THE SOUL PATROL - "MARA" 7"

Lulu's:

Back in the late 70's, a small Louisiana town would quietly become home to "The Band That Souled The World". The Soul Patrol hailed from the northwestern Louisiana town of Many (pronounced man-ny), just across the Toledo Bend Reservoir from Texas. Junior high pals Buckshot Coxe (vocals, guitar) and Kenny Weaver (vocals, bass, percussion) laid the groundwork for The Soul Patrol, later graduating from Many High and crossing state lines to jam in Denton, TX while Buckshot briefly attended college. Upon returning to Many, drummer Kerwin Alexander - and his particularly loose and soulful style - was added to round out the trio, now jamming in their basement space known as THE CAVE.

While their live shows at small clubs went over poorly - Weaver recalls, "We were kinda anti-everything in the area and no one got us at the time" - The Soul Patrol made it into a long-since-forgotten local studio to cut a two song demo in 1979. From there, the band decided to order a custom pressing of 50 copies (!) on their own STUD Records imprint. Almost all of the sleeveless 45s were given away to friends and at parties, vanishing into near-total obscurity for over four decades.

Oh yes, THAT single - well it's simply jaw dropping stuff. A double-sided monster that simultaneously kills across the hard rock/proto-punk/Bloodstains/Killed By Death spectrums. Loud, raw, loose, Southern, and WAY ahead of the curve. "Mara" is a bona fide rocker, anchored by Buckshot's brilliant vocal and guitar lines. But hell, "Take Back the Night" truly steals the show, with an incredible fuzz guitar tone driving the main riff home while Coxe screams "HERE WE GO!" to kick off the side. An incredible punk moment, almost like the cocaine mix of "Raw Power" Stooges bashing into the verse riff of "Sub-mission" by The Sex Pistols. And it's all totally replete with attitude, excelling in the same department as fellow US first wave punk regionalists like The Crap Detectors, The Gizmos, and The (Iowa) Dogs.

The Soul Patrol existed until 1981, turning in a second 45 and LP on the White Horse label - neither of which quite match the veracity and sheer raw excellence of their STUD 45. Shortly after their self-titled LP, Buckshot Coxe moved to Amsterdam and would later pass there, followed in passing by Kerwin Alexander.

Reissued and widely available for the first time ever, THE SOUL PATROL's debut 45 has been carefully transferred and remastered from Kenny Weaver's personal copy (one of a handful known in existence) and paired up with a newly created picture sleeve by resident Louisiana punk Drew Owen (Sick Thoughts). First 250 copies on translucent orange vinyl with 500 more on black, all with hand-stamped picture sleeves accompanied by an insert featuring liners from Kenny Weaver and a small treasure trove of reproduced ephemera from The Soul Patrol archives, plus a download code.