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Hey there Sorry Staters! Thanks for checking out the ol’ newsletter. As always, we humbly appreciate your support.
Another massive week here at the SSR compound. Jeff literally got buried in boxes this past Monday and tons of new stuff and restocks came our way. If you follow our social media, you will have seen some news about those already and, of course, Doctor D and my learned colleagues will no doubt be giving you some great information right here in the newsletter.
As for me? Well, like everyone here at SSR I am a big fan of the band Sial from Singapore and we just got in their most recent single Sangkar. It’s a good one. Biting, politically charged, female fronted hardcore punk. Perhaps not my normal proverbial cup of tea, but in similar fashion to our own Scarecrow, these guys add a little something extra to the HC template. I’m still in the early days of listening, but so far, my favorite track is the title one. I love the laugh towards the end of the song. Give these guys a listen if you aren’t already a fan.
The new full length from Personal Damage: Atrophy & Entropy is still getting plenty of turntable action chez-moi and if you haven’t snagged yourself one yet what are you waiting for? Get one asap. Again, possibly too early to state a favorite track, but I am liking the song Garbage Juice quite a bit and gave it a spin on Worldy this week.
Talking of great L.A. punk, if you haven’t picked up a copy of the Legal Weapon: Death Of Innocence reissue yet, get on it. Another fine recommendation from Jeff. He played me some of their stuff a while back and until now copies of the album had been pretty hard to find and naturally expensive. We recently hooked up a good friend here at SSR with an original copy, but I was excited to see that Radiation had reissued the album. I think they did a decent job. Nice yellow vinyl and a cool poster of an unreleased photo of singer Kat Arthur. Plus, the price is too cheap to argue with. It’ll be the best $20 you’ll spend. Go for it.
As anyone who has a record store or buys and sells used records can tell you, it’s often feast or famine. Fortunately for us, currently we are still working through some large collections. We’ve mentioned the cool jazz stuff, the great 70s prog and electronic collection, but I am not sure whether I told you about a nice New Wave collection that Daniel scored. Nothing too crazy, just clean copies of 80s classics and also-rans. I was having some fun looking up some of the more obscure records and checking them out. There was also one in there that I almost can’t believe I hadn’t heard before, but have been enjoying none the less. It’s the self-titled debut album from Dirty Looks on Stiff Records from 1980.
They were from Staten Island, New York and formed in 1977 and were spotted playing at CBGBs by Squeeze bassist John Bentley, who set the wheels in motion for the band, resulting in them being signed to Stiff Records/Epic and recording their debut album in England. Their sound fits perfectly with the rest of the Stiff Records roster. Power pop with an edge. If you are a fan of Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, the Stiff Records world and bands like Squeeze and dare I say early Police, then there is lots to like here. Plenty of pop hooks, driving beats and a sound that draws on pop and garage sounds of the 1960s and adds a little late 1970s punk edge. Not too much mind, but enough to not make them lame. Certainly, the tag that a lot of “power pop” groups get labeled with. Correctly or not.
The band released a second LP on Stiff and recorded demos for an unreleased third. At the time, the debut sold well for Epic in the US, apparently the best-selling Stiff release at the time with over 100,000 copies sold. They also had a couple of rotation hits on the early MTV, which helped the cause. Talking of videos, the band filmed a three-song set in the streets of New York in front of the Epic offices on 52nd Street on the back of a flatbed truck unannounced to promote the release of their debut album. The event caused quite the disturbance and resulted in an arrest but a fun, cool fifteen-minute film. Worth checking out.
Here’s a link to watch them perform the song Let Go.
People talk fondly of seeing the band back in the day and they gained a lot of fans as part of the In The Son Of Stiff tour that played over sixty gigs in eleven European countries in 1980. However, despite the moderate success, their name is seldom mentioned these days outside of their fanbase and the power pop world. Or maybe I am wrong, and everyone knows these guys and I am just forty years late to the party. Very possible. If, however, you are in the same boat as me and Dirty Looks are new to you too, then give them a play and pick up the record next time you see one. It shouldn’t cost you more than $10 tops. The UK and US pressings have different covers and I think I prefer the color one of the US version.
Also, if looking up the group, there is another band with the same name who are a hard rock band from Erie, Pennsylvania who enjoyed a multiple album career from the mid 1980s through the early 2000s.
I’ll leave you with one more link, the last song on the album called Drop That Tan, which I like. It almost has a slight rockabilly influence to it, although I doubt that was the intention. Good, fun stuff and I’m glad to have heard them and to have discovered them all these years later. Not earth changing but with enough spirit of rock ‘n roll to make them worthy in my opinion.
Thanks for reading. Cheers and see you next time.
-Dom