In 1982, Certain General signed with the New York independent record label Labor Records and issued their first release, an EP called Holiday of Love. The mini-album was produced by Peter Holsapple of the dB’s and mixed by Michael Gira of the experimental rock band Swans – “an interesting pairing if there ever was one”, said Nick West in a review for Bucketfull of Brains. (I don’t know much about Swans, except for their startling 1988 cover of the Joy Division masterpiece, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”). According to Wikipedia: “Holiday [of Love] garnered rave reviews, among them a Trouser Press piece that cited the disc as being created ‘for all the teenage devils of the world’.”
Here follows a reprint of the Trouser Press Record Guide (4th Edition) listing for the SourMash family of bands. Though slightly garbled, it presents a fairly accurate overview of our thing in the 1980’s.
Holiday of Love EP (Labor) 1982
November’s Heat (Fr. L’Invitation au Suicide) 1984
Reissued w/ bonus tracks (Fr. New Rose) 1990; (Alive) 1999; (Fr. Fantastica) 2002
These are the Days (Fr. New Rose) 1986
Reissued w/ bonus tracks (Fr. Fantastica 1999)
Cabin Fever (Fr. Barclay) 1988
Jacklighter (Fr. Barclay) 1990
Signals from the Source (CBGB) 1999
Closer to the Sun (Fr. Fantastica) 2000
Live at the Public Theater (Fantastica US) 2001
An Introduction to War (SourMash USA) 2002
Invisible New York (Easy Action UK) 2008
CERTAIN GENERAL / BAND OF OUTSIDERS
Far Away in America (SourMash) 1984
Far Away in America / The Live Side EP (Fr. L’Invitation au Suicide) 1985
(March 2015)
