New Bomb Turks are releasing Nightmare Scenario – Diamond Edition (digitally, for now, on Bandcamp) with never-before heard mixes and a bonus track, all freshly re-mastered in July 2020 by Jim Diamond. All monies generated from sales of the album will be going to Black Lives Matter organizations in Columbus, specifically BQIC and Columbus Freedom Fund.

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*from the band’s press release*

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Nightmare Scenario, New Bomb Turks’ fifth full-length album, third for the Los Angeles based Epitaph Records, and first with drummer Sam Brown (Operators, Divine Fits, RJD2, Gaunt, and yes we know about 1000 other bands in Central Ohio).

Recorded by Jim Diamond at Ghetto Recorders, Detroit, MI, November 3-7, 1999. Original mixes by Jim Diamond have been newly re-mastered by that same Jim Diamond in July 2020.

Diamond’s production credits include Red Aunts, White Stripes, Clone Defects, The Sights, Bantam Rooster, Nathaniel Mayer, Andre Williams, Dirtbombs, Nikki Corvette, Seger Liberation Army, Baseball Furries, Scat Rag Boosters, Little Killers, The Cynics, Scott Morgan, The Sonics, Sexareenos, Mr. Airplane Man, The Go, The Fells, The Dirtys, Electric Six, Paybacks, Easy Action, Fleshtones, Patsys, Guilty Pleasures TO NAME A FEW, and you should probably know this anyway.

Cover design by Henry H. Owings (Chunklet/Five Minute Flyers); photo by Ewolf.

Available August 7, 2020 at New Bomb Turks Bandcamp page.

It was spring, 1999. New Bomb Turks had just returned from their first tour of Australia in a suspended animation. They soon procured ace drumsman, dessert aficionado [not a typo], and all-around great guy, Sam Brown. It suddenly felt like a brand-new beast, but they had an album to deliver forthwith, and nary a new song in sight! Nails were chomped to the cuticle, empty beer cans sat in the corner mocking us…

Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes (or at least like a bartender finding another unopened bottle of mezcal at last call), New Bomb Turks soared again. Within four months (May-August 1999), Sam slipped right into the NBT stool, 12 new songs were cooked up easy as fryin’ an egg, and they were back on the road with the Hellacopters to hash those new ones into place.

By the time the band got to Jim Diamond’s Ghetto Recorders studio in Detroit – his rep revving up from production jobs with the curdled cream of that Detroit trash-rock scene (Clone Defects, Detroit Cobras, Dirtbombs, White Stripes, Andre Williams) – New Bomb Turks were piqued like a baby screamin’ for a higher push on a swing set.

Over four days and nights, the band enjoyed their easiest and most fun recording session – the only break being a jaunt over to a bar to see a reunited Real Kids, their first show in years, which floored the band and only added more mezcal to the fire.

Final mixes were left to Jim Diamond, and by the time he forwarded them to the band, overdub ideas had hatched, and about half the record was remixed with local studio wiz, Jeff Graham, in Columbus. A middle ground was eventually found, and what resulted was Nightmare Scenario (Epitaph Records, 2000) – the fifth album in their six album/three compilation catalog, and the one the band believe is their best.

Like every band ever, the years have supplied moments of mixing rumination. So last year, when the band saw the 20th anniversary of Nightmare Scenario right up on their ass, they asked Jim Diamond if he had his original mixes lying around his palatial estate. He found them on a DAT (look it up, kids) tucked underneath a pile of professional recording deck manuals (i.e., old MAD mags). Lo and behold, they were even more ripping and burning and stinging than remembered. There was the 20th birthday idea, screamin’ like a brat!

So here you have the original mixes of Nightmare Scenario that Jim Diamond finished in November 1999, ensconced deep in his legendary, now torn-down Detroit digs. Ain’t saying it’s better than the original, just leaner and meaner. But don’t take our word for it – take yours when you’re screamin’ along too!

– Lance Forth, July 2020 (Astoria)

New Bomb Turks – Killer’s Kiss