Promotional photo for Dunedin, New Zealand band Straitjacket Fits (photographer: Stuart Page), issued by U.S. record label Rough Trade circa 1988.
This is but one of many band press photos I acquired via in the early nineties back when labels mailed these things everywhere, specifically:
To the record store where I worked
To the radio station where I DJ’ed
To me, care of my fanzine
Since this photo would have coincided with their lone U.S. indie release in 1988 on Rough Trade—before they got snapped up by major label Arista Records—I likely nabbed it from one of the many piles we had at the record store. Because I didn’t discover Straitjacket Fits until the following year, when I bough the In Love With These Times compilation CD at my local Newbury Comics.
Straitjacket Fits were on my mind, as they were the surprise in the recently announced lineup for Flying Nun’s 40th anniversary concert happening in Auckland, New Zealand next month. That also led me to unearth a live recording of I’d made in July 1991 when I saw Straitjacket Fits for the first time, at T.T. the Bear’s in Cambridge. It’s on my list of recordings to clean up and post to my YouTube channel of nineties gigs I’d taped. But I did play “She Speeds” from that recording on my radio show last night. I was fortunate enough to see them before Andrew Brough—who passed away early last year—left the band.
