One of the best bands I’ve seen is Social Unrest in Copenhagen 1987. Absolutely amazing and about 50 people watching them. The lesser people in the audience the better concert or so it seems. This was after their height(after the Rat In A Maze 12inch). Still it blew everything I’ve seen before away. When I think about I don’t think I’ve seen such a great band after this either. Maybe except for some japanese new wave/electro band down in Roskilde 1989. Can’t remember the name of them.
To my ears this is the best SU ever did. From the quiet typical punker in Making Room For Youth, short but sweet Join… to the awesome herky jerky Rush Hour. Creetin K-OS is hands down one of the best voices found in punk and really suits the youthful and naive lyrics on here. Enjoy suckers!
Country: USA
Year: 1981
Label: Infra Red
Format: 7″
Songs:
Making Room For Youth.mp3
Join The People Who’ve Joined The Army.mp3
Rush Hour.mp3
AH, SU. I remeber when they played a battle of the bands & people freaked out in Hayward in ’81. I’m still not sure why they kicked out Mr. K-OS but I recall there was some local hubbub over it.
A bit of interesting trivia: I remember that the 12″(on red wax) somehow ended up on a record player in a upscale Macy’s add. Opened for Discharge & blew them off the stage in ’82 on the Paul Rat megabill ( SU, Fartz, Lewd, DOA, Bad Brians, etc) at the Oakland Civic Hall.
These guys seriously shredded.
Social Unrest are f*cking amazing IMO. Love this 7″, Rat In A Maze, and their first LP (even tho Creetin K-OS left the band). These guys recently got back together and are currently touring the U.S.
as great as this is – the bands later work (“before the fall”, most noticeably) is in a different league ……
Yeah, found out what Mr. K-OS is up to these days
http://tinyurl.com/2swsdd
I wish I never did. Interviewed by the guy who replaced him. If anybody has old MMRs circa ’82 I swear there was an end page with him bitching about being tossed outta the band.
I used to party with Mark Monti while he was briefly living in Amsterdam ’87-88. Those were good days! I notice he is not in the new incarnation of the band.
One of my all time favorite records, along with “Rat in a Maze”.
the first 12″ was where they hit their stride. K-OS’s vocals are so great, the band was not the same after removing him… this 45 is a winner, too.
Fucking great stuff. John Vollick’s dad was one of
my teachers when I went to Hayward High School circa
’85. I had no idea until he commented on one of my
t-shirts one day. He was always a cool teacher, but
that made him the coolest ever.LOL.
Vollick delivers boxes to my job these days.
I am pretty sure he doesn’t know that I know who he is.
I’m gonn ahave to blast some SU or leave my browser window on this post next time he comes in, ha ha!
Great site, btw just found it…
I saw Social Unrest Last night…one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.. If you get a chance, they should be touring more…coolest guys and awesoem music!! MAKING ROOM FOR YOU!!
does anybody have the lyrics that were printed on the sleeve of the two releases with creein K-os? i know they were printed on the original records but not the cds
How many covres are there for this 7″? I have a card stock papers orange one and a paper yellow one, now a blue one? And yeah, one of the best bands ever live!!!!!
Greetings…to set the record straight. Covers for the “Making Room” single were as follows. Orange was first pressing.Blue second,yellow third and lastly white . Yes, those were good times when I lived in Amsterdam,to Anon, Good times Bro! No Im not in the shit they call SU nowdays.Pathetic wankers…really embarassing. Like in the Swindle…anyone can be a Sex Pistol. That post about k-os bitching
in MRR. Never happened dude. He quit SU to persue a new life.
His choice. Jason Honea was alot better and in our band for years.K-os bailed after 2 whole years.So anyway its all old history but thats the real deal. Mark
Thanks for clearing the pressing details Mark. Do you know how many copies of each pressing?
The press runs were as follows: Orange,1000 copies.Blue,1000 copies.
Yellow,500 copies and lastly white was 500 copies. Beyond that,cant be
sure if any more surfaced or were pressed.Dont believe so. Mark
Greetings,
In all seriousness though, Ive received some comments
about the singer lineup. Creetin was good at what he did ,as was
Jason was good at what he did. Both different, both good in their
own style. Like whoever you want,pick your favorite and go from
there. Variety. Im still waiting to hear from those who liked Bob
Weaver the best! Our first vocalist,who brought complete mayhem
with himself on stage! Ring any bells?? Go back and try to find some live tapes and photos of him . Another pressing detail Ive come across,
questions concerning which label was first. The 7 in. has a bright red
label which says Infrared as one word. These are first pressings.
Later on the label was more reddish brown,Infra Red is two words .
These are from the second pressing. Still old and hard to come by
as all are from pretty long ago. Also the stylized SU logo on the
back cover for Rush Hour , yellow and white sleeves . I did to
change it up a bit from the original . Hope this clears up any
confusion for collectors. Stay tuned for re-releases of “Making Room”
and “Rat in a Maze” . Both on colored vinyl from NRA. Cheers!
Mark
I remember bob weaver SU, the hippie frisbee track “peace and flowers are dead etc had it taped from kevin reed from years back. i knew those guys along with bad influence people. i thnk i saw one of those bands in weeks park live, i was a kid still. the agnew mental hospital show i rememeber too.
missed the civic gig i was in the hall
my opinion i liked 1st jason better, honea was ehhhh. i recall a first show back with him at ruthies in or the mab with partime christians peopel actually boo ed thrw shit at stage. it was unrest but now what we all remembered and loved. too bad kreetin never released mission of mercy and some others that honea did, i have some live shit with tracks never released with kreetin siging sounds great. wasnt vengence from the comp have someone from social unrest in it? i thought maybe brogan doing the 1234 1234 intro/
bitter old punk
I took some of the photos on the original record and still have the negatives and other shots of the band practicing. I would really like to hear from you.
it was all that boo-ing and throwing of shit that taught me alot!
don’t give up’, make it new’ and do it all yourself have been guiding precedents for me ever since. I was lucky they gave me the job ! Thanks SU !
Thanks for stopping by Jason. Hope you know what a great show you put on in Copenhagen in 1987.
and thank you !!
Say, you don’t have any pix from that show do you ?
we’re looking for images for the new page….
b.o.p.,
You guys probably booed so much and threw stuff because you noticed I was listeneing to too many Beach Boys and Zombies LPs.!
-Honea
This record is immortal punk.
Strange – saw Social Unrest at their only European tour in the summer of 1987 in Hamburg doing a show at a Youth Centre in an eastern suburb ‘full of Skinheads’, excellent show, as far as I remember, although not too many people showed up, because the people were afraid of the tough environment and it was a ride of a hour with the tube from the center of the city .
Still have these gnarling “Making room for youth” 7″ and the “Rat in a maze” 12″ep, but I like all their other albums, too (“SU-2000” in 1985, “Before the fall” in 1986 and ‘Now and forever” in 1987, although I didn’t like the cover art of the last-mentioned, and even their cd-only album “New lows” from 1996).
Unfortunately, they never got the credit they deserved, too.