Phil Gammage clearly has made a lot of friends in what had already been a dozen years in music. Martin Blazy, who was a fellow bandmember in the Corvairs, serves as the drummer on Cry of the City; and the female vocalist, Wendy Wild had been an artist in the East Village scene when Certain General was starting up. Bassist D. Lee is from Band of Outsiders, and David Kaufman had been in the Nails / the Ravers.
Stephen Graziano, the manager and booking agent for Certain General, put together a label called SourMash Records in order to issue music by Phil Gammage and his associated bands in the US. As described by Graziano: “Stressing cooperation, sharing, and interdependence, both Certain General and Band of Outsiders, in partnership, financed, and organized, totally in-house, the first SourMash Records release, Far Away In America.” Band of Outsiders was a band that was reorganized from a late 1970’s power pop band called The Limit. Another band released on SourMash Records was Phil Gammage’s earlier band the Corvairs, which was in New York by this point.
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.
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
BAND OF OUTSIDERS
Up the River EP (nr/Flicknife) 1985
Everything Takes Forever (Fr. L’Invitation au Suicide) 1985
I Wish I Was Your Kid EP (nr/Flicknife) 1985
Longer Than Always EP (Fr. L’Invitation au Suicide) 1985
Act of Faith (Fr. Barclay) 1986
Acts of Faith (SourMash) 1987
Armistice Day (Nocturnal) 1989
