Skip to content
What’s up Sorry Staters?
Man, how long has it been since the last time we sent you fine folks a newsletter? 3 weeks or something? Sorry to deprive you Sorry State readers for so long! I guess Scarecrow’s been outta town a bunch. And also, Daniel’s been busy taking all these flights to places like Denver purely for pleasure, no business ventures whatsoever. Hehe. I want to report any fresh personal updates, but at this moment I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around what the hell has even happened since the last time I checked in…
I think since the last newsletter, Scarecrow made our way to and from Pittsburgh for Skull Fest. Had a pretty damn good time, I must say. My main highlight would be seeing Meanwhile live for the first time. They threw the fuck down, and all the punks ‘n crusties went nuts. Always good to see old friends as well. Thanks again Krystyna for having us. (I have no idea if she reads this or not haha.)
I had a birthday pass by since we last spoke. Another trip ‘round the sun, as they say. Don’t quite feel like an old man yet, but yeesh. Lifer status incoming. I did lock down a pretty significant birthday gift for myself. Nice 7 inch-size platter with some bricks on it, if ya know what I’m sayin’. I’m stoked.
There are some local gigs in Raleigh coming up I want to mention. Hopefully by next newsletter I’ll have flyers made. Firstly, Ejaculators are… coming (oof, didn’t think about that as I wrote it), and I’m stoked for those KBD-style synth-laden punks to debaucherously throw down in Raleigh. That show is October 20th at RUMAH along with Meat House and DE()T. Then on November 10th, BLOODSTAINS are playing at Kings. Meat House is doing a run of East Coast dates with them as well. Hopefully those start getting publicly announced soon. The gig on November 10th is Bloodstains with Shaved Ape, Meat House and Reckoning Force. Get HYPED.
We’ve had a smattering of new inventory arrive at the shop lately. I decided to choose a record for my staff pick that I had little-to-no prior knowledge about. This Indikator B 7” on Doom Town Records has really grabbed my interest. I’m pretty sure we stocked a tape by this band a couple years ago. I’m pretty sure the band is from Croatia? Someone can correct me on that if I’ve been misinformed. I don’t know why, perhaps because of that Koridor record we also got from Doom Town, but I half expected Indikator B to sound like post-punk. It’s not at ALL. This 7” is like a raging hardcore record. And when I say it sounds 80s, it like—REALLY—sounds old. Something about the dark, yet thick, warm sounding recording really captures a vintage feel and kinda cold, tense atmosphere.
I’m not even sure exactly what to compare the sound of the music to. The label description says something like “Indikator B carries on the classic sound of Yugo-punk tradition” or whatever. I’ll be honest and say that I need to be more thoroughly educated about 80s punk and hardcore from this region of the world. I guess one band I know from that general region is UBR, and I think musically that’s a pretty good jumping off point for describing Indikator B’s style. And even though UBR is from Slovenia and not Croatia, I swear there is one riff that sounds like Indikator B totally lifted from one of the tracks on the UBR 7”. Hey, ain’t complaining. But then, in terms of the feeling of darkness, I guess I do detect a bit of Midwest US hardcore sensibility like the dissonance of Mecht Mensch or something.
The pace of most of the songs is that kinda bouncy, what I often call “in-between” speed of playing. Like, super groovy, mid-fast, almost UK82 speed with thick, pounding drums keeping that rhythm in the pocket. One thing that stands out to me is that even compared to the band’s detectable influences, the vocals are NOT just grunting or screaming. The singer is actually carrying a melody most of the time, which to me is a big selling point of the band’s songwriting. Of course, I have no idea what the singer dude is saying in the lyrics, but there’s a few of these unexpectedly catchy sing-along moments with some “AH-AH-AH’s”. It’s killer.
Anyway, the inspiration for me to continue advocating for this Indikator B has run dry, so I’ll just leave it there. But I would really hate for this record to fly under the radar because people aren’t paying attention. It’s a great record. I highly recommend checking it out.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. As always, thanks for reading.
‘Til next week (uuuh right?),
-Jeff