The biggest benefit of the vinyl resurgence is the lift it has provided to your local indie shop. I know, I know… I’ve read all the articles about how the pressing plants can’t keep up, which means that small bands are finding their releases delayed so that Justin Bieber can get the vinyl treatment, and I know there’s a lot of angst and hand-wringging over Record Store Day and whether it’s actually good or bad for the small retailer (<– the answer is, “it depends”).  But it has also allowed some shops to get a new lease on life, and for many even allowed them to expand, something that would have seemed impossible five years ago.

So with that in mind, I was very excited to head an hour down the highway to go visit the new location of my friends at Hi-Voltage Records.  Located maybe two blocks from the old shop, the new digs give the store a much more roomy feel and plenty of space for shoppers to browse through tons of product, most of it used.  Hi-Voltage has always been strong in the punk/metal sphere, along with a very healthy jazz section, and my visit didn’t disappoint.  I came away with a half dozen or so records that will grace the blog over the next few weeks, including some discount bin gems by The Motels and Scandal, some private pressings, and this punk rock gem from 1981, U.X.A.’s Illusions of Grandeur.

U.X.A. were originally from San Francisco, but headed down to Los Angeles to be part of the burgeoning punk rock scene there in the late 1970s.  They earned a spot on the 1979 punk comp Tooth and Nail, contributing a pair of tracks of which one, “UXA,” made it onto their full-length debut Illusions of Grandeur.  Stylistically the album doesn’t offer much in the way of variety, providing mostly straight ahead punk that’s almost grunge in its drone.  “Hand In Glove” and “Death From Above” are notable exceptions with their slow plodding heaviness, the latter of which reminds me quite a bit of L7.  De De Troit keeps her voice in the lower range for the most part, which is too bad because if she’d been able to separate it from the music a bit more I think the sonic disparity would give this puppy a more intriguing blend.

Like so many other LA punk bands, heroin took its pound of flesh from U.X.A. in the form of original guitarist (and songwriter) Michael Kowalsky.  The list of casualties from the era is long… too long, and most of them were extremely young.  It seems weird to think of heroin as being associated in some way with punk, given how much the frenetic nature of the music differs from the numbness of a heroin high, but it was available and it was a nihilistic time.

In listening to Illusions of Grandeur I feel like U.X.A. were a band that could have continued and developed musically, and I don’t mean re-forming like they did in the 1990s – I think they could have moved on and taken things to a different and potentially more popular place.  But it wasn’t meant to be, I guess.  So all we’re left with are a handful of songs and some grainy videos.