Anti-Cimex Archive

Recently posted to YouTube is a three-part video of Anti-Cimex playing live in Nottingham, England, on their 1986 tour.

Part one (including the end of Heresy's set):

Here is a link to one of the best Anti-Cimex live recordings in circulation, posted a couple months back on a Swedish blog. My guess is that the live recording occurred soon after the recording/release of "Victims of a Bombraid." It includes songs from that EP as well as from their previous EP.

In advance of a Wikileaks-style dump of a cache of Anti-Cimex photos that I obtained from an anonymous source, here is a separate post with some photos recently auctioned on eBay.

The auction listing said:

I was lucky enough to see Anti Cimex play live in Birmingham in July 1986. I took my old 110 camera and took 4 photos of Jonsson.

My friend Chris wrote to say that he noticed an ambiguity in my post about the obviously fake Shitlickers 7". Let me be clear: I have never had any doubt as to whether this sleeve was "legit." It was obviously made recently. Chris writes:

That typeface for SKITSLICKERS is definitely a computer generated font, I'm pretty sure I have it at home. You can tell just from looking at the distress marks on the repeating letters (check out those little dots in the lower part of the I's), and the baseline and kerning are too exact to not be a computer generated font.

Indeed. Why someone made this fake sleeve and sent it to me is another question. It has all the hallmarks of a record-collector jape, what with the reference to buying it from a German and all. Torbjörn Nilsson, you so funny.

After my compendium of all known Shitlickers sleeve variations, I knew—feared—it was likely I would subsequently find out about another one. This one is not exactly what I was expecting. Although all the "design elements" other than the band logo and photo correspond to other known sleeve variations, I have a hard time accepting the legitimacy of this one. It is very obviously cobbled together from pieces of Shitlickers ephemera. The most interesting piece is the photo of Lasse, which I previously posted.

Here is an interview with Anti-Cimex from the UK zine Problem Child, issue 2. It's from the period between the final EP and the first 12" (ie, 1985). Not much revealed here, other than their plan for the 12" to have more than 10 songs and their distaste for fast US hardcore. Their influences, from glam to industrial to what you'd expect, are always interesting to consider, but these have been listed in other interview from the period.

After several years of internal debate (and data collection) here at Shit-Fi I'm finally feeling generous enough to post scans of all known sleeve variations for the Shitlickers' lone EP. In case you need more info about the record, check here, here, and here (most recent to oldest of my writing focused on the band, spanning over a decade). Also, check this interview with Lasse and this band bio by Kawakami.

Some points to keep in mind:

1. All the vinyl is the same. Writing on labels varies and cannot be assumed to done by band, label, or distributor.
2. No one, to my knowledge, can account for the order in which these were released. Therefore, this post does not attempt to do so.
3. The nomenclature for each one (eg, "GBG 1982" domestic sleeve) is my own; it should be self-evident.
4. I've included salient, confirmed details but not what countries in which the individual variations were originally distributed because that information is difficult to confirm. Some show what distributors carried them on the back.
5. Pressing numbers are a mystery, but my  experience and consultation with fellow experts suggest that the white export sleeve, red export sleeve, and GBG 1982 domestic sleeve are the most common, in descending order.
6. Bootlegs of recent vintage excluded.

Here's a translation of an article penned by Kawakami (of Disclose) that appeared in Crust War zine #5 around 1998 or 1999. The article preceded an interview with Jonsson translated from Sika Äpärä zine #3. I've been meaning to publish this interview here for a while, but it's actually not very interesting, as it consists mostly of inside jokes. One highlight, though, is Jonsson saying that he considers the Pixies to be as important as Discharge! Anyway, this introductory article, by Kawakami, is remarkable for the amount of information it contains, considering that it preceded any online detective work and, to my knowledge, none of this information had appeared previously in English in zines. Therefore, Kawakami had to overcome at least two language barriers in the process of compiling it. I assume he obtained most of the info from the interview that accompanied this article and from Mats B., who was releasing and mastering Disclose recordings around this time. Although some of the information included here has since been debunked, no one has yet, to my knowledge, refuted the claim that up to three recordings beyond the 7" and planned 2nd 7" (released on the picture LP) exist. Unfortunately, no one has turned up these demos either. Thanks to Zach Howard for the translation (which I edited slightly), and eternal thanks to Kawakami. RIP.

I previously wrote about a test pressing of "Raped Ass," which sold on eBay for $590 in May 2006.

Now, a heretofore unseen (by me) sleeve variation accompanied by a test pressing with a different center label appears for sale, courtesy of Mats Bodenmalm. Wonders never cease.

Over recent years, and especially over the recent days, I have received more questions about the clear-vinyl variation of "Raped Ass" than any others. A copy of it recently sold on the Swedish online auction site Tradera for 2032 kr, or approximately $289, which led to a flurry of e-mails to me and blog postings online. Actually, the occasion led to me hearing from an old friend, Christoffer, to whom I hadn't spoken in several years. I will attempt to give all the information available about this record, with the caveat that there is a good deal of conflicting information out there.

The vinyl facts: the record has the same matrix as the typical versions of "Raped Ass," clear vinyl, with one blank blue label and one blank white label. The sleeve is what's interesting.