Soulside


Soulside, also spelled Soul Side, was an American post-hardcore band from the greater Washington, D.C. area. The original name of the band was Lunchmeat, formed in 1985. The name was changed to Soulside in spring 1986 and they disbanded in summer of 1989, after an extensive European tour and recording the definitive Hot Bodi-Gram. The group's sound could be described as clean, heavy, and warm, with lyrics focused on politics.
Soulside were the only American band to play at one of the illegal punk shows held in East Berlin in the 1980s, shows put on in tolerant Lutheran churches against the wishes of the dictatorship and its security organs such as the Stasi. The shows normally featured banned East German groups, and only rarely did international bands appear, traveling into East Berlin on tourist visas and playing with borrowed gear.
Of Soulside's four members, three went on to form the post-hardcore band Girls Against Boys at the end of the 1980s. Bobby Sullivan went on to form a band called Seven League Boots, who played a blend of reggae and punk. Afterwards he was involved with Rain Like the Sound of Trains, Sevens, and Spontaneous Earth.

Band members