Thursday 18 September 2008

State Of Alert

One of my record collecting regrets is that, when I started properly collecting records in about 1993, I avoided all the early hardcore classics. Negative Approach 7", X-Claim LPs, early Dischord releases - even 15 years ago they were expensive. Nowhere near as expensive as they are now, but expensive relative to everything else. For the same price as a Minor Threat 7" I could buy ten other 7"s, and I always chose quantity over quality I guess, since I was keen to hear new bands. In retrospect, I could have picked up all the old classics that I still want today for a fraction of the prices they sell for today. And even though I have more money these days, early hardcore record prices have continued to go up and up, so they still don't feel affordable. So I'm pretty much resigned to never owning any of these things.

However, that said, you should never say never. A couple of years ago I thought I would never own an S.O.A. 7". But as of today, I do.


Unlike a lot of early Dischord 7"s these days, this really is in great condition. Both the record and the sleeve are almost flawless. Although, this is perhaps not surprising given that it coming from the collection of a fellow obsessive. True, it may not be a first press, but I'm not too fussed about that at this stage. I'm stoked to have any version of this record.

The only bad thing is that I only have the green vinyl version on my want list, which means that even though I have acquired this awesome piece of wax, my want list hasn't got any smaller. Typical.

5 comments:

mel said...

I did the same in the early/mid 80's when I got into h/c. Imports were so expensive and I wrongly chose to buy domestic releases of bands I heard were good, but when I got the records I didn't care about the music at all. Oh well, life is about learning, ha, ha.
Good score anyway, one of those records that has always slipped through my fingers.

Lins87 said...

Yeah I feel exactly the same about the green vinyl! Maybe someday!

Mike said...

Same here, but I had no idea how to acquire those older records. There was no internet to help find the stuff, or let you know when a label was going to release something. At one point I did stumble across a mailorder distributor and was able to get my hands on stuff like Wide Awake, Side By Side and Absolution, and even a copy of SSD's The Kids Will Have Their Say which cost me an insane about of money at the time ($25).

Lins87 said...

$25 for an xclaim Kids!!!?? holy shit, that is a score.

JIM HAYES said...

if i told you that in 85 i paid the then outrageous price of $25 for a first pressing of 'detestation'... (which i no longer have naturally, when i was junk in the 90's i sold my hc collection to some abc no rio kids)...anyway, don't feel bad about missing out...and get this! i have a friend who saw SOA! that's cooler than the record!