Mystic Records Part 8 (1988)

Nov 26, 2024

We’re in 1988. Revelation Records is killing it as is Straight Edge Hardcore in general. Youth Of Today put out We’re Not In This Alone and Slapshot put out Step On It. Bad Religion released Suffer. We get the first releases from Raw Deal and Death Side. Infest puts out their first 7” and LP. What a year!

Things aren’t as epic over in Mystic-land. Let’s get into it…

The A.G’s Bryan’s Car 7” Super Seven Records, 1988

The A.G’s Because The Mind Is a Terrible Thing To Waste 7” Super Seven Records, 1988

The A.G’s really paint the era of Mystic perfectly with their experience releasing two records on the label in 1988. From their webpage:

That fall, in between college classes for Bryan, myself, and now Thatch, we negotiated our first record deal. Unforunately, it was with the infamous Doug Moody and his ultra corrupt Mystic/Super Seven Records. Doug had gotten ahold of our demo from Pat Houdek and wanted to do a 7" with some of the songs from it. Eager to have a record out, no matter who it was with, we signed a contract with Mystic. They actually did a decent job with the first 7", the 8-song Bryan's Car EP. The covers looked good and were printed on cardboard, the mastering was fine (Mystic had been notorious for their terrible mastering jobs), and we even got about 50 copies of the thing.
The problems with Mystic started with the second, unauthorized A.G's 7". That next spring (1988), I got a call from a friend telling me how much he was enjoying the new A.G s 7" he had just picked up. I thought he was talking about the Bryan's Car 7", but he assured me that he had a new EP, this one called ...Because A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.
Turns out, Mystic had taken the remaining 6 songs off our original master tape, xeroxed some artwork from an A.G's t-shirt we had sent them, and threw together a follow-up 7" without even asking our permission. They didn't know what the names of most of the songs were, so they made up a few titles of their own, and then they managed to get the labels glued to the wrong sides of the record. Numerous phone messages for Doug Moody were left unreturned, and that was the end of our relationship with Mystic. To this day, we have never received a single copy of that EP from Mystic. We had to buy copies for ourselves at record stores.

Bummer!

The 7”s are pretty good for juvenile punk shit. If you like Let’s Barbecue, you’d probably dig this. “Get Rejected” is a ripper.

This leads us to another unauthorized 1988 release. In 1987, Mystic put out the Dr. Know The Original Group LP out without the bands permission, according to Brandon Cruz. Now a year later, they apparently said fuck it and dropped a truncated 7” version…

Dr. Know The Original Group 7” Super Seven Records, 1988

Scared Straight You Drink, You Drive, You Die 12” Mystic Records, 1988

I interviewed Scott Radinsky on Episode 43 of 185 Miles South. Here’s what he had to say about this record…

It was recorded like two years before Mystic moved. They packed up all the stuff in Hollywood sometime in 1986 and they moved down to San Diego. They had all these storage warehouses and so things were just kind of sitting in storage for a long time and and then I think they finally found a studio or something down there and then they probably start opening all the trunks and were like, Hey, let's put this out. They're probably still sitting on stuff that had never got put out because I know we recorded at least four or five songs for some compilations that I've never heard since the day we did them.
The one thing that was kind of a bummer about that is the record sat for at least a year and a half and we didn't know anything about it. Then all of a sudden, a buddy of mine comes to my house with a cassette tape. We didn't know what the record cover was gonna be like, we didn't know anything. They slapped together a cover for us and they put the shit out. And that was that and they never even told us. So I found out by a friend who went to a local record store and came to my house with the cassette tape and of course we went down and tried to buy all of them.
Doug would always be easy to get ahold of on the phone and he'd always give me the time to talk. I actually had a pretty good relationship with him. I was one of two people that helped them move the entire studio down to San Diego and I think he was always grateful for that. I can remember Doug coming up to my mom's house and eating dinner with him and this guy, Phil (Philco Raves), who was his right hand man. I definitely had a good relationship with him but they were like, I don’t want to use the word shady, but they were just like, unreliable when it came to like the communication side of things. He was down there taking care of his sick mom who was in her 90s or something, so I mean I get it. And once he left the Hollywood rat race and the whole lifestyle he had with tons of years leading up to the whole Punk rock thing, I guess he just kind of took off and got away from it all.

The song “The Edge” rules off this record rules so hard.

Mystic put out a couple notable 12” compilations in 1988. I said notable, not good, mind you.

V/A Mutiny On The Bowery Mystic Records, 1988

This is a shitty sounding live record featuring Adrenalin O.D., 76% Uncertain, Seizure, and Damage taken from these shows:

1/19/1986 CBGB's, Manhattan, NY, USA. for Murphy's Law, 76% Uncertain, Chronic Disorder, Damage, False Prophets, + more

5/18/1986 CBGB's, Manhattan, NY, USA. with Token Entry, Adrenaline OD, Damage, Seizure, + more

Apparently Doug Moody couldn’t convince Murphy’s Law or Token Entry to be on Mystic comp. If anyone has the flyers for either of these shows, please get in touch. Here’s a cropped CBGB flyer that shows part of one:

Most readers of this blog and listeners of the podcast will be familiar with Adrenalin O.D. and 76% Uncertain, and I’m sure a bunch of you are familiar with Damage and Seizure too. Damage did a 12” in 1984 called Sins Of Our Fathers that totally rips. The lineup is pretty notable too. Mike Kirkland went on to do an album with GG Allin and play in Prong. Patrick Blanck played on The Undead Nine Toes Later 7” (talk about an underrated 7” these days) and the Virus 7” on Rat Cage. Steve McAllister went on to have recording credits for Agnostic Front, Prong, Sheer Terror, and Swans.

The first two Seizure songs are pretty rad on here and don’t appear on their 7” or either LPs. This band is probably best known for appearing on the Connecticut Fun LP comp which featured the first Youth Of Today tracks, predating Can’t Close My Eyes by a few months.

V/A Airstrip One Mystic Records, 1988

There are a couple cool things about this comp. First, it’s hilarious that the label calls the UK a U.S. colony…I guess by ‘88 Doug realized he was never going back to his homeland. Second, it’s got some notable bands: Ripchord, Napalm Death, and The Instigators. Believe it or not, this comp is up on Spotify but like most things Mystic, whoever uploaded things labeled shit wrong. The Ripcord song is actually The Instigators song and the 2nd Napalm Death song is listed as a Civilised Society song.

This Youtuber labeled everything correctly…