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What’s up Sorry Staters?

I’m kinda in a weird mood today. But I won’t use this vehicle to shout my thoughts into the void. Not much to report on the personal front this week. I’ll dive right in:

Honestly, sometimes I feel guilty when I do these write-ups for the newsletter and don’t take the time to write more about new releases by current bands. It’s not that I’m disinterested… or am I? I can’t tell anymore. For some reason my brain capacity feels dedicated to digging deeper into classic punk at the moment. Maybe it’s because hearing these records elicits a feeling of time capsule-esque nostalgia I’m craving that I won’t be able to obtain from current punk? No idea.

This week, I’m talking about yet another reissue from the batch of stuff we got from Radiation a couple weeks ago. I don’t know what it is about The Outcasts that has deterred me over the years. Maybe it’s because whenever I would see the black and white band photos on the cover of their records, there’s the one skinhead looking dude and I assumed that The Outcasts sounded like Last Resort or something. The band doesn’t even look like skinheads in every photo. And don’t get me wrong, I can tolerate some Oi!, but I’m extremely picky. First of all, learning that they were from Belfast in Northern Ireland was a surprise to me. I don’t know why. There’s no reason I should be expecting a proud display of the Union Jack anywhere near this band’s artwork. At some point in my early 20s, I heard “Self-Conscious Over You” for the first time and I was totally baffled by it. I was like, “WHAT? This is what The Outcasts sound like??”

While I liked that 7” single just fine, I didn’t dig much deeper into the band’s catalog for a while. Funny enough though, I was watching yet another episode of Analog Attack’s What Are You Listening To? podcast a couple weeks ago. I’ll be honest, currently I can’t remember which episode it was or who the guests were ha. But there was a discussion about the early Belfast punk and power pop scene. And specifically, someone was talking about Good Vibrations Records. Of course, I have familiarity with this label—The Undertones and Protex have always been big favorites of mine. Now, I wish I were smarter. I never think to run down the list of releases on a label’s catalog. Good Vibrations’ handful of 15 or so singles from 1978 to 1979 is just an amazing run of tunes. To some of you reading this, you’re probably like, “Duh, Jeff.” Haha. But here I am in my 30s hearing Xdreamysts for the first time being like “Fuuuuck this rules.”

Anyway, back to The Outcasts: I think I had a total misconception about this band. Not only is a song like “Self-Conscious Over You” poppy, but some of the choruses almost sort of have the feel of a 60s doo-wop hit. Funny enough I’d never heard the band’s single on IT with “Fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-frustration”, along with the first several tracks on this Radiation comp. They kinda sound like a rougher, more rockin’ 999 to me. But then the band’s other Good Vibrations single “Justa Nother Teenage Rebel” is so great. The production and songwriting on this single feels immediately “sweeter” to me. Proclaimed the “bad boys of Ulster” on Radiation’s hype sticker, it’s kinda funny and interesting to think about this incredibly hooky and earnest teenage anthem being the backdrop for a genuinely rough and gnarly street scene. Aside from the “street anthems”, I think I was just surprised by the sort of shameless love song aesthetic of the band. Still with sort of a “tough guy” approach to love songs though, like “Love Is For Sops” and “Love You For Never”. For NEVER, ha. They have a sentiment in common with the Dead Boys in one of those songs. Come to think of it, I do need lunch pretty soon… But then digging into some of the songs I was less familiar with, one of the more aggressive tracks “Gangland Warfare” has this ending refrain that got me raging, pumping my fist and singing along: “Gang fights! Saturday Night! Whoa-oh!” It rules.

When you flip to the B-side of this singles collection, you get into the band’s singles from the early-to-mid 80s. This side of the record definitely feels like a distinct era from the band’s earlier material. More minor key, more anthemic UK82 style songs. I remember getting to the track “Mania” and I was like, “oh fuck, I know this song.” Wouldn’t haven’t even guessed it was the same band. I start to lose interest slightly, at least compared to the bangers from the early singles. But there are some cool tracks on side B for sure. “Angel Face” is a little rough for me… but hey, to each their own. When I looked up the cover art for “Angel Face”, with its super new wave looking color scheme, and homeboy with his Teen Beat looking photo sporting charged hair and flexing his gun, I was like, “ah, I see.” A little extra cheese sprinkled on top compared to the earlier material.

This record was a super fun listen, and cool for someone rather uninitiated like me to dig into. The LP comes with a big foldout poster. On the back cover, there’s fine print that provides some info about the release dates of each single. My only complaint about this collection is that I would have loved an insert with all the cover art from each single and maybe a little more information. But hey, why complain? I’ll leave it there. Thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff

Various: Finnish Drunks: Punks Is Hippies 12” (1995, no label)

As I mentioned at the top of the newsletter, I had a busy week last week. Poison Ruin and Beton Arme played here in North Carolina on Tuesday, we squeezed in a Scarecrow practice on the same night, and first thing the next morning I was off on a trip to buy a collection. The collection was in the northwestern part of Virginia, so of course I made a pit stop in Richmond on my way back. If you follow Vinyl Conflict’s social media, you know they recently bought a huge punk collection, and their bins and walls were lit up with international hardcore punk. I picked up a big stack for myself that I’m still going through, and I’m sure I’ll cover a bunch of my scores in future staff picks.

Since I was writing about bootlegs just a few weeks ago, this compilation LP seems like a great place to start. I’ve always been partial to LPs that compile several rare punk EPs in their entirety. A few of these compilations were crucial in developing my taste: Dischord’s Four Old 7”s on a 12”; the bootleg New York hardcore LP that compiled seminal EPs by Antidote, Urban Waste, the Abused, and the Mob; and the similar 4-way split with Mecht Mensch, Clitboys, Active Ingredients, and the Catatonics. I listened to all these to death when I first got them. At the time, it was the only way to hear these records, other than friends making mixes for you. And while bootlegs typically pale compared to official reissues, they beat the hell out of a dubbed cassette, especially when reproductions of the original artwork are included.

According to Discogs, Finnish Drunks: Punks Is Hippies came out in 1995, and the LP compiles 5 Finnish hardcore EPs: Mellakka’s Ei and Itsenäisyyspäivä EPs, Äpärät’s Häiriköt Tulee EP, Painajainen’s Todistusaineistoa EP, and Rutto’s Ilmastoitu Painajainen. The LP says “Made in Japan,” and while you should never trust a bootleg’s proclaimed point of origin, there could be some truth to this one. Certainly Finnish Drunks is the type of high-quality record I expect from Japan. The sound quality is excellent—as good as I would expect from an official reissue (which is impressive since this bootleg came out before any of these EPs came out on CD)—and the artwork is clean and well-executed, including insert sheets with full reproductions of the original EPs’ layouts. While all these records save the Painajainen EP have been officially reissued, I’m still going to play the hell out of this LP because it’s so convenient and it looks and sounds so great.

Speaking of reissues, if you want to get the music compiled here, it shouldn’t be too hard. I believe Havoc Records’ Mellakka discography CD is still in print, and just a few years ago Svart Records did a box set containing beautiful reproductions of both their EPs alongside a previously unreleased demo from 1986. Mellakka is one of the greatest Finnish punk bands ever, so these songs should be in your collection in some form or another. Äpärät’s EP got a repress in 2022 on Voltage Records, and the Rutto EP’s reissue on Final Doomsday Records is still in stock at Sorry State (along with their reissue of the band’s other EP). As I mentioned, the Painajainen EP hasn’t been reissued… not sure why, but it’s a missed opportunity… I love the unhinged vocal performance and quirky, Rattus-esque sound on this one.

In 2025, a bootleg like this should be obsolete. Just about everything worth hearing has seen an official reissue, and what hasn’t is usually easy to find on youtube. Yet there’s something about the way this record’s creators put it together, the care they put into selecting these five records and presenting them to their audience, that feels significant to me. And assuming this was made and distributed mostly in Japan, to think this LP may have directly inspired some killer Japanese hardcore in the latter half of the 90s is pretty cool, too.

What’s up Sorry State readers? I hope everyone has had a nice week. I can’t believe I’m sitting here writing this while Raleigh gets another snow day, woohoo! What better time to lounge around and listen to some cozy music. Today I decided to throw on a record I got for my Valentine (although maybe it was secretly also for myself) the Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi. Even though the holiday has already passed, this music can be enjoyed throughout the year. Dom put me on to these Peanuts holiday special soundtracks they’ve been putting out recently and they’re all awesome. I especially like It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown. I hadn’t snagged any of them yet though, so when I heard this one and really dug it, I had to pick a copy up. It comes with a nice insert that gives lots of info about the special and the recording of the soundtrack, and the vinyl is a very fitting Valentines red. It’s perfect relaxing background music that you can get some real good thinking done with, but also if you do kinda zone out and snap back to it you’re like, “damn this is really good.” Great for staring out your window and watching the snow fall. Dom and I both are fans of the track Woodstock’s Mambo. Badass name aside, it kinda comes out of nowhere on the soundtrack, sounding like something that came out like 20 years after everything else on there with a funky ass synth line. Woodstock is kooky like that, so he gets a funky song. For more of the kinda straightforward stuff on here, I really like Freddie’s Mood, which is based on Chopin’s Nocturne op.9 No.2. My favorite track on here though, is Jennie L. I don’t know how to describe it accurately, but it just makes me feel very happy. It has this kinda dreamlike sound to it with the synth and I just can’t get enough of it. I always find myself playing that one back. Also, I have to give a shoutout to the Music Supervisor on this, John Scott Trotter, simply because I don’t come across many other John Scotts. If you like Peanuts and good music, then these soundtracks will be right up your alley.

Hello and thanks for reading. This week I wanted I write briefly about this No Genocide compilation we’ve had it stock for a little while. This was originally released on cassette format and we had copies of that as well. I can’t remember how many sold, but after that they decided to press it to 12” as well. They made 300 of these and all proceeds are directed to mutual aid in Gaza. I know they’ve sent over a ton of money before the 12”s were made and that was great to hear. SCARECROW was asked to be on the compilation. They were looking for exclusive songs mostly, which we don’t really have, haha. We have done a number or cover songs though, and those can only be heard on cassette or flexi, so we went with one of those. A while back we covered Raleigh’s own C.O.C. for a tour tape, and now you can hear our version of “Rabid Dogs” on this No Genocide 12”. They properly mastered all the songs too, so it sounds a lot better than what we released on tape, haha. I was surprised how good it sounded, since we recorded with a portable recorder. The 12” compilation comes with a booklet that the cassette version did not, and Jeff did a sick page for us ripping off some old C.O.C. shit. On the compilation you can find some great contemporary bands, but they also featured some classics like OI POLLOI, THE MOB, and PART 1. Those bands probably don’t give a shit, but I can’t believe my band is on a record with them!! Haha. I was stoked to see RAT CAGE on the compilation too, as we’ve already done stuff with them. They also did a cover, by VARUKERS. While the comp is comprised of punk bands, the sound is all over the place. Actually, the final track is not a punk band at all, it’s a choir singing an anti-war song. That might sound cheesy to some, but I find stuff like that awesome. Anyways, I’m sure most everyone already knows about this compilation, but I wanted to take some time to mention it. If you’re not interested in buying the comp, you can stream the entire thing here. Of course you could donate by buying a digital version, but there are also a ton of links at the bottom of the page for direct ways to send funds to Gaza. Alright, I think that’s about it for the week. Cheers and thanks for your support. We really appreciate all the Sorry State customers.

What’s up Sorry Staters? How’s the weather where you are? Unfortunately for us here in the south, just a few inches of snow, cold weather and ice can shut down the whole place. Unlike our friends in the north where it’s business as usual. As a result of the recent storm, we had to remain closed for a couple of days and stay home, but it gave us all a chance to catch up on some record listening, book reading, film watching and to get some rest. That’s at least how I spent my snow days, besides taking care of my poorly kitty cat. Oh, and I got to watch a couple of football games on TV live, which is always a bonus. Not that my team quite got the result we were looking for, but enough of that for the time being.

A big part of taking care of the cat involves sitting down on the couch with a blanket over my legs and her curled up on my lap, often trapping me there for long periods of time. Ideal for watching TV and reading, but a bit of problem when I want to listen to records and need to get up every twenty minutes or so to change the record. One of the advantages of vinyl, right? I have often had to throw on a CD or switch to streaming something from the internet. Again, not such a bad thing as I have loads of radio shows and podcasts to listen to. There simply isn’t enough time to listen to everything, watch everything and read everything in my queue. To that point, I was determined to have a good dip into a book that has been patiently waiting for me since I picked it up a while back. I have been enjoying reading it and would like to recommend it to you all for my pick this week in the newsletter. Be warned though, reading it will cause you to fall down many rabbit holes and could end up costing you a small fortune. The book is called Unusual Sounds—The Hidden History Of Library Music. It was written by David Hollander and published in 2018 by Anthology Editions.

At this stage, 2025, Library Music isn’t exactly a secret anymore. I’m sure many of you are aware of these records, but for a time they were hidden from general public consumption, only known by industry insiders and then later by progressive producers and DJs looking for new beats and samples yet to be mined. The 1990s saw a renewed interest in these records made twenty or thirty-plus years prior, as retro culture got into full swing. By the turn of the millennium, Library records were fetching good money on the collector’s scene as more and more people got turned on to them and realized how good they were. Producers looking for beats and samples other than from their parents’ James Brown records found a whole new frontier of discovery in Library music. DJs wanting to stand out and play stuff that others didn’t have would also be on the hunt for these elusive gems. There would be boutique stores opening that catered to just these types of customers. The Sound Library in New York is a good example. Although they, of course, stocked lots of cool records other than Library music, the emphasis was on servicing producers and DJs, hence the name of the store.

Fortunately, during this period of reappraisal in the late 90s and early 00s, there were a few labels reissuing some of this great music. Mostly as compilations, but occasionally whole albums. This was when I got hip to it. I gobbled up as many of them as I could find. As a DJ on a budget, I was already into collecting soundtracks as they were a great source for lesser heard tracks and unusual sounding stuff, so these compilations of cool sounding music were ideal for me. Over time, even these reissues have become valuable and collectable. I’m glad I got the ones I did and have kept hold of them. Not as cool as owning the originals, but still cooler than not having anything and not hearing the music.

So, what are Library Music records? They are records of stock music created expressly for the use in film, radio and television. Each one would have music to suit different moods and situations and were aimed at producers and productions that didn’t have the budget to hire their own composers and musicians and to pay for studio time. These recordings were ready for use off the shelf at a fraction of the cost and came pre-licensed. The heyday for these records was the mid-1960s through the 1970s. There were many different production houses, publishers and labels and several became very successful financially and produced extremely high-quality music that was above and beyond the mainstream and much more progressive. That’s why, decades later, the world is still catching up. Although North America had some Library music houses, they didn’t catch on as in Europe, due mostly to performance rights and objections from musicians’ unions. The big centers for Library music were France, Italy, Germany and the U.K., each bringing their own unique regional and cultural take on whatever musical style was being invoked.

As these records initially were not for public consumption, they mostly came in plain covered sleeves with perhaps a color scheme and/or company logo and title. On the back were the list of cues (usually with titles), their length and a brief description of style. If you were a producer looking for appropriate music for your production, you could easily listen and choose the right cues from the records, with the idea being that you then purchased those from the Library House, who would dub you a tape of your selections. The records themselves were purely a demonstration sample tool and were often returned to the library or discarded. However, as time went on, most music libraries began issuing these records with cover art of some sort. Usually something simple to obviously suggest the type of music within, but sometimes with imaginative and wonderful images that truly spark the imagination. Occasionally some of these records were made commercially available to the public, but even those are tough to find.

Obviously in the book the author gives a much better description than I am giving, and his introduction chapter is perfect. There’s a great foreword by George A. Romero, who writes about his use of library music for his classic genre defining film Night Of The Living Dead, and throughout there are incredible full color reproductions of some of the best library record cover art, along with photos of many of the key players, etc.

The author sets out the chapters with each concentrating on a particular country’s libraries. He chose British, German, French, Italian and North American libraries as being the main players, and each country chapter has a brief history of their respective labels/libraries along with some pictures of the records they produced. The artwork is so cool and often stunning on these records, and it’s great to see them reproduced in the book. There is a definite acknowledgment from the author that other countries had good music libraries too, many of the eastern European countries, for instance, and Brazil also. There’s a final chapter displaying film posters and advertising for TV shows which have famously used library music. Some are very well known and recognizable and others more obscure. Again, great color reproductions which are so fun to look at.

During his introduction chapter, the author talks about doing his best to visit many of the library houses that still exist or to contact whoever may still have ownership of now defunct ones. Many have been swallowed up by bigger companies and are owned in name only. He speaks of the still massive amounts of music that has barely seen the light of day since first being made years ago, and how a lot of it is getting saved and digitized, but that a lot isn’t and is either rotting away on magnetic tape or, in many cases, has already been dumped. He tells of arriving at a British library to discover that they had dumped master tapes just the week before. So now the only place that some of this music may exist is on those original vinyl records and, as was mentioned before, these were often thrown out too. It goes to explain how prices for many of these records are through the roof and in a league of their own when it comes to rare records and big number price tags. Again, I’m so glad to own the few I do, even if they are mostly reissues. It’s sad that music, just like film and television, hasn’t been preserved and, in some cases, has been lost forever.

Not that I have ever had the dough to buy expensive originals, but even if I did the opportunity rarely presents itself. You can trust me when I say that you hardly ever see these records. Maybe for a brief period back in the day if you knew what you were looking for and could dig in major cities around the world where they were likely to have been circulated, you might have found a few. Certainly, at record shows or stores that knew what they were doing, you wouldn’t get them cheap. However, there’s always stories of people finding them in the wild, which is cool. I recently saw that Noble Records here in North Carolina had scored complete runs of many major music libraries as part of an even larger collection they bought. So cool. I’m so happy for them and so jealous. I am not sure whether they have been put out for sale in their store yet though, and am almost afraid to know if they have. Not that I get that way often, but if you find yourself in the Charlotte area you should check out their store. They do a great job.

As I have been typing this, I’ve been spinning a cross section of my library records and trying to see whether I prefer any production house or country. The short answer is no, but I love the Italian stuff from the 1970s a lot. The UK houses like KPM, Music DeWolfe and Themes International are all ace too and supplied tons of groovy, cool music. I love a good cop show theme and there are so many cool ones throughout these libraries. I also love that lush space-age bachelor pad sound and easy listening kind of vibe and there is so much virgin timber of this ilk to be found on library records. If you like the vibe of Air’s Moon Safari or any Stereolab record, which I absolutely do, then you should start investigating these types of records. As I have been playing the few records I pulled from the shelf, there’s one thing I can say for sure: there are tons of cool sounding beats and head nodding potential samples to jam on.

One series of library and soundtrack reissues I like is called Easy Tempo. They pick from Italian library records and have released several volumes of great music. I like the Italian stuff because they are well produced and recorded and because they tackle all sorts of genres. You get cool jazz, funky cop show themes, weird electro and horror stuff, poppy easy listening and even takes on Brazilian samba and Afro-Latin sounds. At the store, John Scott often plays from a YouTube channel where a dude offers needle drops of a lot of the Easy Tempo titles, so they are available to check out. It’s cool knowing he digs them as much as I did when I first heard them years ago.

I could drone on for much longer and still not do this genre proper justice. I guess the basic point is if you have a love for film and television and always wanted to know what the music was that soundtracked the night club party scene or the trippy druggy scene or the zombie attack scene in one of your favorite cult films or shows, chances are it was music sourced from a music library. Even the famous intro music to The People’s Court is library music, shared with a 70s UK TV show called The Hanged Man and used in several other TV shows and sampled in music. That piece, called The Big One, was composed by Alan Tew and his is a name that turns up again and again on UK produced library music. Growing up, I loved the 70s UK cop show The Sweeney, and they used library music to soundtrack the action. Perhaps that’s where my interest began? One of my favorite records is a double set that came out a while ago, which collects a lot of the best cues used for the show. It’s great.

Before I sign off, a quick couple of additional library music recommendations. For more Italian grooves, check out one called Souno Libero on the Irma label. One of my faves. There’s a nice set of mostly French library recordings called Space Oddities which is great, especially volume two. That one’s put together well and concentrates more on psychedelic and progressive type stuff, but keeps it groovy at the same time. A label in Germany called Show Up did a nice series of compilations from the Themes International library, picking some of the best funky cop show type cues. That’s called Dramatic Funk Themes. I have three volumes and they’re all ace. British label BBE has a couple of volumes compiling music made for the De Wolfe library called Bite Hard and they are worth seeking out also.

Just the tip of the tip of the iceberg when it comes to library music. As I said previously, there has been so much music made. Some of it has been reissued, some of it remains on those original records still left barely heard by the greater listening public, and sadly some of it has been lost forever as the master tapes are gone, taking with them music that didn’t even make it to an actual record. But that’s the case in the regular music world too. There are countless examples of songs, tunes, takes, even whole albums that never saw release at the time for whatever reason and remained on old reels of tape for years, sometimes being discovered later and finally getting appreciation, but sometimes not. Regardless, because of the nature of its creation, covering all aspects of life, there will always be a piece of library music to suit your mood. If you enjoy instrumental music (mostly) and dig soundtracks particularly, then the world of library music awaits you. Enjoy your journey.

Before I go, a reminder that we got a ton of brilliant titles in last week. Even with snow days we (Jeff mostly) were busy behind the scenes opening boxes and getting stuff up on to our webstore and in the bins of the shop. I’m excited about the Dark Entries label new comps, especially the second volume of 80s Mexican synth-pop called Back Up Dos. I’m very excited about getting a vinyl pressing of Diamond Jubilee, the Cindy Lee album from last year. That’s one of my highlights from 2024 and it’s still growing on me, and it has been great to connect with the record in physical form. We got in a bunch of cool reissues of seminal and more obscure albums too, covering everything from country through jazz to punk. Look at the webstore or pop into the store in person, where of course you will find much more. Some titles, like the dub albums from Scientist, sold out immediately, and others may be close to selling out, but we’ll be restocking what we can as quickly as possible. The stock notification alert is your best friend if you are looking at a title that shows out of stock.

Okay, that’s enough for now. I’m out of here. Cheers everyone.

-Dom

What’s up Sorry Staters?

Yet another Monday where I’m trying to crank out my write-up for the newsletter last minute. My basic excuse is that I spent most of this past weekend in Richmond. Public Acid got together to practice as a full band for the first time in many months. It felt really good to see everybody. And then the night before, everyone in the band along with a bunch of Richmond punks all met up at this weird redneck bar in the county outside Richmond’s city center. The bar was huge and totally dead. Ghost town vibes. It was fun to roll up with a crew to this bar and alienate the regulars. You could smoke inside. There were several pool tables, where anyone could play for free. There was an abandoned electric motorbike in the middle of the room? Eventually Richmond punks were all drunkenly riding this thing. The bartender did not care one bit. It was a good time ha. Of course, when I was driving on the way back from Richmond, my shitty old truck’s problems persisted yet again. I ended up having to change my tire, which was totally bald. Yikes, I should not have been driving on the highway with this thing. So, I put on my donut spare, and drove the rest of the trip home going 45 mph on I-95. That sucked. But hey, at least I made it home safely. I went and replaced my tire this morning before work, and here I am writing for the Sorry State newsletter. Such is life.

Anyway, who cares, right? I did wanna mention again about a couple punk gigs coming up in Raleigh. Hopefully Daniel will have the flyers attached in the newsletter. Here’s some deets:

-April 2nd: Paprika (NOLA), Homemade Speed (VA), Scarecrow @ The Pour House

-April 24th: Jail (Detroit), Scarecrow, Paranoid Maniac @ Neptunes

Okay, staff pick time. So, we recently got a huge order in from Radiation. Daniel always tries to stock a bunch of fresh reissues of punk classics. And inevitably, you fine Sorry State customers see the gaggle of killer records and snatch ‘em up super quickly! This round, Daniel got a big ol’ stack of copies of Keep Laughing, the debut LP by the amazing Rich Kids on LSD. To my surprise, it looks like we haven’t sold any copies yet. Not 1?? I’m not here to shame anyone for sleeping on what I consider a killer hardcore record… I’m just surprised, that’s all.

I started pondering to myself, what is it about this record that might make it avoided by you punks who are hungry for reissues? Does this record have strikes against it? Sure. On the contrary, however, it feels like the band’s debut EP It’s A Beautiful Feeling is regarded as an all-time classic ripper these days. The band’s spinny-cap mascot and cartoony aesthetic was present on the 7”, but the art was in black and white, so it looks more classic. The art and color scheme for Keep Laughing does look a bit corny, I must admit. Even on Rock ’N’ Roll Nightmare, the full-color, psychedelic trip surrounding the dudes drinking beers in lawn chairs makes for a more appealing album cover. Also, there is that unfortunate rap section in “Ded Ted’s.” Woof. But beneath the cartoony aesthetic, RKL had some monster musicians in the band. I feel like the genre tag of “Nardcore” sometimes gets an unfortunate negative connotation. For me, RKL stands leaps and bounds above all the other bands from that scene/era.

I know for years, when I was a kid, I was totally confused about Keep Laughing being RKL’s first full-length. The first thing I ever purchased by the band was a CD called Keep Laughing - The Best of RKL. It had like 25 songs on it, so for years I just assumed Keep Laughing was just the band’s compilation album. Years later, becoming more wise to the band’s discography, I realized that the 10 or so songs on Keep Laughing are a pretty bullet proof track listing. This reissue we’re currently stocking at Sorry State is on No Futuro Records, so I can only assume this is a “euro import” *winkwink. But the track listing is true to the original LP.

Even for being a record originally released on Mystic, I always thought this album had decent production. This particular pressing sounds great too. Very clear. Great guitar tones. Bommer’s insane drumming really shines on this record. Moreso than the 7”, you can hear a lot of the metallic/rocked out influence working its way into the band’s songwriting. When I was a teenager, I always thought of “Think Positive” as RKL’s signature song. The breakdown part in that song sounds like something Iron Maiden would write or something. The guitar solos are outta control; there’s lead licks I still try to rip off to this day haha. But I think unlike Rock ’N’ Roll Nightmare, the songs aren’t so proggy that it’s difficult for the listener to digest. The songs on Keep Laughing are aggressively played with virtuosity, but still incredibly hooky. I also think this is Jason Sears’ ultimate vocal performance. He sounds absolutely vicious, but hasn’t quite added that element of crooning yet. The snarl he leads in with on “Feelings Of Hate” is peak form hardcore singing in my book. And quick side note before I dip out. Listening to this, I can’t help but think about how much RKL sounds like Government Warning. I remember reading someone describing GW as a mix of Adolescents and FU’s, which I admit I can hear a little bit. But man, everything about RKL, the vocal style, riffing and drumming to me sound directly influential on GW’s style. Whatever, maybe silly to bring up, but it just occurred to me as I was wrapping up.

So yeah, if you’ve been sleeping on Keep Laughing by RKL, I think you might be missing out on a hardcore classic. Just sayin’. Give it a shot. Can’t beat it for $20.

That’s all I’ve got this week. As always, thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time with unedited recordings of old media. I think I mentioned in a previous staff pick that I read a book about John Peel that had me listening to recordings of his old shows (thankfully there are dozens, if not hundreds, that are easy to find on YouTube), and somehow or another I’ve also gotten into watching old episodes of Headbanger’s Ball. There used to be a ton of these on YouTube, but it looks like at some point most of them were scrubbed from the site. Anyone know where I can watch more episodes?

Last night, rather than doing anything worthwhile, I watched this entire two-hour episode from 1988. This episode is unique because it doesn’t feature a host. Instead, the space normally devoted to Riki Rachtman’s patter is turned over entirely to excerpts from an interview with Axl and Slash from Guns N Roses (Axl is identified as “W. Axl Rose…” I didn’t remember that being a thing). I think the interview is pretty interesting. It’s very candid, and the band talks openly about doing drugs and other things that would have been racy for national TV in the late 80s. Besides the bad boy content you’d expect, they also go into detail about their songwriting process, which is cool to hear. But mostly the interview is kind of cringe, which is honestly refreshingin an age where most everything you see online is very self-aware and polished.

The videos they play on this episode are kind of what you’d expect from 1988… a lot of big hair and power ballads. Poison kicks things off with “Fallen Angel,” a song I hadn’t thought about in decades, but I still remembered every lyric. It’s honestly pretty good as far as Poison songs go, and when you compare it to the other videos in the episode, it’s clear how much Poison had going for them. The video has strong production values (even though it looks like they shot it on the same soundstage as their other videos from the period), and all the band’s members are animated and charismatic. Other artists clearly were not so well-suited to the video age. This episode features the King Diamond track “Welcome Home” (GRANDMAAAAAAA!), but it’s funny how whenever King Diamond himself shows up in the video, he’s out of focus or bathed in special effects. The poofily coiffed band members are rocking out in full view, but it’s almost like they’re trying to hide King Diamond from the camera. He really looks like a relic from a much earlier era of rock. Even a band like Damien, who is like 90% there, just really falls short of the mark. They have a cool set for their miming footage (it looks like the warehouse rehearsal space in Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” video) and the “plot” part of the video is well-shot (if kind of difficult to follow), but the band just doesn’t have the looks and charisma of a Poison or Guns N Roses.

Other fails are even more pronounced. The Scorpions’ “I Believe in Love” attempts to carve out some kind of niche for geopolitically aware mom rock, but the “Winds of Change” lightning didn’t strike twice. I can’t help but feel bad for all the Russians going to their concert… wouldn’t they rather be watching G’n’R? The Vinnie Vincent Invasion video (a horror movie tie-in a la Dokken’s “Dream Warriors”) isn’t as hilariously try-hard as the one for their song “Boyz Are Gonna Rock,” but there’s something smarmy and obnoxious about VV on camera that instantly tanks his videos. Plus, the director clearly wants to give the pretty-boy singer all the attention, but Vinnie’s name is the one on the checks, resulting in a weird power struggle running through the video. I was unfamiliar with the band Femme Fatale, but their soundstage-shot video is so painfully generic it’s not surprising I don’t remember them. Another band I’d never heard of, Masi, also leans heavily on cliche, but they mix it with incongruously gritty social realist footage and film school cleverness in a way that comes off as clunky and weird. Plus, the band has this mocking tone to their performances that reads as smug. You have to sell the audience the illusion that you care. That’s why Def Leppard’s video is all choppin’ broccoli faces.

A classic part of the Headbanger’s Ball / 120 Minutes experience is staying awake until the end of the episode in case they throw a bone to the real rockers. This episode features a video for “Ace of Spades,” and it’s so fucking cool. Even though Motorhead’s promo clip is from a totally different time and place than the prime hair-era clips, the band is so fucking sick and timelessly cool that they easily outclass everyone else. The very last clip on the episode is “Nursing Home Blues” from D.R.I., which is pretty sick in principle. The song is from Dealing with It, but the video’s footage is from the Crossover tour. It’s cool that it looks like a legit hardcore show, but in that kind of environment you can’t achieve the slickness you get from shooting Poison on a dedicated soundstage. There’s this one ridiculous part of the video during the guitar solo… they must not have gotten any good footage of the guitarist rocking out (it looks like maybe the camera person is stuck behind them), so the camera just hangs for this interminably long shot of the drummer… during the climactic, flashy guitar solo. Womp, Womp.

The commercials are also a trip. This broadcast was from Texas, but the local personalities populating the local commercials are very similar to the ones I would see on my local station in eastern Virginia. More often than not, these local spots are laugh-out-loud hilarious, as they should be. I was amazed how clunky some of the national spots were, though. The ads for VHS tapes of recently released movies were pretty rough, and while the Sports Illustrated ad that airs several times has strong production values, its premise is extremely hokey, and by the second time you’ve seen it, it’s worn well past thin. A speaking of seeing ads too much, the ads for Redken hair products were driving me nuts by the end of this two-hour video. And to think I used to sit in front of MTV for days on end, watching the same ads (and videos… fuck you forever, “Black Hole Sun”) over and over and over and over…

I bet you weren’t expecting a detailed critique of a Headbanger’s Ball episode from 1988 in this week’s newsletter, but that’s where my head is at. I’ll try to get back to some killer punk rock next week.

Hello Sorry Staters! We have been busy putting together Subculture pre orders (if you got a shirt they turned out so good!) and (finally) sending out our Alvilda preorders in the world after too long of a wait. After a terrible start to the new year, I have wanted nothing but positive things in my life. This includes music. I have turned my efforts to educate myself on music from other countries and other time periods. This week I have been checking out a lot of Japanese city pop. If this music doesn’t fill you with some type of joy and makes you look forward to warmer days, I don’t know what will.

One album that really caught my attention as I was digging through tons of reddit threads and different compilations for some starting points was an album called Sons Of 1973 by the band Satellite Lovers.

This record encapsulates the “Shibuya-kei” or Shibuya style. The music is a dreamy, slow-tempo, funky style that was popular is in Japan in the 90s. The vocals are very reminiscent of Sheryl Crow, but backed by a funkier dream pop band.

The record never got any traction in the 90s and never got popular, but apparently this album was uploaded to youtube a couple years ago and has completely blown up since then. This record was never released in the US and also never on vinyl.

Here’s hoping for a reissue soon! If you have made it this far thank you for reading about not punk and following my journey of diving into music I have never heard of. Cheers! Until next week!

What’s up Sorry State readers? I hope everyone has had a nice week. Billy Strings just wrapped up a six night run up in the mountains of Asheville spread across two weekends and it was an absolute barn burner. No songs repeats over the six nights either, which I have big respect for. I had the pleasure of attending the first three nights and had a ball. I’m sure everyone reading this is aware of the hurricane that struck the area a few months back and completely destroyed certain parts, so it was nice to spend some time up there and support local businesses as best as we could. If you’re familiar with Asheville, you know that’s easy to do as it’s full of incredible restaurants of all types. We stayed right in the middle of downtown, so it was nice to just walk to and from everywhere and we got lucky with 70 degree weather all weekend. Anyways, the shows were incredible. It’s no secret Billy loves Asheville and NC as a whole, as they play here all the time throughout the year. I think bluegrass and folk music is so ingrained in the history of NC that you can just feel it in the air. As Billy put it, “you can walk down the street here and everyone knows who Doc Watson is.” I always appreciate at NC shows how he pays respect to the legends that came before him by playing lots of old timey traditionals and folk standards. This time I caught a song I’ve been wanting to hear forever and finally got it as the encore the first night, Salty Dog Blues. A folk song dating back to the early 1900s that’s been covered by countless artists like Misssissippi John Hurt, Lead Belly, Doc Watson, Flatt and Scruggs… the list goes on. It’s debated what the song is really about: “let me be your salty dog or I won’t be your little man at all.” I always heard it as a guy being like “I wanna be your man, but I also may be a bit of a dirty dawg.” It’s just a funny, tongue-in-cheek song and different lines and lyrics have been added in throughout the years, depending on which dirty dawg may be singing it. There were some pretty great lines from this version such as

“I like gravy, I like grits, I like girls with great big teeth”
“Two old men laying in the grass, one’s got a finger in the other man’s ear”
“I met a girl and she was willin, now I’m taking penicillin”

I think y’all may get the gist of it now. I’ve really worn my girlfriend out with that grits line. To wrap it all up, it was a great weekend full of incredible music and it was awesome to see the streets of Asheville full of life and happiness again after a historic and unimaginable natural disaster and the hard months that followed. Thanks Bill!

Hi and thanks for reading. I saw we had this reissue of ANTI-CIMEX’s s/t 12” in stock and I wanted to write about it a bit. I’m sure everyone knows this record, aka Criminal Trap. This specific reissue was done by Nada Nada Discos / Spicoli Discos over a decade ago now, and that’s why I wanted to mention it. I think you can still pick up all the CIMEX 12”s on that label Back on Black, but to be honest I have never checked those reissues out. I’m guessing they are kept in print? I am not sure.

I remember when this reissue of their self-titled came out, er really when they were reissuing every CIMEX record. It was a huge deal, at least to me, haha. I think it was the first time any of this shit was ever being properly reissued, especially in the replica-type format. Shit man, I remember riding my bike up to the record shop back in Indy, Vibes Music, to order the Victims of a Bombraid and Raped Ass reissues off the computer there. My silly ass didn’t have internet at home, and I definitely did not have a smart phone back then. I was so excited I bought five copies of each Raped Ass cover variant, haha. Whoever fulfilled my order probably thought I was an idiot, but I made a lot of friends happy over the years with those copies. All these reissues done by Nada Nada Discos / Spicoli Discos were super-duper nice, easily the best CIMEX reissues out there in my opinion. I think the 7” reissues they did were actually getting a bit hard to find, but luckily there was the box set reissue that came out a few years ago as well.

Anyway, I remember picking up this reissue of their self-titled and it is killing me right now that I can’t find it. I guess I sold it? I remember the cover being so nice. Just like how they did the foil printing on Victims of a Bombraid reissue (that the most recent box set reissue painfully lacked.) While the 7”s were more like replicas of originals, the 12”s they did added bonus shit. Inside the s/t I remember reading some liner notes from Charlie (drummer of ANTI-CIMEX) about the record. He confirmed “Make My Day” is a Clint Eastwood reference, haha. Maybe that didn’t seem as cheesy back then, but damn it just makes me think of my dad now or something, haha. And I remember him saying they re-recorded “Set Me Free” cos they didn’t like the sound on Victims of a Bombraid or something like that. Which is nuts to think about, cos that record rules.

I would say the s/t 12” captures CIMEX in their prime. I think their demos rip unbelievably hard, and obviously, nothing can beat Raped Ass (except for maybe GBG 1982…), but you hear how damn good they’ve gotten at their instruments when it comes to the s/t. Victims of a Bombraid is an absolutely killer EP, but following up Raped Ass is no easy task. The sound is still powerful, but in a different sense. The songwriting is more pulled-back and they have more of a heaviness to them. Really, I don’t think there is anything that sounds like it at the time. It’s like the perfect example of proper kång. Anyway, on the 12” I feel like they deliver this extra ferociousness Victims of a Bombraid was kinda missing. While they still have that heavier sound, they picked up the pace a bit and added some new elements to the mix. Namely, some proper guitar leads, a rocked-out mid-tempo track, and a whole new mofo to deliver some extra percussion. While today I would probably think seeing a guy on stage solely beating the shit outta stuff would be cheesy, ANTI-CIMEX delivered it with pure originality.

I’m guessing everyone has this record who is reading this? If you don’t - you need a copy, and this Nada Nada / Spicoli Discos reissue we have in stock is the one you want. Since I am on the topic of CIMEX, and I also wanted to mention quickly this demos 12” we have in stock. We’ve had these for a minute, and they’ve been recently marked down. If you don’t have this record, now is the time to scoop it for cheap. I think some people were turned off by the cover. Or obviously, do you really need yet another ANTI-CIMEX demos reissue? In this case, the answer is yes. I wrote about it when we initially stocked it, so you can read about why I think this is easily the BEST demos reissue if you want. Alright, I think that sums it up for this week. Thanks for reading.

Hey there Sorry Staters! Thanks for checking us out this week. We hope we find you well? It’s been another full and exciting week here at Sorry State. We continued to put more of the great records from our recent big collection purchase into your hands. Folks have been loving all these nice clean promo copies, especially all the copies still in the shrink with the hype stickers. You’d need a time machine to go back and find fresher looking copies. Still plenty more being added to the shop bins and our online stores.

This week saw the delivery of test pressings for the second Fugitive Bubble record, and we are all buzzing. It sounds great. Nice job, guys. Judging by responses from customers hearing it in the store, we think it should be a hit with a lot of you out there. Fingers crossed.

I was happy to finally get my hands on a copy of the Alvilda record, which has proved to be a hot nugget. Congratulations to the band and their label Static Shock on the hit. If you are still needing a copy for yourself, I believe we have secured more, and they should be with us soon. Keep an eye out and click on the notification update button by the record description on our webstore so you don’t miss out.

My personal listening has again been taken up with checking out more of the jazz albums we purchased in that big collection. This week I added a box of Pablo Jazz titles to our inventory, and although these 70s era jazz dates aren’t considered as desirable as some others, there is plenty of gold to be mined in these records. I am a huge Dizzy Gillespie fan and he cut some great progressive records for Pablo. He was an originator of the fusion of jazz with Afro-Cuban sounds and thirty-plus years later, he was still ahead of the curve. I have long been aware of how hip and funky Dizzy was in the 70s. His records on Perception are terrific, but for whatever reason I hadn’t heard all these later 1970s recordings. I’d highly recommend checking out one called Bahiana and another titled Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods. Both are terrific and feature wonderful playing from Dizzy and the assembled musicians. John Scott and I played one in the store that featured Dizzy alongside Lalo Schifrin, the wonderful pianist and composer from Argentina who has a resume as long as both my arms, but will be recognized as being the composer of soundtracks to films such as Bullitt, Dirty Harry, Enter The Dragon and for the original theme to TV show Starsky And Hutch. He has a ton of good records that typically incorporate Latin rhythms and styles, and he often gets funky. The one we listened to is called Free Ride and it was cut in early 1977. Worth checking out.

A lot of the best stuff we get at the store comes from the discerning taste of you, our friends, who will occasionally sell or trade with us. This week several interesting pieces came to us this way, and I thought I would stray from my jazz picks and talk about one record I had to pluck from a collection I was processing. It’s a repress of a record called Yes It Is, by Rockin’ Horse, that was originally released in the UK back in 1971 on Philips. This repress was done by a Spanish label a few years back. I can’t comment on how legit or not it may be, but they did a decent enough job, and it sounds fine. No extra bells and whistles, just a close repro of the original.

I was aware of this record from a CD reissue about twenty years ago and because by that time I was a fan of the main players and artists behind the album, namely Jimmy Campbell and Billy Kinsley. Both are from Liverpool and are rightfully considered legendary among those who dig 60s Merseybeat, Pop and Psych. Billy Kinsley is best known for being a member of the Merseybeats and then with band mate Tony Crane in The Merseys, who had a hit with the song Sorrow, later covered by David Bowie. Jimmy Campbell began with the beat group The Kirkbys, named after their locale in Merseyside. They put out a cracking song called It’s A Crime that demands top dollar on the collector’s circuit. I made do with a repro at DJ gigs in the past and always enjoyed spinning it out. Campbell later formed a psych group called The 23rd Turnoff, again a nod to their hometown. When driving up north on the M-6, Liverpool was the 23rd turnoff. Get it? Anyway, they released a nice pop-sike single called Michael Angelo that should have been a hit and a whole bunch of other songs that didn’t see the light of day until years later. There are a few different LP, CD and 7” EPs out there that gather up all these recordings. I have a CD which is cool, but it would be nice to pick up one or two of these other versions as there are improved fidelity and alternates on one or two songs.

Jimmy and Billy formed Rockin’ Horse in 1971 and put a band together to record just this one album. Label Philips also issued two singles. The group was purely a studio creation. Kinsley had been working for Apple Records, recording with Jackie Lomax and George Harrison, and was keeping busy recording cover versions of hit songs for the popular Top Of The Pops budget series of albums. The idea behind Rockin’ Horse was to say goodbye to the mop top sixties and usher in a more rocking seventies.

The album has been described as a continuation of the sound of Abbey Road and Let It Be by The Beatles and a missing link between Badfinger, The Aerovons and the power pop sounds of later 1970s groups. It certainly has that vibe, and if that’s what floats your boat you’ll find plenty to like here. I know the term power pop can turn some people off, but there is enough pedigree and good songwriting to make this an enjoyable listen. I’m obviously biased to begin with, having known and liked the artists previously, and am not afraid to say I like The Beatles and Badfinger and the like. But it really is a decent record. Naturally, it sunk without trace on release and its creators had already moved on to other ventures. Jimmy and Billy were part of the backing band for Chuck Berry’s European tour and then began working on their separate projects. Kinsley formed Liverpool Express and had success, particularly in South America.

Campbell released more solo albums. He had previously recorded an acoustic folk record at the tail end of the 60s for the Fontana label and after Rockin’ Horse had a couple of good ones on Vertigo and again Philips. I remember whilst working in the store in New York a guy selling us a box of sealed copies of Jimmy’s album Half Baked, which was cool. I like the song Green Eyed American Actress from that record, which has a bit more of a groove to it compared to the more folky and pop sounds of the rest of the album.

Whilst looking online for information about Rockin’ Horse. I discovered that an unreleased song called Lonely Norman had been issued as a reissue single recently. It’s a good tune and features Eddy Grant of The Equals on lead guitar. I shall have to find myself a copy of that at some point, I think. Meanwhile, there is plenty to enjoy for me on the album. Opener Biggest Gossip In Town is a great Beatlesque pop song. Closer Julian The Hooligan is a cool rocking one, and the love song Don’t You Think I Ever Cry is terrific also. Honestly, there isn’t a duff tune on the whole record. Jimmy Campbell writes most of the songs, with Billy Kinsley penning the remaining, making it an all-original song affair.

I’ve added a few YouTube links to some tunes for you to check them out. It doesn’t appear that the whole album is available, although I could be wrong. Regardless, these four songs should give you all you need to know and a decent taste of what to find on the rest of the album should you care.

Thanks for reading and a big thank you to Jordan who sold us his copy. I’m going to have to snag this copy, but it seems like the reissues are cheap and easy to find, although an original might set you back a little more.

Cheers - Dom

Morton Feldman: Rothko Chapel / For Frank O'Hara LP (Columbia Odyssey, 1976)

In his last few staff picks, Dominic has been telling you about the big collection we bought a few weeks ago. Last week, after we picked at it for several weeks, it was finally time to box up the less exciting stuff and move it to storage so it wouldn’t be in our way at the warehouse. As I was getting everything together and making a last sweep for good stuff for the store, I unboxed the 4 or 5 boxes of classical records that no one had really paid any attention to. While most of the collection was works by classical and early 20th century composers, I found a couple of minimalist bangers I couldn’t help bringing home. I’m always on the hunt for pleasant, relaxing music to play at home in the evening, so these records have gotten quite a lot of play.

Morton Feldman first came on my radar when I read an excellent book about John Cage a decade ago. Reading a book about John Cage is probably the best way for someone like me to appreciate him, as so many of his innovations were conceptual rather than strictly musical. Cage did for music what painters like Picasso did for visual art, questioning the medium’s fundamental assumptions in order to create something genuinely new. Cage’s contributions to music included his pieces for “prepared piano” (he would stick various items on and between the strings inside a piano to disrupt its normal ways of making sound, decades before Sonic Youth did similar things with their electric guitars) and his embrace of the idea of randomness in composition. Rather than viewing the composer’s intention as the soul of music, Cage relied on the I Ching to generate musical ideas, questioning the notion that the composer’s mind was the source of musical beauty. Morton Feldman was a frequently recurring character in the John Cage book, as the two were close friends who frequently bounced ideas off one another. I remember learning in the book that the two men initially bonded over their love for turn-of-the-20th-century French pianist and composer Erik Satie. Satie’s stark, slow-moving, and meditative compositions clearly pointed the way toward 20th-century minimalism. If you like slow, meditative music, do yourself a favor and pick up the next Satie record you see in a classical dollar bin. His “Gymnopédies” are particularly lovely.

“Rothko Chapel,” the piece that takes up the entire a-side of this LP, is a piece of music Feldman composed for the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. I’ve never been to the Rothko Chapel (though I’d very much like to), but I’ve spent a good amount of time in a similar space, the Rothko room at the Tate Modern in London. You might be familiar with Rothko’s most famous paintings, which are large canvases featuring fuzzy-edged squares of color, sometimes contrasting, sometimes closely complementary. It’s the kind of thing someone allergic to modern art would look at and say, “I could have painted these sloppy-ass squares,” but I love his work, particularly the darker, earthier pieces he did later in his life (Rothko died by suicide in 1970). When I visited the Rothko room at the Tate, the experience was powerful partially because it was so different from the usual museum experience. Usually galleries are big, open spaces with white walls and crisp lighting meant to reveal the subtleties in the works on display. This can make being in a museum an anxious experience, because it can sometimes feel like you’re on display yourself, being silently judged by the other people in the space. In contrast, the Rothko room is so dim that it allows you to disappear into anonymity, to let go of that self-consciousness and lose yourself in the painting. The paintings themselves invite that with their saturated fields of violet, crimson, and black. You can hardly see them until your eyes adjust to the light; if you want to get the full experience, you need to put in the time to let your body physically acclimate to the space. When that finally happens, you notice your heart rate is slower, the world is quieter, and your experience of the paintings is more intense. From what I understand, the Rothko Chapel in Houston cultivates a similar experience. While it’s called a chapel, the space is non-denominational and not affiliated with any religion. The Chapel is a space meant to foster empathy and understanding, and is sometimes used for conferences devoted to weighty subjects like peace, justice, and human rights that can be highly charged.

Even without the accompaniment of Rothko’s paintings, Feldman’s piece evokes that same feeling. The slow-moving piano figures recall Satie’s work, but as the piece develops, a chorus joins in. While the choral melodies are as earthy as the colors in Rothko’s paintings, the human voices singing in close harmony get me in the feels, evoking the same choked-up feeling I get from a massive church choir, but it’s not ecstatic feeling… it’s deliberate, measured, even cerebral. It makes you feel like if we can just slow down and really listen, we can make the world a better place. Like many of you, lately I’ve been beset by the feeling that the world is crumbling around me, so brief moments of hope like this are even more valuable.