Saccharine Trust - Paganicons

I've always wondered why this band never got more recognition. Coming out of the South Bay in the same era as Black Flag, Descendents, Minutemen, etc., this band had a style a little different than what those other bands were doing but in a good way. They blended slower melodic guitar parts with straight punk and made it sound great. "We Don't Need Freedom" is probably their most well known song and the lyrics play on the idea that freedom in this country only causes more problems. I saw an interview with Henry Rollins where he says that this is one of his favorite songs and that Saccharine Trust was one of his favorite bands. Also, to make this record even more rad, Mike Watt produced it.

My girlfriend's dad ("Earl Liberty" while he was in the band) played bass on this record and actually does the "Monday Night Football" part in the Black Flag song TV Party. He left Saccharine Trust after this record to join Circle Jerks. He has some crazy stories to say the least. He has the bands logo tattooed on his arm (the cross making a T and a snake wrapped around it making an S). He was telling me that he got it with Henry Rollins. They were sitting at some house and they decided to get their bands logo's tattooed on their arms. So, Henry got the Black Flag bars and "Earl" got the cross and the snake. He was telling me about one night when he was at a Black Flag show at a house party and ended up in the hospital. I'll post what he said in an interview in 1982 after it happened: "This party with Black Flag in Carson. Cops came and broke it up. One of the cops asked me if I knew the girls whose house it was, went out front, tried to look for her. Cops out front told me to go home. My ride was in the backyard. One cop put a stick in my stomach. The two other cops came up and started pulling out their night sticks, so I ran for it. It was a dead end street. I jumped a brick wall and hit a fence behind that, and fell 20 feet. Broke my leg. Knocked my teeth out. Opened up a hole in my jaw." He told me he saw Descendents, Bad Brains, Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat, and just about every other great punk band of that era. He also played shows with Minutemen and Black Flag. Awesome.

Along with the record I'm posting a video of "Earl Liberty" playing bass on "Live Fast Die Young" with Circle Jerks in 1984. I'll also post the TV Party video.

Saccharine Trust - Paganicons