Sink - Fashionably Unpopular

Favourite band alert!
In '88 I bought the first Sink 7" from the Full Circle distro because after the record title it had this: "(ex-stupids)". It was indeed ex-stupids, Ed Shred on guitar but it was a lot different to the Stupids, not as fast, not as hardcore, more melancholy I suppose, but I loved it. When their first album, Another Love Triangle, came out the next year I picked it up immediately and they had moved even further from the straight up punk with a liberal dose of post hardcore ala Fugazi to blues and country influences, my mind was truly blown and I played that record continually as it had a bit of everything to it. The mini LP, Old Man Snake And His Fat Black Pig, came in 1990 and continued the development and contained one of my favourite Sink songs, Won't Sell My Guitar, the only thing I didn't like about this record was the length, I needed more.
I got to see Sink live that year and met Ed, it was Sunday night, the Moshpit at the Venue in Edinburgh, thrash and death metal night and I went through every Sunday not knowing who I was going to see most weeks, we got off the train about two in the afternoon and nipped down the back stairs to see if there was any mention of who was playing that night on the blackboard of the Venue and there wasn't so we went on our usual trawl round the record shops and pick up pizza and pepsi before the gig, we just came out the West Nicholson Avalanche shop when I spotted a poster for the Venue with Sink listed and, to say the least, I was excited to know that Sink would be playing soon, then when I saw it was actually that night they were playing I literally exploded with joy, the two mates I was with had no idea who they were and dealt with me being hyper pretty well. They also dealt with the news that it wasn't a thrash or death metal band we were seeing that night admirably well also. I literally ran back to the Venue and waited for the band to turn up and then helped them load their stuff in and hung out and chatted for a while before the gig started.
The usual Sunday night thrash crowd turned up and when Sink came on in multi coloured tie dye apparel with acoustics and tambourines they stood in a large semicircle wide eyed and slack jawed throughout the set. Me and my mates danced non stop like complete loons for the whole thing, was such a great gig.





Sink released a comp of their first two 7"s plus two unreleased songs, Mama Sink, The First 18 Years (1963-1989) that year (which has a great cover of the Replacements song If Only You Were Lonely, which I actually like better than the original...) as well before the final album Vega-Tables was released in 1991. Slower in general but still with the Dischord feel in places. They changed name after that and became Big Ray and continued with the slower more gentle stuff but still great songs throughout.
Anyway for your listening pleasure I give you a bundle of Another Love Triangle, Old Man Snake And His Fat Black Pig, Mama Sink The First 18 Years, Vega-Tables, Don't Burn The Hook 7" and the first Big Ray album, Naked.
I hope you enjoy it all as much as I do.

Sink