Screaming Mailboxes of Destiny Morgantown, WV 7/11/85 cassette
Live cassette of a single track, recorded just a few weeks shy of forty years ago. The SCREAMING MAILBOXES OF DESTINY were a short-lived hardcore punk band from Pittsburgh, PA spanning from 1984 to 1985. They posthumously released a ten-song, one-sided 12” in 1986. This tape, however, features a live show where the band is introduced by an unbeknownst-to-them poet. The only music on the cassette is the very first song they played that night on July 11, 1985, fill-in drummer and all. Oh, and it is only on the A-side of the cassette. In my opinion, the same test-tone that was included on the B-side of their LP should have been recorded onto the back of these cassettes, but that might be taking the absurdity of that story told within the included zine a bit too far. Did I mention the cassette also comes with a huge zine? It is filled with classic SxMxDx flyers, newspaper clippings about the band, bad reviews from this and other classic punk publications, as well as existential autobiographical memoirs of the singer of the band, Jim Hayes. This was an absolute delight to read, and I must have listened to the cassette four times before seeking out other recordings by SxMxDx to have in the background while I fully digested the zine. I truly and thoroughly enjoyed this and recommend it highly. Am I really singing the praises of a three-minute, one-song cassette with a twenty-plus-page, full-size sheet of paper zine, double-spaced like a high school essay and limited to a total of twenty-three copies? You better believe I am! It is one of my favorite things about punk, that every single aspect of a release can be arguably shitty, yet the beauty of the project can shine through regardless.
