On the 40th Anniversary of the original release of Early 80s L.A. band Savage Republic’s Tragic Figures LP, Real Gone Music has collaborated with Independent Project Records to re-issue an expanded version, complete with an entire second album of mostly previously unreleased recordings. They were actually taped in 1981 in the concrete parking garages at UCLA, where the band emerged from into Post-Punk scene of Southern California.
Savage Republic were known for performing at various underground clubs such as the Brave Dog, Al’s Bar and the Anticlub. As Real Gone’s Gordon Anderson writes:
Welcome to the world’s first (and only) post-punk-industrial-trance-psychedelic-surf album! The fact that it took us so many adjectives to describe Tragic Figures lets you know just how unique of an album it is.
IPR and Real Gone Music have produced a very limited deluxe numbered edition of 300 copies on natural clear vinyl, literally wrapped in Bruce Licher’s die cut hand-letterpress printed packaging, printed using the original photo-engraved printing plates and linoleum blocks used on the original edition 40 years ago.
This package features a letterpress-printed inner wraparound sleeve inside the outer die cut letterpress printed jacket, and also includes an additional 2-sided insert only available in this deluxe edition featuring several previously unseen photos of Savage Republic in action at Al’s Bar in mid-1982 captured by Punk photographer Edward Colver.
In addition to these photos, this special insert features commentary and memories of a wide range of musician and industry fans of the band and album, including contributions from Mike Watt, Grant-Lee Phillips, Michael Stipe, Kendra Smith, Joe Carducci, Jeffrey Clark, Fredrik Nilsen, Nels Cline, Adam Davis, Stuart Swezey, Daniel Voznick, Biba Kopf, Gordon Anderson, Robin Rimbaud, Pat Thomas, Juan Gomez, and Marnie Weber. Richie Unterberger’s liner notes feature interviews with band members Licher, Philip Drucker and Jeff Long. You can order the deluxe edition LP, CD or LP jacket art print via the IPR Shoppe.
Adding to Tragic Figures’ mystique are its graphics, which displayed band co-founder Bruce Licher’s trademark letterpress printing and featured a UPI photo of rebels being executed in Kurdistan, the images sharing space with a red lettering that gave the album’s title in script that roughly translated “tragic figures” into Arabic (which, in turn, had the unexpected effect of drawing more Iranian and Middle Eastern people to their shows).
Track listing as follows:
Disc One Side One
1. When All Else Fails…
2. Attempted Coup: Madagascar
3. The Ivory Coast
4. Next to Nothing
5. Exodus
Disc One Side Two
1. Machinery
2. Zulu Zulu
3. Real Men
4. Flesh That Walks
5. Kill the Fascists!
6. Procession
Disc Two Side One
1. Attempted Coup: Madagascar
2. When All Else Fails
3. Kill the Fascists!
4. Real Men
5. The Vampire Bites
6. Next to Nothing Weirdness
7. Thee Three Preserves
Disc Two Side Two
1. Sliding into Arabia
2. As It Was Written
3. Procession (Into the Light)
4. Exodus
