Some musical notes from Utah as I hiked, climbed and sweated (who knew chocolate melts at 106º ?) in the great outdoors in search of new sounds to add to the ARC. 

First off the above.  This is a 1984 hardcore EP by Salt Lake City local band, Massacre Guys.  I ‘m searching for any local punk era singles from places other than NYC or the UK for a book project and this disc is right up my dark alley. 

Out of the group came Stephen Egerton (real name Stephen Patrick O’Reilly as spelled in Wiki and O’Reilley on the EP sleeve) and bassist Karl Alvarez, both better known for later work in the Descendents  Nice sleeve, clean copy and true headbanger stuff.  I saw a few other Punk singles, by local’s Angle and Spittin’ Teeth, but no picture sleeves.  Thanks to the nice folks at Randy’s Record Shop in Salt Lake City for finding me a perfect copy. 

At another local shop, Diabolical Records, I found this not-so-punk batch of recent 7″ EPs on Fat Possum Records. 

Diabolical not only buys/sells but hosts an ambitious series of in-store concerts to promote local bands.  They were kind enough to donate one of their releases as a label to ARC, yet to be heard here on the road, Moving Display by Foster Body. 

The Fat Possum label is eclectic and fab, out of Oxford, MS, with a wide range of artists from groups like UK’s Spiritualized, folksy blues folks and reissues/anthologies by Hi Label artists Al Green and Ann Peebles.  Moto: “We’re Trying Our Best.”

After shoppin’ my sister took me to a house concert to hear a local favorite, The Hollering Pines.  On the Country side of Americana, the band was amazingly good and we were all helped along by the bourbon lemonade. 

By the way, when you get tired of record shoppin’ they also have things like this all over the place in Southern Utah…