S-s Records

Proletariat, The

Soma Holiday

S-s Records

In 1983, the release of The Proletariat’s debut Soma Holiday was a shocker—while American hardcore punk was becoming more generic, The Proletariat unleashed something strikingly original. The album’s opening is a call to arms: the primitive, militaristic bass guitar and drums are sliced with razor-sharp guitar dissidence and vocals full of spit and bite. Avant-garde while remaining tuneful, their debut is considered one of the most brilliant albums to come out the early 80’s American hardcore scene. The leafy suburbs of Southeastern Massachusetts, midway between Boston and Cape Cod, isn’t where you would expect to find one of America’s most revolutionary sounding and lyrically incendiary rock and roll bands, but that is where The Proletariat began. In 1980, straight from Apponequet High School, Richard Brown, Peter Bevilacqua, and Frank Michaels began pounding out noise, and soon they added high schooler Tommy McKnight. Inspired by The Buzzcocks, The Jam, PiL, and Wire, the young band tapped into the high energy hardcore punk swirling around and infused it with art-punk excitement. By the time that their classic debut hit, The Proletariat were being referred to as “America’s Gang of Four” and a more supercharged Pop Group. The intelligent anger of the band was a lifeline to many suburban American rejects, young people who knew that life under Reagan wasn’t right. The sound of Soma Holiday not only sounds as fresh as ever, the thoughtful politics of its lyrics are just as relevant today in a world of drone strikes and Donald Trump,...

Bad Bad

Bad Bad

S-s Records

bAd bAd started in 2012 when Christian Zamora and Eli Maness started making noise in the foggy outskirts of San Francisco’s Sunset District. Joined by Christian’s brother Michael and drummer Patrick Webb, the band obsessed on the faraway sounds of Peruvian ’60s legends Los Saicos and the Turkish guitar melodies of Erkin Koray, as well as Link Wray. After a year or so of playing hyperactive spaghetti western instrumentals and now based in Oakland, they incorporate other influences: the pop-infused punk of Jay Reatard, one-chord Hawkwind power jams, and the highbrow playfulness of the Suburban Lawns. Disparate sounds, yes, but bAd bAd turns them into exciting buzzsaw-pop with Barrett / Floyd interludes. With recording starting in 2015, they perfected this album until it became a seamless psychedelic pop piece of punk energy.

Ghostwriter

Ghostwriter

S-s Records

The small towns of California’s northern Central Valley have an eerie loneliness to them. Cinematically, take Two-Lane Blacktop and fuse it with Neil Young’s Human Highway. Fix that into music and you’d get something like Ghostwriter. Odd rock & roll from Orland, California, the home of the dearly departed Nothing People (and theater organ legend George Wright), Ghostwriter lurks in the dust-caked shadows of rusted old cars and “obsolete,” solidstate, electronic instruments. The Chrome-meets-psych sounds of the Nothing People is there, with some haunted rockabilly à la Alan Vega, Residents-like wooziness, and something that conjures the words “paranoid closet.” These outsider / loner rock sounds will be listened to for years to come.

Twinkeyz

Alpha Jerk

S-s Records

From Sacramento via outer space comes The Twinkeyz and their Alpha Jerk LP, restored to excellence after 40 years! During the sizzling hot summer of 1976, Donnie Jupiter, Tom Darling and Walter Smith decided to break out of their boredom with a band. The group was named after Pink Fairies drummer Twink, and influnced by the Fairies, Velvet Underground, Thirteenth Floor Elevators and other underground favorites. In 1977, The Twinkeyz recorded and self-released their classic first single, “Aliens in Our Midst.” 1978 saw its followup, “E.S.P. / Cartoon Land.” And in 1979, the album Alpha Jerk was released on the Dutch label Plurex, run by Wally Van Middendorp of the Minny Pops. Though the songs on Alpha Jerk were great, the final mix was botched and the mastering job flawed. What should have been a classic stiffed as one of rock ’n’ roll’s “could have been great.” Now it is! In 1994, Anopheles Records’ Karl Ikola decided to do The Twinkeyz right. Ikola got ahold of the master tapes and, with Jupiter and Greg Freeman, remixed the entire album. In 1997, he released the restored Alpha Jerk, along with abandoned single tracks, live songs and other tidbits, as a CD entitled Aliens in Our Midst. The collection and its vinyl companion Cartoon Land went out of print more than fifteen years ago. Now after four decades, S-S Records presents Alpha Jerk as it was intended, with the original cover art and the superior Ikola / Jupiter mix. This version has...

Pony Time

Rumours 2: The Rumours Are True

S-s Records

Luke Beetham and Stacy Peck of Pony Time: are they or aren’t they? The question on everyone’s mind will finally be answered on the group’s latest record Rumours 2: The Rumours Are True. Yes, it’s true. The Seattle two-piece has a new hit album recorded at Earwig Studio in the same style of Fleetwood Mac’s classic, replacing the copious amounts of cocaine with Gatorade and the tumultuous love affairs with trips to Arby’s. Their fourth full-length, Rumours 2 combines Beetham’s crunchy, catchy, hum-into-your-hairbrush bass tones and emotive howl with Peck’s powerful drum beats to create eleven all-out ragers that thrash around as wildly on the record as they do at their sweaty, energetic live shows. Pony Time takes the best parts of garage rock and leaves behind the bonehead bro attitude, for a sound that transcends the genre with pure, heart-swelling energy and the kind of magical chemistry that only exists between bandmates who are friends in real life—in other words, they zero in on Troggs-like hooks, Wounded Lion pop-sense, and Beat Happening’s sense of whimsy. Peck and Beetham met helping a friend move a stereo in 2009, and soon after Peck became Beetham’s electrician apprentice before realizing that what they really wanted to do was start a band together. Peck (who also plays drums in Childbirth) is an Aries and music video director who enjoys television and giving inanimate plush toys silly voices while Beetham is a galactic activation portal Libra who is not only a magician behind the...

Life Stinks

You'll Never Make It

S-s Records

Present-day San Francisco is a beautiful city but also a hyper-active, tech-grinding rat race. The money chase is on 24/7, the rats hustling for tiny morsels of cheese, praying for the day when a big hunk o’ cheddar falls from the sky. If you’ve lived in the city for a good while and are some creative type or working Joe or Jane, you can be overwhelmed by it all. Life Stinks’s second album You’ll Never Make It is a perfect portrait of that mind-frame. Feelings of anger, self-doubt and vindictiveness weave though a sonic template that shifts from a Flipper / Fang arms-a-swingin’ groove (as on the title track) to standout Velvet poppers (“Anchor”), Stooge-oid stomping (“Sliding Down a Wire”), and outright demented thuds (“I’m a Weed”). And then just when you are ready to take out a few windows, Life Stinks slyly slides in a gentle number which reminds you that the band paints from a complete emotional palette. You’ll Never Make It is a great followup to their 2013 debut, which was called “album of the year” by some yuks at Maximum Rocknroll and earned high praise at Raven Sings the Blues, It’s Psychedelic Baby, Terminal Boredom and other places. Also like the first album, You’ll Never Make It is produced by Kelley Stoltz and Mikey Young (Total Control).

Screature

Four Columns

S-s Records

Screature’s second album Four Columns opens with shimmering guitar and incantation... and then it flies. Chris Orr’s atmospheric guitar is a cool companion to Liz Mahoney’s haunting vocals; Sarah Scherer’s keys swirl to Miranda Vera’s insistent beat; it’s all brought to now by Chris Woodhouse’s excellent production. Call it dark psychedelia or post-punk black, Screature’s Four Columns is a creeping zodiac of sound. Screature came to life in 2008, in a dark corner of Sacramento, California. They spent three years making music in secret, wintering to Rudimentary Peni and Chrome, summering to Music Machine and PiL. In 2011, they played their first show, with Death Grips. And then hit the stage with White Lung, Chain & the Gang, Wounded Lion, Milk Music, TV Ghost and others. 2013 saw their debut LP flash through the sky (now back in print on S-S Records). D. Yudt called it the “feel-bad record of the year.” It landed in Chelsea Wolfe’s Pitchfork year-end “Best Of.” As good as the self-titled Screature is, Four Columns is better. The songs “Down Boys,” “Half Past Midnight,” and “Lost Ones” are already live hits; on record they rule other worlds. From front to back, Four Columns intoxicates.

Screature

S/t

S-s Records

California’s Central Valley is a hot, dry place, with a series of small towns pretending to be cities. At the heart of the valley is Sacramento, the perfect place for a Screature to form. Born in 2008, the group spent its first three years in a woodshed. Chilled by winter winds and warped by summer heat, haunted by Rudimentary Peni, The Scientists, and the Music Machine, Screature emerged with psychedelic visions, a dark sense of humor and one hell of a howl. In 2013, the band self-released their first album. Produced by Chris Woodhouse (A-Frames, Oh Sees, etc.), Screature lurked around the edges of the post-punk / indie world. “Female-led Sacramento post-punk, AnGuLaR, and meticulously crafted” is what Urban Kill wrote about it when they heard it. Impose compared vocalist Liz Mahoney to Grace Slick and Karen O, while noting that Christopher Orr’s guitar “reduced the sound to esoteric transmissions.” Screature’s debut landed on a few 2013 lists—often as a “Hey hey! Why isn’t anyone on this?”—including Chelsea Wolfe’s “Best Of” in Pitchfork. Sam Lefebvre of the East Bay Express slotted it in his “Top Five Albums of the Year,” while Dennis Yudt called it “The feel-bad record of the year” (Sacramento News & Review). The album eventually creeped to black, but rather than letting it lie dead, S-S Records approached the band about keeping it in print. So, like all good stories, Screature rises from the dead for a second life. This S-S edition is a modest pressing of...

Easter And The Totem

The Sum Is Greater Than Its Parts

S-s Records

“There was Mike Barry (age 18), Ian Self (age 18), and a drum machine. In those days, all you needed were a couple of long coats, a mutual love of The Fall and Joy Division, a pile of existential books (Kafka, Camus, Dostoyevsky, etc.) and some lager. They took their name from a Jackson Pollock painting. It was Summer of 1981 and the band was as rough as a bear’s arse.” And, those are the origins of Easter and the Totem. Tromping around South London through most of the 1980s, Easter and the Totem released three LPs (the first one at the urging of John Peel); The Sum Is Greater Than Its Parts is their second. Recorded between 1982 and 1985—with a year and a half break scissored in—it takes the band’s original post-punk influences and surges into angry, pop-enhanced, DIY-stamped rock ’n’ roll: a sound similar to, yet less polished than, contemporaries The Smiths and Echo & the Bunnymen. Propelled by drummer Steve Mountain and Barry’s acidic lyrics, The Sum Is Greater Than Its Parts perfectly captures working class rock ’n’ roll discontent with Margaret Thatcher and the 1980s UK. That the band never signed up to a major and chased “success” wasn’t due to their lack of great tunes, but their preference for playing benefits for the Bromley Unemployed Group and the South London Musicians Collective over yucking it up with the suits. Good thing for our ears: Easter and the Totem’s non-careerist approach to rock and pop,...

Human, Andy And The Reptoids

Andy Human And The Reptoids

S-s Records

In an era when artists do little more than tweak their influences, Andy Human and the Reptoids take the past, hint at the future, and turn it all into the now. With punk energy, a new wave sense of economy, and the tap of power pop, these guys fold in Roxy Music, Devo (both the art and the pop sides), early Eno and Pere Ubu, while making sounds that are very much their own. Raven Sings the Blues has called Andy Human “...a wobble of weird that makes the candy coating delightfully astringent... digesting Devo and Gary Numan through a faded VHS glam punk hangover and knocking the results crisply out of stacked speakers.” Andy Human and the Reptoids’ debut contains eleven songs, each one a sonic worm that will burrow into your brain and turn you into a Reptoid-humming zombie. Play side one forever, that’s OK; when it is worn out, you have side two to obsess over. Or keep flipping the thing over until you get carpel tunnel syndrome. Whatever you do, you will listen to this. This isn’t a record that gets lost in the stacks. It is one you wear out. Andy Human is Andy Jordan. You know him from The Cuts, Time Flys, Buzzer, and LENZ (also Razz, Brain Glaze and Factrix). He is one of the best Bay Area rock ’n’ roll songwriters around and an ace on guitar and keyboards. The Reptoids are Cripe Jergensen, Beast Man and Ra Diehl. They’ve been doing...

Kim Ki O

Bir, Iki...

S-s Records

Istanbul, Turkey; Year 2006: Ekin Sanaç and Berna Göl form Kim Ki O. Sanaç plays synth while Göl hits the bass. They both come up with beats and sing. Their music is lo-fi minimal synth with a post-punk / cold wave feel. The cool / warm dual female vocals are eerie and dreamy, referencing classic post-punk as well as traditional Turkish melodies but remaining understated. Over the next couple years, the pair releases two very limited CDRs and tours Scandinavia. In 2009 they appear on Radio Resistencia, released by the great Dutch synth label Enfant Terrible. One year later, Enfant Terrible releases their first album Dans. KFJC writes “The name of the band means ‘Who is that anyway’ in Turkish, and it reflects the ethereal nature of the sounds … a lovely early ’80s slow and somber electronic vibe (think Joy Division) combined with floaty, minimal lady vocals (sort of 4AD-ish like Cocteau Twins and Lush) … sweet, but not saccharine.” The vinyl issue of Dans quickly sells out. Over the next couple of years, Kim Ki O appears on various compilations and tours Turkey and Europe several times. They collaborate with Turkish filmmakers Merve Kayan and Zeynep Dadak on the short film Elope and write music for the Turkish performance group biriken for their play Re: Fwd: die in good company. In 2013, Lentonia Records out of France releases Grounds. It inspires a followup album of remixes called Grounds Album Remixes, also on Lentonia. In 2014, S-S Records dips...

Psycho, Michael

Think

S-s Records

In 1990, Michael Psycho released a great punk rock record that almost no one heard. A Boston-transplant and veteran of Sacramento’s early ’80s hardcore scene (Industrial Hate, Inducore), Psycho said “fug it” to his former bandmates and recorded Think by his lonesome. The sound is a stripped-down, high-energy, nasty-attitude cross of garage punk, hardcore and DIY with a vocal sneer that resembles No Alternative’s Johnny Genocide. Psycho pressed a bunch up, sent a few out, and then stored most of the pressing at a friend’s house. The friend’s dad dropped the records off at the dump. In all, less than 100 survived. One of the few to hear it was Byron Coley, who dubbed Think “a lost monster of inept raw disorganized garage punk … this is classic shit!” S-S Records agreed! With the artist’s blessing, the label got the thing remastered by John Golden and pressed a bunch more up. So if you were pulling out your hair trying to find this scarce nugget, or were thinking, “What? I didn’t know about this thing!” or just want a blast of outsider loner punk greatness, here ya go.

Life Stinks

Life Stinks

S-s Records

***As Robvertogo of Terminal Boredom wrote, LIFE STINKS is "San Francisco's last punk band." Firmly standing in the puddle created by Crime, Flipper, Fang, and the Fuck-Ups, Life Stinks is the proper negative reaction to the rapid take over of San Francisco by cyber douchebags. Cool, dark, bad attitude with a groove (and a nod to Velvet Underground). They have a single on Totally Punk which is aces, a nice slap in the face. Producers MIKEY YOUNG and KELLEY STOLTZ have taken that face slap and turned it into a gut punch. Blow for blow, this is one of the best punk rock & roll albums to come out of the Bay Area in at least a decade.”

Spray Paint

Rodeo Songs

S-s Records

***“We released SPRAY PAINT’s first full length at the beginning of 2013 and it quickly sold sold. Did a repress and it keeps selling. Why? Because not only are these guys a great band, playing an updated mix of Wire/100 Flower/Lake of Dracula/A Frames-style punk/post punk, but they regularly tour (and like to do so). They've played SXSW a few times, Cropped Out, Gonerfest, and a couple stages at Fun Fun Fun. They have played live on WFMU and KDVS and get good rotation at college stations across the US. They have an increasing fan base in Europe, Australia and Japan. In 2014, they have their sights set on touring Europe and the West Coast. Their second album Rodeo Songs is even better than their first, so we expect no drop off in response to this Austin trio.”—S.S.

Satan Panonski

Hard Blood Shock

S-s Records

***“Of all the former Eastern Bloc countries, Yugoslavia (and Croatia in particular) had one of the most exciting and innovative punk/underground rock & roll scenes and the legend among Yugo/Croat punk legends is SATAN PANONSKI (nee IVICA CULJAK). Starting with pioneering, late-70s, Yugo punk band POGREB X, through incarceration, a solo career and an untimely death by a mysterious bullet during the Croatian War of Independence, Satan Panonski literally cut his way into E. Euro punk history. His stage act was an extreme blend of punk shock and Auto-Destructiv performance. His music is a vivid mix of KBD-style punk, Serbo-Croatian folk melodies, and jags into abstract avant punk. Three cassettes were released during his life (and shortly after his death), one of which made it to vinyl. The vinyl is now very collectible. SS has culled through dozens of songs and come up with the creme de la punk, all transferred from the original tapes. Vinyl mastering by JOHN GOLDEN makes Satan Panonski sound the best he has ever sounded. This also includes much of Ivica Culjak's art, new lyric translations, a long biographical essay, and plenty of photos, all in a 16-page booklet. There is no CD or digital download.”

Fottutissma Pelicceria Elsa

S/t

S-s Records

***“FOTTUTISSMA PELICCERIA ELSA were a short-lived Italian hardcore band from the city of Gorizia. I was tipped to them by a 1983 review in Maximum Rocknroll which compared them to ‘the MEAT PUPPETS met M.D.C. in a Chilean secret police torture chamber.’ I wrote on Crud Crud ‘Fast bursts of rage segue into sludge and then into total confusion. It is like the Italian hardcore version of Tampax’s “UFO Dictator” over a full LP, but it makes sense.’ WFMU’s Fatty Jubbo once described it as ‘wow...stumbles along like a drunken horse with its feet cut off. sorta reminds of Destroy NYC or Upside Down Cross.’ The music comes from their one and only demo tape released in 1983, a rarity itself. Transferred from tape, not MP3. Mastered to vinyl by JOHN GOLDEN. Includes insert with original demo tape art work. This is a vinyl only release. There is no CD or digital download.

Nothing People

C’mon Girl

S-s Records

***After a few years of roaming around in space and time, the NOTHING PEOPLE land on Earth to do two earthly tunes. Rather than tap into futuristic sounds, our Orland brethren have accessed their past. This cool-as-fug forty-five not only references the band’s first seven inch (released on S.S. back in 2006), but some rock & roll heroes: Velvet Underground, Modern Lovers, and a little bit of the Gizmos. Strummy, raw, no frills party tunes is what you get here. We thought that the singles Seventies feel deserved some cover art evoking that era, so we commisioned MATT K. SHRUGG to come up with a sleeve that brought to mind underground comic strips of that time. What he drew up is a perfect compliment to this Nothing People twofer. Edition of 300 copies.  

Banque Allemande

Willst Du Chinese Sein Musst Du Die Ekligen Sachen Essen

S-s Records

***A couple years ago, this fine label released the debut album by a mysterious Berlin band called BANQUE ALLEMANDE. Trapped in a city more known for dance music than two chord rock & roll, Banque Allemande’s live shows were restricted to a few underground spaces and Berlin’s subway system. They recorded for themselves but outside of a small circle of friends they were unknowns. Somehow or another, S.S. stumbled on them and got them to smash their recordings into one album which they called Eins, Zwei. A primitive assault of strum & klang, the critical response went something like this: ‘Das Missing Link zwischen Trio, Hüsker Dü Land Speed Record und Rainer Werner Fassbinder’ (André Pluskwa/Vice); ‘...a monster slab of relentless guitar fury from out of nowhere’ (Ryan Wells/Z Gun); ‘Ihr seid zur Zeit die beste deutsche Band die ich kenne’ (Max Müller/Mutter); ‘Primitive and noisy, yet with an undeniable intelligence driving the car into the wall’ (Rich Kroneiss/Terminal Boredom). Well, now comes album number two, Willst du Chinese sein musst du die ekligen Sachen essen. Like their first, Willst du Chinese, mixes marathon riffage with shorter blast, centering on a two chord fung set to a galloping beat, a sound that brings to mind the Gordons, early Leather Nun, and even Big Black. However, it sounds like our German pals have been listening to a little Velvet Underground, too. Like Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Banque Allemande take VU’s pop rock side and punk it up a bit. Oh, the...

Spray Paint

Spray Paint

S-s Records

***S.S. Records is very pleased to announce the debut album of SPRAY PAINT, eleven songs of killer avant punk aggression that measures up with anything stomping around today. A little more than a year ago, CORY from SPRAY PAINT members contacted S.S. and asked if they could send a few songs. Recognizing his name from another band WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH, whose psych-punkishness we dug, S.S. said ‘Certainly.’ Four songs came and we were blown away. 2012 saw two stellar 7”s from the Austin trio—energy packed, off-kilter yet tuneful punk rock & roll with a sound that brought to mind 100 Flowers, Saccharine Trust, Wire, and S.S. vets the A Frames. During the summer Spray Paint came west to play S.S. Records second fest in San Francisco and after a few weeks on the road they hit home and started recording this album. We heard most of the songs before Spray Paint’s tour and they were great, but gig after gig of playing them tightened them up and brought in new ideas. When the album was done, what hit our ears is eleven sonic booms: Great songs, ace playing, good ideas, and smart construction. Nothing is too long, nothing too short. Like the best punk rock & roll albums, Spray Paint’s debut is all meat, no fat, a compact punch with angular power. As noted above, we are very pleased. Pressed in an edition of 500 copies, and like the two 7”, the jackets have been painted on front...

Monoshock

Walk To The Fire

S-s Records

***REISSUED ON VINYL!!! S.S. Records is proud to announce the reissue of MONOSHOCK’s Walk to the Fire double album. Long considered a classic by music freaks and much sought after by modern psych nodes, the remastered reissue of Monoshock’s monster has been anticipated for quite some time…and now it is here. Monoshock’s roots lie in Ilsa Vista, a charming student ghetto stuck on California’s Central Coast. It was there that UMBILICAL CHORDS, a punk quartet who shot snot on the year 1987, were born. Scrappy and snotty, the Chords were led by guitarist GRADY RUNYAN. By 1988 the Chords were gone and Runyan, SCOTT DERR and RUBIN FIBERGLASS formed Monoshock taking garage blargh into realms previously occupied by the Stooges, Amon Duul II, Hawkwind, Blue Cheer, and other proponents of punkoid psychedelia or psychedelic punk or just good and loud rock & roll music. Later joined by ALUMINUM QUEEN on saxophone and DOUG PEARSON on all things Doug Pearson, Monoshock recorded three singles (on Womb, Blackjack, and Bag of Hammers) and a now legendary double album called Walk to the Fire (Blackjack). The 1995 release of their magnum opus also coincided with the end of the band. Praised a handful of people at the time, Walk to the Fire didn’t really start getting its due until Julian Cope featured it on his website Head Heritage, bands such as Comets on Fire and the Wooden Shjips started referencing Monoshock as an influence, and S.S. Records assembled a CD anthology of Monoshock’s...

Feedtime

Today Is Friday

S-s Records

***Formed in 1984, FEEDTIME, the legendary Australian band, created a rumble that has carried over the decades like a subterranean fault rupture; a persistent, threatening tectonic shift that has swallowed anyone lucky enough to encounter one of their records. Feedtime started out as a WTF project that suddenly coalesced into something quite unlike anything else going: a pounding rhythm section with a hoarse vocalist that swam against the fast-faster-fastest hardcore tides of the time to create a timeless rock ‘n roll sound that is equal parts psych pound, punk holler, gutter blues, and post-punk noisescape, without ever sacrificing the song to the concept. Neat trick that. Their initial period of intense activity was the mid-80s to the mid-90s. They released a series of records on the Aberrant (OZ), Rough Trade (UK/US), and Amphetamine Reptile (USA) labels. So, in 2011, when S.S. Records was working on bringing Feedtime to the US in order to play our tenth anniversary showcase, SS10 (where they ruled), I asked Bruce Aberrant if there was any archival stuff laying around. Bruce snorted a “Yes” and said that there were reels of it, but none of it had been accessed for years. Over the next six months Bruce went through hours of feedtime sessions, demos, and live tapes, transferring the keepers for S.S. to hear. We culled through dozens of songs—outtakes from feedtime’s great debut album and their even greater follow-up, Shovel. We also put our ears on demos from the Billy era, as well as live...

Los Llamarada

Gone Gone Cold

S-s Records

***“Things are ok here but this year there wasn't a Christmas truce. In fact the city woke up on Dec 31 with the news of a dead topless woman hanging from a bridge in one of the main avenues. The woman (nicknamed The Redhead) was part of a gang of kidnappers, had been in prison for some months, and had been ‘rescued’ a few days before by an armed squad while being taken to the hospital for some unnecessary tests. It seems like her rescuers didn't want her to speak, or weren't really her friends to start with. The pictures were everywhere and very graphic. By that same night people were making jokes about The Redhead being a New Year's piñata.” Thus begins one of the dozens of emails from Monterrey, Mexico’s LOS LLAMARADA to S.S. Records during the recording of their third and final album, Gone Gone Cold. Since their first album on S.S., The Exploding Now!, Llamarada has made some of the most striking psychedelic punk of the last decade. In the spirit of Red Crayola and 13th Floor Elevators, Llamarada approach to psych is devoid of rules, trends, or convention. Like Mars, they feel their way through sound, finding songs in the playing. However, while The Exploding Now! and their second album, Take the Sky, reflect the band’s (then) excitement with their future and possibility, Gone Gone Cold looks at present day Mexico and its never-end Drug War. On Gone Gone Cold, fans of Los Llamarada will...

Yonkers, Michael With The Blind Shake

Period

S-s Records

***Music freaks world-wide know now know MICHAEL YONKERS as one of the most exciting sounds in psychedelia. However, although Michael Yonkers has been making music since the early 1960s, until the release of Microminiature Love by DeStijl Records in 2002, he was a relatively obscure figure in the Minneapolis music scene. That might have been different if Sire Records would have released his psych classic Microminiature Love in 1968, as planned, but that was not to be. Shelved for decades, the world—or a small handful of the world—got to hear folk offerings like Grimwood. Things changed when Clint Simonson of Destijl stumbled on one of Michael's records—Border of My Mind—in the late ‘90s. Brothers JIM & MIKE BLAHA also lucked their way into Michael Yonkers world by a chance encounter with a 7" put out by Get Hip Records. All three set off to find this fascinating musician...and they did. While Simonson heard, fell in love with, and finally released Microminiature Love, the Blaha brothers and their band THE BLIND SHAKE chanced into a jam session with Yonkers. That jam was to lead to a fantastic collaboration by Michael Yonkers with the Blind Shake entitled Carbohydrates Hydrocarbons. Carbohydrates Hydrocarbons is not only a great collection of punk-induced psychedelia, as heavy as anything can be without sludging to death; it was also the best thing Yonkers had done since Microminiature Love, and a high point of the Blind Shake. A few years later Yonkers and the Shake got together for a...

Hank IV

Bellyful Of Slugs

S-s Records

***“Back in 2006, I chanced upon HANK IV. I went to some show in San Francisco to see a band who wound up sucking and the Hanks were second on the bill. I had never seen them, didn’t know who they were, though I should have recognized a couple for them from their pedigree (ICKY BOYFRIENDS, RESINEATERS, MR. & MR. & MR. & MR. & MR. EVIL, BUM KON, etc.). Within three songs of their set I was hooked. Hank IV had a few years on the crowd but that didn’t mean a lack of energy. What it meant was that they had the know-how to write and play great songs. What I heard was hints of Crime, Chain Gang, Viletones, Styrenes, punk rock that hearkens back to the dark grunt of late 70s Frisco punk but brought to the now. I tracked them down and asked if I could put out a single by them, but Hook or Crook already hit them up for an album and Plastic Idol had snagged a 7”. After those records they slid over to Siltbreeze, where Hank IV released two critically acclaimed LPs. While I was organizing SS10, the label’s tenth anniversary festival, the Hanks and I got to talking about doing a single. ‘Sure thing!’ When they sent me their heavy, urban street swamp version of Kim Salmon & the Surrealists’s ‘Bellyfull of Slugs,’ I replied with ‘A side!’ Soon after ‘Cold Equation’ came my way and I knew that this punk...

Lenz

Leaving (the 21st Century)

S-s Records

***“S.S. Records was tossing about for good San Francisco Bay Area bands to check out so we reached out to Budget Rock/Terminal Boredom/MRR music freak Mitch Cardwell. Mitch had one word: LENZ. He wrote that LENZ is a new band with ANDY JORDAN (THE CUTS, TIME FLYS, ANDY HUMAN) and RAY SERAPHIN (NOBUNNY, EPIC SESSIONS, THE IMPEDIMENT) and that they were the best unknown band going. He wrote that in LENZ you could hear ‘Roxy Music, UK post-punk/DIY, and glam-infused Kraut-Rock a la Neu's ‘Heros’.’ Finding a live shot on the internet and wrote Andy for some tracks. He sent ‘Leaving’ and ‘Feeling’ which in my mind translated to ‘A side” and B side.’ I booked them on SS10, the label’s tenth anniversary fest and offered to put out their debut single. They said yes and this is what you get—two great songs which harken back to the glory days of UK glam and the spacey days of Seventies Sci Fi punk without falling victim to copycat-ism or nostalgia. Here’s two great rock & roll songs from the here & now. 330 pressed.”—S.S.

Prisoners Go Go Band

Live! At The Butchery With Special Guests On Fire

S-s Records

***PRISONERS GO GO BAND’s one and only record is a remarkable thing. It was created in the early 1980s in a South Africa under apartheid, which was not only hostile to “race mixing,” but culturally conservative, as well. While punk and alternative music existed, it received scant attention by major labels and no radio airplay. Distribution through record stores was limited to commercial music. Certainly, a mixed-race band influenced by Can, Red Crayola, Pere Ubu, Henry Cow, and Derek Bailey was not prime for mainstream hearing. Nor was Johannesburg in 1981 exactly the most inviting place for such a band to release its own record. But that is what the Prisoners Go Go Band did. In 1979, YUNUS MOMONIAT, IQBAL MONONIAT and NEIL GOEDHALS formed a friendship which lead them to playing music. They called themselves the Prisoners Go Go Band. They never played a live show—neither the music they played nor the ethnic make up of the group allowed for that—but they did record their music. In a desolate part of Johannesburg, in Yunus’s DIY recording studio, the three drafted some friends (the “special guest on fire”) and recorded hours worth of songs and sounds. From that they came up with an album and had it pressed up as a LP. However, through mishaps and circumstance, it was a record few people got to hear and even fewer possessed—less than 100 copies were circulated. In 2007, a long-time fan of the label, a South African, tipped S.S. to Neil...

Sightings

Michigan Haters

S-s Records

***RESISSUED ON VINYL!!! SIGHTINGS' live shows sure as hell aren't background music for a thrift-store fashion show. They bring the pain but good. Sightings‚ second album (first, Sightings and third, Absolutes are on Load), Michigan Haters captures the sonic abandon that makes their performances such a liberating mindfuck. This Brooklyn by way of Motown trio pounds out an abrasive skronk that at first comes off as a pure denial. The primitivist, lurching rhythms, shuddery basslines and trebly guitar slashes seem conceived to prove that Sightings is more punk than you, and you're just not meant to understand. But then, wait a second. You've been bruised, defeated, and suddenly you're floating in a river of psychedelic scree. Mark M. is yelping out some Lord of the Flies incantations. You can't pogo to it, but you can twitch all night. The violence of Michigan Haters flows in all directions; it destroys itself and the listener to reveal hidden conduits of sound, from the rubberized rumble of "Chili Dog" to the more bleached and angular "Guilty of Wrecking." It's a soundtrack for punching holes in walls and watching them bleed vital fluids. Sightings play noise that hasn't been defused by aesthetic noodling; they're not Sonic Youth and they don't want o be. Think DNA, Big Black, Keiji Haino if you have to think at all. Play it loud and watch the neighbors run for cover. Originally released in 2002 on Psych-O-Path.

Duchess Of Saigon

S/t

S-s Records

***A limited edition LP featuring sixteen songs culled from sessions recorded by CHRIS WOODHOUSE between 2002 and 2005, every one of them as good as anything on Sacramento’s defunct DUCHESS OF SAIGON’s previous two EPs (released by S.S and Plastic Idol). Edition of 300 copies with only a good handful available for distribution.

Los Llamarada

Restless Light

S-s Records

***“It’s been a couple years and some since the world has heard from LOS LLAMARADA. Aside from some emails back and forth describing the deterioration of Llamarada’s hometown, Monterrey, under siege in the Drug War, I hadn’t heard from out friends down south. Then in Fall 2010 I received nine cassette tapes full of Llamarada recordings, pretty much most of the stuff they’d been working on over the last two years. I spent the next few days going through them, quickly realizing that there was more material than an album could handle. So Llamarada and I plucked out a couple of killers for a 7” (and started working on the other cuts for a full length later in 2011). To start, Llamarada gives us their jump on ‘Rezo Por Voz,’ a classic by Argentinian rock legends Luis Alberto Spinetta and Charly Garcia. In the Llamarada way, what you hear of ‘Rezo Por Voz’ in ‘The Restless Light’ are hints and dustings of the original. This is no straight cover, but a psych punk romp of claustrophobic proportions. Flip the single over and we have ‘A Current,’ an original taut and moody, a guitar drones spaghetti western style over a tense plain. Drop this into the opening scene in El Topo and I wouldn’t complain. Cover art by HERLA ALARCON. 500 pressed.”

Sperm Wails

Lady Chatterly

S-s Records

***“Back in 1986 a few guys got together in London-town in order to form a band. They ran an ad in the NME and found themselves a singer. They went through a couple drummers, played a bunch of gigs, released a few records, and called it quits. The band was forgotten by all but fans, friends, and a few music freaks. Could be any number of bands from the late-1980s, an unfairly maligned era of underground music. Fortunately, this band had some live footage that made it to the internet...and that live clip made tens of thousands of music fans say ‘Guh-guh-guh-GAH!’ The band is the SPERM WAILS. While prominent in England’s ‘Camden Noise-core Scene’ and having toured with the legendary My Bloody Valentine, the Wail’s ‘sister band,’ the SW didn’t get much of a listen outside of Merry ‘Ol. Their three records (Boy Hairdresser 12”, Carry-On 7”, and Grim/Stroke flexi disc) were self-released and never got the run they deserved. And as far as I know, they never made their way off of Monkey Island. If you would have asked the S.S. Records brain trust about the Sperm Wails, you would have gotten a blank stare. That is until the ‘Lady Chatterley’ surfaced. Propulsive punk rock with post-punk chops and one hell of an edge, ‘Lady C.’ showed a band that could have held their own to any of the era’s heavyweights (Big Black, UT, Sonic Youth, etc.). S.S. figured ‘Gotta have record.’ Problem was finding it. ‘Lady C.’...

V/a

Fm-bx Society Tape Vol. 1

S-s Records

***“S.S. Records is pleased to present the first vinyl edition of the FM-BX Society Tape Vol. 1. Originally released in 1981 on only cassette, with a limited run of 200, FM-BX V1 was the first in a series of compilation tapes released by the staff of a radio station in Brussels, Belgium. Needless to say, not many tapes made it around, and very few survive today. I’d say that is a shame but with this vinyl release, the word will get out about the bands on this tape, albeit a few decades after its initial release! FM-BX V1 features three bands, two from Belgium, one from Scotland. The Belgium bands are ISOLATION WARD and UNIT 4. Isolation Ward are known in underground synth collector circles, as they had a bit of a run after their debut on this release. Bleak and futuristic, Isolation Ward fuse post punk with early 80s synth sounds and a DIY approach. The stars of FM-BX are the all-woman foursome Unit 4. Little is known about the band or their current whereabouts. No problem because their music is all you need to tell you that they had something special going. By their sound, the influences are obvious: Kleenex, Delta 5, and the Raincoats all reverberate here though less ‘slick’ than any of those bands. Unit 4’s aesthetics are more akin to the Petticoats and, at times, the Shaggs. This is truly wonderful punk rock. From Scotland comes the TOPPLERS. If the name sounds familiar, it is...

Melchior, Dan Und Das Menace

Visionary Pangs

S-s Records

***“It’s been over a year since the world has heard an album’s worth of fresh material from DAN MELCHIOR UND DAS MENACE. So if you’ve been jonesing for some of Dan’s great music, we have the cure. On Visionary Pangs, Dan presents four short songs and two long song-cycles. It’s a great sequence, which allows our ‘relatively modest-sized man’ to delve a bit deeper in his sonic explorations and pimp a bit of his guitar skills, which are as strong as his song-writing. Since the mind-1990s, Dan has released some 30 albums and singles, and it has been a good run. However, the best of the bunch started emerging in 2007 with his Pink Scream e.p. and has continued with the excellent Christmas for the Crows LP and S.S. Records Thankyou Very Much double album. We are very confident in saying that Visionary Pangs sits with the aforementioned trio as one of Dan’s best to date. If it doesn’t wedge into your brain that Dan is one of the best song-writers going, a member of a proud tradition of English underground tune smiths which includes Mark E. Smith, Syd Barrett, and Dan Treacy, we don’t know what will!”—S.S. 500 pressed.

Banque Allemande

Eins, Zwei

S-s Records

***“While Berlin. Germany isn’t exactly ‘nowhere’, the amount of attention garnered by BANQUE ALLEMANDE since their inception in 2005 they might as well be from Quedlinberg. When I stumbled on them and was blown away by their songs, I started to wonder ‘What the fuck is wrong with you people?’ Actually nothing: Banque Allemande (also known as dbZwoVier) have spent the last 5 years avoiding Berlin’s rock scene, chosing to play subway cars, a hamburger grill, and the like. They recorded a couple albums worth of fantastic songs, but never spread them around. What was posted on myspace got lost in the flood of bands there. They lurk in the shadows no longer. Banque Allemande has a relentlessness that reminds me of the Gordons and Rema Rema, the thuggish charm of Feedtime, and some 1-2-3-4 yucks of ‘i dunno, name some late 70s euro punk outfit’—but that’s me hearing them. Their background is in the bands DISCOUNTER, TRUMPF AS, and MOSER INDIAN. Their ears are attuned to the hammering beats of Boys Noize. Or as they describe their sound: minimalistic, cut-down songstructures—yes please. rough sounds, straight beats—yes please. if what comes out is called ‘punk’—whatthefuck.” Edition of 500 copies.

Chinese Restaurants

Summer Romance

S-s Records

***If this summer’s insane heat waves hasn’t warped you, CHINESE RESTAURANTS’ “feel good hit of the summer” will. When we last met the Restaurants they were hand in hand with sonic dadaist Mattin, debuting their “River of Shit” EP on the S.S. label. Now with the same irreverence but moving the music a bit left field, they turn out two unique slices of summer bread. On the surface you wouldn’t hear “Summer Romance” as a pop song, but let the needle ride and you will hear hooks galore, a tune that references sumemr classics by Television, ? and the Mysterians, Joy Division, Mungo Jerry, David Dundas, and others. The flip is a stirring rendition of the Mexican classic “Nunca Jamas”, a strum happy dirge that brings to mind The Ex and their take on folk songs from the Spanish Civil War. The Chinese Restaurants are from New York City and are helmed by LF RESTAURANT (aka ACULPULCO RODRIGUEZ) and KEITH RESTAURANT (nee REDGERSON) with assistance by BUNNYBRAIN MALCOLM TENT, KEMP BOYD and others. This is their second 7-inch. Edition of 300 copies.

A-frames

333

S-s Records

***“For S.S. Records fiftieth release we are very, very, very proud to announce the A-FRAMES 333 triple album. Back in 2000, when SS, Sr. first saw the A Frames, he knew he had to start a new record label to release their stuff. And with the help of SS, Jr., that is what he did. From the Plastica 45 to two critically acclaimed full lengths and a couple more 45s, the A Frames/S.S. relationship remained so solid that when the A Frames jumped to Sub Pop records, the S.S. production team of CHRIS WOODHOUSE and SCOTT SORIANO went along for the ride. So now, after years of talk, SS and the A-Frames have gathered their singles and EPs together with a whole bunch of demo recordings, outtakes, and unreleased tracks for a forty-two song, triple album set.”

Ozzie

Parabolic Rock - 1975-1982

S-s Records

***From their wine-soused, Magic Band obsessed roots to their art-rock/new wave end some ten years later, OZZIE made some fantastic music. They built up substantial followings in Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. They were a Mabuhay Gardens regular, sharing the bill with bands like the Weirdos, The Sleepers, VOM, and the Nuns. In Sacramento, they played with everyone from the Rutabaga Boogie Band and the Talking Heads to the Nerves and the Fleshtones. However like many bands of the time, their limited output (only three 7-inches during their lifetime) and difficulty fixing them to one musical subgenre led to their obscurity and ultimately them being forgotten. In the early ‘90s, S.S. stumbled upon Ozzie’s 1977 debut single, “Android Love,” and flipped. He tracked down one of the band’s main members, WILLIAM FULLER, and struck up a friendship with him. A decade later S.S. tosses Fuller the idea to reissue “Android Love” single with a different B side. Fuller digs out some reel to reel tapes, an act that starts a multi-year odyssey through the Ozzie archives. The proto-punk meets glam wildness what made “Android Love” (produced by Public Nuisance/Twinkeyz David Houston) such a great song was present in the tapes, but there was more: Massive doses of Blue Oyster Cult inspired hard rock brilliance, Roxy Music glam drama, Sparks-like art, Bomp! Records-worthy power pop, edgy new wave that recalls the Suburban Lawns, and mid-Seventies-style underground rock sounds that thrill any collector of private press obscurities, all with a Keith...

Chinese Restaurants

River Of Shit

S-s Records

***“Like a child captured by wolves, the CHINESE RESTAURANTS might live in New York City, but they really don’t have a home. Though their roots are the Tucson, Arizona garage punk scene (home of the Fells!), LF RESTAURANT (aka ACAPULCO RODRIGUEZ) and KEITH RESTAURANT (neé REDGERSON) started the band long distance, from posts in Albany, New York and rural Connecticut. With Keith’s 11 year old Garfield-loving brother on drums, they threw song ideas over the phone and would play impromptu shows—often without rehearsing— including one via conference call. (When playing over 21 venues the Restaurants recruited Bunnybrains genius MALCOLM TENT to play drums). Of course, the sound was pure chaos, but over time and with infusions of American underground sounds like Beefheart, the Sun City Girls, and various Euro art pranksters the Restaurants started to find themselves. A name change to THE NORTH AMERICAN FREE JAZZ AGREEMENT lead to a Euro tour and an opening slot for Arthur Doyle. And it should probably be expected that the next step for our Restaurants was to reemerge as “a grotesque, sexually inappropriate Doors cover band.” Come 2010 and the Chinese Restaurants are finally committing themselves to vinyl. With the help of sonic saboteur MATIN (Billy Bao, Josetxo Grieta, NMM), the Restaurants created ‘River of Shit,’ an underground state of the state of the nation of sorts. A deft commentary on the Age of Obama or just another smart ass prank, we don’t know, but it sounds good. And the flip of ‘Work...

Nothing People

Soft Crash

S-s Records

***“Lots of bands, lots of records and usually by record two most bands crap out. Not the NOTHING PEOPLE. Since their first EP was released on S.S some four years ago, every subsequent Nothing People/S.S. release has gotten better and better. Soft Crash is no exception. And like the jump between their first album (Anonymous) and their second (Late Night), Soft Crash both expands and secures the Nothing People’s sound. A proto-punk pulse mixes with a dark synth throb for something that sounds both of yesterday and tomorrow or in the words of Z Gun’s Ryan Wells, ‘These guys are science fiction!’ Sci fi? As in Chrome, Von Lmo, and Simply Saucer? ‘Natch.’ And the man is right. However, unlike the ton of bands who get rifled in with classic underground names and cannot deliver, the Nothing People do their comrades justice. Last year’s Late Night LP made a ton of year end ‘Best Of’ lists. The year before Anonymous hit a bunch of ‘Best Ofs.’ While it is only February, might as well add Soft Crash to your “Best of 2010” list. Soft Crash is a great record.”—S.S. Includes download code.

El-g

Tout Ploie

S-s Records

***“So….a couple years back, one of my favorite French labels – Le Villain Chien – released a single by a guy going by the name of él-g. I picked up a few – record unheard - for our mail order and when they arrived, gave one a spin. The sound was a combination of world-weary French pop and mellow psych. The record lived on the turntable for a few weeks. When the Belgian label Kraak announced it was putting out an él-g album, I said sign me up for some. I got a very small handful and offered them for sale. Of course, one found its way to the record player and what came out of the speakers was one of the best records I’d heard in quite a while. Like the 7” I previously dug, this album strode through French pop styles and dreamy psychedelia, but this thing was much better than the seven inch. It had a classic sound. I wasn’t alone in liking it. David Keenan of Volcanic Tongue called it “Ass-flatteningly great” and said it “combines the decadent French ballad style of Serge Gainsbourg with warped acid folk settings, Industrial electronics and the kinda schizophrenic approach to genre that defines much of Thierry Muller and Philippe Doray’s work.” Clive Bell at the Wire said él-g’s”freak flag is exhilarating”. And the few people who got the record from me, wrote and asked for more. After spin number 50, I said to myself, “Damn, there’s a whole lotta...

Low Red Center

S/t

S-s Records

***S.S. Records is really happy to release vinyl debut of Low Red Center. While their sound centers around electronics, to call them a minimal synth band or electronica or post-punk is selling them short. Low Red Center not only have a great sound, but they have great songs, and a couple of ace singers. Originally a studio project, in 2004 Low Red Center morphed into an improvised group. Containing members of Voxtrot, Oblong Boys, Pataphysics, Spoon, NonoBangBang, and other Austin bands, LRC staged shows that involved heavy costuming, theater, dance, and, of course, music. Eventually, many of these improvised pieces were molded into songs. In the words of Chad A., “The object of Low Red Center is an exercise in improvisation and communication. Surprising ourselves as musicians by experimenting and discovering on stage, in front of an audience is of our goals. Restraint and listening are our approach to playing. A dedication to succinct presentation prevents unwanted jamming and convinces the audience that what we are performing are practiced, pre-written songs. The sound we have in mind is minimal and somewhat alien, with a vague film noir feel. This tension is frequently broken with a faster, more jagged post-punk approach…. The recordings present a studio translation of our live principals, but with the luxuries of production embellishment and craft. Everything was performed (no sequencing) on analog electronic synthesizers, acoustic instruments, and electric guitar and bass. All the drum machines were actual individual organisms, breathing with us in the studio--nothing was...