Wednesday 15 September 2010

Three To Get Ready

Gameface are one of those bands that seem to have faded away in the sands of time. I guess they were never THAT big, although they were around for 13 years or so and put out quite a few releases. They were one of those bands that plugged away for a few years and seemed to slowly grow in popularity. I would say that their highpoint was circa 1999/2000 when they had an album released by Revelation. I remember seeing them tour that record, and the venue I went to was packed, and there was definitely a real excitement in the room. After that though, the band kinda seemed to fade away. Times changed, and hardcore started to splinter off into different sub genres and I guess Gameface didn't really fit anywhere. They put out another couple of albums before calling it a day, but by that point it seemed that nobody really cared. Their time had passed. And I don't really think that too many people today really remember this band.

Here's a fun fact for you though - Texas Is The Reason stole lyrics from Gameface. EDIT - This came out in an interview with TITR in Second Nature fanzine issue 5. The Gameface song 'Three' contains the lyric "You don't have to be right, I will stick up for you". The guitarist from Texas Is The Reason had some advance copy of the Gameface album and liked that particular line so much that he wrote it on the tape, which he kept in his car. The singer of Texas Is The Reason then noticed the words written on the cassette and thought it was cool and then weaved it into the lyrics for the TITR song 'Back And To The Left', which ends with the line "I will always worry about you, I will always stick up for you". Apparently TITR phoned up Gameface and asked if they would be cool with them using the line, but since the bands were good friends they didn't mind and it was cool. So there you go.

Anyway, I still play their stuff now and again, and I still check for their records on ebay from time to time, since there were a couple that I never managed to pick up back in the day.

One that I am looking for is a solid purple vinyl copy of the 'Three To Get Ready' LP. I saw it on ebay a couple of years ago but forgot to bid. I still hope to track one down at some point. So I searched on ebay and found this weird greenish colour that I had never seen or heard of before. And then I won it for only about $17 or so.

Whilst taking the photos for this blog i thought I would pull out my other copies. I didn't really realise how many I had.

In this photo are (left to right, top to bottom): Black vinyl test press with stamped labels, regular black vinyl, clear vinyl with purple swirls, black vinyl test press with blank labels, dark red vinyl, and the greenish vinyl.

I still hope to find the solid purple one someday. And who knows, maybe there are other colours out there too? If anyone does happen to know anything about the pressing info for this one, please let me know.

6 comments:

-cja said...

the vinyl colors for this LP are awesome. i saw them play once with TitR and Jets to Brazil but i'd be damned if i could remember what they sound like!

Unknown said...

could you give an example of the lyrics TITR stole from gameface, i'm curious to read more about this

mcs said...

Brian - I edited the post with the story. Hope it isn't disappointing.

xfarsidex said...

i have but one copy of this record and it's the solid purple one. i knew of one other color, but had no idea there were so many.

thethinkerisanonymous said...

Those vinyls are sick. Gameface was a really underrated band. Also, about Texas is the Reason borrowing from Gameface...in case you didn't know, Gameface later took the line "It costs so much I know/But I guess I need to know what it would have felt like to be right" from the Texas is the Reason Song "Back and to the left" and used it on their song "Laughable," which came out on their LP "Always On." So I guess both bands are even now.

Anonymous said...

I got a copy from Jeff last year - dark blueish purple...