In The Red

Divine Horsemen

Bitter End Of A Sweet Night

In The Red

The renaissance of Divine Horsemen—which began in 2021 with In The Red’s release of Hot Rise Of An Ice Cream Phoenix, the legendary Los Angeles punk band’s first release in 33 years—continues with a thrilling and unexpected new album, Bitter End Of A Sweet Night. The new sixteen-track collection again features the band’s co-founding members, singers-songwriters Chris Desjardins (better known as Chris D.) and Julie Christensen, and the core members of the ferocious Hot Rise band—guitarist / co-writer Peter Andrus (a member of the group’s late ’80s lineup), bassist Bobby Permanent and X’s nonpareil drummer DJ Bonebrake. The sound is filled out by Green On Red and Dream Syndicate keyboardist Chris Cacavas (who appeared on the 1984 Chris D. / Divine Horsemen album Time Stands Still) and classically trained violinist Elizabeth Wilson. Desjardins produced the album. Divine Horsemen’s dramatic In The Red bow and a 2020 archival set of club performances from 1985 and 1987, issued by Feeding Tube Records, reacquainted listeners with their stormy power and eclectic roots-punk musicianship, which diversified the searing approach taken by Desjardins’ previous band, foundational L.A. punk unit the Flesh Eaters. (Christiansen had previously regrouped with her former husband and musical partner Desjardins on I Used to Be Pretty, the 2018 album that reunited the 1980 “all-star” Flesh Eaters lineup.) Reaction to the group’s rebirth was rapturous. Jaime Pina of Punk Globe called Hot Rise Of An Ice Cream Phoenix “brilliant,” adding, “The music is lush with both acoustic and electric guitars and the...

Kid Congo Powers

Sings The Subsonics

In The Red

Kid Congo Powers has seen fit to cover two songs by Atlanta garage rock legends the Subsonics and release them on seven inch vinyl—the way God intended rock 'n' roll to be heard. Kid’s scuzzy, noisy renditions do the originals proud and are guaranteed to make one want to get up, dance and behave badly. Housed in a gaudy full color sleeve and pressed on kaleidoscopic tricolor vinyl.

Salmon, Kim & The Surrealists

Rantings From The Book Of Swamp

In The Red

In the Red Records will proudly present the U.S. edition of Rantings from the Book of Swamp, the freewheeling eighth studio release by Australia’s magnificent and unpredictable Kim Salmon and the Surrealists, as a two-LP. The Surrealists were formed by the Scientists’ singer-songwriter-guitarist Kim Salmon in 1987, betwixt the last two tours by the original incarnation of that pathfinding Perth-bred band. The Surrealists had been dormant in recent years, as the bandleader focused his energy on recording and touring with a reunited lineup of the Scientists featuring guitarist Tony Thewlis, bassist Boris Sujdovic, and drummer Leanne Cowie, who had recorded the career-summarizing 1986 LP Weird Love. (In 2021, In the Red issued Negativity, a new album by that unit, to wide acclaim.) In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown settled around the globeSalmon reconvened with bassist/baritone guitarist Stu Thomas and drummer Phil Collings, who had appeared on the Surrealists’ 2010 release Grand Unifying Theory, the group’s most recent record. As with that work, the new material was created live on the studio floor, and emphasized improvisation in both its structure and content. “The premise for this recording,” Salmon explains, “was that at its commencement the band members would come prepared with no other material than whatever ideas they might be able to individually bring. The lyrical content was all derived from my notebooks (Book of Swamp) from sketches I’d been jotting down over the last couple of years. There was to be no consultation about musical forms until the event...

Osees

Intercepted Message

In The Red

“A pop record for tired times. Sugared with bits of shatterproof glass to put more crack in your strap. At long last, verse / chorus. A weathered thesaurus. This is OSEES bookend sound. Early grade garage pop meets proto-synth punk suicide-repellant. Have a whack at the grass or listen while flat on your ass. Heaps of electronic whirling accelerants to gum up your cheapskate broadband. Social media toilet scrapers unite! Allow your 24-hour news cycle eyes to squint at this smiling abattoir doorman. You can find your place here at long last. All are welcome from the get go to the finale…a distant crackling transmission of 80s synth last-dance-of-the-night tune for your lost loves. Suffering from Politic amnesia? Bored of AI-generated pop slop? Then this one is for you, our friends. Wasteland wanderer, stick around. Love y’all. For fans of Teutonic synth punk and Thee Oh Sees (who the fuck are they?)" —John Dwyer

Double, The

Relaxin' In The Jungle / Egyptian Double

In The Red

Brand new 7-inch from the incredible duo The Double. Their first release since their debut album Dawn Of The Double in 2016. The Double are Emmett Kelly and Jim White—two dudes with resumes so massive it's not even worth bothering to try and drop names. For the recording session that produced this single they brought in bassist Matt Lux. The music The Double make is rhythmic, hypnotic and percussive. Says The Double of this new single, “after the Dance Craze, we took off to go relax in the jungle with our buddy Matt Lux”. 400 copies made.

Victims, The

Girls Don't Go For Punks / Victim

In The Red

Legendary Australian punk band The Victims regrouped in 2019 to play a handful of gigs and re-record a few of their old tunes. Four of the tunes were released on the Horror Smash EP on In The Red in 2019. Now, in celebration of their farewell gig in June of 2023, we have released the remaining two songs from their final recording session. Clocking in at barely two minutes total, this single is a punk rock scorcher. Packaged in a hand-stamped sleeve in tribute to the band’s debut single released in 1978. Comes in neon green or orange vinyl. Limited edition.

Side Eyes

What's Your Problem

In The Red

The Side Eyes are back with the follow up to their 2017 self-titled debut album and are asking the question What’s Your Problem? Anyone suspecting that the Southern California band may have mellowed out in the five years between albums will have those suspicions shattered within the first twenty seconds of the opening track “Get Me Out.” If anything, the band is now harder, faster and angrier than they were the first time around. Vocalist Astrid McDonald is in fiery fine form calling out everything from phonies to shit-talkers to people that simply aren’t nice. Brothers Kevin and Chris Devine on guitar and bass and drummer Sam Mankinen thunder through the twelve tracks here at a breakneck speed that is positively pummeling. While The Side Eyes sound like a throwback to early Southern California hardcore punk rock like Circle Jerks and the Adolescents, the band also sites more recent bands like Ceremony, Glue and Babes In Toyland as influences. Produced by Steve McDonald (Redd Kross / Melvins) and clocking in at under twenty minutes (while spinning at 45 RPM), What’s Your Problem is a modern punk rock gem that blows past the sonic barriers of their past inspirations. This is great stuff!

Wolfmanhattan Project

Summer Forever And Ever

In The Red

Summer Forever And Ever succeeds Blue Gene Stew, 2019’s debut by the Wolfmanhattan Project, a collective unit co-starring three musicians familiar to In The Red listeners: singer-guitarist Mick Collins, front man of the seminal Detroit-bred garage units the Dirtbombs and the Gories, singer-guitarist Kid Congo Powers who played in such legendary bands as the Gun Club, the Cramps, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and drummer-vocalist Bob Bert, whose skin work has distinguished albums by Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, Lydia Lunch’s Retrovirus, and Jon Spencer and the HITmakers. The group was founded as a studio project by three musicians who are kept busy by their primary bands. Blue Gene Stew was written and recorded quickly. Powers says, “I think that the new record was much more a group effort. I think there’s more of a group kind of sound, as eclectic as it is. I feel like we all played together, as opposed to playing on each other’s songs.” Bert notes that the band’s music is grounded in spontaneity: “Me and Mick went in and had a couple of rehearsals, and I would come up with a beat, he would come up with a riff. I still have a cassette Walkman, believe it or not, and we’d put it down on that. It wasn’t even a full song. We’d just put down a bunch of ideas. When it came to recording we’d lay down the basic tracks and work out different things, and a lot of it was made...

Cutler, Paul B.

Les Fleurs

In The Red

Fans of the innovations and originality that sprang from the L.A. underground of the late 1970s and ’80s often ask, “What’s Paul B. Cutler been up to?” A vital participant in the Los Angeles music scene of that period as bandleader, songwriter, musician and producer, Cutler’s work—in particular his guitar playing—with The Consumers, 45 Grave, Vox Pop and The Dream Syndicate is still admired by fans and an influence on anyone interested in that period and the styles that developed from it. In 2014, “Ryan Adams contacted me and wanted to form a band. He loved 45 Grave, he wanted to do some goth / punk, whatever you want to call it. That’s right up my alley. He’s amazingly talented and inspiring to work with. We did that for a while, and I wrote a bunch of songs.” Enthused about his new material, Cutler continued recording songs with just his signature electric guitar style and vocals. As this was developing, another vet of the early L.A. scene—Brad Laner of Medicine and Savage Republic—got in touch with Cutler. Soon Laner was mixing, co-producing, playing keyboards as well as adding the rhythm section. The overall process took some time, with songwriting beginning in 2014. When reflecting on the music that comprises Les Fleurs, “To me, and it does not sound like it, but because of the philosophy I had while producing it, it’s punk. I come from the original punk, before it was a genre. Before it was a ‘sound.’ When I...

Cheater Slicks

Ill-Fated Cusses

In The Red

Cheater Slicks, the take-no-prisoners Columbus, Ohio-based trio, return to Los Angeles’ In The Red Records with the thrilling, musically diverse Ill-Fated Cusses, their first album in eight years and their first package for the label in twenty years. The ten-track collection follows Piano Tunnels, a freewheeling, improvisation-based benefit collaboration with vocalist Bill Gage, whom the band has known since the then newly-formed trio and the singer’s group BILL were working in the Boston area in 1987. Other players joined this record other than core members Tom and Dave Shannon and Dana Hatch. Will Foster, who recorded the record, is heard playing various keyboards and MIDI instrument emulations on the finished record. Most interestingly, James Arthur, of Fireworks and the Necessary Evils, was drafted to play bass, and he appears on every song on the album. Cheater Slicks had not deviated from the two-guitars-and-drums formula since its early days in Boston, when bassists Dina Pearlman, Allen “Alpo” Paulino of the Real Kids, and Merle Allin, brother of the notorious GG Allin, all rotated through the group. After thirty-five years in business, it makes about as much sense to pigeonhole Cheater Slicks as simply a “garage-rock band” as it would to call the Rolling Stones a “blues band.” Ill-Fated Cusses, more than any other album in the group’s discography, explores a broad musical palette on its nine original songs and one cover, Memphis rockabilly icon Charlie Feathers’ stark barroom murder ballad “Cold Dark Night.” This latest chapter in the Cheater Slicks saga...

C.I.A., The

Surgery Channel

In The Red

“Step into a sick rhythm. And I mean sickly. Surgery Channel is a constructed world where everything is piercing and pinpointed. Every single word brings confrontation. With an intro as intimate and uncomfortable as this, The C.I.A. make you question what could be happening here…or what they’re after. Denée Segall (vocals, lyrics) is both haunting and seducing us at once with her voice. Something unhinged might be about to happen and they’re calmly dangling it over your head. Is it the possibility of dismemberment? Revenge? “There is something about Surgery Channel that is sterile and covered in dirt at the same time. Maybe it’s the feeling of simultaneous anger and defeat. Maybe it’s what comes after. Or maybe it’s about the ever-so-brief silent spaces between notes and words. Rhythm would be nothing without empty space. Words are rhythm at The C.I.A. “There’s nothing wishy washy about The C.I.A. or the way they sound. It’s all about precision and aim But really, it’s a warning... amplified by the suspense of tick-tocking drum machine beats that resemble a hospital room. Ty Segall (bass, percussion, back up vocals) and Emmett Kelly (bass, synth, back up vocals) have painted a jarring and dissonant landscape behind Denée’s story. Their basses could easily be swapped for bone drills and you might not be able to tell the difference. Emmett’s modular synth envisions an environment reminiscent of the instrument itself, a mess of wires and pulsing red lights. Ty’s subtle use of electronic and analog percussion fluctuates...

Skull Practitioners

Negative Stars

In The Red

Hard-hitting new collection succeeds the trio’s rampaging 2019 In The Red Debut EP Death Buy! Proving once again that “power trio” isn’t just a descriptive handle from the distant past but a louder-than-God 21st-Century reality, the devastating New York band Skull Practitioners bow Negative Stars, their first full-length album for In The Red Records. The eight-track collection is the second release for Los Angeles-based trio—guitarist Jason Victor, bassist Kenneth Levine, and drummer Alex Baker—who collectively produced the record, with Ted Young engineering (and Baker handling engineering on vocal sessions). Brooklyn Vegan said, “If you dig early ’80s L.A. dusty punk like Gun Club, X and Flesh Eaters, or the many works of Jon Spencer, you will want to check out these four ripping, ripped-up tracks.” Rock And Roll Globe described the music as “Gun Club fugues played by anxious Amphetamine Reptile Records ghosts deciding they’d prefer to continue to walk the earth.” Negative Stars is the culmination of years of work in New York’s clubs and studios. “I don’t like to say the date we started working together,” says Levine, “but the second Bush was still president.” At the time, Victor had already established himself as the dazzling co-lead guitarist for Steve Wynn and the Miracle Three; when Wynn revived his ’80s L.A. Paisley Underground consortium the Dream Syndicate in 2017, Victor took the guitar chair previously occupied by Karl Precoda and Paul Cutler. Baker had only recently arrived from Cincinnati. With their album finally complete and the pandemic lifting,...

Lunadon, Dion

Beyond Everything

In The Red

After releasing his self-titled debut album in 2017, Dion Lunadon (The D4, ex-A Place To Bury Strangers) and In The Red Records is proud to release his sophomore album, Beyond Everything. Beyond Everything will be Lunadon’s first release on In The Red (an ideal match for his music), as well as his first full-length since departing A Place To Bury Strangers. Written, performed and recorded by himself, the songs tap into a raw, palpable energy that blur the line between the music and the person. Drums on the record were played by Blaze Bateh (Bambara) and Nick Ferrante (The Black Hollies). Lunadon says; “The record was written and recorded sporadically between 2017 and 2019. I probably wrote about one hundred songs during this period. The first album was pretty relentless which I liked, but I wanted to make something more dynamic for the second record. Something that could be more conducive to repeated listens. I’d get in my studio, come up with a song title, and start working on any ideas that I had. For example, with ‘Elastic Diagnostic,’ the idea was to create a hum that evokes the sound of life coursing through your body. Everything else kind of formed around that idea.” “An arresting, noise-infected dose of psych-garage.” on “It’s The Truth”—Brooklyn Vegan “An amped up garage psych ripper.” on “Living And Dying With You”—Brooklyn Vegan “A ferocious rocker.” on “Living And Dying With You”—Destroy Exist “A gritty and raw glam-like anthem centered around chugging power chords, Lunadon’s...

Kid Congo & The Near Death Experience

Live In St. Kilda

In The Red

Live In St. Kilda is a twelve song live album from a one-time-only show in which Kid Congo Powers was backed by The Near Death Experience. Kid Congo says, “How did I hook up with The Near Death Experience you may ask? One fine day Kim Salmon, my long time Scientists Surrealist Beast of a friend, wrote from Australia to ask me to play at his book launch for his biography Nine Parts Water, One Part Sand: Kim Salmon And The Formula For Grunge on November 9th, 2019. The launch was to take place at the Memo Music Hall in St. Kilda, a seaside suburb of Melbourne. A royal command performance for the king of Kim? How could I say no to such an honor? What to do about a band? It did not take more than a minute for each of us to suggest Harry Howard and The Near Death Experience as the logical choice. I was a massive fan of the band already and we shared crossed paths as expats claiming out our musical in 1980s London. Harry with Crime And The City Solution and These Immortal Souls, Dave and Clare with The Moodists, Kim with the Scientists and me with Gun Club and Fur Bible. Needless to say it was fantastical to get together and make a playlist for Kim featuring covers by Suicide and Shangri-La, with mine and NDE’s songs as well. The night was magic—I still am floating on a surrealistic pillow remembering the night....

Zabrecky

Seance! With Zabrecky

In The Red

“The title of the green glow-in-the-dark vinyl record is not merely a title: it is the first step on a journey to exploring the spirit realm with Zabrecky as your tour guide—just in time for Halloween. On the off chance that you are unfamiliar with the work of Mr. Zabrecky, it will behoove you to know that that he’s had one of the most illustrious, interesting and eclectic careers imaginable. He first came into the public eye in the 1990’s while fronting the popular angst-ridden pop punk combo Possum Dixon. Unlike other artists, his quick, quirky intelligence and onstage intensity didn’t result in a solo rock’n’roll career, but directed him to explore far more esoteric avenues. His later incarnations—all fueled by the same fascinating power—lead him to become an actor, a world famous award-winning magician, mentalist, author and professional auctioneer. Equal parts persuasive snake oil salesman and unctuous supernatural aficionado, he is possessed—[ ] pun intended—of an odd, slightly eerie sense of humor...or perhaps it is that Zabecky is dead serious—and his convictions are merely perceived as humor? “For well over a decade, within the mysterious, chain and shackle- bedecked walls of The Houdini Room at The Magic Castle, Zabrecky has conducted literally hundreds of seances. One day in the not-so-distant past, Zabrecky had a revelation...or was it advice whispered from The Beyond? ‘It occurred to me that people could conduct their own séances in the comfort of their living spaces or in nearly any space,’ Zabrecky said. Harking...

Linda Lindas, The

Ep

In The Red

In The Red is proud to announce the 12-inch vinyl release of six songs from The Linda Lindas’ early recording sessions on beautiful color vinyl variants that were specifically picked by each member of the band. The group released the tracks digitally a year ago and have since become instant sensations when their song “Racist, Sexist Boy” went viral—now everyone knows how awesome they are. In The Red were already huge fans of the band and are thrilled to be giving these songs the vinyl treatment. This release will be priming the pump for their debut album which will be out later in 2022 on Epitaph. “I first had my mind blown by The Linda Lindas at a Save The Music in Chinatown Event. The series of concerts was meant to raise funds for the music program at Castelar Elementary School in Chinatown. At that point, the girls played covers of popular punk songs and traded instruments. They played with skill, joy and zero pretense. The children in the audience danced and chased each other around to the music. As I recall, the old timers in the audience included OG members of the Adolescents, the Dils, the Zeros, the Alley Cats, Nervous Gender, and of course the Bags. We were all smiling from ear to ear during the entire set, recognizing that punk spirit of fearlessness and an eagerness to take on the world.” —Alice Bag

Kinman, Chip

The Great Confrontation

In The Red

“Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus is attributed with the quote ‘The only constant in life is change' and nothing sums up Chip Kinman’s latest creation—or his entire career—quite as well. Like each of Chip’s musical incarnations, The Great Confrontation seemingly has no connection whatsoever to the work that preceded it...unless the listener is savvy enough to spot the deeply buried but always present through lines.  “The tracks on this album are wildly alien in every applicable sense of the word. The opener, ‘Let’s Go, Dark Shark’ sets the scene with drippy, space age chirping that slowly degenerates into slo-mo sludge like an astronaut running out of oxygen. ‘Ciao Raggazzi’—not to be confused with Jay And The Americans’ ‘Good Bye Boys, Good Bye (Ciao Raggazzi, Ciao)’ is a derailing train of a song. The vocals are spoken in Italian and presumably, snatches of conversation sampled from a Mafia crime film.  ‘Speaking of crimes, Chip murders a couple of standards in cold blood purely for his own amusement. Both are traditional and absolutely unrecognizable. ‘Round About Danny’ is his take on the Irish ballad ‘Danny Boy’, written in 1913 and recorded relentlessly through the years by everyone from Judy Garland to Conway Twitty. The other’s a gospel hymn, ‘Will The Circle Be Unbroken’, originally performed by The Carter Family in the 1920s. “Imagine both songs sans vocals, filtered through a particle accelerator beam shot by a rogue robot from a 1950’s sci-fi B movie. Then pretend they got reinterpreted by a...

Spencer, Jon & The Hitmakers

Spencer Gets It Lit

In The Red

The incredible, indelible Jon Spencer (Blues Explosion, Boss Hog, Pussy Galore, Heavy Trash, etc) is back with the incendiary HITmakers—and with his hottest record yet! Spencer Gets It Lit is classic Jon Spencer taken to the extreme—electro-boogie, constructivist art pop, and a psychedelic swamp of industrial sleaze and futurist elegance. It is an epic master work of freak beat from the world’s weirdest garage. Across brain-boggling layers of fury, fuzz guitar, and a crash-bang battery of phaser blasts, photon torpedoes, and otherworldly zounds, he frantically spits, croons, rhapsodizes, and seduces. Spencer Gets It Lit is his most complex and groovy record in years, a dark, danceable odyssey—both a studied take-down of the early 21st century, and a celebration of the place where electricity meets the mind.  Thirteen wicked hot songs of love, loss, lust, life—from the Farfisa-fueled, warped psycho-punk rave-up of “Junk Man,” to the intimate lover’s plea of “My Hit Parade,” to the outer-space, end-of-days country funk of “Worm Town,” Spencer Gets It Lit delivers all of the friction, excitement, and post-modern depravity one could ever ask for! Says Spencer, “Send out the Hit Signal! This is the most uncompromising album I’ve ever made!”

Lamere, Liz

Keep It Alive

In The Red

Liz Lamere has announced her debut album Keep It Alive via In The Red. After collaborating with late partner Alan Vega (Suicide) for over three decades on his solo work, and starting out playing drums in punk bands, she is releasing her own music. All of the music and lyrics were written and performed by Liz Lamere. It was recorded in her lower Manhattan apartment during lockdown, engineered by her and Alan’s son Dante Vega Lamere in the same space where the Suicide singer constructed his light sculptures. They emerged with a riveting set of songs that are charged with an irrepressible lust for life and the feel for the contagious hook. The album was then co-produced and mixed by Jared Artaud and Liz Lamere, with Ted Young engineering the mixing sessions and Josh Bonati mastering. “There’s something very magical about creating music in the same environment where Alan created his visual art,” notes Lamere. “His energy is pervasive and is inevitably infused in the recordings.” She continues: “We were living through unprecedented times and Keep It Alive took adversity and uncertainty and turned it into a message of resilience and empowerment.” The album courses with the defiant energy that motivated Lamere through her early double life as both Wall Street lawyer and downtown New York musician before meeting and falling in love with Vega led to her becoming his manager, creative foil and keyboard manipulator on solo albums beginning in 1990 (Deuce Avenue, Power On To Zero Hour, New...

Gage, Bill & Cheater Slicks

Piano Tunnels

In The Red

Bill Gage is a quasi-famous singer with a raw, rock ’n’ roll voice. Cheater Slicks are an infamous, raw, rock ’n’ roll band. Put the two together and the resulting album is a stream-of-conscious stew of wild, fuzz-drenched rock ’n’ roll!  Some history: both Cheater Slicks and Bill Gage’s band BILL began in Boston in 1987, and it was sometime around then that Gage first sang with Tom and David Shannon playing guitars, in Gage’s bedroom in Laconia, New Hampshire. It was an intense and primal sound that was not forgotten by those involved.  Gage’s singing has been compared to Captain Beefheart, David Thomas, Damo Suzuki, and Yoko Ono. However, Gage clearly has his own sound, which includes guttural yells, sweet crooning, and bluesy meanderings—all seemingly told from a tarpaper shack porch under the oceans of Mars.  Cheater Slicks have from the start been a brain-melting rock ‘n’ roll dream / nightmare of a band. Steeped in the wild guitar interplay and pounding drums of classic noisy underground rock groups (Cramps, Scientists, Velvet Underground), they have created their own unique and ever-evolving style that has only gotten deeper and sharper over the years.  In spring 2018, when Cheater Slicks were presented with the idea of a collaborative record with Gage, they wasted no time, and began writing and arranging new songs for the project. Gage traveled to Columbus to record at the legendary Musicol studios in November of that year. It was a great session and...

Des Demonas

Cure For Love EP

In The Red

“On Des Demonas’ new seven-track EP Cure For Love there’s a whalloping drum beat driving everything. But the throbbing, pumping bass, clanging, slashing guitar and whirling, swirling Farfisa are no mere passengers in this vehicle! I’m told by the other band members Paul [Vivari], Joe [Halladay], Mark [Cisneros] and Ryan [Hicks] that vocalist Jacky Cougar Abok is the loudest drummer they’ve ever heard. “But here he sings! In motifs. He sings out a beat, he sings minimalist melodic hooks. He half speaks/half shouts his lyrical content in rapid fire that is closer to beat poetry than rap. His voice is insistent and demanding to be heard! And it is! By having it slightly submerged, the listener is forced to strain to hear the words because they won’t wanna miss something important! “The sonic fuel of the band is a blend of post-punk, punk, funk, blues, psych-rock, Afrobeat, even bubble-gum—but the noise you hear is pure Des Demonas! “Titles like the ‘Ballad Of Ike & Tina’ and ‘Black Orpheus Blues’ add to the intrigue rather than explain the content. The listener is both confronted and lured by something bigger than themselves! Desire, intrigue, fear and exuberance are the rewards to those unable to resist! But will yout love be cured? “You could look to Shakespeare, or simpler, you could buy this record and find out!” —Kim Salmon

Meatbodies

333

In The Red

Over the course of the decade, Meatbodies’ Chad Ubovich has been a perennial candidate for MVP of West Coast’s fertile rock scene. The LA native could be seen peeling off guitar solos in Mikal Cronin’s backing band, supplying the Sabbath-sized low end for Ty Segall and Charlie Moothart as the bassist for Fuzz, and, of course, fronting his own Meatbodies. Today the recently dormant experimental noise / freak-rock outfit has announced their return with 333—a corrosive stew of guitar scuzz, raw acoustic rave-ups, and primitive electronics that charts Ubovich’s journey from drug-induced darkness to clear-eyed sobriety. 333 simultaneously reflects on how the world he re-entered was still pretty messed up—if not more so. “These lyrics are dark, but I think these are things that a lot of people are feeling and going through” he says. “Here in America, we’re watching the fall of U.S. capitalism, and 333 is a cartoonish representation of that decline.”  In mid to late 2019, the band—Ubovich and drummer Dylan Fujioka—had a new album in the can, ready to be mixed. But when COVID hit, like so many other artists, they put their release on hold as they rode out the pandemic’s first wave. During that idle time, Ubovich discovered a cache of demos that he and Fujioka had recorded in a bedroom back in the summer of 2018, and he really liked what he heard. In contrast to Meatbodies’ typical full-band attack, it was deliriously disordered. “It sounded gross, like a scary Magical Mystery Tour,”...

Divine Horsemen

Hot Rise Of An Ice Cream Phoenix

In The Red

Los Angeles, California—Divine Horsemen, the fiery, eclectic ’80s group that rode the unique vocal chemistry of Chris Desjardins (a.k.a. Chris D.) and Julie Christensen, return to the musical stage with Hot Rise Of An Ice Cream Phoenix, a collection of all-new recordings. Co-produced by Desjardins and Craig Parker Adams (who engineered I Used To Be Pretty, the 2019 release by Chris D.’s groundbreaking ’70s punk band the Flesh Eaters), this new 13-track album comprises the first new music by the Horsemen in thirty-three years. Founded after the dissolution of the Flesh Eaters and launched with the 1984 Enigma Records album Time Stands Still, billed as Chris D./Divine Horseman, the band released three albums and an EP on SST Records, all of which featured the searing harmonies of Desjardins and Christensen, who were married at the time. The couple split professionally and personally just prior to the release of their January 1988 EP A Handful of Sand. However, the two musicians remained in touch over the years, and Christensen contributed vocals to five tracks on I Used To Be Pretty, which reunited the 1980 “all-star” edition of the Flesh Eaters heard on the Ruby/Slash classic A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die. By then, the idea of reviving Divine Horsemen was already percolating. Featuring onetime Divine Horsemen guitarist Peter Andrus, who had appeared on A Handful Of Sand and the 1987 album Snake Handler, and Bobby Permanent, the 2021 Divine Horsemen lineup is completed by drummer DJ Bonebrake of the...

Vega, Alan

After Dark

In The Red

2021 is shaping up to be the year of Alan Vega. Every year should be but, this year is definitely it. The announcement of the opening of the Alan Vega archives which will be unleashing an untold amount of unreleased material dating back to 1971 via Sacred Bones, the release of Mutator (a lost album from the mid ’90s), which has gained rave reviews, a massive feature in the NY Times…Vega has been celebrated everywhere of late. In The Red is over the moon to participate in this celebration with the release of After Dark—an album that captures a late night rock ’n’ roll session with Vega backed by Ben Vaughn, Palmyra Delran and Barb Dwyer (all members of the incredible Pink Slip Daddy as well as countless other cool projects). This album serves as a reminder that Alan Vega was an incredible rock ’n’ roll / blue / rockabilly vocalist. He was one of the best.

Scientists

Negativity

In The Red

The Scientists’ powerful brand of deranged swamp-rock returns with a vengeance as In the Red Records unleashes Negativity, an all-new magnum opus featuring the first new full length album by the Australian band’s penultimate line-up in thirty-five years. The bruising eleven-track collection features a Scientists configuration much beloved by connoisseurs of the band’s work: singer-guitarist Kim Salmon, lead guitarist Tony Thewlis, and bassist Boris Sujdovic, all veterans of the group’s defining 1981-85 outfit, and drummer Leanne Cowie, who replaced drummer Brett Rixon on the storming 1986 release Weird Love.  A solid crop of fresh originals is highlighted by the opening statement of purpose “Outside”; the offbeat, yowling waltz “Naysayer”; the hilarious, self-mocking “Suave,” which Salmon says was inspired by the work of his countrymen the Moodists; and the utterly surprising “Moth-Eaten Velvet,” a Velvet Underground homage in ballad form that features a three-piece string section. Instrumental guests on the album include producer Mumford, who contributes trombone on “Make It Go Away,” and Salmon’s daughter Emma, who essays piano and background vocals. Negativity is the third Scientists release and the first full-length album for In the Red. The current quartet cut the single “Braindead”/“SurvivalsKills” in 2018 and the five-song 2019 EP 9H2O SiO2, the title of which translates (in a hat tip to the lyrics of the group’s classic “Swampland”) as Nine Parts Water, One Part Sand. Those recordings were issued in conjunction with the group’s first two U.S. tours during that period. Raw, freewheeling, and spattered with the high-voltage...

Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds

Swing From The Sean Delear

In The Red

Swing From The Sean DeLear is the new four song 12-inch by Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds on In The Red Records. It celebrates a dreamlike bridge between life and memory. Recorded and mixed with Jim Waters (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Sonic Youth, etc.) at Waterworks Recording in Tucson AZ, the track “Sean DeLear” is a tribute to the late, magical, and ubiquitous Los Angeles underground institution named Sean DeLear. This rocking song uses the metaphor of those passed on as swinging from a chandelier, a festive image everyone hopes is true!  Side two of this 12-inch is a fourteen-minute psych, Chicano-groove titled “He Walked In.” The text is based on a visceral fever dream Kid had about his friend and Gun Club bandmate Jeffrey Lee Pierce, who passed away in 1996. Leading the listener back to the theme of feelings sustained between life and memory, the song dreams on as the band spreads their monkey bird wings, featuring Mark Cisneros on flute, and guest tambourine-queen Cesar Padilla—lost in music but found in sound.  In such uncertain times, one thing is most certain—Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds will always bring the party...and the other world.

Lamps

People With Faces

In The Red

“These days, good news is hard to come by, but here’s some: Lamps, LA’s notoriously unprolific noise-merchant trio, are ready to release their spectacular fourth album called People With Faces, out on In The Red Records. Produced by Ty Segall at Val’s, Lamps’ first recorded output since 2012’s landmark LP Under The Water, Under The Ground finds them breaking adventurous new terrain. I’d say they’ve matured, but I’d only say it behind their backs. Stalwarts Monty Buckles (guitar, voice, keyboards!!!) and Josh Erkman (drums, voice) double down on Lamps’ trademark cloak of effects-laden guitars and hammering drums, and new(ish) member Denée Segall jumps into the fray with her Poly Styrene-wail and monolithic bass, add-ing depth both sonically and lyrically. Their trademark abrasiveness is still present, but it’s bur-nished it into something richer, more layered. Don’t worry, it still kicks your head in…”  —KD. Feb 2020

Richard Rose

Radiation Breeze

In The Red

“When new projects are discussed, I sometimes hear a disclaimer along the lines of, ‘this band isn’t reinventing the wheel,’ to which I want to know what’s everyone’s so apologetic about. The wheel was a pretty good invention—good luck getting anywhere without one. So let’s consider a redefinition, instead. Los Angeles based quintet Richard Rose may or may not feature prominent players from bands including but not limited to Ex-Cult, GØGGS, OBN III’s, Snooty Garbagemen, Bad Sports, Hooveriii and Stress Group…but as much as said bands were amongst the best and brightest on offer in Memphis, Houston and Austin, this new amalgamation is a bolder proposition.  “Without question, there’s echoes of their past work—the malevolent vocal presence of Laurence Richard and guitar virtuosity of Thomas Rose in particular—but Richard Rose’s first full-length thoroughly ups the ante on the band’s 2019 debut In The Red EP. The wheels in question have plowed thtough the respective discographies of Michigan / Australian bands you know and love, sure, but these guys have found their own voice in a shockingly brief matter of time. Simply put, they’ve fashioned an instant rock classic…there might be a handful of bands in America with this kind of confidence, but in most other instances it’s unwarranted. They don’t possess Richard Rose’s intellect, instrumental prowess, musical range or sense of purpose.  “Finally, I will not insult your intelligence by claiming Richard Rose scale these lofty heights without artifice. That they insist on performing under dubious pseudonyms (Laurence...

Fuzz

III

In The Red

***CHECK STOCK!!!  Received a 7.5 rating from Pitchfork.  One only knows one. Two is balanced therefore stagnant. III both active and reactive. Charles Moothart, Ty Segall and Chad Ubovich are Fuzz. Fuzz is three. And III has returned. Songs for all, and music for one. III was recorded and mixed at United Recording under the sonic lordship of Steve Albini. Keeping the focus on the live sounds of the band, the use of overdubs and studio tricks were kept to a minimum. Albini’s mastery in capturing sound gave the trio the ability to focus entirely on the playing while knowing the natural sounds would land. It takes the essential ingredients of “guitar-based music” and “rock and roll power trio” and puts them right out on the chopping block. It was a much more honest approach for the band—three humans getting primitive, staying primitive. The goal was never to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes it’s just about seeing how long one can hold on before getting thrown off.Three points reflected in three mirrors; a pyramid of sonic destruction and psychic creation. Nothing people feed the roots while the freaks fly free in the treetops—blind to vines, eyes closed, stuck in spit, triumphing the returning of beginnings and ends returning while beginning to see the time collapse. Love is the only way to annihilate hate, and sketchy freaks live to bleed. All shades of color, truth and lies, III is the pillar of unity and singularity. All is nothing,...

Demolition Doll Rods

Into The Brave

In The Red

“The Demolition Doll Rods are back, Jack. Those masters of Motor City mayhem have returned. Perhaps the only band to be asked by a promoter to keep their clothes on, the Demolition Doll Rods—who have not been in a studio together in fourteen years—are set to unleash Into The Brave in October 2020. “Formed in a Detroit basement in 1993, the Demolition Doll Rods are infamous for their rude, crude two-guitars-drums-no-extra-stuff rock ’n’ roll, not to mention those minimal matching Doll Rod outfits, which included wearing hubcaps, doll heads and even swiss cheese. They recorded four very singular albums together—starting with their outrageous debut Tasty in 1997 (coproduced by Jon Spencer and Mick Collins)—but called it quits in 2007 when co-founders Margaret Doll Rod and Danny Kroha went their separate ways. Until last year, that is, when out of the blue Margaret suddenly reunited with Danny to perform some scorching live shows alongside new drummer Shelby Murphy. “Any doubts that the Doll Rods still have it are blown away mere seconds into listening to Into The Brave, for this collection of twelve songs is as loud, crazy and demented as anything they have ever created). “So here it is—Into The Brave, another collection of nutbucket numbers only the Doll Rods could concoct.”   —Jimmy McDonough

CCR Headcleaner

Street Riffs

In The Red

“The Bay Area in 2019 is a fucked up place. I’m living in the shadow of brand new tech tower nursing my beer at the horseshoe bar of Jonell’s, the last of the great TL haunts. I stumbled here past numerous encampments of tired souls driven to the streets by the same people who walk by everyday with brand new air pods and upturned noses, actively disdainful of the people whose problems they have helped create. Despite my disenchantment I can’t shake the ringing in my ears from blasting tunes in my SRO... “Street Riffs, the new album from a band called CCR Headcleaner, who I figured—like everyone else—had left the Bay long ago for greener pastures, maybe somewhere like LA…it turns out these mutants have been slugging it out, trudging through the gutters of the Bay Area since I first heard of them. The live shows were legendary. Fire, walls of noise, Tom Petty covers, guitars played with machetes, acid fueled freakouts, sweaty basement shows and big venue blowouts. Borrowed gear on borrowed time. I even heard the guitar player burned the merch money handed to them in front of a bright eyed young fan who had just purchased the record. “So the cover of Street Riffs, crowded with cranes and construction really conveys the claustrophobic catastrophe of modern city living. And the music! Brash frenetic riffs and primordial thundering rhythms weave in and out of ethereal melodies in a surprising amalgamation of experimental underground and working peoples rock...

Red Lights

S/t

In The Red

***BACK IN STOCK!!!  “Prior to forming the Gun Club, Jeffrey Lee Pierce (1958-1996) fronted The Red Lights. While 1980 is viewed as ground zero for Pierce’s career—his autobiography Go Tell The Mountain starts with the founding of the Gun Club—Pierce was active as a rock critic for Slash magazine and had started songwriting years earlier. Throughout the late 1970s, Pierce’s primary musical interests were power pop and reggae. He was the president of the Blondie fan club and had interviewed Burning Spear. So when the Red Lights, Pierce’s first serious attempt at forming a band, started rehearsing it’s unsurprising that power pop (with a hint of reggae) was the group’s musical direction. “The Red Lights existed throughout 1978. The lineup for the band’s debut show on July 14, 1978—opening for The Germs and The Middle Class at the Whisky—was Jeffrey Lee Pierce (vocals and guitar), Anna Statman (bass), Vitus Mataré (keyboards) and Jack Reynolds (drums). Mataré and Reynolds were members of The Last; Anna Statman was a contributing writer to Pleasant Gehman’s Lobotomy fanzine. This lineup was short-lived. Mataré dropped out afterwards; Jack Reynolds stuck around a little longer. Thanks to Flipside’s gig reviews, it’s known that the Red Lights played at least two more shows: one at The Arena in Culver City and another one at The Rock Corporation in Van Nuys on August 9, 1978, opening up for The Weasels. By the end of 1978, Pierce had moved to New York City, effectively ending...

Burning Bus

S/t

In The Red

Another Don Howland-related album! That’s right, In The Red is putting out two albums by the man at the same time! That’s how much the label loves him and his music. This full length is by his now defunct five piece band Burning Bus. The band released two 7-inches earlier this decade and recorded this album, which has laid dormant until now. While Howland’s solo work and the Bassholes tend to be stripped-down, treble-kicking affairs, Burning Bus is a full throttle three guitar and bass attack. It’s much noisier and more brutal than anything else he’s done. Fans of Pussy Galore will want to take note.

Howland, Don

Endgame

In The Red

In The Red are proud to announce the new solo album by Don Howland. Howland’s been pursuing his brand of scuzzy roots rock for over a quarter of a century, first as a member of Columbus’s beloved Gibson Bros. and later as the main man in the Bassholes. His music is a raw convergence of country blues, ’76 punk and lo-fi garage. Howland was one of the original flagship artists for In The Red and the label is happy to be working with him again. He’s been a crucial figure in underground music for several decades and is one of the American underground’s true originals.  “Howland’s music is a tinnily mixed, macabre mix of psychobilly, swamp rock, and Captain Beefheartian avant-garde weirdness, peopled with weird and disturbing images, relaying troubled encounters and stories with a streak of wild-eyed glee.” —Richie Unterberger

Alice Bag

Sister Dynamite

In The Red

On her new album Sister Dynamite, L.A. punk icon Alice Bag confronts some of the most pervasive problems troubling the world today: unchecked privilege and willful ignorance, systemic inequality and fragile masculinity. Her third solo effort and first release for In The Red Records, the album also offers an unbridled celebration of community and the undeniable power in embracing one’s own truth. In her impassioned push for freedom of all kinds, Bag endlessly transmits a raw and exhilarating energy, ultimately transforming each song into a much-needed antidote to numbness or despair. The follow-up to 2018’s Blueprint—named one of the best albums of the year by NPR Music—Sister Dynamite marks a thrilling return to the full-throttle punk that Bag pioneered with her legendary first-wave punk band, The Bags. With its breakneck velocity and galvanizing melodies, the album’s kinetic sound was partly inspired by Bag’s work in producing the latest record by Chicana punk band Fea. “All their songs are rockers, and it made me want to make an album that’s upbeat all the way through,” she says. To achieve that force-of-nature intensity, Bag teamed up with her core group of musicians, including guitarist Sharif Dumani and bassist David O. Jones. Co-produced by Bag and her longtime collaborator Lysa Flores (who plays rhythm guitar and sings backing vocals on several songs), Sister Dynamite finds Candace P.K. Hansen and Rikki “Styxx” Watson trading off on drums, each lending her distinct musicality to the album’s potent rhythms.  Throughout Sister Dynamite, Bag reveals her incredible...

Lavender Flu

Barbarian Dust

In The Red

“In contrast to their prior mobile-unit hole-ups and home-taped fryers, Barbarian Dust, the third album from Lavender Flu, marks the band’s first raid of a proper studio. Extending the formalities further, the conceptual impetus for the sessions stems from a collective meditation on cosmic biker rock. Smokey, sure—and that peculiar, chunky ether seeps into the resulting collection—but it all ultimately serves to a liquid frame, a set of parameters imposed purely to burst through.  Compositionally and thematically, Barbarian Dust alternates between hope and anger, each idealized, a sway thoughtfully achieved through an often-soaring, occasionally busted version of rock heaviness (without ever approaching ‘Heavy Rock’, thank heaven / hell). In every sense of the word, it’s their most aggressive work to date.“Barbarian Dust collects songs that move in and out of wobble and explosion, each pushing forever forward, just as the composers themselves do. Galaxies past cool-but-copyist trips, Lavender Flu—brothers Chris and Lucas Gunn, Scott Simmons and Ben Spencer—slaughter the trivial in favor of a newer, deeper, more meaningful sound, indifferent to any path other than their own. Time to transform, yet again.”    —Mitch Cardwell

The Victims

Horror Smash EP

In The Red

“Punk music, at its most effective, its most important, exists at a nexus of a few simple but important ideas. Punk needs to be youthful, it needs to be reactionary, it needs to be short-lived and it needs to be controversial. So for a group of twenty-something Australians, excitable as the frontline first wave of kids responding to both the Ramones and the Sex Pistols (yet still influenced by the New York Dolls and Stooges and Flamin’ Groovies), who existed for but barely for a year from 1977-1978 and wrote songs about serial killers, high school girls and hating disco…well, I’d argue they are the most perfect punk band ever. “The band was Dave Flick (aka Dave Faulkner later of the Hoodoo Gurus) on guitar and vocals, Rudolph V (Dave Cardwell) on bass and James Baker on drums. Best known for their classic ‘Television Addict’, that song is but the tip of the iceberg of the band’s powers. Having self-released two godhead 7-inches during their brief existence, the seven songs on those singles are absolute cannon at this point. Quintessential, pure, unfuckwithable. And all that is just side one of the LP. “Side two contains a bounty of unreleased-for-decades demos of nine otherwise undocumented Victims originals. Demos in name alone, these properly recorded songs brim with all the identifying marks of the known Victims classics…irreverence, taking the piss, murderers and an invigorating youthful attitude. “The last thing to remember about punk as a theory, an aesthetic, is that its ‘ideas’...

The Victims

S/t

In The Red

“Punk music, at its most effective, its most important, exists at a nexus of a few simple but important ideas. Punk needs to be youthful, it needs to be reactionary, it needs to be short-lived and it needs to be controversial. So for a group of twenty-something Australians, excitable as the frontline first wave of kids responding to both the Ramones and the Sex Pistols (yet still influenced by the New York Dolls and Stooges and Flamin’ Groovies), who existed for but barely for a year from 1977-1978 and wrote songs about serial killers, high school girls and hating disco…well, I’d argue they are the most perfect punk band ever. “The band was Dave Flick (aka Dave Faulkner later of the Hoodoo Gurus) on guitar and vocals, Rudolph V (Dave Cardwell) on bass and James Baker on drums. Best known for their classic ‘Television Addict’, that song is but the tip of the iceberg of the band’s powers. Having self-released two godhead 7-inches during their brief existence, the seven songs on those singles are absolute cannon at this point. Quintessential, pure, unfuckwithable. And all that is just side one of the LP. “Side two contains a bounty of unreleased-for-decades demos of nine otherwise undocumented Victims originals. Demos in name alone, these properly recorded songs brim with all the identifying marks of the known Victims classics…irreverence, taking the piss, murderers and an invigorating youthful attitude. “The last thing to remember about punk as a theory, an aesthetic, is that its ‘ideas’...

Dum Dum Boys

Let There Be Noise

In The Red

“Often obscured by the ascent of Flying Nun’s legendary roster is New Zealand’s late 1970s / early 1980s punk scene. Based in Auckland, a cadre of acts influenced by The Ramones and Stooges briefly thrived. The Dum Dum Boys—the first NZ punk band to record and release a full-length in their native country—were hooked on the Ann Arbor sounds of Iggy Pop.  “The Dum Dum Boys’ Let There Be Noise (1981) is chock-full of James Williamson and Deniz Tek riffage; it also contains elements of Iggy Pop’s nihilism. Take the lyrics to “Something To Say”—it’s refrain repeatedly asking ‘What am I living for?’—and juxtapose them to the band’s namesake track from Pop’s The Idiot (1977): ‘What happened to Zeke? He’s dead on jones, man.’ ‘Stalking The Streets’ taps into the meaninglessness of James Taylor and Dennis Wilson’s Two-Lane Blacktop journey through the American Southwest. “The Dum Dum Boys understood the proto-punk sounds of 1970s Ann Arbor and Cleveland. More importantly, they also got the vibe. Life stinks—sometimes in the places (Auckland) you’d least expect it.  “As the title suggests, Let There Be Noise is anything but a record incessantly focused on introspective doom and gloom. ‘Don’t Be A Bitch’ rivals Radio Birdman’s ‘I-94’ for lyrical thick-headedness—like sticking a hot 454 in a Ford Falcon gasser, the song’s simultaneously awesome and dumb. That’s a difficult balance to strike.  “Let There Be Noise (1981) was self-released and copies quickly became damn near unobtanium, even in New Zealand. (I should...

Skull Practitioners

Death Buy Ep

In The Red

“Massive slab of debut vinyl by a New York trio whose guitarist, Jason Victor, knows more than a little about the potential of psych-gush overload. In his position as the current guitarist of the Dream Syndicate, one might suppose that, by stepping into shoes formerly occupied by Karl Precoda, Mr. Victor was granted some sort of special legacy connection to the ur-root of string-excess in the post-punk era. But Jason seems to have been blowing the tops of people’s heads off with pure raunch vomona since before he ever met Steve Wynn. “The Skull Practitioners have been active since 2013, garnering a reputation for bodacious live skronk, although the only graspable evidence of their existence has been a 2014 cassette, which was not widely distributed. Now, with the mighty In The Red empire behind them, only a sucker would think they won’t go far.  “Victor’s explosive guitar shards are the most obvious element of the trio’s sound, but bassist Kenneth Levine can conjure up a throb as thick as Al Feedtime’s, and Alex Baker’s drumming mixes propulsion and motorik circularity with reckless grace. There are only vocals on half the tracks here—Gun Club-seasoned blow-outs called “The Beacon” and “Grey No More”—but I didn’t miss them on their other two tunes. The richness of the band’s psychedelic inventions obviates the need for overt human lingo. The music here communicates on a molecular level.  “Remember when Tim Leary said Peter Walker was ‘playing celestial strings on the DNA of musical being’? It’s...