. I just can’t get enough of it. I love weird and odd music. Give me something no one has tried before. I don’t care how wild it might sound to some; I know I get a lot of odd looks at home when we have folks over and I throw on a free jazz record to close the night, knowing damn well no one in my direct circle of friends is into that at all. Which brings me to the pick this week: Angine De Poitrine.

Vol II Just got released digitally and is definitely my favorite of the two volumes. Vol. II is a lot more free, experimental and avant-garde. After doing some digging on the members, I found some videos of them performing with different ensembles across Canada playing some very weird improv free jazz, which was right up my alley. I am so excited to that Vol I and II are up for pre order on the Sorry State site! I know tons of folks have been wanting this record since that KEXP video came out, and the records were not cheap at all on discogs. So now is your chance to pick them up! So yes, I have decided to use my little space on the internet to let you know we do indeed have it up for pre order. Go check it out! Until next week!

Hey there everyone in Sorry State land. How are you coping with life? Bit of a struggle right now, isn’t it? If it’s not the threat of WWIII, it’s cost of living, and currently for us here in North Carolina, a nice spring, high 90-degree heat wave. So, before we all burn to a crisp, let’s try to find the good things in life and take the time to tell those around us we love them. Friends, family, strangers, it doesn’t matter. Just put out love. That’s all that matters and all that they can’t control or take away from us.

Talking of friends, I wanted to send a heavenly shout out to a special friend of ours at Sorry State and all-around brilliant guy, who sadly left us recently and will now be watching the great gig in the sky and spinning records with the angels. David Sabio, rest in peace, brother. What a joyful and beautiful person you are. Always pumped and excited about music, always out there supporting at shows and buying new records up to the very end. David was an artist and gardener and would love to talk flowers and plants just as much as he did music whenever he stopped into the store. Despite all that he had going on with his health, he always kept a positive attitude and certainly didn’t feel bad for himself or anything like that. A true fighter and an inspiration to all who met him and knew him.

Hey, so this Saturday is Record Store Day. Love it, hate it, or couldn’t care less, there are plenty of opinions on the day. I shan’t get into all the pros and cons here, but suffice to say, we shall again be taking part here at Sorry State. I personally like the day and have never not found at least one record that I wanted. This year, I thought the list was particularly strong with more than just the typical public domain live shows ripped from the internet and pressed on wax. There are several first time on vinyl releases and lots of unreleased music this go-around. My personal want list is way longer than usual. I’m going to have to whittle it down. I am excited about the Art Of Noise, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and OMD releases to name three, as they all feature music on vinyl for the first time, which seems more in the spirit of what makes RSD special. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good live show, but a lot of these pressings are verging on fan exploitation. I understand people wanting a record of historic performances, which is why bootlegs came into being, as they filled a gap that the record labels weren’t filling, but now it seems they are trying to cash in on fan loyalty by putting out these live releases. Make the stuff available, but why does it have to be so expensive? If bootleggers can press up a live show and sell it for less than $25, why can’t the labels? But that’s a whole debate about the industry in general. Greed and exploitation and killing the golden goose. Nothing has changed.

There is another artist who has a record out for RSD, and that is none other than Billy Strings. He and the boys recorded a great Tiny Desk concert recently, and that is getting a vinyl pressing. Regular readers of our newsletter will know that John Scott is a big fan and has seen Billy play more times than most. I have him to thank for introducing me to Billy and over the last few years, through listening to multiple live shows, he has turned me into a fan also. I’ve even gone to a few shows. In fact, the pair of us were at a barn burner of a gig in Greensboro just last night. It was a great show, truly. Billy is absolutely a generational talent, and regardless of whether you like bluegrass music or not, you owe it to yourself to catch the boys live if they come to a town near you. John Scott and I will be seeing them again in July, this time in Virginia. A bit further of a drive, but it will be well worth it. Anyway, I’ll be snagging one of the Tiny Desk concerts. Sorry, but I will be utilizing my store employee privileges on that one. This one is especially good because it includes one of my favorite Billy songs, Gild The Lily.

Okay, deadline time approaches. There are more records to price and work on, and we still have some preparation left to do for Saturday. I shall look forward to seeing some of you stop by on the day. Good luck and happy hunting.

Cheers – Dom

I rarely listen to music from the 90s, but when I pulled a bunch of records from the shelves to spin this week, the pile contained several 90s records: Lush’s best-of collection Ciao!, Dinosaur Jr’s Where You Been, and my staff pick for this week: Drive Like Jehu’s Yank Crime. It’s gotta be the weather that’s putting me in this 90s mood. We’re in our semi-annual period of near-perfect weather here in North Carolina, and the bright sunshine and explosions of plant life (bright, blooming azaleas everywhere!) puts me in the mood for the polished, richly detailed 90s major label studio sound. When I’m trapped inside because of the cold or the heat, dingy and atmospheric recordings make sense, but with the sun shines a bright light on everything, revealing a rich tapestry of budding life, I need sounds to match.

If you’re in your 40s like me, there’s a good chance you first encountered Drive Like Jehu in the same place I did: the used CD bins. While Jehu’s first self-titled album came out on the San Diego indie label Headhunter, the band was swept up in the major label feeding frenzy of the early 90s, signing to Atlantic / Interscope alongside their brother band Rocket from the Crypt. The way I’ve usually heard it told is that Jon Reis from Rocket from the Crypt—who was the subject of an intense major-label bidding war—insisted the label sign his weird post-hardcore project alongside his ready-for-the-masses rock band. I doubt anyone in the band or at the label expected Jehu would do Nirvana numbers, and while they didn’t get the big media push that Rocket did, they certainly manufactured a lot of Yank Crime CDs, which were not hard to find in the mid and late 90s. Yank Crime wasn’t quite in dollar-bin territory like Sugar’s Copper Blue, but like another weird 90s major label anomaly, Jawbreaker’s Dear You, it would turn up fairly often if you were a regular bin-trawler like I was. While it was obviously way too weird for MTV, my ears were definitely open to this type of music. I was super into Fugazi’s albums from around that time like In on the Kill Taker and Red Medicine, which do similar (though not as extreme) things with unexpected rhythms and textures and have a similar sense of post-hardcore-ness about them.

I’m glad Yank Crime came out of the major label system because it sounds fucking great. I mean, maybe it would have sounded great regardless, since Jehu’s drummer Mark Trombino co-engineered and mixed the record. Trombino would later work on records by Blink 182 and Jimmy Eat World and become one of the most sought-after producers in rock music, so surely he was an invaluable asset. There’s something about those 90s major label recordings… thick, dry, powerful, yet rich with detail. That sound largely went away in the 2000s and afterwards as ProTools put professional-sounding recordings within reach of anyone with a computer, but a lot was lost in that transition. Even if any schmoe could put ProTools on their computer, they didn’t have the millions of dollars worth of microphones, acoustically treated rooms, and outboard gear, or the decades of experience the pros who worked on major label records in that era had. It’s a sound we’ll probably never hear again. Capitalism giveth and capitalism taketh away.

Even more than most bands, Jehu benefits from a powerful recording because their music is so dense. I love guitar players who use weird chords; Wretched, Die Kreuzen, Voivod, Honor Role and so many of my favorite bands feature guitar players whose vocabulary extends well beyond power chords and open major chords. Jehu’s chords are always rich with strange notes and harmonies, and with sloppy execution, some of these would probably just sound wrong, like the guitarist put their fingers in the wrong place by accident. But Yank Crime is so locked in that there’s no mistaking it… these are chords that are meant to be like that, to make you feel a little uncomfortable. Same for the rhythms. Jehu often gets described as mathy, but I think their rhythms are more quirky than complex, like an amped-up version of Devo rather than King Crimson or something like that.

“Luau” is _Yank Crime_’s centerpiece As you might expect from a 9-minute song, it goes a lot of places… there are parts that are pretty, dissonant, difficult, driving, rocking, and a bunch of other adjectives too. The song is built around this lumbering waltz rhythm with the first beat stretched to its breaking point, and my favorite detail is the odd note that rises up from that first beat for much of the song. It’s an odd note to begin with, but it’s also bent in a way that accentuates its harmonic strangeness, and played in a way that makes it jump out from the rest of the riff. It almost sounds like a sample rather than live playing, and for me it always brings to mind that high-pitched squealing sound in the main loop to Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise.” What a magical part! But the song is full of great parts, including probably Jehu’s most infectious chorus. “Loooooooo owwwwwwww / looo ow looo ow.” What an odd word, an odd set of sounds. Froberg had a knack for making great choruses out of unexpected words, and this is one of his best.

Sadly, Drive Like Jehu was not long for this world after _Yank Crime_’s release. I never got to see them live, but Hot Snakes played “Bullet Train to Vegas” the first time I saw them, perhaps because the show was in Chapel Hill and local label Merge Records put out that song on a single. While I didn’t see Jehu, I am thankful to have seen Hot Snakes several times, and they were always great. As much as I like Jehu, ultimately I prefer Hot Snakes. The rhythm section is stronger, and while the songwriting is way more direct and streamlined, they still have plenty of Jehu’s trademark weirdness, particularly in Reis’s wild riffing and Froberg’s brilliantly surreal lyrics.

So yeah, Yank Crime is not a record I’m in the mood for very often, but at a time like this when I’m ready to hear it, it hits hard. And unlike a lot of 90s major label releases, it’s pretty easy to get a physical copy. While the CD was on Atlantic / Interscope, Headhunter got the vinyl pressing and has kept it in print and accessible since its initial release. Jah bless.

What’s up Sorry State readers? I hope everyone is having a nice week. A few months ago, I subscribed to the Third Man Records Vault program because they were releasing a live Billy Strings album I wanted. I’m not really one to do these vinyl subscription things, so it was gonna be a kind of one and done deal cause you can just sign up for one and then cancel your subscription. Of course, though, I forgot to actually cancel my subscription. Luckily for me, though, they announced the next release, and it was a live Jimi Hendrix record, Valley of Jams 1969 - 1970, so it ended up working out. I had kinda forgotten about it, but it arrived this past Monday and I got to blast it and I’m happy to report that it’s awesome. I didn’t realize the entire thing is all just instrumental jams (I guess the name should’ve given it away) but if you know me, I have no issue with that at all, especially if it’s Jimi doing the jamming. It’s a triple LP set, so it’s roughly two hours of Jim just absolutely shredding. It also sounds amazing too, every instrument really just jumps out and sounds so crisp. All the songs are taken from a bunch of different live shows from ‘69-‘70, which I always think is cool cause when you’re playing 15+ minute versions of songs, they’re bound to sound different from night to night and have their own personal feel to them. It’s hard to pick highlights or favorite tracks on here because there’s not a bad one on here, but I really love Jam 292 and any version of Izabella. This release also includes a 7” which has Midnight Lightning (the only track with lyrics) on the A-side, and Beginnings - Take 5 on the B-side, another banger instrumental. Overall, a great release and I’m happy to add it to my collection. I’ll always gladly take more live Jimi.

Holy sale bonanza, Batman! What a weekend for us here at Sorry State. A mighty, heartfelt and sincere thank you to all of you who stopped by the store this weekend or placed an online order or have supported us at any point. Thank you so much. We just want to continue being your local record spot, bringing joy and positive vibes through music, in a world going increasingly mad. For as long as we can, we’re going to try and hook you guys up with as much good music as possible.

I just want to say that I had a great time over the weekend, even if they were a couple of long and tough shifts. Circumstances left me and Jeff the two to handle the store for the sale. Typically, there’d be two of us for Friday and Saturday, our busiest days of the week, and Jeff always holds down Sundays. It got a little crazy at moments on Friday, with a lot of folks crammed into the store at once, but that’s what we had hoped for and it was great seeing so many of you come out. A lot of cool records were snagged by y’all, but there are still lots more left, so don’t be put off visiting if you didn’t get a chance last week. I’m always surprised when certain records linger and don’t sell right away. I certainly understand that when records get into the $50-plus range and into three-figure territory, that it’s not a casual purchase for most people. But with the added incentive of 15%–25% off, I thought one or two more of our wall pieces might have tempted people. I think we always try to price the high-end collectibles at the lower end of the price spectrum anyway, and we certainly took down several of those “wall” records over the course of the three days. There’s been one up there for a few weeks now that I was convinced would have sold sooner. I’m certain I priced it correctly and according to its condition and demand, but it has just sat, staring out from the wall behind the counter. We’ve played it two or three times, and it sounds fantastic. The vinyl is nice and clean, the jacket is decent, but the insert has a light moisture stain. No biggie for a record as old as I am. The important part is that when played, it sounds great. I had told myself that I could budget a purchase to chip in for the cause. Not that I’m not buying records all the time, of course, but I wanted to contribute and take part this weekend, especially as we were asking you guys to consider spending money with us. The record I am referring to is the great self-titled album by Silver Apples. Released on Kapp Records here in the United States in 1968.

I have a thing for listening to and collecting records that were made and released in the year of my birth, and this one is a great one to have in the atmosphere as I joined humanity. I’m no stranger to the record and the duo that made up Silver Apples. I probably first heard this record sometime in the 1990s and have seen it a few times in stores over the years. It has never been easy to find or that cheap, and as the years pass that only increases. I satisfied my hunger with a reissue on CD that combined their just as cool second album, Contact, which originally came out the year after the first in 1969. Then in the 00s I picked up a vinyl reissue, a bootleg I think. It sounded okay, and that pretty much did me over the years. I will say whoever made it did a great job with the silver foil cover and even included the color photo insert. I wasn’t going to go out looking for it necessarily, but if an original came across my path one day and owning it wasn’t too much of an issue, I always thought I’d like to have one.

I must imagine most of you seasoned music heads know about Silver Apples and how influential their two records, especially the first, have been on future generations of electronic music makers. Everyone from John Lennon to Alan Vega has sung their praises, and so many artists and bands like Clinic, Stereolab, Suicide, Spiritualized, to name a few have built their sound on the foundations laid down by Silver Apples. I think I heard about them through a Geoff Barrow from Portishead mix tape or DJ set. Both probably. He’s turned me on to so many great tunes. Anyway, if you are not familiar with them, I would recommend a deep dive when you get a chance. I can’t do their story justice here in just a few words.

The band was made up of two guys, Simeon Coxe, who just went by Simeon, and Danny Taylor. Simeon made his own synths and produced music and sounds through these and other electronic methods. He also played banjo, which was used to great effect on their cover of the bluegrass classic Ruby. That song appeared on the second album. Taylor was the drummer and supplied inventive drum patterns for Simeon’s songs. After the release of the first album and the positive response it received, they quickly recorded the follow-up. The album cover featured a photo of the boys inside a Pan Am plane cockpit. The Pan Am logo was visible, and the band had obtained permission to have it shown. However, it was decided that on the rear of the album jacket there should be a scene of a plane crash. Understandably, Pan Am wasn’t too cool with that and promptly sued the asses off the group and their label, Kapp Records, resulting in copies of the record being pulled from shelves and essentially ending the group and the label.

A third album had been begun but never completed, and those songs remained unreleased until the late 1990s. In fact, through him calling into a radio fund drive and the DJ recognizing the name, Danny Taylor was reunited with Simeon after years of not seeing each other, and those lost songs saw the light of day again. Taylor had hung on to the tapes all these years, and it turned out to be about seven completed songs recorded back in the day and another half dozen or so that had Taylor’s original drum tracks. To those drum patterns, Simeon produced new music in the spirit of the originals to layer over them, and the results, added to the original recorded songs, were released on an album called The Garden. It’s great too and thoroughly recommended for fans. There are a few different versions of this set out there now. The one I have is a double that includes two additional tracks, both unreleased but intended for a soundtrack to a movie. Pretty cool.

Well, that’s my “pick” for you this week. Go out and investigate, if Silver Apples are new to you, and if they aren’t and you haven’t listened to them in a while, go play them. Before I sign off, I will say that I was enjoying the sounds of the Bikini Mutants, a post-punk bad from the UK that recorded in 1982. Sealed Records has just issued a nice album set of their recordings. Very cool, female-fronted band that if you like Marine Girls, Au Pairs and the like, you’ll probably love just as much. I did and got my copy. Get yours.

Cheers - Dom

What’s up Sorry Staters?

Another week passes by like a warm breeze on an April afternoon. Or something like that? Gotta say, after Daniel’s announcement about Sorry State’s financial situation last week, the amount of support we received was amazing and more overwhelming than we expected. Pretty crazy, very heartwarming. Hope you all know how much gratitude we all feel for everyone showing their support, whether you were among the flood of in-store customers we had over the weekend, or you made a generous order online. There hasn’t been a dull moment in the last week haha. We’ve been scrambling and moving non-stop to pull records to get your orders together. Thanks for bearing with us!

Sorry, not sorry, but here’s one more mention about the show in Raleigh on April 8th. International hardcore! Indikator B all the way from Croatia! On tour with Totalna Tama from Oakland. Locals Plastique Pigs and Sunyata. By the time this newsletter comes out maybe the show will already be happening. Or maybe the show will already be over, and I’ll be blasting records with the Indikator B dudes at my house.

Speaking of blasting records, for my staff pick this week I’m gonna talk about the Proces / Stengte Dører split 7”. I love 80s Norwegian hardcore. Still, many of the releases on the excellent X-Port Plater label continue to evade me. I’ve got the Bannlyst 7”, but I still need a first press Svart Framtid, the one with the square-shaped center hole punchout. I don’t have any money… but hit me up if you’re holding! I’ll find a way. Haha. Anyway, small tangent there. No Plan Records has done the good work of repressing the Proces / Stengte Dører split, which has never previously been reissued (except for on a boot compilation LP, but that’s beside the point). Finally, I can jam this rager and convince myself I don’t need an og! …Even though I know I still do.

This split EP was an interesting release for X-Port Plater, because while Stengte Dører is Norwegian, Proces was a band from northern Serbia, which at the time of this release was former socialist Yugoslavia. Subotica, the city where Proces is from, is about 4-5 hours east of Zagreb where Indikator B is from (I just had to look it up haha). I don’t know if I have my facts totally straight, but I read somewhere that Proces and Stengte Dører formed a relationship somehow. I assume just by writing letters back and forth. I think Stengte Dører invited Proces to come to Norway to play gigs in 1985, but a member of Proces was denied the ability to leave the country. Crazy to think about. I think Proces might be one of the first Yugo-punk bands to release recorded material, right behind UBR from Slovenia. The Proces side of this EP is really cool. Kinda umpa-umpa 1-2-1-2 drumming style with super scratchy, noisy guitar, with the bass really carrying the melodic structure of the riffs. Good, kinda dark and menacing sounding hardcore. Almost still has a hint of dark post-punk, with chorus on the bass and delay on the vocals. My favorite track by them is probably the last song, “Beirut 83,” which starts with a haunting clip of a woman singing, but then launches into a rager. Ends with bleak sound clips of planes flying and gunfire.

Now, as much as I like the Proces side, Stengte Dører is just absolutely crushing. These 4 songs are maybe some of my favorite 80s Scandinavian hardcore material. The way the intro of the first track “Det Angår Også Deg” begins with that ominous pulsing kick drum, that fast palm muted chugga-chugga guitars before it hits those “WOMP WOMP WOMP” stabbed cymbal clutches, then just diving into barreling fucking raging hardcore. I love the deeper, desperate, raspy style vocals, which have some anthemic call-and-reponse and gang vocal moments. I’d be singing along if I knew any Norwegian. There’s a lot of cool, in-the-pocket rhythmic stuff going on with the drumming, stops and starts, unexpected punches… Super cool. Kinda wonky, jagged, and chaotic, yet groovy and smoothly executed at the same time. The second track, “Generalens Fremmarsj,” might be my favorite. It’s so raging FAST. Then the third track “På Ferie I Libanon” slows the tempo down a bit, and has some dissonant melody in the riff that reminds a lot of the weirdo riffing much like their contemporaries Barn Av Regnbuen, also on X-Port Plater. The last track, “Pålen,” brings the aggression back, one more killer rager to end the record. Stengte Dører released a couple LPs in the late 80s. They have some cool moments on them, even if musically they get a little whacky. Still, none of that material matches the magic of their 4 songs on this split EP.

Alright, that’s all I’ve got. Maybe even less eloquent than usual this time. Would I ever describe my writing in such terms anyway? I dunno, dude. As always, thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff

It’s been a crazy week and I haven’t squeezed in much time for record-listening, so excuse me if I don’t touch too much on music and records this time. I’m sure I’ll be back at that soon enough. I wanted to start this week by pouring one out for a couple of institutions that have been important to me in my punk journey.

The first one might not mean much to anyone outside central North Carolina, but last week Chaz announced he’d be closing Bull City Records after 20 years in business in Durham (Raleigh’s neighboring city). I first walked into Chaz’s shop in its original location next door to Cosmic Cantina (what a combo!) shortly after it opened. I still remember I found an original pressing of the Hypnotics’ Indoor Fiends that day, and Chaz had a customer for life. Of course I got to talking with Chaz—as everyone does... he’s the nicest guy ever—and he’s been a good friend ever since. Alongside being a top-notch record dealer, Chaz has also made huge contributions to the scene, most importantly helping make live gigs happen. After he had a few bands play in the shop’s original location, he commandeered a vacant room across the hall and started hosting gigs there, and that’s the room where I booked my first show and where I played my first ever gig with my first band, Cross Laws. The Marked Men even played a legendary gig in that spot. That probably marked the end, sadly, as the space was on the second floor and when the proprietors of the shop below came in the next morning, they found most of their ceiling had fallen in. Undeterred, Chaz helped spearhead a new DIY spot called Bull City HQ that went on for several incredible years and hosted a ton of great gigs, including Cross Laws’ last show. It was always clear to me that Chaz was doing it all for the right reasons, the right way, and committed to making things happen with zero fuss, controversy, or pretension. I think Durham is losing something super important. As with just about every other city, there are now a bunch of small shops in the town (in fact, Chaz’s current / final location is directly across the street from Carolina Soul), but Chaz wasn’t a side hustler or a Johnny-come-lately… he’s hard-working, knows his shit, and ran a proper fucking record shop. His shop will be missed, but I hope I still get to see Chaz from time to time… maybe he’ll even have more time to go to gigs without having to man the shop all the time.

The other institution I wanted to mention is dear to a lot of Sorry Staters’ hearts, and that’s What Are You Listening To?, the weekly livestream show on Analog Attack’s YouTube channel. Jeff and I have been guests on the show several times, and the show had become a big part of my world. The host, Mike, is very engaged with the little corner of the music / punk scene Sorry State focuses on, to where I wondered if I should reach out about sponsoring or bankrolling the show. So many of Sorry State’s customers appeared as guests, and they often showed records they bought from us, which was always awesome to see. There was a spell after Angela left and before we hired Trevor when I was packing a pretty sizable portion of our regular mail order, and invariably I’d end up working late on Friday night, watching WAYLT? as I packed orders. I always enjoyed popping into the live chat to give stock and order updates. It felt like WAYLT? was a kind of public square where a bunch of people from our scene gathered, communicated, discussed, etc. There’s a lot of record talk to be found on YouTube and other forms of social media, but few feel as intimate and as real as WAYLT?. Mike mentioned there’s a possibility it could come back in the future, and I hope it does.

A few days after he announced WAYLT?_’s end, Mike posted a video talking about why he stopped the show, and his main reason was that (I’m paraphrasing here) the grind of running the show and trying to sustain and improve it had become triggering to his depression and anxiety. And while it’s a little outside “our” scene, I couldn’t help think about Bo from the Hardlore_ YouTube channel, who sadly took his own life last week. Especially with Bo, someone like me looks at him and thinks he has it all. Not only was he a very successful YouTuber, but he was also in a big-name band and apparently had a near-limitless supply of vintage metal and hardcore t-shirts. What a life, right?

But how things look from the outside are not always how they feel from the inside. I was thinking about this a lot this weekend as we ran our sale. I hesitate to put this out there because I worry it makes me seem ungrateful, but as successful as the sale was, it stirred up a lot of tough feelings. My anxiety was through the roof as I drafted the newsletter and tried to find the right words to tell you all what was going on and ask for your help. There were constant nagging voices in my head telling me it’s shameful to have to ask for help, that a successful business would be profitable enough that we’d be able to cover this expense easily, and that I’m a failure for not managing my / Sorry State’s finances well enough to make it all work. I worried I’d be mocked or otherwise attacked, but of course none of that happened. Unfortunately, once I put out the word and sales started coming through, the negative voices still didn’t stop. Every so often I’d check how sales were going, but rather than being pleased we were progressing toward our goal or that people cared enough to help us out, the negative voices found all kinds of crazy shit to shout back at me. I’d think, what if the loan doesn’t go through and we can’t buy the shop and people are pissed because they donated for no reason? What do I owe all the people who contributed? What if the economy tanks or records suddenly become uncool and Sorry State has to close in a few years? My mind immediately reframed all the love people were showing as debts and obligations. All weekend I’d check my phone, see more sales had come through, and rather than smiling, I would feel my stomach clench and bile force its way into my throat.

It got so bad that the other day I actually googled, “why do I feel bad when good things happen?” After scrolling past the AI-generated slop that was telling me god-knows-what, I read what some credible sources had to say, and it made me feel better. I think, for me at least, these kinds of reactions are grounded in a low sense of self-worth. There’s something in me that constantly tells me I’m not worthy of people’s love, affection, and support. When people express these things to me, I feel guilty because I don’t think I deserve them. And any good thing that happens, my brain will reframe as either a backhanded dig or some kind of crisis in the making. It sucks. But it seems like exactly the type of habit or pattern that therapeutic approaches like CBT counteract. So I’ve been reaching into my psychological toolkit and revisiting some old strategies. I’ve also been trying to be more social and connect with friends. (I’ve been very isolated this winter.) The other night I went out for a beer with some buddies, and that felt great. Tonight is the Indikator B show in Raleigh, and then Saturday is a birthday party for one of my closest friends. As the weather warms, hopefully my social calendar will stay busy and I’ll resist the urge to feel overwhelmed by it.

Ending things on a completely different note, another social thing I did this weekend was attend Fire Fest in Star, North Carolina. My wife Jet is a potter, and after taking a long break from clay to focus on her teaching career, over the past few years she’s really immersed herself in the pottery world, which is its own vibrant subculture with many parallels to the punk scene. Last week she was at the national ceramics conference in Detroit, and this weekend was a big gathering of North Carolina pottery folks at Fire Fest, which happens at Starworks, a huge pottery compound in Star, just near the famous North Carolina pottery town of Seagrove.

The main event of Fire Fest is the opening of the petal kiln. Each year they invite a visiting artist to make a large sculpture they fire in this kiln. They work all week feeding the fire with wood and getting it up to temperature, then at nightfall on Saturday, they dramatically open the kiln when it’s at its hottest, revealing a glowing, white-hot sculpture. While the kiln is open, they pelt the sculpture with wood ash and other combustibles, which creates little explosions and causes interesting atmospheric effects that change the color and texture of the sculpture’s surface. It’s pretty amazing! I think someone said over 800 people were there for the kiln opening. It was a totally DIY affair, and since a lot of potters are weirdos of the type you’d see at a punk gig, it felt like we were at a show. It felt a lot like the huge outdoor shows they have under the I95 bridge in Richmond. Only instead of watching a band, we were all staring at this burning sculpture.

While the kiln opening is the main event, they have an entire weekend of activities at Fire Fest, with demonstrations, artist talks, and lots of other things to do. While most of them have to do with ceramics, they also did an iron pour on Saturday. When we arrived in the afternoon, the ironworkers were using hammers to break apart old iron things like cookware and fencing. Then they got their own fire going and melted the scrap into molten metal. Once they were ready to pour the iron, they set up a PA system and started blasting fire-themed heavy metal (get it?) songs while the workers toiled away. When the first cauldron of liquid iron came out, they queued up “Iron Man” as the workers poured the molten metal into molds for sculptures and tiles. Cheesy, but it hit. The event was small enough that I could get very close to the action, and I found it totally hypnotic to stare into the cauldron of bubbling liquid metal.

Alright, that’s all for this week. Thanks again for your help everyone! We’ll be back at it next week.

What’s up fellow Sorry Staters! Let’s hope everyone is having a great week! The weather is finally nice, lots of really great bands are announcing tours for this summer, and life is just good! I hope everyone enjoyed reading my wife Molly’s pick last week. I hope folks got the chance to check out her bookbinding page. I am super proud of what she is doing with her art, and I know she is too! She was super proud of her pick and really enjoyed writing it, so maybe more to come in the future? I am no wordsmith like her, but my pick this week is a fun one from Longshot Music that we got in a week or so ago. I always try to check out bands from the Netherlands, as that is where my mother’s family is from. Hopefully one day soon I’ll be able to travel to the Netherlands and go to some cool record shops and shows in my mother’s home country. Now let’s get into my pick for this week. Hailing from Amsterdam, Savage Beat is a street rock and roll band with a lot of great guitar solos and really catchy riffs. Any fan of Mess or maybe the U.S. Bombs would love this record. They are one of those bands that have been put into so many subgenres it is kinda hard to keep up with. Pub rock? Boogie? Oi? Gang vocals? Yep, this record has it all. My only gripe with the record, and it’s not even that big of a deal, is I wished they sang in Dutch and not English. So check it out if it is your thing. We still have a few left! Just like last week, we have been killing it, getting tons of used CDs and vinyl listed on the site. So give it a look!

What’s up Sorry State readers? I hope everyone has had a nice week. I can’t believe it’s already April. I could say that at the start of each month, but this year really is flying by. This past week I’ve been on a big Broadcast kick, specifically I’ve been listening to their 1997 album, Work and Non Work, a bunch. Broadcast is kinda just like a moodier Stereolab. Not quite as upbeat, and I feel like a lot of their songs have this sort of dreamlike, ethereal sound to them. The first song on this album, Accidentals, definitely fits that description. It’s like slowly dipping your feet in to test the waters. My favorite track on here by far, though, has to be the final one, Lights Out. It’s just so damn good and has been stuck in my head for the past week. So many cool things going on throughout this whole album. Definitely check this one out if you’ve never listened before.

Hey there Sorry Staters! March is behind us, but the madness continues. Today is April Fool’s Day as I write, but doesn’t it feel like every day someone is playing a joke on us? Life in the world has always sucked for many people and animals sadly, but today increasingly many are being negatively affected by the reckless, immoral and illegal actions of our current leaders. It’s tough living right now. Which makes indulging in fun activities seem trivial. At least that’s what my brain tells me. I must counter that line of thinking before it downward spirals by purposely doing something that brings me joy. The quickest and easiest and the most tried-and-true method for me is to slap a record on. We discussed here previously how sometimes staring at thousands of records looking for something to play can be difficult, and that’s not because the records aren’t good, but more because the vibe doesn’t hit the mood. However, when your mood isn’t good, it’s not always the best idea chasing that feeling. The thing to do is go in the opposite direction. That’s precisely what I did this week, and it worked out well.

For a few weeks now since it hit the floor, we’ve had a 25th anniversary edition of Sweet Baby’s It’s A Girl album here at the store. It didn’t sell in our new used arrivals and found its way to the used S section, where it sat staring at me. Or rather I kept staring at it. Main reason being that the cover art used was taken from the demo tape that the band first had out and circulating when they started. It featured a cartoon basset hound playing a bass guitar, looking cool with a cig hanging out of his mouth and the text “Never mind the Bassets, here’s The Sweet Baby Jesus.” They had used or altered the image from a comic strip called Fred Basset that appeared in one of the British newspapers. Growing up, I loved reading Fred Basset and had several of the annual comic collections that were compiled each year. Fred was a cheeky and smart character that hung out with his doggy pals and had interactions with the humans in his world and the other neighborhood dogs. A bit like Peanuts if it was always about Snoopy. I’m not sure, but the Fred Basset strip might still be going. Anyway, it’s him on the front of the album and the main reason that I gave it a spin.

After a few weeks of “serious” music listening, I needed the complete opposite. I needed pop. This album is pop punk in all its glory. Short, fast, loud songs about girls, with guitars. Heck yeah! Isn’t that what it’s really all about? This reissue comes pressed appropriately on bubblegum pink vinyl. I’ve given it a lot of spins this week and love it. Just what I needed.

The band, originally called Sweet Baby Jesus but shortened to Sweet Baby, were only around for a few short years, in which time they managed to break up, reform and have their debut album released and become part of the legendary lore of the East Bay punk scene centered around the Gilman Street Project. Without going into a deep dive about that now, as most of you are probably more than aware of that moment in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which saw the birth of Lookout Records and bands like Operation Ivy and, of course, Green Day. The latter having changed their original name from Sweet Children, so as not to be confused with Sweet Baby, who at the time had a bigger profile.

The story of Sweet Baby is worth reading about if you are not familiar, but on the back of the jacket for the reissue, main man Dallas Denery, gives a pretty good and detailed rundown of the band’s story and explains why they broke up and then reformed on the back of the album being picked up by Ruby Records, a subsidiary of Slash Records, the subsequent tour of that album, and the final indignity of losing out to a lame band at the BAMMYs, the Bay Area Music Magazine’s annual award ceremony. This after being dropped by the label and the band having disintegrated, again.

I’m a Johnny-come-lately to the SBJ party. Another one that had passed me by. Not that I or anyone could be blamed for missing out on these guys. If you were not around the Bay Area scene at the time or hadn’t gone to one of the shows on that tour they did to support the album, you wouldn’t have heard about them until years later when people started to look back and document those years. Certainly, the album art for the Ruby Records release doesn’t leap out and catch the eye, in my opinion. It’s another cartoon drawing, but of a boy and a girl dancing this time. They probably feared a lawsuit or something if they had used the Fred Basset hound cover, but it’s way cooler looking.

As for the tunes? Pop punk perfection. No deep poetry here or political commentary. It’s songs about girls and love, with only one coming in anywhere close to the three-minute mark. Hard to pick a favorite, but I like Gotta Get A Girl and She’s From Salinas and The Way She Gets Around. They’re all good, though. A fun and highly recommended listen.

Apparently, the deluxe edition of the reissue came with a bonus 7” which featured recordings from their very first show where they were getting heckled by some sections of the audience despite most of the crowd having a good time. I’ll have to look out for that. Probably be just as difficult to spot as that Ruby Records pressing of the album from 1989. I don’t recall seeing one of those, and a quick look online suggests it will continue to be tough. And expensive. Glad I snagged this repress.

Okay, well thanks for taking the time to read, and if like me you needed something to blow the depressive cobwebs out of your head and give you a blast of something fun, go give It’s A Girl a spin. Click here for a link.

Cheers – Dom