Release Date: January 1979
Label: SST / SST-001 (1st release on SST records)
Vocals: Keith Morris (Black Flag's 1st Vocalist)
Rating: 🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻 (Essential; A Landmark in Punk History)
The first two songs - "Nervous Breakdown" & "Fix Me" - are two of Black Flag's best songs. "Fix Me" in particular shows that Black Flag's signature sound was already in place. "Wasted" was the perfect parting shot from vocalist Keith Morris who was notorious for his substance use & abuse which contributed to him leaving Black Flag shortly after the release of this EP. Aptly, he would take "Wasted" with him to his new band Circle Jerks. On a humorous note, and this could just be idle gossip mind you, Keith Morris is the person of interest on the Flag's upcoming track "Six Pack", one of my faves by them.
Release Date: January 1979
Label: SST / SST-001 (1st release on SST records)
Vocals: Keith Morris (Black Flag's 1st Vocalist)
Rating: 🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻 (Essential; A Landmark in Punk History)
The first two songs - "Nervous Breakdown" & "Fix Me" - are two of Black Flag's best songs. "Fix Me" in particular shows that Black Flag's signature sound was already in place. "Wasted" was the perfect parting shot from vocalist Keith Morris who was notorious for his substance use & abuse which contributed to him leaving Black Flag shortly after the release of this EP. Aptly, he would take "Wasted" with him to his new band Circle Jerks. On a humorous note, and this could just be idle gossip mind you, Keith Morris is the person of interest on the Flag's upcoming track "Six Pack", one of my faves by them.
1976
Chapel Hill, NC (by way of Winston-Salem)
Car Records/ Cs-1 (Founded by Chris Stamey soley to put this out thus beating Gregg Ginn & SST to the DIY game by a good two years!
Rating: 🌻🌻🌻🌻 ( A Power Pop hidden gem!!! (that really shouldn't be considering how recognized The dB's are.))
• One of those super-groups before they even knew it, Sneakers in part consisted of Winston-Salem boys & massive Big Star fans Chris Stamey on guitar & vocals, Will Rigby on drums, & Mitch Easter contributing when & where where necessary. As Mitch himself explains, "... Sneakers is Chris’ baby. He wrote this batch of songs … great songs. He was playing an acoustic guitar and singing a lot, but the neck of the acoustic guitar was broken...so I played acoustic guitar on the session. One figures that somebody had to, what with Stamey’s guitar being broken and all. I’ve known Chris for a really long time, and whenever he asked me to get involved in things, I would do it."
• Released in 1976 on Stamey’s own label, Carnivorous Records, as a 7” vinyl EP
• Priced at a reasonable $1.98, the six-song EP sold about 3,500 copies.
• After seeing Television live (at Max's Kansas City I believe), Chris Stamey promptly dropped everything (including his studies at UNC) to move to NYC. In time he formed The dB's with former Sneakers band mate Will Rigby.
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(... being called to watch Kick Ass by my youngest. feel free to let me know how to improve this post in the meantime. I welcome editors... & creators! )
Last edited by Repo on 04/22/2026 16:51; edited 1 time in total
• 1981
• Down There Records ( DT-1) ( Down There's first release)
• Written-By, Producer, Performer, Guitar [Uncredited], Vocals [Uncredited] – Steve Wynn
====================================================
Holy shit! Does anyone else hear the MASSIVE Closer-era Joy Division influence on this very first slab of sonic goodness from Steve Wynn?!?! This is pre-Dream Syndicate when I guess the band was going by the name 15 Minutes.
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Last edited by Repo on 04/23/2026 04:02; edited 3 times in total
• First release from Down There Records ( DT-1)
• 1981
Holy shit! Does anyone else hear the MASSIVE Closer-era Joy Division influence on this very first slab of sonic goodness from Steve Wynn?!?! This is pre-Dream Syndicate when I guess the band was going by the name 15 Minutes.
Great find Repo from one of my musical heroes. It's indeed clear that he's still trying to find his own voice on a track that will become one of his best songs in the Dream Syndicate period.
• First release from Down There Records ( DT-1)
• 1981
Holy shit! Does anyone else hear the MASSIVE Closer-era Joy Division influence on this very first slab of sonic goodness from Steve Wynn?!?! This is pre-Dream Syndicate when I guess the band was going by the name 15 Minutes.
Great find Repo from one of my musical heroes. It's indeed clear that he's still trying to find his own voice on a track that will become one of his best songs in the Dream Syndicate period.
The flipside of this 7" is in the same vein with a heavy Goth/Post-Punk vibe especially, once again, in the vocals...
• 1981
• Down There Records ( DT-1) ( Down There's first release)
• Written-By, Producer, Performer, Guitar [Uncredited], Vocals [Uncredited] – Steve Wynn
====================================================
Holy shit! Does anyone else hear the MASSIVE Closer-era Joy Division influence on this very first slab of sonic goodness from Steve Wynn?!?! This is pre-Dream Syndicate when I guess the band was going by the name 15 Minutes.
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
I knew of 15 Minutes but had never heard anything by them. That's What You Always Say has become a firm favourite when Steve plays live. The track still has that Wynn sound even at this early stage in his career. Great to hear this track
Always love Steve and seen him many, many times live solo, with The Miracle Three and of course with Dream Syndicate
Holy shit! Does anyone else hear the MASSIVE Closer-era Joy Division influence on this very first slab of sonic goodness from Steve Wynn?!?! This is pre-Dream Syndicate when I guess the band was going by the name 15 Minutes.
When you first posted this, I thought "naah, this was just typical early-80s lo-fi post-punk with guitars over a drum machine, nothing especially Joy Division-ish about that," other than the recording techniques (if any) they were using.
But if you dig a little deeper, it turns out there is a connection. Apparently, 15 Minutes wasn't a real band — it was actually just Steve Wynn and two members of a SoCal new wave band called Alternate Learning, aka ALRN, who got together just to record that one single, probably to use as a demo. One of those ALRN members was the bass player, Carolyn O'Rourke, who also did the cover art for ALRN's only album, Painted Windows (1981):
The similarity to Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures (1979) cover is pretty obvious:
Carolyn O'Rourke ended up leaving ALRN and the music biz in general soon after, and never designed another album cover. But three other ALRN members (one of whom was their lead singer, the late Scott Miller), went on to form Game Theory, and later on, The Loud Family.
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dihansse
Repo
MadhattanJack
