My Head Hurts

Inner Anger were a hardcore punk band from Kamloops, British Columbia, part of the small Interior B.C. punk scene that also produced Desperate Minds and Sineater. The lineup was Marty Yutalo on vocals, Mike Soper on guitar and vocals, Darren Jones on bass and vocals, and Steve Wegelin on drums.

The band opened for D.O.A. in Kamloops in 1988, and by the start of 1989 they had crossed the border and were working their way down the West Coast. On January 6, 1989, they played Satyricon in Portland on a bill with Mudhoney and Nirvana. Two weeks later, on January 20, they were at 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley, California, with Crimpshrine, Sharkbait and The Cheez Boys.

That same month they went farther south to Spot Recording in Santa Ana, California, where they recorded and mixed their first album, My Head Hurts. Dave Kory engineered the sessions and co-produced with the band. The liner notes thank A.J. and Lil’ Bert ‘for great times and shelter’, Bev and James ‘for opening their hearts, their fridge and their liquor cabinet’, and Sandy ‘for border bashin’’.

Vancouver’s Chikara Records released My Head Hurts later in 1989. The eleven songs were ‘Reality’, ‘Life Out There’, ‘The Time’, ‘Tears and Puppeteers’, ‘Alice in Nowhereland’, ‘Cobwebs’, ‘Building Borders’, ‘Simple Change’, ‘My Silent Son’, ‘The Divorce Song’ and ‘Great Escape’, all written and arranged by the four members together. The music pairs hardcore speed and aggression with a heavier rock weight, and several arrangements stretch past the limits of straight fast punk.

‘Building Borders’ takes on political and social division, but much of the record turns inward. ‘My Silent Son’, ‘The Divorce Song’, ‘Cobwebs’ and ‘Simple Change’ deal with family, relationships, aging, frustration and isolation, giving an aggressive and often cynical album a personal side that set it apart from much of the hardcore of its day.

Steve Wegelin drew the front cover, and Wendell Phillips of the Kamloops Daily News took the back-cover photograph. A printed lyric sheet carried the full texts, the credits and a long list of thanks, with Desperate Minds singled out as ‘our bros.’ alongside Gary Chiba, the ‘Satyriconians’ in Portland and ‘all cool bands we played with’.

Back in British Columbia, Inner Anger kept playing. On August 20, 1989, they shared the stage at The Paramount in New Westminster with Verbal Assault and Head First, and they also turned up on punk bills in Victoria.

No other Inner Anger release is known, which leaves My Head Hurts as the band’s only record.

-Robert Williston