limp test pressing:

limp commercial release:

yat test pressing:

yat commercial release:

Black Market Baby - Potential Suicide 7":
Potential Suicide // Youth Crimes
?? test pressings on black vinyl
1000 copies on black vinyl
Limp Records 035, 1981

Lineup: Boyd Farrell - vocals / Keith Campbell - guitar / Myk Dulfi - bass / Tommy Carr - drums / Paul Cleary - bass

Recording Info: Recorded at Inner Ear. Produced by Skip Groff. Paul Cleary plays bass, though Mike was in the band when it was released (he's the one facing away from the camera).

Notes: Both Limp test pressings that I know of come with the commercial sleeve. Mine was unglued, but taped at the top. I've heard of a pre-release sleeve similiar to the Nurses 7" (which makes sense given that they were done at the same time). Anyone have some info?
I saw a copy of the YAT issue with a pink streak on the B side a couple years back. Almost all the Rainbo colored runs have some kinda contamination. Some of the test pressings came in the sleeve like the Bad Brains split tests--just a plain white inner w/xeroxed label art. Not mine.
Pictured is...well, everything.

Skip's Comments: I was not the first person to produce Black Market Baby. They did demos with Steve Carr and the famous aborted single session with Ted Niceley at Track Studios. It just was too cold and dry for them, that was my impression as to why they didn't release it. Everyone else seems to think it's fine. You've got the bootleg 45.

Well, Boyd really hates the song Crimes of Passion.

Well...it's not structured very well, but as far as the recording goes, it's okay. When I went in with them and did the single they wanted me to basically produce them like a punk band, like I'd done with the Teen Idles and Minor Threat, and that's what I did. I took them into Don's and we recorded Potential Suicide and Youth Crimes, and I think we worked on one other song that didn't get released.

Did you approach them about doing the single?

No, they approached me. I'm pretty sure they approached me. I wouldn't have...I knew Ted, he was working at the store at that time, and I wouldn't have gone onto his territory like that without them wanting me to do it.

They had been unhappy with what they'd done previously, both with Steve Carr and Ted, and they wanted to try to see if I could get them to sound like they should sound as punks. They presented the songs to me, and that's what they wanted to do.

Potential Suicide I probably did in a little more of a power pop medium than they wanted, but it was chosen by Rhino Records as one of the great punk records of the eighties, so it couldn't have been too bad.

Youth Crimes, I think, is more of a punk song in keeping with what they were all about at that point in time. But there's no question that Potential Suicide's a classic record.

Reviews: This is the best Limp record. Those who claim otherwise are a motley rabble of saucy boys, Irish teagues, and outlandish jack tarrs. And you can fuckin' quote me on it.

Elsewhere on this site and in the pages of Dementlieu fanzine I've credited Black Market Baby with everything from introducing me to the other side of DC punk to destroying the DC rock scene (after all, why should anyone form a band when the inevitable comparison is to the very Gods of DC rock themselves?) to starting me down the path to record collectordom. I'd like to add the transmutation of lead to gold, curing my leprosy, and making one of the best records ever to their list of accomplishments.

This is the first DC punk record that is absolutely, unequivocably ESSENTIAL. Both sides are rippin' punk rock monsters with big, mean-sounding guitars and more words than you can shake a stick at. Really, only Chris D could cram more words into a song than Boyd Farrell (but Boyd's words actually make sense!).

This is the only DC record that can stand up to the first two Minor Threat 7"s (Bad Brains 7"? The B side is...well, crap. Bad Brains cassette? It's not a record. Teen Idles? Slickee Boys? United Mutation? Hah. No chance.).

The A, Potential Suicide is one of the greatest suicide songs ever written--mebbe tied with Final Solution by Pere Ubu. The B is along the same lines as Streetfighting Man, but only Black Market Baby could rouse the rabble and moralise at the same time. Boyd even said, "I was always concious to have that message there, talking about suicide and troubled youth, all of that. I was mostly talking about myself, but I guess they could relate."

This is powerful rocknroll, a phrase which has almost lost all meaning in an age where louder is often blander and the punk rock aesthetic is a mainstream commodity. Keith Campbell, DC's gee-ee-ee-ee-tar god should have won the nobel prize for monster riffs and Boyd's got something to say. Worthy.

I've heard of (but not seen) a pre-release sleeve for some test pressings of the Limp issue--anyone have a copy they want to trade or sell (or at least scan in?). Email me!

Manifesto - Burn 7":
Burn // Longtime
25 test pressings
1000 numbered copies on translucent red vinyl
Yesterday and Today YAT2, 1990

Lineup: Michael Hampton - guitars and vocals / Bert Queroz - bass / Ivor Hanson - drums

Recording Info: Recorded at Inner Ear Studios. Produced by Ted Niceley, November 1988.

Notes: The red vinyl didn't want to scan.

Skip's Comments: Manifesto was a band that was composed of Bert, who had been in Youth Brigade (not when I produced them), they had a bass player named Greg Anderson then. Bert ended up working at the store later on. Mike Hampton was the guitarist for SOA, and Ivor Hansen had been in SOA at some point as well.

Burn was something that Ted produced for them, and I just thought it was really an incredible record. They ended up releasing that and two other singles in England and having Atlantic sign them and doing a whole album which I still think is an incredible record. I think they did that with John Rivers, who'd done a lot of work with a lot of independent type bands.

Burn, I still have like two hundred, three hundred copies of that which never sold. I've got it in my dollar box at conventions now, just trying to get rid of them.

Mike Hampton is an incredible songwriter and singer. What he does now is music for shows on the Discovery Channel. Makes a lot of money doing it too.

Reviews: Man is this record dull. It's not remotely rocknroll, or emo, or punk, or anything. In this case there's pounding "industrial" percussion front and center (in this case a hammer on an anvil or something similar), and the rest of the band about 50 feet away, playing through a cinder block wall. It's like movie music--a collection of cliches that'll do a little mood setting, but never actually step out of the background to grab your attention.

Strange Boutique - 7":
songs // songs
25 test pressings
1000 numbered copies on grey vinyl
Yesterday and Today YAT3, 1990

Lineup:

Recording Info:

Notes: Madhouse with a new name.

Skip's Comments: Strange Boutique is another example of me putting out a record because somebody worked at the store. Danny Ingram, who was in Youth Brigade when I worked with them, he was their drummer. He later ended up working at the store and he was living with Monica Richards, who was the lead singer in the band. They were originally known as Madhouse and had put a record out under that name.

Strange Boutique was just an opportunity to put something out under their new name. We did the Song From Under the Floorboards, a Magazine song. They produced the whole thing. One of the people in the band had his own record label, and he put out some subsequent releases by them.

I thought it was a fine record, but again, this was right around the period of time where the whole thing fell apart with Tommy Carr so I never really did much with...my whole enthusiasm for putting out records vanished.

I put a lot of effort into those. I went with Rainbo Pressing in Santa Monica, doing the colored vinyl, professional sleeves printed up and everything. I spent maybe $8,000 or $10,000 on those 45s out of my pocket and just had it all spat back in my face.

Reviews: Don't have this one.

test pressing:

commercial release:

Black Market Baby - Drunk and Disorderly 7":
Drunk and Disorderly // Just Like All The Others
25 test pressings
1000 numbered copies on translucent blue vinyl
Yesterday and Today YAT5, 1990 (RI on Bitzcore EFA 1663)

Lineup: Boyd Farrell - vocals / Keith Campbell - guitar / Mike Donegan - bass / Tommy Carr - drums

Recording Info: Recorded August of 86 at Inner Ear. Don Zientara engineering, Ian MacKaye producing.

Notes: Pictured are two different blue vinyl copies, one with black marbling, one without. I doubt the black marbling was intentional, since almost all the Rainbo colored runs were contaminated with one color or another. Some of the test pressings came in the sleeve like the Bad Brains split tests--just a plain white inner w/xeroxed label art. Not mine.

Reviews: BMB recorded a bunch o' songs in August of 86 cause the end was nigh--the band had kicked around DC for six years, their record label had gone under (taking their next record with it), and they were just tired of not getting anywhere. Unlike the Senseless Offerings session, done under similar circumstances, the band was with it 100% of the time and there was nary a bad song in sight ('cept Back Seat Sally).

It took four fucking years for any of it see the light of day (except, of course, for Back Seat Sally which came out on the Odd Man Out compilation 7"). This humble 7" was the first real taste of what happened in the studio.

Drunk and Disorderly sounds great, even when played back to back with the Shirkers version--it's faster, it doesn't sound like the master tape was run through the wood chipper, and it's just got that indescribable (probably inebriated) Black Market Baby vibe. The flip was an old song originally called You're A Motherfucker, and it's a good song, but not as good as some of the other stuff they laid down that session. Still, no point second-guessing since it all came out eventually, thanks to Bitzcore.

This is the kinda record you should play for people who "don't like rock." It won't change their mind, but the look of horror on their face will be priceless. Recommended.

test pressing:

jukebox version:

reissue:

Black Market Baby / Bad Brains - split 7":
Black Market Baby - World At War // Bad Brains - Don't Bother Me
25 test pressings w/sleeves
500 numbered copies on clear vinyl
Yesterday and Today YATJB1, 1990 (RI: YAT8)
1000 copies on translucent yellow vinyl
Yesterday and Today YAT8, 1990 (RI of YATJB1)

Lineup: Black Market Baby: Boyd Farrell - vocals / Keith Campbell - guitar / Paul Cleary - bass / Tommy Carr - drums // Bad Brains: HR - vocals / Earl Hudson - drums / Daryl Jennifer - bass / Dr. Know - guitar

Recording Info: World At War recorded at Track, engineered by Mark Greenhouse, produced by Ted Niceley, originally appeared on the Connected LP (it sounds miles better here, probably because of a mastering problem with the LP). Don't Bother Me recorded at Inner Ear in March of '79, engineered by Don Zientara, produced by Kim Kane, remixed by Skip Groff, originally released on the Best of Limp LP. The same pressing plates were used for YATJB1 and YAT8.

Notes: Jukebox version's cover is just two 7x7 sheets taped at the bottom. Originally it was going to be a single 7x7 sheet with the band names visible through the clear vinyl (a very cool packaging idea), but the original flats were misaligned on one side, so a new front was printed and taped to the old one. A jukebox tag was glued to the back cover and a loose tag was included with the record. The misprinted sleeve shown here was bought used, so there are a few uncorrected, unnumbered, tagless copies out there.
One of my clear vinyl copies has a pee-stain-looking yellow swirl on one edge and my yellow version has little specks black vinyl in it. Quality control at Rainbo was not all it could be.

Reviews: I may be showing my bias when I say this is the second best jukebox record ever. See, the best jukebox record of all time was the MC5's Italian Kick Out the Jams 7" with the title typo'd as Kick Out the James. If your name ain't James, you probably won't think it's so great.

This particular record has two of DC's finest bands contributing two of their finest tracks to a label run by one of DC's finest record stores. How could you go wrong? It rocks! It rolls! It swings! It's on colored vinyl! It's fucking great!

I have an extra test pressing of this record if you wanna trade.