Wednesday, March 17, 2010

De Skrigende Halse: "Riders of Depression"



Arrrgghhh, awesome!!! xD

Turn on the web camera and you'll see me kicking myself in the head for not having bought the record, the CD, and the VHS when it all came out. All I have is a stinking DVD-R off telly :o(

Heey, my old SORT SOL betamax tape from 1987 is now on YouTube! xD




SORT SOL (aka SODS)
Three tracks live (DR TV, Denmark, 1987)

1) Blood on the Saddle
2) Searching Down the Block
3) Pinocchio Loose (aka Pinocchio on the Loose)

This is SORT SOL at their best! In 1987 Danish state tv ran a series of music shows entitled "Musicbox" and to me this was definitely the highlight of the series.

SORT SOL started out in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1978 as a full-on punk band under the name of SODS. Their debut LP "Minutes to go" is a mile stone in Danish punk music but soon after the release they got bored with the three cord limitations that punk music offered and on their second LP "Under en sort sol" they had moved in a more avantgarde'ish direction.

Their third LP "Dagger & Guitar" is the first one where they use the name SORT SOL but what many new fans don't realise is the band actually used both names for years to come. And if you were a "real" fan you kept calling them SODS. "Sort Sol" was for wanna-be fans, haha. I don't think I started using the Sort Sol moniker till 1990 or something. LOL.

On "Dagger & Guitar" SORT SOL recorded two tracks with LYDIA LUNCH. If you do a YouTube search you'll find their "Boy/Girl" track that features miss Lunch. It's uploaded by someone else in Canada (G'day mate, whoever you are) but (via other traders) the clip comes from a recording I did in 1984 when television in Denmark broadcast a documentary about the band called "OMKRING EN SORT SOL - et portraet af SODS".

There was a pretty big gap between the third and fourth LP and when "Everything that rises must converge" finally came out in 1987 their sound had become the violent music you'll hear on this live recording. Like I said this is the band at their best in my opinion. Later records never quite reached the intensity and violent rawness as on "Everything".

The original title of the LP was actually going to be "The Violent Bear it Away" but they change it before it was released. The CD version of the album, which wasn't released till many years later, contains a bonus disc for which they used the title.

THE LOUSY PICTURE QUALITY

My gawd, it is pretty crappy isn't it. LOL.
When I taped this concert in '87 I used a Betamax VCR and obviously I loved the recording and almost played it to death! And it shows!!! You'll notice my tape is in less than perfect condition... TO SAY THE LEAST... but actually I think it kinda fits the band. SORT SOL was a raw band, their music was raw and violent, and this recording is raw and rugged almost to the point of not working anymore. It almost makes it better.

And even if you don't agree there's not much to do about it as there's a good chance I'm the only person who actually has this on tape; I have never come across anybody else who has it nor have I seen it mentioned on fan pages.

I also taped the 30 minute documentary film I mentioned and I'll probably upload it later.