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What’s up Sorry Staters?
Here I am at the end of the week, and it just seems like a lot has been going on. What else is new? Like last week, and into the weekend, it just seems like there was a show every other day. I might’ve talked about this last week, but I was in Richmond on Halloween night where Public Acid played with Electric Chair, Golpe, and Zorn. Then, Zorn played Raleigh the following Thursday. And then, I went back to Richmond that Saturday on the 4th where Scarecrow played with Languid. AND THEN, Languid played again in Raleigh again this past Monday on the 6th. Oof, I’m feeling pretty gigs-hausted at this point. It was cool to go kick it and drink some bevvies with Mike from NY and the Canadians, along with the homie Eric and the Hardy Boys, after the gig on Monday. Seeing that crew of people at our classy local watering hole, The Ugly Monkey, was something to behold. We got a little bit toasty and likely too rowdy for the regulars.
This newsletter will go out after the show happens live, but I’m once again going to appear on the Analog Attack show on YouTube. This round I’ll be joined by my dude Mateo from Warthog, so I’m stoked for that. Hopefully I’ll eloquently discuss some cool records and use more of my vocabulary than just “dude” and “killer”. Check it out here if you care to do so.
Speaking of YouTube, the other day I went down a video rabbit hole and stumbled across a playlist of a bunch of 80s goth and death rock stuff I’d never heard before. There were some obvious choices of course, like Siouxsie, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, etc. But for example, I had never heard that band Voo-doo Church, a Los Angeles death rock band from the early 80s who seems like they’d fit right in on a bill with 45 Grave and Christian Death. Looks like their EP from 1982 fetches a hefty price tag these days. Dammit, now it’s in my wantlist. I had also never really checked out Super Heroines, even though we stock their reissues here at Sorry State. It’s funny, Super Heroines’ first 2 LPs came out on Bemisbrain, which was Jimmy Bemis from Modern Warfare’s label. An odd fit, I would say. Muy interesante. On this same playlist, there was also this cool live clip of Paralisis Permanente doing their track “Quiero Ser Santa.” They look so awesome.
As I continued to binge videos, there seemed to be a healthy balance of US and European stuff. I was amazed to see how many of these bands from this era had music videos, even if the band’s records were relatively obscure. I definitely had to wade through some tracks that, for my money, kinda sucked ass. Not sure where exactly I fall on the goth spectrum, but I guess maybe I’m more of a casual creature of the night.
One band I’ve always liked in this vein though is Skeletal Family. One of my favorite tracks by them is their banger single “Promised Land”, but I had no idea there was a music video! The video for this song is kinda goofy. Seems like it was filmed pretty low budget, where we see the band miming along to the track, playing their instruments outside in a field by a windy hillside. Vocalist Anne Marie Hurst comes across rather disinterested being filmed on camera. She has this super funny and awkward posture as she kind of reluctantly mouths along to the words and aimlessly gazes around, never really making eye contact with the camera. At one point, she makes eye contact with the bass player and starts cracking up. Her vibe is clearly like, “what the fuck are we doing?”
Interestingly enough, we recently stocked these reissues from Radiation that’s a Skeletal Family compilation. The record is titled Eternal: Singles 1982-1984. The only record I own by Skeletal Family is their LP Futile Combat from 1985. I’ll be honest, most of the band’s earlier material I wasn’t super familiar with. It might be that for some goth/death rock aficionados that songs like “Trees” or “The Night” are defining songs of the Skeletal Family’s catalog. But for me, it’s almost like as this compilation continues to play, the songs just get better as you delve later into the band’s discography. Maybe that’s a generalization, but I feel like as you get more into the mid-80s era, the songs just get more tuneful and catchy. Less brooding, perhaps, but that’s cool with me. Songs off of the Recollect 12” EP are great, like “Waiting Here” or “She Cries Alone”. But my question is, you cover their releases from 1982 to 1984… Why stop there?? Kinda funny that the record I’m most familiar with came out literally the year after the stretch of what they decided to include on this compilation. I dunno man, they probably could’ve left off their cover of the Batman theme to make room for “Promised Land,” but maybe that’s just me talking. Still though, I feel like this LP is a good glimpse of this underappreciated 80s goth/death rock/post-punk/whatever-the-fuck band.
Anyway, I’ll leave it at that. If you need me, I’ll be drinking blood red wine by candlelight in the dark. As always, thanks for reading.
‘Til next week,
-Jeff