So this year I got sucked into collecting old Sub Pop 7"s. It started when I picked up a Nirvana 'Sliver' 7" last year, which snowballed into buying a further 8 copies.. and drove me to want to just buy more Sub Pop 7"s from the label's early days. I love the consistency of the labels and early sleeve layouts, and given that a lot of the records were pressed in relatively high numbers, lots of them are both easy to find and also cheap. So I set about trying to collect the Sub Pop catalogue up to SP200. After that the direction of the label kinda changed direction and focus and I have no interest.
Anyway, I have bought quite a lot of Sub Pop 7"s this year, so I decided to bundle them up into a short series of posts. If I tried to post them all individually it would take forever, and I have more things I want to get to before the year ends. So I'm posting a bunch a day, in order of catalogue number, starting here. So here we go...
SP35 Mad Daddys 'Take Me Back to Woodstock b/w Alligator Wine', released in May 1989. There were 1,500 copies, all on black vinyl. The song titles kinda suggest that this is some weird hippy shit, and I can confirm that this is just that. One for collection completeness completeness purposes only.
SP39 Das Damen 'Sad Mile b/w Making Time' released in July 1989. There were 1,500 copies, all on black vinyl. Apparently Das Damen is was an alt rock band from NYC, active in the 80s and just about making it into the 90s before calling it quits. They had a couple of LPs released by SST Records too. I quite like this record. I'd definitely give an album a go.
SP46 Lonely Moans 'Shoot the Cool b/w Texas Love Goat' released in October 1989. There were 1,200 copies on red vinyl and 800 on black. The cover suggests this will sound like The Beatles. It doesn't. The song 'Texas Love Goat' has a strange title, but is a very catchy tune. Definitely an enjoyable 7".
SP51 Honeymoon Killers 'Get It Hot b/w Gettin' Hot' released November 1989. 1200 on red vinyl and 800 on black vinyl. This one sounds halfway between garage and grunge to me. It's alright, but it doesn't excite me enough to want to seek out any of their other records.
SP71 Thee Headcoats 'Time Will Tell b/w Davey Crockett (Gabba-Hay!)' released June 1990. 2000 copies on blue vinyl and 2000 copies on black vinyl. I have memories of record shopping in Camden in the early 90s and seeing Headcoats and Billy Childish and thinking it looked like weird, old fashioned music. I mean, look at the front cover photo. Back then I never heard the band, but in my mind they earned a firm 'avoid' rating. When I decided to collect Sub Pop 7"s this year, this one was quite high on my want list due to nostalgia and curiosity. Ultimately, however, the 17 year old me was right.
Credit where credit's due: the pressing info in this post came from the Pette discographies site. Thanks to John Pette for developing and maintaining such a great resource for Sub Pop collectors.
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