Sister
Ray
This article originally appeared in NFH #15 in
the winter of 1989.
Sister Ray have been
boiling and bubbling in the deep, dark places underground around Youngstown, Ohio
for several years now, but it's only a matter of time before something jolts the
general independent record-buying public into seeing that there's something out
there that they ought to be waking up to. The reviews of their limited and
hard-to-find recorded output trickled out slowly at first, but with the release of
their newest lp will hopefully build to a level that can't be ignored, and then Sam
D'Angelo and his mates will get their due. Sister Ray's material to this point puts them
on a level equal to fellow Ohio bands the Dead Boys, the Pagans, or Pere Ubu, and
if they stick it out it may only be a matter of time before they are recognized as
such.
Despite the fact that
their name instantly ties them to the Velvet Underground in a lot of people's minds
(not mine; I don't have the same reverence for the VU that most critics seem to have),
Sister Ray play about as classic a brand of late 70s styled US punk as you could
find. Their first lp, which can only be had on import from the Dutch label
Resonance, invites comparisons to early X, Stooges, Avengers, and yes the Pagans,
but also to the first Clash album, especially in production values. The sound is
no-gloss, here-it-is-hit-it stuff; just a pile of distorted buzz-guitar with some
careening bass lines behind it and Sam's deadpan stark voice on top, singing songs
of alienation and displacement that'll grab you first with their melodies, and
later throttle you with their lyrics.
The band consists of
Sam doing vocals and keyboards (on a couple of songs), Mark Hanley on guitar, Vince
Colucci on drums, and, at present, Katie Parks on bass. The Random Violence
lp, which consisted of a batch of sides from their ultra-rare batch of singles and
some other material, was recorded before Katie was in the band, and features Sam's
brother Joe on bass and Greg Cadman on rhythm guitar. Joe had to quit the band when
he joined the Air Force, and Katie was signed up to what was her first band; she's
only been playing about a year, which puts her at quite a disadvantage. Sam
explains: "Part of the thing with the band and my brother leaving was there
was just so much cohesiveness with the band. We were at a real optimal point I
thought. We all got along real well and we all played together very well. I've been
playing with my brother and Vince for probably 6 or 7 years, even though the band
has only been around 3 or 4 years now, and Mark just fit in; it just turned out
that what we do is exactly the kind of thing he wants to do...besides other things
that he wants to do. But like with Cadman leaving the band, he was just unhappy with
what we were doing and we just got better when he left. But when Joe left, you just
took out THE bass player of the band basically, and you just don't replace THE bass
player, you do the best you can. But he couldn't play in other bands, just because
I don't know that they would tolerate the way he plays, but he was just perfect for
our band. That was one of the reasons Cadman left; he couldn't handle Joe's bass
playing. Some nights, and it happened more live than on the record, sometimes he
would take off into a bass solo, and when you're the rhythm guitarist, sometimes
that gets on your nerves."
Sister Ray are not
your textbook 80's punk band, by any stretch of the imagination. Sam doesn't care
much for hardcore: "A lot of that has to do with their attitude, too. I can't
deal with that anymore. I can't deal with the kids who like it anymore. I can't
deal with the way they look anymore. I mean, they don't shock me. They're just
boring. But the kids still love hardcore; it's like metal." Sister Ray's sound
is vintage late 70s punk; it's raw and unproduced, but it doesn't thrash and the
songs have melodies that are catchy, hummable, and danceable.
When you see the
picture of them on the cover of Random Violence, you'll be more likely to
assume that they're going to be some kind of r&b type bar band or something;
anything but punk at least. Mark is married with a kid, and all the band members
work everyday jobs just like you and me. Sam works in bakery, where the other
people give him grief about his band. One guy asked him why he didn't write any
love songs, and when Sam told him he's got one about a guy who loves his mother,
the fellow replied: "Well, I love my mother, too, what's so unusual about
that?". Some people just don't get anything. But Sam says it doesn't bother
him: "I think it's funny, I work with people who listen to rap music; whoever
runs the oven usually gets hold of the radio, you never know what station it'll be.
Sometimes there's easy listening on, and there's a couple young kids I work with,
and they're into the metal. I don't mind listening to all that stuff myself
although I would never put it on of my own will. But I get a kick out of listening
to metal sometimes, you know it doesn't really bother me. It bothers me that
there's nobody in Youngstown it seems, who want to have anything to do with us, but
at work, I just have a good time, I don't know. On the new album there's a song
about the people I work with...the way it is it's just funny, that's all there is
to it, it's funny working with these people. I go to school, too, this is more like
just a school job. But I've been there a while, and they just think I'm a little
psycho."
NFH:
"Like you have to be some kind of a deviant to be in a punk band?"
Sam:
"Yeah it's like, geez, he doesn't look like the type!"
But this hits on
another sore point for Sister Ray, because although it's understandable that it
takes a while for the word of a great band to get out into the world at large,
Sister Ray can't even get a reasonable level of respect at home. And it seems that
this lack of acceptance is starting to bother Sam a fair amount. For example, he
gave me this terse biography of the band in a letter:
We began in June
1985.
First ep released September 1985.
We've had a very, very hard time finding places to play.
We've had a very, very hard time finding people around here who like us.
We are therefore very, very poor (all work regular jobs, can't tour).
We will never be bigger than we are right now.
We don't really care.
We've been writing for our next album.
We don't know if anybody'll release it.
Joe left the band in April 1988 and regrets it.
We regret that Joe left too (he had to leave).
We replaced Joe with a chick and now people like us.
We're still poor.
We still don't care.
Etc.
I thought this might
have been written in a moment of depression about how the band was making out, so I
brought it up in a phone interview. After all, everybody knows about the rich Ohio
underground tradition. But when I asked if it was fair to say that he was pretty
down on the scene in Ohio, he replied:
"Yeah, there's
no support for anything, I mean even in the more major markets, like you go up to
Cleveland, and there's really no opportunity to play unless you can maybe rent a
hall, or an occasional bar will let you play. And the ones that do let you play
usually go in and out monthly and they're usually tiny and they stop booking bands
just because they're losing money on it, so it's really hard to find places to play
around here."
NFH: "You
always read about how hip Ohio is and Cleveland...Dead Boys, Pagans, Pere
Ubu..."
Sam:
"Yeah, but they all had to go to New York which says something. I still read
negative things about the Dead Boys from Ohio press. I don't know, they just didn't
like them. When you talk about Pere Ubu and bands like that that came out from
Cleveland, and the Pagans...you know, there's great bands but they all struggled a
while before they could do anything, and it's still like that."
NFH:
"Your letter indicates that you have no hope of reaching any level of success
with your band, but given all the positive reviews I can't help thinking that
everything's about ready to split wide open for you and that everybody who's into
independent music at least will be going for Sister Ray. You don't get that
feeling?"
Sam: "Um,
to an extent, but I also get a feeling that...well, things that happen never seem
to mean that much, so I don't really know what it'll be when it breaks wide open.
It's not real important, what's most important is that we at least make enough
money to keep recording, and that keeps things good, too, it keeps us from getting
lazy anyway."
Random Violence
consist of a lot of tracks recorded at different times on a four track recorder in
Sam's basement. The technique they used was to record the drums first and then mix
them onto one track to minimize the bleedthrough of guitars onto the drum tracks
and vice versa. They then overdubbed all the guitars and vocals. Given that, it's
especially amazing that the album has such a live feel to it. There are a pile of
classics on it; some of them reveal a great sense of humor under the vicious
musical experience. For example, on the title track, the lyrics go:
So if I scratch up
your car
Or hang your cat from a tree
Don't go lookin' for a reason
Just appreciate what you see
'Cos it's random violence
And there's no defense
It's random violence
And it's very intense
Most of the songs on Random
Violence deal with people who don't act quite normal, who somehow got left
outside the mainstream or have some ugly problem that they're trying to hide;
classic cases of alienation. After a rambling discussion on politics and the
just-concluded second round of the Presidential debates, which Sam had watched in
their entirety and for which he showed a fair level of contempt, we talked about
the fact that I felt that Sister Ray's music says a lot about the alienation there
is in society today. Sam's response: "Yeah, but I would say that most of what
I write is not a conscious message type of thing, but obviously that's where I'm
coming from. It's been harder to write lately because I was younger then and now
I'm older and you go through those kinds of periods. I don't always feel the way I
felt when I wrote "Release" anymore." Or hopefully the way he felt
when he wrote the lines in "Feelings" that go:
Sometimes I feel
like Rock Hudson...
...or could it be Jesus Christ?
My greatest contribution to mankind
Is my death
Now that's an
uncomfortable lyric. But then Sam D'Angelo is not the sort of man who is going to
leave you feeling any more comfortable than he has to.
Asked about what
kinds of things click with him for song ideas, Sam said: "Well, most recently,
I was trying to think of a song, and I haven't really got anything, just a song
about me voting for a Communist and the reason I did that, you know, no choices,
what's the difference, you don't have a voice anyway, you know, a person who just
doesn't feel like he makes a difference whether he votes or not, but he knows he
has to vote. That just occurred to me the other day while I was working, and it may
never turn into anything. And I've been trying to get in on some stories, kind of
like the "Charlie" song story. There's a new one that I heard about some
girl who kept going to a tanning salon every day and what happened is the radiation
(and I'm not sure that this is true, but I've heard that it's true, it's the same
with "Way To Go", I've heard that that's true) the radiation rotted her
insides and she began to emit this odor, and nobody knew what it was, and they did
all these tests and they found out that she was just dying, her internal organs
were just rotting away, and I thought, that's a really sad story, but I didn't know
how to put it into words. I don't know if I ever will, but I look for that kind of
thing, an odd story. One song that I did write was about a guy who was all coked up
or something, I don't know what, and he was looking in the mirror and he just
couldn't stand his face anymore so he got a razor and he just sliced his face up;
this really did happen, and he just completely mutilated his face...his skull was
exposed and everything. So I did write a song about that."
NFH: "I
usually listen to the music first on a record and after five plays or so the lyrics
start to hit me, and on the lp a lot of the songs are dark and moody on the
surface, but underneath they're kind of funny, like "Random Violence"."
Sam:
"Yeah, I don't know why, but there's supposed to be a lot of sense of humor, you
know even in "Release", that's not really supposed to be funny... stupid, I guess."
NFH: "I
think there's an interesting counterpoint between the dark moody punk rock music
and the lyrics underneath, like on "Bob's Baby"."
Sam:
"Yeah, well I would agree. But again, we just play what comes out, and that's
what comes out. You know on a few of the songs the music was written by Mark and I
wrote the words. There wasn't always that cohesiveness. They work real well, but
sometimes Mark would have this really intense song, and I'd have this lyric that
wasn't intense, and it would fit together real well. I'm glad you listen to the
music first and then the words. I don't understand people who listen to the words
first; it doesn't make sense to judge a song by it's words solely..."
NFH:
"Well if the words were the most important you might as well be a poet."
Sam:
"Exactly, and I don't know how to write poetry; I'm not a poet. What's important
is the music."
On Random Violence
there are a lot of really great songs, but the one that seems to universally grab
the attention of reviewers is the closing "She Want's To Have Bob's
Baby", which features a Batman-theme riff played over a devastating bass line,
and tells a story of a local girl who drove everybody nuts by talking about this
fellow, Bob, constantly. They even got her in to do a talking bit over the fadeout
of the song, and just like she's talking across a bar she goes: "I'm not even
kidding, he is gorgeous. Write him a note!? No way man, I'm not gonna play games
with him! I'm not going to deny my heart baby, because I'm not kidding, he is
gorgeous, and I know it's just physical attraction, it's just lust, and I know
that's not good...but I don't care!". I mentioned that although it's easy to
key in on the Batman theme part, it's the driving bass that really makes
"Bob's Baby" go, and Sam responded: "That bass line was the song
basically, one of the few lines that I wrote, and that's how it started. The Batman
thing I didn't even realize it until it was in there. I haven't written too many
songs like that, not just stylistically, but that came together just like that. I
was really happy with it, and that's one of the reasons we recorded it right away
even though I knew it was different from what we were going to end up sounding like
overall. It came together too well for me. It felt good, so we did it even though
some people didn't think it was the best idea."
A lot of the fanzine
articles I've read about Sister Ray talk about the range of covers they do in their
live set; things like Stooges, Velvet Underground, Mothers Of Invention, the theme
from "Mission Impossible" and tracks from the first Pink Floyd lp.
They've covered "Sister Ray", but Sam swears they thought up the name
before they ever heard of the song, and they do the cover just because "it had
to be good". With such a variety of influences it seemed natural that they
would be great record collectors as well, so I thought I'd check in on that:
Sam: "I
don't own as many records as I'd like to. Mark owns as many records as I'd like to.
He listens to Egyptian music, Arabic music, all kinds of different eastern folk
music, and we all like different things. The 60s music, some of it, although I
don't really like the 60s much as an era. The Floyd stuff, the first Floyd album is
really good, yeah we own some records. I've had a lot of Pere Ubu on lately still.
I've been listening to Drunks With Guns a lot, I think that's pretty good. The
Pagans are real good, the Dead Boys are pretty good although I've listened to them
too much lately. I can always listen to the Stooges."
NFH: "Any
of the Australian underground stuff?"
Sam:
"Yeah, I have some Celibate Rifles and some Scientists; both those bands are
good. I think the Scientists are better."
NFH: "Did
you get a chance to see the Rifles when they toured the US?"
Sam:
"Yeah, actually they played right here in Youngstown at this tiny club. I felt
fortunate because it was a great show and it only cost 2 bucks. There was maybe 100
people there, and it's not a very large club...you could only fit 300-400 people in
this club. What had happened is that the sound company that works with the Ramones
is based in Youngstown, and they had done a show with the Celibate Rifles in
Chicago, and they were going to New York, but they just arranged to have them stop
in Youngstown and play; it was kind of a last minute thing. We don't get many shows
here, so I felt happy to see that show."
NFH:
"Everybody sat on the floor for the whole show here, and when the Dead Milkmen
came on they went wild. I couldn't believe it."
Sam:
"Yeah the Dead Milkmen played here as well, they were all right. Why do you
think people react like that? Do you think that just don't like it or they don't
know what to do with it? I mean, that's the kind of reaction we get..."
NFH:
"Well, I think they have to be familiar with it. A lot of people have Dead Milkmen
records, and they've been in a lot of fanzines...their records are out in the US,
whereas I don't think the Celibate Rifles have had anything here before Roman Beach
Party (actually not true; Quintessentially Yours is on What Goes
On)". If they haven't heard it they just kind of sit there and look. Also, I can't
speak for Youngstown, but in southern California people aren't ready to deal with a
fast guitar band with guitar players having hair down to their shoulders...they
think its Lynyrd Skynyrd."
Sam:
"Well, I'm not a big fan of the West Coast, it bores me basically. I've been
to New York once, and it was just so much better, but that's just my opinion."
NFH:
"Culturally it's a desert. But the ocean is nice."
Sam: "Oh
yeah, that I like, but I don't think I could take being out there for too long. But
we get the same kind of reaction that you describe with the Rifles. I can't tell
what they think. They don't walk away, but they don't do anything. I've got live
tapes where we play and we stop, and you don't hear anything. You can't even tell
there's people there. I mean they're there, but you can't tell".
NFH: "How
many people see you at a typical show?"
Sam:
"Probably a couple hundred. We mainly do openers; I've had a real hard time
booking jobs here because we've never had a large following and the bar owners have
been...(long pause searching for the right word)...unfair, and we've had words, so
I usually just have to talk with the bands and get openers, and even that's
becoming hard now."
NFH:
"What record labels turned you down?"
Sam:
"None really. SST sent me an inquiry, and I sent them a tape, but they never
responded, which is fine with me. We never really shopped the tape. Never had time or
money to do it, and once we signed with Resonance, I figured that once that came
out we'd at least get some mail, but that was probably stupid on my part, cos we
never did. I never sent out the promos or anything, and at this point, Resonance is
supposed to establish a domestic company so that we will have an American label
anyway. And I've been happy with them so that's fine for me."
NFH: "How
many copies of the first album did they sell?"
Sam: "Oh,
I don't know. Probably 2 or 3 thousand; somewhere in that neighborhood. Not a whole
lot. I was disappointed, I really thought they would get better distribution in the
United States."
So it's only 997,000
more copies to platinum, and while the average wooden headed American blows his
money on the latest Kenny Loggins lp, or whatever tripe is currently charting,
Sister Ray continues to toil in unfair obscurity, unable even to draw a crowd in
their own town despite making one of the classic American punk lps. As I write
this, I am awaiting a copy of the new Sister Ray 45 and the lp No Way To Express,
which this time was recorded in a studio and thus can be expected to sound
considerably less low budget than Random Violence. Check out the review sections
and you'll probably see my comments on both platters.
SISTER RAY
DISCOGRAPHY
Coming To Terms
7" ep: "She Wants To Have Bob's Baby"/"Modern Mama"/"The Madman's
Laugh"/"Hate", 1985, 500 pressed
"Yellow With
Black Lace"/"This Girl" 7", 1986, 200 pressed
Sister Ray Live
cassette, 1986, 100 released
"Survivors"/"Your
Every Word"/"Black" 7", 1987, 500 pressed
"Purgatory"/"Hillside"
7", 1988, available thru Forced Exposure
"Feel Like
This"/"Invasion Of The Pussymusic" 7", out in December, 1988
Random Violence
lp, Resonance, Box 213, 1740 AE Schagen, The Netherlands, December 1988
No Way To Express
lp, Resonance, 1988
