New
Dillinger Four "This Shit Is Geniuser" LP ***PRE-ORDER***
Anxious and Angry #51 is not only a reissue of the band's older collection "This Shit Is Genius", but also contains an additional 5 songs! The entire "More Songs About Girlfriends and Bubblegum" 7" AND the song "Like Sprewells on a Wheelchair". This is easily some of the band's best stuff. Very stoked to get this into the hands of everyone who appreciates them like I do.
From Erik himself:
"Here’s how I remember it…
Paddy and I were sitting eating pizza in the Italian Pie Shoppe on Grand Avenue in St.
Paul, probably in the late fall of 1993. We had been playing in bands together and apart
since we met in Evanston Illinois at high school in 1987. One of those bands was
actually Victory Records 2nd release, it wasn’t great, but we were able to tour when we
were just teenagers, and play some of the legendary venues of the time like the Anthrax
and Gilman Street. Paddy had recently been playing bass a little bit, he’d always been
just a singer before, and we found ourselves in this pizza place, trying to get our head
around this new punk scene that we found ourselves a part of in the Twin Cities. We
both felt like hard-core was great at giving a message, but sucked at being any fun. And
the catchy punk that we loved was fun as hell, but not many of those bands were
bothering to sing about much than love songs and goofy crap at that time, and the few
that did really took themselves very seriously, and weren’t any fun. At least not the kind
of fun we wanted to be, and especially not at their live shows. We thought we had a real
good chance of combining those two things, into some sort of band that made sense to
us. We had a Lane on board already for drums, and as a three-piece, we chose the
name Dillinger Four. Because we thought that was clever, and we never thought we’d
actually be a four piece, but Billy fucked that whole idea up later on.
By 1994, It was clear we were in the midst of an all-time amazing punk scene in the
Twin Cities, like nowhere we’d seen before. Every genre of punk band were coming
together in our town. Crust bands were playing with Pop punk bands, straightedge
bands were playing with drunk punk bands, and everyone was pulling together to open
up Extreme Noise records, which opened in 1994 and is still going today as an all
volunteer run punk rock record store. That scene, that time in Minneapolis, more than
anything is what we’re the product of. The 3 7”s and the split 7” with The Strike that we
made from 1994-1997 I think got a little better with each release? Or maybe we just got
a little closer to what we were trying to do at that original meeting in the pizza shop. We
seemed to write a lot of songs about that scene, or just a vague “scene “. Because
frankly as 20-year-olds, it was kind of our whole world.
I say this a lot these days, but we really started our band just before Green Day
released Dookie and the whole world of punk turned upside down. And I think there’s a
simple difference between bands who started before that point and after. When you
started a punk band before that, it was an intentional act of agreeing to make music that
would probably never have any commercial success. Not in any real major mainstream
way. That just didn’t exist yet. Even the big bands of the time like maybe Bad Religion or
Social Distortion were playing largish venues, but nothing like what came later. If you
started a punk or hardcore band after that point, you could never un ring that bell. You
knew that any action you took could eventually put you in a position of superstardom.
And I think a lot of bands, though most of which of course never achieved it, couldn’t
help but make their choices with that in mind. I think we may be one of the best
examples of a band of the last 30 years that has worked against their own interests as
often as not and still accomplished everything we’ve ever wanted. Four friends who still
love each other all these years, who want to get out there and be together and just be
idiots and comedians and disasters and sometimes poets….And sometimes the
greatest band in the world. The end."
Expected to ship late Oct / early Nov. If you would like something sooner than that, please place a separate order! All orders containing a TSIG LP will ship together!
Anxious and Angry #51 is not only a reissue of the band's older collection "This Shit Is Genius", but also contains an additional 5 songs! The entire "More Songs About Girlfriends and Bubblegum" 7" AND the song "Like Sprewells on a Wheelchair". This is easily some of the band's best stuff. Very stoked to get this into the hands of everyone who appreciates them like I do.
From Erik himself:
"Here’s how I remember it…
Paddy and I were sitting eating pizza in the Italian Pie Shoppe on Grand Avenue in St.
Paul, probably in the late fall of 1993. We had been playing in bands together and apart
since we met in Evanston Illinois at high school in 1987. One of those bands was
actually Victory Records 2nd release, it wasn’t great, but we were able to tour when we
were just teenagers, and play some of the legendary venues of the time like the Anthrax
and Gilman Street. Paddy had recently been playing bass a little bit, he’d always been
just a singer before, and we found ourselves in this pizza place, trying to get our head
around this new punk scene that we found ourselves a part of in the Twin Cities. We
both felt like hard-core was great at giving a message, but sucked at being any fun. And
the catchy punk that we loved was fun as hell, but not many of those bands were
bothering to sing about much than love songs and goofy crap at that time, and the few
that did really took themselves very seriously, and weren’t any fun. At least not the kind
of fun we wanted to be, and especially not at their live shows. We thought we had a real
good chance of combining those two things, into some sort of band that made sense to
us. We had a Lane on board already for drums, and as a three-piece, we chose the
name Dillinger Four. Because we thought that was clever, and we never thought we’d
actually be a four piece, but Billy fucked that whole idea up later on.
By 1994, It was clear we were in the midst of an all-time amazing punk scene in the
Twin Cities, like nowhere we’d seen before. Every genre of punk band were coming
together in our town. Crust bands were playing with Pop punk bands, straightedge
bands were playing with drunk punk bands, and everyone was pulling together to open
up Extreme Noise records, which opened in 1994 and is still going today as an all
volunteer run punk rock record store. That scene, that time in Minneapolis, more than
anything is what we’re the product of. The 3 7”s and the split 7” with The Strike that we
made from 1994-1997 I think got a little better with each release? Or maybe we just got
a little closer to what we were trying to do at that original meeting in the pizza shop. We
seemed to write a lot of songs about that scene, or just a vague “scene “. Because
frankly as 20-year-olds, it was kind of our whole world.
I say this a lot these days, but we really started our band just before Green Day
released Dookie and the whole world of punk turned upside down. And I think there’s a
simple difference between bands who started before that point and after. When you
started a punk band before that, it was an intentional act of agreeing to make music that
would probably never have any commercial success. Not in any real major mainstream
way. That just didn’t exist yet. Even the big bands of the time like maybe Bad Religion or
Social Distortion were playing largish venues, but nothing like what came later. If you
started a punk or hardcore band after that point, you could never un ring that bell. You
knew that any action you took could eventually put you in a position of superstardom.
And I think a lot of bands, though most of which of course never achieved it, couldn’t
help but make their choices with that in mind. I think we may be one of the best
examples of a band of the last 30 years that has worked against their own interests as
often as not and still accomplished everything we’ve ever wanted. Four friends who still
love each other all these years, who want to get out there and be together and just be
idiots and comedians and disasters and sometimes poets….And sometimes the
greatest band in the world. The end."
Expected to ship late Oct / early Nov. If you would like something sooner than that, please place a separate order! All orders containing a TSIG LP will ship together!