SACCHARINE TRUST "PAGAN ICONS" SST 1981 ORIGINAL ISSUE

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THIS IS THE SACCHARINE TRUST ALBUM/EP (WITH 8 SONGS DOES IT QUALIFY AS AN EP? WELL, I GUESS SINCE IT PLAYS AT 45 EPM'S) ANYWAY THIS IS THE SST RECORDS RELEASE TITLED "PAGAN ICONS" SST 006. THIS COMES WITH THE ORIGINAL LYRIC SHEET ! THE COVER SHOWS RING WEAR IN THE FRONT, MAINLY ALONG THE TOP NEAR THE BANDS NAME, AND SOME ON THE BACK, ALSO ALONG THE BACK, THERE IS MINOR STORAGE WEAR, BUT NO SEAM SPLITS, WRITING ON IT,ETC. THE LABLES ARE SUPER CLEAN, NO MARKS, ETC. THE VINYL ON BOTH SIDES SHOWS SOME VERY VERY MINOR SLEEVE SCUFFS, BUT ALL IN ALL IT'S VERY CLEAN, I'D SAY VG. AND WHAT IS COOL FOR ME IS THAT THEY ETCHED SOME "HIDDEN MESSAGES" IN THE DEAD WAX BETWEEN THE RUN OUT GROOVE AND THE RECORD LABLE, SIDE ONE SAYS ..."THE CHIPS ARE DOWN-THE FAMILY STAYS AROUND." AND SIDE TWO SAYS ..."NOISE TO YOU-LOVE TO ME". THE TRACK LISTING & SONG TIMES..

SIDE ONE

1. "I HAVE..." (1:55)

2. "COMMUNITY LIE" (1:26)

3. "EFFORT TO WASTE" (2:25)

4. "MAD AT THE COMPANY" (1:55)

5. "I AM RIGHT" (2:21)

SIDE TWO

1. "WE DON'T NEED FREEDOM" (1:25)

2. "SUCCESS AND FAILURE" (1:27)

3. "HUMAN CERTAINTY" (5:16)

VOCALS: JOAQUIN MILHUSE BREWER

BASS: EARL LIBERTY

DRUMS: MR. ROBERT C.HOLZMAN

GUITAR: BYZA

"RECORDED AT MEDIA ART STUDIO IN HERMOSA BEACH IN APRIL 1981. ENGINEERED & MIXED BY SPOT, MIKE WATT, AND SACCHRINE TRUST. COVER JASPER JACKSON. INSERT: JACK SNATCH & ABDUL ABAZABA. INSERT ILLUSTRATION: RAYMOND PETTIBONE....."

HERE'S A LITTLE MORE INFO ON THE BAND FOUND ON THE NET...

Saccharine Trust is a post-hardcore band from California that was started in 1980 by singer Jack Brewer and guitarist Joe Baiza. The band would frequently perform with SST labelmates Minutemen and Black Flag. Drummer Rob Holzman appeared on their 1981 debut Paganicons but left the band to play in Slovenly, replaced by drummer Tony Cicero. After a ten year hiatus, the band is back together and performing around the West Coast. In his journals, Kurt Cobain considered Paganicons to be one of his Top 50 favorite albums. Sonic Youth covered their song "I Am Right" on the SST compilation The Melting Plot.

Discography

• Paganicons 12" EP (SST Records, 1981)
• Surviving You, Always LP (SST Records, 1984)
• Worldbroken LP (SST Records, 1985)
• The Sacramental Element CS (SST Records, 1986) - Cassette compilation of the first two records.
• We Became Snakes LP (SST Records, 1986)
• Past Lives double LP (SST Records, 1989) - Posthumous collection of live tracks and outtakes
• The Great One Is Dead (Hazelwood Records, 2001)

SACCHARINE TRUST 
Paganicons (SST) 1981
Surviving You, Always (SST) 1984
Worldbroken (SST) 1985
The Sacramental Element [tape] (SST) 1986
We Became Snakes (SST) 1986
Past Lives (SST) 1989
JACK BREWER BAND
Rockin' Ethereal (New Alliance) 1990

Too early to be post-hardcore but too uncommon for any simple classification, this Southern California quartet doesn't try to create a blizzard of noise — they go at it more artfully, but with equally ear-wrenching results. On Paganicons, singer Joaquin Milhouse Brewer tunelessly barks lyrics (as in "We Don't Need Freedom" and "A Human Certainty") that aren't bad in a pretentious mock-intellectual vein; the music is loudly abrasive, but with spaces and dynamics largely uncommon to the genre.

From Brewer's back cover credit of "vocals and sermons" to his complex, provocative lyrics (despite numerous misspellings on the lyric sheet), Saccharine Trust — guitarist Joe Baiza plus a new rhythm section — takes an abrupt religious turn on Surviving You, Always. "Yhwh on Acid," "Lot's Seed," "Remnants" and "Our Discovery" all contain biblical imagery and religious references, but in a context that obscures and reorients the themes well beyond easy recognition and comprehension. Musically, Sac Trust uses the punk idiom like avant-jazz, liberating the vocals to function semi-independently as blurt poetry, while the band goes through tight formation riffs that are carefully structured but not really within traditional song form. Sophisticated, and engrossing once you get past the daunting attack. (The first two albums were later joined as The Sacramental Element cassette.)

Proceeding further into the experimental realms generally reserved for the "new music" folks, Saccharine Trust attempted something really unusual with Worldbroken. The LP was not only recorded live, it was improvised on the spot! Joined by ex-Minutemen bassist Mike Watt, Brewer and two surviving sidemen rise to the challenge, producing a loose but controlled-sounding jam record (no punks here) that reveals its total extemporaneousness only in the rambling narrative of Brewer's lyrics.

On the jazzy We Became Snakes, a five-piece lineup (with sax and a new bassist) returns to the old-fashioned way: write 'em, rehearse 'em and then record 'em. Watt produced the record, which again reflects Brewer's religious fixation. The sonic formula includes syncopated rhythm vamps, lots of riffy solos on sax and guitar and dramatic vocal recitations. Imaginative and far-reaching, if not exactly enjoyable or accessible.

Over the course of 75 gripping minutes (gleaned from a vault stocked with seven years' worth of live tapes made by machines of wildly differing audio quality), Past Lives paints a slightly more complete (if less stark) picture of Saccharine Trust's awesome live capabilities as both inward-looking improvisers and kick-out-the-jams shamen. Quick cuts between the two facets that also crisscross chronological "order" create some jarring juxtapositions, but that's probably the idea. Only one song is repeated from Worldbroken; the seven tracks that are otherwise unavailable include one rare glimpse of the band, (spiritual) lampshades on heads, ripping through Black Flag's "Six Pack."

Freed from freedom's shackles, Brewer created a brooding, cohesive solo album of surprisingly concise, typically dark guitar rock. Though he's still as obsessive/compulsive as anyone tilling rock-poetry's increasingly infertile soil, Brewer seems to have toned down his more hysterical Elmer Gantry approach — even when petitioning the Lord. You'll only wince once (upon hearing the cover of the Doors' "Peace Frog," a reprise from Past Lives) over the course of the many listens you'll need — and want — to breathe in this essence rare.

HERE ARE A COUPLE OF CUSTOMER REVIEWS FROM AMAZON.COM  FOR THE RE-ISSUED EP ON CD, SAME SONGS ETC.

An awesome band from the 80's with an unprecedented sound, made all the more jazz/noir by the guitar genius of Joe Biaza. If The Doors were shifted to the eighties (and not the sixties or seventies)- they would sound like Saccharine Trust.

But ST are very original in their 'washed-up' street blues/punk, and are a band which helps to define the SST label perhaps more than any other.

The last song- 'Human Certainty'- still gives me the chills. I remember those early-mid eighties days, those hot LA summer nights, and having thoughts like these...

One of the first post-hardcore bands and records(1981). Every song is amazing.The other records are great too. More jazz influenced and more experimental.The songs here are short,dark with great riffs.A different hardcore record.

This '81 early SST release really shows the diversity of a scene already getting a "reputation". To paraphrase Mike Watt in the Minutemen chapter in "Our Band Could Be Your Life" , "What was the thing about throwing toilet seats onstage at the time?" Anyway, this particular release contains the 100% punk anthem "I Am Right" and an epic slice-of-life closer, : A Human Certainty" that will clue you into what it was like to be broke and on drugs in LA at that time. A must for those interested in the early SST scene.

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