Saccharine Trust

I still love it and it still destroys me. Even though now it "vomits nostalgia".

really digging We Became Snakes tonight. I remember them always seeming out of place on L.A. bills but I am digging them now.

Genuinely odd band (in the way that I can't even tell how much I like it when I'm listening to it), based on the one album I've got (the live one w/ Mike Watt on bass...). How does October Faction/Tom Troccoli's Dog/Gone compare with this stuff?

Didn't Tom Troccoli show up on ILM once?

surviving you, always is a classic

love this band. pulled out worldbroken a couple of months ago. we became snakes is great, too.

all the other jazzy sst bands couldn't hold a candle to them, except maybe the instrumental black flag.

saccharine trust live - '84? '85?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhsAK0vb63c

they actually started doing gigs again recently. they have a myspace page.

was turned onto this by remembering just tonight a conversation ILX stalwart 'blah aerosmith blah' and I had about 'We Became Snakes' and its past-tense album-title

anyway I am most of the way through listening to the aforementioned record and it is fresh as fuck

weird, I had the we became snakes version of "effort to waste" going thru my head this morning

these guys never made a bad album

I've spilt over into Worldbroken a couple of times and been totally taken with how awesome it too is - first two tracks are astonishing - then it turns out the whole thing is COMPLETELY IMPROVISED?!

holy mother of god - now I know you're a fan of The Post-Nearly Man (as am I) but surely this has gotta be up near it in the improv stakes

yeah, their bassist was intimidated by the thought of doing a fully improvised album, which is why mike watt is on bass on worldbroken

that album broke my head back in '85

I always hoped a full recording of that set would leak but it never has afaik

this is titanic - I think I prefer it to the debut Naked City record? yeah they're not trying to do the same thing, but there's a shared attitude maybe

I'm rambling and zonked, forgive me. this band rules.

their debut ep paganicons is one of the most irritating/brilliant things ever

well I'll listen to that one next (I will, it's just below Worldbroken on Spotify and I ain't stopping anything)

still amazed at how good this improv record insists upon being

to warm you up here's byron coley's review of paganicons, he gets it

There's a very persistent ugliness to Saccharine Trust's sound. They initially displayed this surliness with a series of cuts on three excellent local samplers (Cracks in the Sidewalk, Chunks, and The Future Looks Bright) where their tracks stood out due to the forceful top-end skritch of Jack Brewer's voice and the equally high-pitched craw of Baiza's guitar. Behind this din the perceptive listener was able to hear Earl Liberty go ape on bass (one string at a time) while Bob Holtzman bellied around in the same kinda "flashy" tubwork that make Maureen Tucker so rightfully famous. The overall effect was something akin to a hyped-up South Bay Mekons and though prolonged immersion in their collective works (collected by me, on cassette) invariably resulted in a Big Bang style headache I eagerly awaited their official debut. The wait is over. At most record shacks it is now possible to purchase their first EP, Pagan Icons (SST Records).
With 8 songs on 12 inches of vinyl (3 cuts of which were on Future), S.T. have precisely doubled their recorded output and the world is a more anxious place for it. The band's basic sound and personnel remain the same, but having all this material in one place at one time (in the company of a lyric sheet par Raymond Pettibon) makes it much easier to examine the sickness that lurks in their heart of hearts. Anyone who's had access to the polluted acid that's been the rule for these last ten years should have first hand knowledge of the genital constrictions and burning nervousness associated with low level strychnine toxicity and that particular feeling is, in many ways, the physical analog of S.T's muse. Mr. Brewer's lyrics flip from contextually sophisticated stabs at societal mores to wild hallucinogenic word-swarms that peck at your senses and produce actual anxiety like a flock of Hitchcock's birds, while the band backs him up inch after acerbic inch. Quite a diturbing listening experience.
In summation: it's real hard to recommend a record as thoroughly mordant as Pagan Icons, but it's equally difficult to ignore the abrasive siren call that bellows from my speakers each time I play it. As always, you're on your own.

and another one by, of all ppl, matt groening

What distinguishes this local eight song compendium of anger and alienation from all the others is it's slightly more ambitious lyrical outlook, full of convoluted abstractions and addled sub psychedelic imagery. The nasal whine of Joaquin Milhouse Brewer is perfect for this kind of thing - "My walls are green/ My wall are red/ I only cry wolf/ When all my sheep are dead" - and the three back-up thrashers caterwaul their way through the numbers with enough vim and vigor to keep the nonreaders happy. Melodic invention is minimal, and the songs are unrelentingly solemn, but on a few of the tunes, notably "We Don't Need Freedom" and "A Human Certainty," the lack of irony and humor is offset by sneering, snarling confusion. The lyric sheet insert comes with a menacing illustration of a crucified rattlesnake by Raymond Pettibon guaranteed to make parents and youth counselors gulp and scowl.

don't tell me that's where groening got 'milhouse' from :D

both of those have piqued me something sheer

ah man, community lie is <90 seconds of perfection

mind on the freeway
your mouth on a cliche
you walked in the party
talking like a DJ

this is just 400mph awesomeness, 'I Am Right' is latest brainblower but they're all good

and yeah 'A Human Certainty' is relentless :D

I hope the general populace is ready to accept the genius of ST, almost nobody cared about these guys back in the day

they put out a comeback album in '99, it came out in, like, germany

still a very fun live band though they don't do much nowadays

I'm still waiting for some label to have the wherewithal to reissue Surviving You, Always - if the master tapes are available, that is.

A few years ago Jack Brewer sent me a CD copy burned from his own vinyl, with an added extra live version of 'YHWH On Acid' that simply kills.

don't tell me that's where groening got 'milhouse' from :D

One of his Life In Hell strips from the 80s has a bit in it about really bad names to give your kid, Milhouse being one of them - I think because it was Nixon's middle name

on topic, have meant to acquaint myself with this mob properly for years but the vagaries of the SST catalogue make it kinda tricky

saw em play at a UK ATP five or so years ago, they were fuggin great - jack brewer was drunken and expansive, joe bazia small and focussed - tho the perf was pretty sparsely attended :-(

some of the universal congress albs are gd, too

Past Lives double-live set is primo too

I dig Pagan Icons but I think I need to give We Became Snakes another couple of listens to really "get" it.

hey guys WHERE NEXT

chronological is not gonna hurt you, you're halfway through already

paganicons '81
surviving you always '84
worldbroken '85
we became snakes '86
past lives '89
the great one is dead '01

I was just reading this thread yesterday and then last night I saw an old (drummer) friend of mine who grew up in Pedro and worked at SST in the 80's. She moved back there in the last year and I asked her if she was playing at all. Casually, she says "yeah, I've been playing with Dukowski, Baiza, and Brewer"..... wow. Don't think they're recording though, just jamming.

sry for namedropping but it seemed relevant to the thread.

"surviving you always" (yet another amazing album title) is the one that seemed to have the most adherents back when

hmmm I guess there isn't a thread for Universal Congress Of, but imo they were great (esp live) as well.

yeah, I never understood the universal love for surviving you always, it's a good album but not my favorite... it's their most trad rocking / black flaggish I guess, the way brewer says SAAAAAATAN on that spoken word thing is pretty cool tho

wau @ yr drummer friend, sleeve!

we became snakes is *so fresh*

arrrrgh paganicons is so goooooooooooood

It warms my heart to know these guys are still going. Also, now I'm reminded to get my hands on that San Pedro punk book before the summer's out.

I got a bootleg of Pagan Icons on LP recently, have yet to verify its quality tho

fwiw i'm pretty sure there's no space b/t pagan and icons: hence, paganicons

does Ginn have the masters in a closet in Tyler TX or something? SST was overrated in its day imo but there ought to be remasters of the Saccharine Trust stuff

yeah, I never understood the universal love for surviving you always, it's a good album but not my favorite... it's their most trad rocking / black flaggish I guess
― mr. mandelbrot flythrough vertigo, esq. (Edward III), Sunday, October 31, 2010 12:29 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm going to take issue with a four-year-old post for a moment and say that surely Paganicons is their most trad-rocking/Black Flaggish. Surviving You, Always seems like a big step further into abrasive weirdo jazz-damage territory in comparison.

By the way, does anyone know why SYA is out of print? You can still buy every SST Saccharine Trust release through the label except that one, and I've heard it was never got a CD release to begin with. Something to do with the "Peace Frog" cover, maybe?

By the way, does anyone know why SYA is out of print? You can still buy every SST Saccharine Trust release through the label except that one, and I've heard it was never got a CD release to begin with. Something to do with the "Peace Frog" cover, maybe?

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Ginn or whoever lost the masters to that one, since it never got a CD release. On a related note, I remember reading Brewer writing on the web somewhere that the CD master for PaganIcons was a needle drop, like SST did it that way all the time in the early '90s. (Doesn't mean they have to be bad - the Dicks reissues on AT, including their SST album Kill from the Heart, were remastered from LPs since the tapes are gone - but yeah.)

It's probably nothing to do with the 'Peace Frog' cover since there's a version of that on the Past Lives live LP (which has one or two other covers as well, like 'Express Yourself').

Ah, that makes sense. What a shame.

It warms my heart to know these guys are still going. Also, now I'm reminded to get my hands on that San Pedro punk book before the summer's out.

― wronger than 100 geir posts (MacDara)

Saw them a few months ago in LA, they still got it, which warms my heart even more.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Ginn or whoever lost the masters to that one, since it never got a CD release.

Ethan James engineered a lot these records at Radio Tokyo - the studio no longer exists and James died in 2003. Back when, recording in southern California (and still in plenty of places), bands would often leave the mixes at the studios where they were recorded -- the procedure is record / mix / take final mixdowns to mastering place (usually John Golden in SoCal) / store mixdowns either at the label or at the studio. When there's a "home" studio the bands on a label use, I've often seen the tapes being stored there. My guess is when Radio Tokyo closed a lot of the mixdowns got thrown out; it happens all the time.

yeah something similar often happens when film labs close. film companies leave the negatives there and forget them. then when the lab closes or moves, everything is tossed.

I first heard Saccharine Trust (in 94? I think) when I was at my local record shop and the gents behind the counter told me I should check out Saccharine Trust cuz based on the other stuff I was into they figured I would dig it and they were right. But, the main reason it had come up was SST had told them that the they were letting the record go out-of-print and the last copies in stock were the last available.

I never heard the reason why SST was letting the record go out of print , maybe mid-90s vinyl demand drop? Don't know but it seemed weird even at the time cuz Surviving was considered the ST record. I'm glad I snagged a copy when I did. One of my all time favorite bands.

Maybe they pressed the same amount of all the Saccharine Trust albums and that went out of print first because it was more popular?

That's assuming there was any logic behind it at all, which when it comes to SST is a losing game.

"Maybe they pressed the same amount of all the Saccharine Trust albums and that went out of print first because it was more popular?"

This is def the most logical answer, and couple with the fact the band was broken up at the point maybe SST didn't foresee any future demand, but those are all reasonable answer and with SST who knows.

I CAN'T BELIEVE WE ARE STILL DESPERATE

one of my biggest vinyl collecting regrets was not picking up the last new copy of SYA in my local store around a decade ago. it had been there for years. wish these guys would do a needle drop version themselves at this point.

And for the heads (which at this point I got to imagine any into Sac Trust qualifies as a "head") I bang on and on about but the two records Brewer did with Bazooka, him spieling over their jazz improv, remind two of my absolute favorite albums & you can probably get them both for cheap in the various cut-out bins of the world.

2004 Perfect Sound Forever interview with Joe baiza--Jack keeps in touch a little with Greg Ginn, in a near-futile attempt to get him to do a couple of things for us.

2015--Is there ever gonna be a reissue of Paganicons?
We were gonna try to do a reissue with another label, but Greg Ginn at SST still won't allow anything to be done with it. It's kind of being held prisoner right now.

http://www.vice.com/read/talking-about-minutemen-and-sst-with-joe-baiza-from-saccharine-trust-015

wish these guys would do a needle drop version themselves at this point.

There's a noisy but decent vinyl rip to be found amid the jungle of mp3 blogs, which is the best one can get right now if it isn't possible to grab a second-hand copy.

Also, regarding PaganIcons, Jack Brewer had some interesting things to say on Facebook.

]It really is time to close down and give all of the artist the rights to their music. Because SST has crossed a line that they will never be able to step back from.

OTM

Man, I was in a room with Ginn once. His band sucked and that alone should make him back off on this bullshit.

dude the music Ginn makes now is some of the worst music of all time, it's really pretty special

some of the universal congress albs are gd, too

― Ward Fowler, Thursday, October 28, 2010 5:24 AM (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I am reviving a very old thread to ask: which ones? I saw a few recently and realized that I've never heard anything Baiza did post-ST (despite being a ST fan back in the day)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnU4kfugRb0

Recently uploaded 1981 live footage w pretty good sound considering. The person who posted it commented "Recorded on 3/4" U-matic tape that was found in a dumpster from a friend of a friend."

Feel like I saw them on that tour but in DC , probably a few days before or after that Peppermint Lounge NY gig.