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Recorded in June 1980 at Track Studios with Mark Greenhouse engineering, Ted Nicely producing. Released on the Connected compilation on October 25, 1981 by Limp Records.
Ted Niceley: They liked to drink a lot of beer.
Keith Campbell: I remember early one morning recording my leads and thinking how great the headphone mix was. It sounded like another guy was playing live with me. I haven't heard a sound like that since.
John Stabb: Not only is World at War a great song but it helped change my band's name from the Stab to GI. I'm sure glad we didn't decide to keep the name the Mohawks—ha!
Recorded in late 1980 or early 1981 at Inner Ear with Don Zientara engineering and Skip Groff producing. Released as a 7" in May of '81 on Limp Records.
Boyd Farrell: It was a typical BMB drunkfest.
Don Zientara: Two cases of beer—that's a lot of beer for just those four guys. They wobbled around a little bit, but... They were used to it—they played quite well, and you can hear it.
If anything was lacking it's the engineering—I can hear the guitar distorting on these tapes (cringes). We were using basic microphones, basic everything.
I love to listen to those old tapes but I just cringe at what I had to do sometimes. The cymbals sound sloshy here because there wasn't enough space to mic them properly. The ceiling was about seven feet high, and I remember Tommy coming within an inch of hitting it as he was playing.
Skip Groff: Potential Suicide, I probably did in a little more of a power pop medium than they wanted, but it was chosen by Rhino Records as one of the great punk records of the eighties, so it couldn't have been too bad.
Boyd Farrell: 20-odd years later, I think Skip's single captured the essence and spirit of the band. I quite like it.
Recorded February 1983 at Hit and Run Studios. Engineered by Steve Carr, produced by Black Market Baby. Released on the Senseless Offerings LP by Fountain of Youth Records in August of 1983.
Back Cover: This record album was made under extreme conditions, therefore it is to be played at an extreme volume.
Boyd Farrell: There are some moments on Senseless, but basically it wasn't well rehearsed.
Mike Donegan: I got into this one band with Eddie Day—the singer guy—and it turns out he was a pal of Boyd's from out in PG county or something. Eddie brought Senseless Offerings to one of the practices and he was like, "Hey, my pal Boyd just put out a record." He played some of it and the other guys were like, [bored monotone] "Eh. Yeah, that's punk rock." I really liked it.
Boyd Farrell: I wrote [Strike First] about the 9:30 Club. I came down with my good buddy Keith one night, got totally inebriated and hit somebody who had no business being hit. Then all the 9:30 security personnel jumped on top of me and pounded the shit out of me—which I did deserve. They were all friends of mine, but they enjoyed the hell out of it.
Recorded August 1-3, 1986 at Inner Ear. Don Zientara engineering, Ian MacKaye producing. Drunk and Disorderly (eventually) released on a 7" by Yesterday and Today Records in July of 1990. Out of My League (eventually) released on the Baby on Board LP in 1991.
Boyd Farrell: I liked Out of My League, but it was sort of us going in a different direction, trying something new.
Boyd Farrell: I always loved the Shirkers version of Drunk and Disorderly. It should have been a BMB song. I liked it more than a lot of our original material. It was always in the set. It always got people fired up when we played it live.
Mike Donegan: Drunk and Disorderly was the perfect song for Black Market Baby, and it was a lot of fun recording that at Inner Ear. I guess Boyd's vocals were on there and Margo, our manager at the time, heard it and said, [horrified voice] "Oh no, oh no, we can't have this 'punk me in the butt,' we can't have that! You can't sing that, Boyd!"
Skip Groff: I know you love the Shirkers, but the BMB/Ian version knocks its dick in the butt. Can I say that?
Recorded some time in the twentieth century, somewhere in the northern hemisphere. Planned for release as a 7" by Yesterday and Today Records in 2000, but it didn't happen.
Recorded in 1996? at Sterling Sound. Tom Lyle producing. Released in 2000 as a 7" by 007 Records.
Boyd Farrell: Tom Lyle produced it, and I think we drove him nuts. I'd like to see more released. There are some excellent songs on the tape. There are also some that would probably not appeal to a lot of our fans. We went in a different direction on some songs.
Recorded live at CBGB, January 26, 1986.
© Dementlieu 2005
Music and lyrics © Black Market Baby