Stereo Creeps' Suck

You've been reading all these show reports from Munich and AXPONA and, soon enough, Philadelphia and Long Beach CA, and you're probably wondering when the Vinyl Anachronist is going to start writing about music again--especially music on vinyl. The ol' review pile is perhaps bigger than ever, and people are starting to ask me these questions. To tell you the truth, I have been busy traveling the world and I won't apologize for that, but reviewing music is what keeps me grounded. In addition, the vinyl rig is about to go through some changes since I just purchased a new cartridge--the first one I've purchased since my Denon DL-103 a few years ago. I also have a few Vinyl Anachronist reviews cued up at Part-Time Audiophile, ready to go, and you'll see those soon. In other words, it's time to dig into some vinyl before I have to get on another airplane.

Stereo Creeps' Suck has been on the review for a very long time--it was the first record I played on the Technics SL-1200G turntable I have in for review, something I picked up way back in January or February. This angry/fun album seems like post-punk at first, which usually right up my alley, but after a few plays I think I'm onto something different--pre-punk. I'm not sure if this is a term that's been coined a million times before, but let me explain my concept of it. Back when I was a teenager in the mid to late '70s, my friends and I all listened to rock and roll, the stuff that's now called classic rock but was original just called rock. Then, here and there, we started finding music that was a bit different, a bit more strange and dark and angry. It wasn't quite what we called punk, but it was certainly the beginning of it. We're talking about the New York Dolls, the Runaways and even some of the music Bowie was recording in Berlin. It all sounded dark and confused, and we really liked it because no one else was listening to it yet.

Stereo Creeps, a power trio from Seattle that is made up of guitarist/vocalist Sean Moe, bassist Mark Wardell and guitarist Robert Dollison...wait just a minute. I'm confused. For some reason Stereo Creeps doesn't credit the very present drummer, and at first I thought Dollison had to be the drummer. I'm not sure what the story is here, a typo, or some kind of PR mystery, but anyways. Someone on their bandcamp page named Bucky has proclaimed that "this album SUCKs every last drop of nostalgic 90s chaos off the bar room floor and spits it in your pimple crusted face with a post-punkish sneer and a hydroponic punch." I don't see it. I see PRE-punk. I see an adherence to old-fashioned hard rock signatures dancing in the same dark corners where you might run into Satan or at least a very cute Goth girl with a few too many body piercings.

What's unusual about this tough album, tagged as scuzz pop on their website, is that it's nicely recorded and pressed on beautiful transparent blue vinyl. I thought this was another indie rock band lucky enough to make a deal with the Pallas Group pressing plant in Germany, but there are none of the prerequisite stickers on the outer sleeve. It's released by DeepSkull Records, mixed by Don Farwell at Earwig Studio and mastered by Levi Seitz at Black Belt Mastering and they've all done an incredible job. Our pre-punk albums back in 1976 didn't sound this good, but we were listening on little record players on the floors of our bedrooms and not with analog rigs that cost twice as much as my first new car. But Suck definitely takes me back to a time when everything was about to bust open and change in ways we couldn't possibly imagine.

(Edit: I just heard from Sean Moe, who wanted to explain the drummer situation: "We were in between drummers during this period of time so one of the engineers (Mikel Perkins) tracked the drums with us after rehearsing the songs with us. That's the quick story." Thanks for the clarification, Sean!)