SST odds and ends

Here are a couple of releases from SST records that are currently unavailable.

Although the bands have completely different sounds, what they do have in common is that they could both be considered side projects of people who were in more famous groups.

Brian Ritchie is from the Violent Femmes – the acoustic/ folk/ punk group – and maybe not surprisingly some of these songs have a similar folky sound, although quite a variety of unusual instruments are used giving some tracks more of a world music quality.

Meanwhile, SWA features Chuck Dukowski of Black Flag – albeit after he had left that band – along with a roster of other artists that had appeared on SST releases – such as Ray Cooper from the Descendents and Paul and Kira Roessler.

SWA play that doom/metal influenced hard rock that I talked about in my last blog, clearly showing the influence this music had among some SST groups as many began to head in this direction.

SWA have often being said to be the worst band to ever record for SST, although having heard some of the improvisational stuff that they also released I really can’t agree, at worst this is generic metal-influenced rock.

Sonic Temple & Court Of Babylon

Your Future If You Have One

 

Fu Manchu

I had a request from a friend to put these up, so here is a slight change of pace from the usual punk stuff.

Fu Manchu are a Stoner/Doom rock band, which means they play a heavy, driving style of mid-paced hard rock influenced by the likes of Black Sabbath.

Personally, I’m a huge fan of Black Sabbath and saw the original line-up playing their supposedly last ever gig at Birmingham NEC in 1999.

Obviously many people into hardcore punk were also huge fans – I’m thinking mainly of the SST guys, Greg Ginn, Black Flag etc – and that heavy sound became prevalent in much of their later music and of course St Vitus, the original Stoner/Doom band, were on SST.

Likewise, many of the Stoner/Doom bands – such as Fu Manchu, Queens Of The Stone Age, Kyuss and Monster Magnet – were heavily influenced by hardcore punk groups like Black Flag, Bl’ast etc, with many of them coming from a punk background.

The Action Is Go

King Of The Road