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Hey the Celtics won the finals - so here’s a classic Boston punk record from the days of Larry Bird. Gang Green - Sold Out on clear vinyl with a MEGA RARE acetate cover. I could tell the story of Gang Green’s “Sold Out” 7″ in my own words for the uninitiated, but this excerpt from the reissue cd does it so well, that there’s no need. Read on…

By 1983 GangGreen were a memory. They did not play out anymore or record. But their popularity seemed to grow to epidemic proportions. Meanwhile: Hardcore was at its peak in America and Boston was the breeding ground for such bands as Negative FX, SSD, DYS, The FU’s, Last Rights, Jerry’s Kids, and The Proletariat. But the GangGreen tracks on “This is Boston Not L.A.” led them to legendary status. There was a postumus release called, “Unsafe at Any Speed.” The track by GangGreen was called “Selfish.” Their only other recordings were known as the “Sold Out Sessions.” Three songs were recorded during that session: “Sold Out“, “Terrorize” and a song that was never finished called, “America.” The bill was $275.00, unpaid, overdue and threatened to be taped over.

Enter Taang! Records:It wasn’t until Dave Collins, drummer of DYS, showed up at a Bad Brains show with a copy of the GangGreen tape known as the Legendary Sold Out Sessions. The reason Dave Collins got a copy of the tape was because DYS were recording at Radiobeat studios and he managed to get a copy of the most eagerly awaited unreleased tape in Boston history.Meanwhile at the Bad Brains show:For this particular Bad Brains show there was a seven hour wait because the Bad Brains needed to score weed. The crowd that gathered in The Channel parking lot did not enter the club. They remained outside due to the no remittance once entered rule. That day the lot looked like a HARDCORE WOODSTOCK. Skate ramps were built that day, graffiti was sprayed on naked buildings, children were even conceived… but most importantly, a record label was born.Dave Collins searched the lot for the Motorhead Mobile, an all black ‘67 Camaro which was a listening haven for many. He spotted the car and found members of GangGreen, Negative FX, SSD and most of the Boston hardcore scene huddled around the car blasting Discharge. DC aka Dave Collins held the tape high above his head in victory yelling, “Hey crew look what I’ve got.” The Discharge tape was exited out of the tape deck & GangGreentape slid in. After several repeated blstings of the tape there was nothing but praise. The bands nodded in approval but Curtis, a D.J. at the time, who plagued radio with hardcore (especially Boston hardcore), could not contain himself. “This is fucking great!” he shouted, “It should be on X-CLAIM!“Doherty whispered to Curtis, “We’re not straight edge.” “That’s fine,” Curtis replied, “Springa & Chris Foley never were either. X-CLAIM is Boston & this has to be on a Boston label!” demanded Curtis. X-CLAIM was thee Boston label at the time. Known to most for straight-edge hardcore and releasing albums by great Boston hardcore bands.

The X-CLAIM situation was this:  No one ran it.  Bands used the name and there were four different addresses. DYS got SSD’s mail and The Fu’sthrew out Jerry’s Kids’ mail… get the picture? So it was time to start fresh. Curtis was handed the tape and it was up to him to do something about it. Doherty, Dean, and Curtis are all friends and X-Claim was X-Claim.Curtis got some help from people he had helped; Al from X-Claim/SSD, Ian from Dischord/Minor Threat, Glen from Plan 9/Misfits, Jon Loder from Crass/Spiderleg, Mike Stone from Clay. These five people were a great inspiration and direction for this new label. TAANG! Records was born with the release of “Sold Out” by GangGreen in March ‘84. The record took off, word got out all over the world. The label was on its way.As for GangGreen: They reformed for the release of “Sold Out” (TAANG! #1) but shortly thereafter Bill decided not to play music anymore and the band played their last show with the Minutemen at The Channelin Boston. Doherty passed out face first on the floor due to a long day of drinking with Dicky B. at a nearby bar.

There you have it. History, as it happened before the eyes of those who were there. Gang Green have been consistently one of the worst bands in Boston for about 20 years now, but because of the Sold Out 7″ single they will always have a place in the hearts of punks and hardcore kids in this town. The cover is an all time classic. The 3 members, probably under 18, with a mirror that has the band name spelled out in cocaine. It wasn’t exactly hard to predict it would be all downhill from there. The song sold out is a great one - clean guitar starts the song off sounding like some pre-hardcore Boston bar rock/power pop as Chris Dorhety warbles off key “All we want is money and to be on every station” and so on, before declaring “give the fuckin’ people what they want” in a teenaged scream that has been rarely equaled by anyone since it was first laid to tape. At this point of course Gang Green deliver some full tilt thrashing and lyrics no one will ever decipher. I was in a band that covered this once, and I played the song about a dozen times in a row trying to figure out what I was supposed to say. Finally I resigned myself to just singing nonsense that sounded the same has the nonsense he shouts. Song 2 is Terrorize which is a slightly more refined version of the “Boston Not LA”, basically just full on thrash with screaming backups for the chorus. Gang Green were one of the few who wrote the book on tuneless ear shredding thrash. It’s too bad they really did try to sell out later, making mediocre heavy metal records on Roadrunner but whatever.

Only 100 copies of Sold Out come on clear vinyl with this transparent acetate cover, probably all of them were hoarded by the notoriously unscrupulous Curtis Taang. I assume a lot were traded as his early releases sometimes include copies of his tradelist, but i suppose it’s possible some were sold for coin too.