Salvo Rain (from the master tapes)

Occasionally, requests beep from my inbox. For the Salvo Rain LP, I've heard more beeps than any, especially since reactivating UBF.

Well--okay, three requests, but that's thrice the demand for anyone else. So let's go special with this one.

Recently, Salvo Rain drummer Greg Ellis mentioned he'd re-ripped the LP from the original ADATs in "high quality," meaning I pounced for a copy because my old UBF rip of the LP came straight off vinyl, which sounded a little turbid. (Don't mistake. My vinyl copy sounds fantastic on the turntable, but the rip just sorta transferred sans excitement, which is a shame; it's an exciting record.) So, thank you so much, Greg, I'm able to share Salvo Rain's longplayer straight from the masters, and it sounds fantastic.

The Rock Hill, S.C., based band between 1993-97 slid us two 7"s and some comp tracks before the LP. A few years ago Greg said a Chicago label had planned to release a Salvo Rain discography, "but they realized they were out of their fucking minds and pulled at the last minute." According to some of my old notes, there also exists plenty of lost Salvo Rain material, issued on old cassettes, but from my understanding they've badly deteriorated. "We shat out 60-odd songs in three years and actually recorded 46 of them," Greg told UBF in an old interview.

"The 12" was the last stuff Salvo Rain recorded," perhaps around August 1996, Greg said last week. "I remember we had just gone on a road trip and played a huge hardcore festival. We were all broke and a little burned out, but we wanted to get the last batch of stuff recorded."

The band's eyes landed on a flier for a desirably cheap studio, and Greg said it was good vibes upon arrival.

"The owner turned out to be a super-nice hippy guy who had somehow landed a huge warehouse space up near what is now the south-end part of Charlotte (N.C.)," Greg explained. "There was a recording set-up on one side and a basketball court on the other and there were a couple of dogs running around. It was a blast."

But the band had its work cut out. The engineer was "stoned out of his gourd and it was difficult to communicate with him," Greg said. "He accidentally erased my drum part on one song and I had to go back and re-track it over the other parts.

"I also remember we fed one of his dogs McDonald's and the warehouse was covered in shit 15 minutes later."

For those who asked, and for everyone else, here's the 1996 LP, "remastered" and sounding great.

TITLE: s/t
LABEL: Wishful Thinking
YEAR: 1996
TRACKS:
Drivethrough / Thanks But No Thanks / Fridge Magnet / What Do You Make Of? / Today's Kids / South of Charlotte / Have A Nice Life / Halves / Taking Up Karate / New Black Eye / Keep the Receipt / No Vacancy

P.S. Greg's later bands included Quote Unquote, Safe Return Doubtful and Cannons. More recently, he's recorded on his own and is currently in a band called Motel Glory, which has yet to record.