November 17, 1988
Pink Aftershock
The Last Prom cassette & DAT
[HAHX-1315] color copied inserts, laser printed labels
The third and final Pink Aftershock cassette was this eight-song collection of cassette recordings. While it offers an interesting batch of sounds, ideas, and a huge color insert that folds out eleven times, the vocals are embarrassingly straining and all around bad. Almost a step down from the Cold cassette released twelve months earlier. You can kind of tell where the words are supposed to be going but they just don’t get there. Also, like Cold, a lot of different styles and instruments are explored. The music in “Over You” is merely pulses and subsonic tones. “Shower Q” is a fast acoustic guitar song with finger snaps and the like as percussion. “The Last Prom,” “Three Days In September,” and “The Final Step” are all pushing or exceeding five minutes as drawn-out build-ups on generally the same theme; “The hardest thing I could ever do is speak a single word to you and if you came back to me now where would I start. Everyday, in every way, the world reminds me of you.” The tape closes with “A Few Minutes” which takes that same idea to a new level by putting it to a rocking beat. Certainly stealing the show, the song is completely sequenced samples of instruments with an overlaid vocal.
The liner notes list not only the titles but also track times, recording dates, printed lyrics, a lengthy explanation of recording methods, and corporate allegiances. The eight songs that make up The Last Prom were taken from a pool of 14, many of which were written while Pink Aftershock was still a functioning band. “K,” for example, predates the band. “Land Escape,” “Paint It Yellow,” and “217” are among the six spare songs not included. Essentially, “Shower Q” was the only new song on this release. Everything else was at least a year old. As anticipated, nobody really bought this one, either. Ouch.
LINER NOTES:
K Scott Ritcher, instruments and vocal
For Sabian and the world and in memory of Evelyn Cecil (1913-1988). Peace and love Dez.
Side one:
The Last Prom (5:10, July 1987)
K. (3:09, Dec. 1985)
Three Days in September (3:41, Oct. 1987)
Over You (5:17, May 1987)
Side two:
The Final Step (4:48, June 1987)
Shower Q (2:07, Sept. 1988)
Freedom Duck (4:36, June 1987)
A Few Minutes (5:50, Sept. 1987)
Five months passed after the Spot cassette came out before another Slamdek release. It was embodied in this prelude to the next full length Pink Aftershock cassette. This was by no means the same Pink Aftershock. At this point the “band” was just me. I had been teaching myself to play guitar over the past year.
With the third cassette release and others in the works, the idea of SLAMDEK/Scramdown becoming a record label was fully materializing. This compilation cassette, while still selling very few copies, at least got Slamdek recognized by Louisville’s then-much-smaller punk rock community via the Substance songs. The typewritten liner notes list a slew of “coming soon” Slamdek releases from which these songs are taken. However, only two of the eight releases noted actually ever existed, Rockhouse and Pink Aftershock’s first cassettes.
The self titled cassette by Pink Aftershock was the first release carrying the Slamdek name and the address of PO Box 43551. SLAMDEK is actually an acronym, formed by taking the first letter from each of the band members’ names [Mark Damron, Larry Ray, Scott Ritcher, and Dave Taylor] combined with the first initials of three friends who helped assemble the cassettes [Amy Givan, Erin Currens, and Kim Calebs]. While the name of the label retained “Slamdek” for nearly nine more years, twelve of these fourteen hands worked essentially only on this release. Your author, me (Scott Ritcher), being the one who continued, and my affection for Kim Calebs earned me the nickname “K,” which still follows me around.