Sunday, January 13, 2013

Red Forty, Discography

Cover image courtesy of Harlan Records.

 Nate Powell, the Eisner Award-winning graphic novelist and original member of the legendary Little Rock punk band, Soophie Nun Squad, is blogging a history of Harlan Records, one of the several DIY labels that helped make a name for Little Rock's 90's music scene. Today's "history lesson" is the Discography CD by Red Forty featuring Ben Nichols (Lucero) on bass and singing, Colin Brooks (The Big Cats, Substance, Dan Zanes & Friends) on guitar, and Steve Kooms on drums.

Red Forty's punk pop/emo owed a lot musically to Jawbreaker and Social Distortion, and the members all went on to bigger and better projects, but this record so perfectly captures what was happening in Little Rock at the time, and it still sounds fun and relevant 14 years later.

The best bit of Powell's walk down memory lane is he is digitizing all the old cassette and 7" releases and making high quality downloads available of each release. All the projects Harlan released on CD are being re-released digitally at Bandcamp with lossless CD quality download options. Red Forty's Discography had two small print runs and has been out of print for seven or eight years. It has become a much sought after collectible, so having a legal, lossless download available will make a lot of people happy. Stream or buy it below.