Low Life - Dogging LP (2022 Hammertime edition)

It's been 10 years since Low Life's 'Dogging' was unleashed onto the world. I'm not big on anniversaries, I don't want to feel like a discarded verse from Springsteen's Glory Days, but from my perspective there's a few lesser known aspects of the Dogging story worthy of a dot point....

- Dogging was originally slated for release on Negative Guest List, but after Brendon's untimely death Disinfect Records took on the project. My label, R.I.P. Society jumped on board to help quite late in the project.

- Disinfect Records CEO Kerem 'Dizzy' Daldal, the unheralded driving force of getting this record into the world, managed the difficult logistics of figuring out how to pay Gary Numan's mechanical royalty within a day of us realising we needed to do this or the records would not be pressed.

- The recording skills of John "Crystal Palace" Duncan deserve acknowledgement. He's not one for the spotlight but deserves to be a part of the Dogging lore. There's a unique sound and atmosphere to the record that avoids being overbearing, overshadowing the band, or being goofy. It really served the band circa 2012's strengths. 

- I fucking hate phenomenons but the initial Dogging phenomenon was exciting and validating for someone that believed (and still believes) in fostering an industrious underground music network that runs counter to the industry-at-large. It wasn't hype from above, it was excitement and endorsement from various sections of the underground. Shout out to Easter Bilby, Goner, Little Big Chief and other US factions that got the ball rolling.
 
- While I loved this initial word-of-mouth excitement, later waves of enthusiasm left me cold. Hordes of men so eager to demonstrate in an almost nationalistic manner that this music spoke deeply to their lived experience, completely missing the deeper and more satirical messages of the record. 
 
Max Easton explores some of these feeling better in episode 12 of the Barely Human podcast series . ‘I'm in Strife; I Like Low Life (...and Haram)’. Check it out. Oh, and I’m glad the Alter Records in the UK re-released this album, a class label! - Nic