Sectarian Violence

Geography and hardcore can be funny things sometimes. Take this Sectarian Violence 'Upward Hostility' LP, for example. This came out recently on a UK label, Carry The Weight Records, yet it took an American to let me know about it. Mike posted about this one a couple of weeks ago, and his write up peaked my interest. He was rabbiting on about the lack of good hardcore releases this year, and how this record was filled the gap. I zipped on over to some internet place and listened to a song, and that was enough to realise I wanted in. I then went straight to the label's store and ordered a copy. Somehow, even though I wasn't quick to the party, there were still white vinyl copies (the most limited colour, out of 100) available. Thank you very much!

What's interesting about this release is that the band is truly international. Three members are from the UK, one from Sweden and one from the USofA. God only knows how they write songs. Clearly though they do as they already have a 7" and now an LP. I don't think I can add much to what I've already said. This is just fast & brutal hardcore. Sometimes that's exactly what you need.

Hydrahead Tests

It seems a long time ago that Hydrahead used to release emo records. Well technically it was. It was about 15 years ago. But seems funny that some of the early releases came out on Hydrahead at all given the kind of records they've been putting out since the clock reset at 00. I however still have a fondness for some of those early releases back when I would order and not have a clue what any of the bands would sound like. I recently scooped up these tests from early in the label's history.

Anyone remember The Boxer Rebellion? No, probably not. Sometimes I think I must have been the only person that bought their album and 7" as it is still possible to pick it up from the label's online store to this day. Name another Hydrahead release that remains available for fifteen days, let alone fifteen years. Unbelievable. Anyhow, I liked the 7" and the LP when I got them. I don't think they've aged very well, but there was a time and place for stuff like this. Ah, the 90s! Even if these ain't the greatest Hydrahead releases, at least the tests were cheap.

The 7" test comes in pretty much the most 90s emo looking sleeve you could possibly imagine.

The sleeve itself is made from an old Vent 'Long Lost Human' 7" sleeve, which was the label's very first release. I guess they had a few spares laying around.

I also picked up the Boxer Rebellion LP 'The Romance Of Aeronautics'. It's not much to look at, coming in a plain dust sleeve.

Here's a photo of the test next to the regular sleeve:

Next up is a test of The Hollomen 7". This band was an early band for the owner of Hydrahead, Aaron Turner. I know people who love most of the Hydrahead catalogue and think this 7" is crap. I always liked it. I mean, it's different. This one comes in a plain white dust sleeve. It also has a small slip of paper to help make clear what record this is. I'm assuming that this came from the label rather than the seller I picked this up from.

Again, I took a couple of photos of the test with the regular cover as it makes for a more interesting photo.

And finally, a test of a split 10" between The Huguenots and Sevenpercentsolution. I don't know much about the latter band, but I do know that The Huguenots was some band that featured someone from Converge and the singer of Piebald. They played kinda spazzy chaotic metal stuff. Again, back in the day when this came out I found it interesting, although again I'm not sure it has really aged too well. It's easy to tell that this is from the late 90s. Anyhow, this test comes in a regular sleeve. I guess that makes up for it being a ten inch.

Test press count for the year so far is now 30.

Red City Streets

The older I get, the less excited I seem to get about new releases. New releases are announced and, if I'm bothered at all, I don't mind paying and waiting. I'm always busy and time does seem to pass quickly, so waiting for a few weeks isn't a problem. It's not like years ago when I was climbing the walls waiting for new records to arrive in anticipation. And even when I am super excited, these days it's not too tough to find the songs to listen to before the record arrives. Basically, what I'm saying is that there's very little that gets me excited anymore. This, however, is an exception. The Violent Reaction 'City Streets' LP.

The 7" proved really difficult to get hold of for me, so I was determined not to experience the same difficulty with the LP. Add in the fact that it was coming out on Painkiller Records, which has a tendency to sell out of stuff lightning fast, and the youth were getting restless. To make matters even worse, just before the pre-order went up, the label announced that there weren't many colour copies left, adding yet another dimension to the game.

Well, when the day came for the orders to go live I actually remembered for once, set my alarm, and managed to check out within minutes of the orders going up. After that tt was just a case of sitting back and waiting, hoping that I'd acted quick enough to get one of the colour copies. Well as you can see, yes, I did. No idea how many were made, but I consider myself lucky to have bagged one of these... although I'm sure that actually being organised for once helped.

What's interesting to me is that back at the start of the year everyone was saying "record of the year" when the Rival Mob LP dropped. And now this has come out I've already read a couple of comments people describing this as the very same. I'm not even making a call yet, but it's an interesting one to think about whilst blasting tunes and punching stuff.

Insta-trade

I've been enjoying Instagram lately, and today's records are the result of a trade that started via a comment on there. Tru mentioned that he'd picked up the Mindset RSD LP and wasn't into it. So we arranged a trade and, as we chatted, the trade expanded and in the end I got sent four new records. Cool.

The Mindset LP is a copy of the 'Leave No Doubt' LP that was made for Record Store Day 2013. This copy is on purple vinyl and comes in a screen printed sleeve. It was sold at Celebrated Summer Records in Baltimore, and is numbered out of 100 copies. After RSD there were a few left over which the band put up in their online store, but they sold out in about two minutes. I honestly thought I would never get one of these, so I'm pretty stoked on this.

I got number 49, which is only 1 away from the magic Chung King number I own. What a coincidence that would have been eh?

I also got a copy of the new Red Hare LP. This was recently released by Dischord Records and I think they are all on red vinyl. The band is pretty much Swiz reformed under a new name. It's a great record, and I'm happy to have picked up a new release that actually gets me excited for once.

I love how this also has the Hellfire Records logo on the label. A very nice touch.

I also got a couple of 7" test pressings thrown in. You know I'm into tests. First up is a test press of the recent Unity 'Blood Days' 7" that Fred Hammer released on his label, It's Alive Records, towards the end of last year. This features the songs that were on the 'Blood Days' LP which were not on the original Unity 7" on Wishingwell.

And finally, a test of the Dempsey / Kill Holiday split 7" that was released by Indecision Records in 1996. Tru couldn't wait to get rid of this for some reason. If he didn't give it to me he was going to throw it in the bin.

So that's another two test pressings, which brings my tally for the year to 26. The target for the year is 52 (an average of one per week) so at the halfway point of the year I'm exactly halfway there.

Time for Lift Off

So I picked up a few Cave In test pressings earlier in the year, and if nothing else it made me want to revisit my Cave In collection and start filling in holes. Right up until about 2005 or so, I used to be happy to collect & own one version of each record. Things changes after that partly due to earning more money. But even in the earlier days of collecting, there were some bands whose records I always seemed to buy more than one copy of, and Cave In was one. I have two copies of most of their releases. The problem is, there are more than two of most of them, so I have still have a lot of holes in the collection.

Given that I picked up a test of the 'Lift Off' 7", I targeted trying to pick up the remaining colours I am missing. I already have two, but that meant I was missing about 4 more. I managed to cross two of those off recently. First up, I grabbed a clear light blue. This is part of the second press. It's a really nice colour.

The seller also threw in a photo of the band that was taken around the time that the 'Antenna' LP was recorded.

I also picked up an orange vinyl copy from a different seller around the same time. I think this is also from the second press.

Because I already had the first press colours, I now only need the white vinyl and the standard black vinyl to complete this one. Any help appreciated!

Secret Love

Here's one I forgot about. I managed to leave it on my desk after trying to download the mp3s, and then I put some papers on top of it, and that was it. It was as good as lost, until this weekend when I spent a few minutes tidying up. I've had this at least a month. It came in the same parcel as the Supertouch 7" test press a few weeks ago. I opened the parcel to find a second 7" included that I had not been expecting. A copy of the Sacred Love / Secret People split 7".

I really enjoyed the Sacred Love 12" and 7" that Youngblood released, so was looking forward to more jams. But I think when this originally came out I'd had an expensive month so decided to hold off. I then promptly forgot about it. So I was more than grateful to receive this 7".

Once again the Sacred Love tracks are solid, although a little short. The secret People side I'm not into as much, although I fully admit I haven't listened to as much.

Thanks Mike. Greatly appreciated!

War Zone

For someone who has collected Revelation records for nearly 20 years, my War Zone 7" collection borders on embarrassing. Seriously. Until two days ago I only had two copies - one on orange vinyl, and one third press in a black & white sleeve. No first press, no green vinyl, no clear vinyl. I guess this was partly because I never really thought the record was very good, so I never prioritised it. I mean, aesthetically it looks great, but musically it's far from the best Rev release. So I just never got around to picking up more than the two copies I have. Suddenly I'm starting to regret this move and I realise that I badly want the set. So I've got a lot of catching up to do.

Anyway, an old friend was offering to sell some records recently to raise some cash, so I picked up his War Zone 7". This is, I believe, a third press copy, as denoted by the black & silver labels and the blue text on the cover. You've probably seen it a thousand times before, and so had I. I'd just never owned one. Kinda funny seeing as I always thought this blue lettering sleeve looks way better than the others.

This one even comes with a Gorilla Biscuits b-side label:

Considering I used to own a clear vinyl copy of this, and that I no doubt could have easily picked up the other variants through the 90s, starting to aim for more copies of this one in 2013 seems like a bit of an idiotic move. But hey, a dude's gotta have goals.

One Last Void Session

So there's nothing like colour vinyl to ratchet up the excitement a level or two. Some months ago (no idea when as time moves so fast these days!) Dischord Records released an LP of Void demos & outtakes. I wanted the record, but given that it was on black vinyl only it sat in the 'low priority' section of the list of records to order that exists in my head. Then recently, I became aware that it had been repressed on red vinyl. This was enough to send it flying up that list into the 'high priority' section, so I placed an order.

I'm kinda glad I didn't order the first press on black because if I did I would no doubt also want a red one, and therefore now be in possession of two copies, whereas now I only have one and I'm quite happy with that.

The same cannot be said, however, for the One Last Wish '1986' LP. I bought this when it came out on vinyl for the first time back in 2009 and loved it, even though it was only on black vinyl. Well, they recently repressed it on clear, so of course I had to buy it again.

This isn't something I am fussed about owning multiple copies of, however, so I'll probably punt my black vinyl copy at some point soon with 100 other records I plan on selling. Stay tuned.

Good For You

Here's a new release that I was quite excited about. GOOD FOR YOU is a new band designed for anyone who is partial to a bit of Black Flag. Featuring Greg Ginn on guitar, and with professional skateboarder Mike Vallely on vocals, I couldn't resist picking up their debut LP 'Life Is Too Short To Not Hold A Grudge', released by SST Records.

This isn't going to win any prizes for album cover of the year other than 'worst', but at least they made a limited colour vinyl version for the nerds. I'm not sure how many were pressed on white vinyl, but I know wasn't all of them. Based on previous SST runs I would guess at no less than 500, but it really is just a guess.

I still don't think I've listened to this enough times to properly make my mind up. I mean, it sounds like later, slower Black Flag. It's not bad by any means, but it's also missing something to get me excited. It'll probably still make my 'best of the year' list though because I'll probably only have 4 new releases to choose from the way 2013 is going.

Closed Casket Secrets

I stumbled across a UK seller on eBay who had a lot of good records up from the early 2000s. With a day to go there were some great Count Me Out records sitting at very low prices indeed. I already had them all, but figured on buying them all again as doubles to trade. Well anyway, wouldn't you know it, a day later the prices had all gone up significantly. But I spotted one item that had no bids, which had been sat on my wants list for years, as I never really wanted it badly enough to make a serious play for it. I waited until only a few seconds remained and then whacked in a bid. I was pretty happy to be the only bidder and get it for the measly sum of £2.20. Insane. You probably can't even buy a coffee in Starbucks for that (I don't drink coffee so I don't know for sure).

Anyway, the record in question is a split 12" between two bands who were active circa 2002, THE FINAL PLAN and MY LUCK. This split 12" is titled 'Closed Casket Secrets' and comes in minimal packaging. It sits in a clear plastic sleeve with a very small glossy card 'insert', and has stamped labels. I love stuff like this. Looks so DIY and yet so cool.

This is number 340 out of (I think) 500. I don't know how many CDs they made, but it seems you can still buy the CD from RevHQ for one dollar, so I guess the answer is 'too many'.

I'd almost forgotten, but I actually own a different copy of this which is numbered out of 50 and sits in a sleeve with Michael Jordan on the front. This is what it looks like:

I think I like new copy better. Sometimes less is more, as they say.

Deathlike

Around this time a year ago I went to see Ancient VVisdom play live in London. I had started listening to their album around Xmas time, and four months later finally got to see them live. After that I guess I suffered AVV overload as I didn't listen to the record again much for the rest of the year. But a year on, a little after Xmas this year, I realised that there was a second album that had just come out. I was then gutted to realise that there were only 90 copies on colour vinyl available, and they were already sold out at the pre-order stage which I hadn't known anything about. Damnit.

Well, I added it to my saved searched on eBay and eventually a copy came up. But then, like an idiot, I missed the auction end because I was in some meeting at work. But I was surprised to find that it ended without a single bid. A couple of weeks later the seller re-listed it, and this time I made sure I didn't miss out. I even managed to buy it from the same price that the label sold it for, so it was almost as if I didn't miss out after all.

The vinyl is 'clear with black smoke'. Not the most exciting colour, although it seems perfect for this release. It looks black until you hold it to the light.

The album itself is, as you may expect from a record entitled 'Deathlike', completely focused around the theme of death. Like ALL of the songs are about death. To continue the theme, the photos of the band members have been altered to look like they are half decomposed. Very subtle.

Overall I'm into this LP, although I have to say, it's not as catchy or infectious as the first one. But will definitely be in my top ten for the year.