Suren - Crate Digger: an Obsession With Punk Records

Crate Digger

An Obsession With Punk Records

Bob Suren

First Printing, June 9, 2015

All text is Bob Suren, 2015

This edition is Microcosm Publishing, 2015

Photos as individually credited

In the Punk History series

Microcosm Publishing

2752 N Williams Ave

Portland, OR 97227

For a catalog, write or visit

MicrocosmPublishing.com

ISBN 978-1-62106-194-6

This is Microcosm #193

Distributed worldwide by Legato / Perseus and in England by Turnaround

Edited by Joe Biel and Lauren Hage

Designed by Joe Biel

Cover by Meggyn Pomerleau

This book was printed on post-consumer paper by union workers in the United States.

This is an uncorrected proof and is not for sale.

CONTENTS

DEDICATED TO all the people who were part of my life in music, to my heroes and friends, to the people who worked and played beside me in good times and bad. To Ella who let me live my dreams. And to June, who remains out of reach.

I spent 30 years of my life consumed by punk rock music. At first I was just a listener but quickly got caught up in the excitement of it all. I began playing in bands, writing about music, and shooting photos. I published my own magazine and edited another. I hosted 35 record conventions. I ran the Burrito Records label and Sound Idea, a record distribution and store, for eighteen, sixteen, and fourteen years, respectively. I contributed to four books. I had a syndicated Internet radio show. I had a bootleg music merchandising empire. I promoted more than 600 concerts and traveled all over with my own music.

I began collecting records, a pursuit with no end. I saw each record as a piece of a fascinating puzzle. With each piece, the picture became more detailed. Each piece brought deeper understanding of this genre, its history and its ideologies. I amassed several thousand pieces of vinyl plus who knows how many cassettes and CDs. I also had books, magazines, posters, videos, and other items of ephemera. My living room looked like a record store. It wasnt enough. I always wanted to do more. I wanted bigger projects and more records. Always more records.

With the music came travel, friendships, assholes, hard work, satisfaction and disappointment. And I found the person I fell in love with.

This book is a patchwork of memories, profiling some of the most important records in my life. This book is like a long conversation between two friends in a room full of records. Im glad youre here with me, friend.

3421 is the house my parents built in Stuart, Florida in 1979. I lived there until I went to college. After college, I lived there for a few more years, saving money and figuring out what to do with myself.

3421 is where I first heard many of my favorite bands on vinyl and cassette tapes. 3421 is where I started my record label and where the label grew into a mail order distribution company. Lots of nights I was up late, pecking away on an old typewriter, putting together my first mail order catalogs. One night my mom asked me to stop clacking the keys of the typewriter at 2 AM so she could get some sleep. I didnt sleep much then.

3421 is where I started my own music magazine. By then I had a computer and the clicking of the keys was much quieter.

The town was too small and I was going crazy there. By the time I left, I was past ready to leave; I didnt much care when my parents sold the place in summer 2012.

Me with one of my first bands at the Downtown Club, April 1986, Stuart, FL. Photographer unknown.

ALTERNATIVE TENTACLES 1982

7 Seconds was my favorite band for a few years. They took the ball from the pioneering Minor Threat and ran with it. I collected all of the 7 Seconds stuff.

An older guy in my high school got into American hardcore as soon as it happened. He was Year One and I was like Year Three. He loaned out and taped lots of records for people. His copy of Skins, Brains, and Guts made the rounds at school. When it finally dropped into my hands, I fell in love with not just the raw, urgent sounds on the record but the raw, urgent graphics on the cover. Everything about this record screamed, HARDCORE! It is one of the finest examples of the genre. And it made me feel like I was part of something really cool.

Like a lot of Year One guys, he eventually proclaimed hardcore dead and began giving away all of his records. I ended up with his copy of Skins, Brains, and Guts and the first MDC album. I blasted both of these over and over like high-decibel mantras.

7 Seconds released the Committed for Life 7 next, but no copies made it to our small circle for a few years. The next 7 Seconds my friends and I heard was their first full length, The Crew.

My pal Mike bought The Crew and hated it because it sounded nothing like Skins, Brains, and Guts. Had we heard Committed, the transition would have been less of a shock. And so I ended up with Mikes copy of The Crew. I gave him a D.O.A. record, which I found slow and boring.

This was the first time I traded records and it felt weird. Not like I was getting ripped off, but like I wasnt sure it was something I was supposed to do. My parents raised me to take care of my possessions and although they never said anything, I got the feeling that they would not want me to trade my stuff. But by then I was a certified punk rocker, trying all kinds of new things that my parents would not approve of.

I took an immediate liking to The Crew. It was different from the band I fell in love with, but I accepted it. Over the years, 7 Seconds changed sounds a few times; I tried to keep up with them, but I never liked the later era of the band. The Crew became a melodic code of conduct for me and thousands of people around the world. Their positive, profound lyrics coupled with electric playing pulled me in. I quickly memorized the lyrics and still know them.

A year later, 7 Seconds followed up with the Walk Together, Rock Together 12 EP. I was at a record store, standing in line, when the UPS guy dropped off a big box on the sales counter. The clerk asked me if I could wait until he opened the box. Right on top was Walk Together.

I never saw that one before!

Its the new record, produced by Ian MacKaye. I didnt know what produced meant, but I knew Ian MacKaye was the singer of Minor Threat, one of my favorite bands.

Uh Can I buy one?

Sure, just let me make sure everything is here first.

So I put back whatever was in my hands and waited for the clerk to check inventory. He sold me the top copy from the box, the one I first laid eyes on. I was about to walk out the door, marveling at an all-new, super cool 7 Seconds record, when he stopped me and asked if we could listen to it.

We broke it out of the plastic and plopped it on the stores turntable. And we were both immediately floored. After we listened to the whole thingit is less than eighteen minuteshe called a friend and said, Hey, have you heard the new 7 Seconds? Its really good. You want me to hold a copy?

That was 1985, the year that 7 Seconds become a phenomenon. Two weeks after this came out I was at a concert in Miami. Between bands, the club played the entire record over the P.A. system; the whole crowd sang every word louder than the record on the P.A.