Straight Outta Berkeley

I picked these up last week from Robert's house. These records are the result of a trade with a dude in Berkeley, and travelled 5350 miles without use of a postal service. Awesome!

Botch 'Faction' on green:

Irony Of Lightfoot'Ibex' 7" (a Wreck-age release I didn't have):

And the jewel of the deal, Rain On The Parade 'Full Speed Ahead' 7" on clear vinyl. No idea what the score is with this one. Until recently I had never heard of it. I did a search on HYE. One person has it listed as the 'Rain Crew' press #/15, one person lists it as a test press. Mine doesn't say 'Rain Crew' anywhere on it, isn't numbered and certainly isn't a test. So I'm slightly confused. Regardless, I'm stoked to own another variant of this awesome 7".

Dude also threw in this Rain Like The Sound Of Trains 7", although the sleeve is in poor condition:

Thanks Robert!

I delivered a pizza to my friend Robert on Sunday. In return he gave me a couple of records he picked up. Tour versions of the FIRST STEP LP and first LET DOWN 7":

Special mention goes to his new kitchen. Nice work dude!

Youngblood Pre-order Arrives... Finally!

Youngblood Records. Seems like only a couple of years ago since I got the first Rancor 7" (their first release). Except it's actually eleven years. I know this because last year was their ten year anniversary. Mind blowing.
Anyway, Youngblood releases always get me stoked. First up, they're always good bands, and secondly, the vinyl is always good quality stuff. And the two newest releases are no exception to either of these rules.

Firstly, the POLICE & THIEVES 'Amor y Guerra' 7". I did Spanish at school 17 years ago, so I know this translates as 'Love and War'.

This is a really good 7". I instantly prefer this to their previous 7". The sound is way better, and also the songs are stronger. I don't know who this reminds me of. It's hardcore with melody. Vaguely Dag Nasty? I don't know. This is really good stuff though. Two thumbs up.

Next, a 7" by COPTIC TIMES, who I had never heard before. Of the two 7"s, this is my favourite. Again, I don't know what to say about this, but this is fast hardcore punk. It kinda reminds me of something from an old skate video. I'm getting an early Black Flag kinda vibe from this. Again, great record. Three thumbs up!

The cool thing was that I got sent the Youngblood Showcase 2008 pressings. Sean sent me these as an apology for holding on to my order for way too long. The reason he held my order was because he remembered that once (about 4 years ago) one of my orders got returned to him. So he decided to hold my order back to make sure he got the correct address. So really he ended up apologising for trying to do me a favour! Thanks Sean, very much appreciated.

Go check out Youngblood Records & buy these records:

http://www.youngblood-records.com/site/

Saves The Day - Sound The Alarm

Not much to say about this one. Two variations of the 'Sound The Alarm' LP by Saves The Day. This one came out in 2006, but is only just getting a vinyl release. I like the colours I got:

Apparently these two colours are limited to 70 copies each or so. Not sure I believe that, but I'm happy enough anyway. I should probably be embarrassed to like this waffle, but I've always had a soft spot for this band, and this is a good record.

PVC Covers Part 2

For the second time since I started this blog, I am writing about something that is not recods I have acquired. But this is a follow up to the first non-record related post, so I figure it's acceptable.

A few weeks ago I removed the PVC covers from some of my 7"s. You can see the detail of that HERE.

My tactic back then was to remove the PVC covers from all the 7"s that were also in poly bags. However, I left the PVC covers on the records which did not come in poly bags, i.e. 7"s in glued sleeves. But today I decided that I should also free those records from their PVC restraints. Here is the result:

The piles in the picture each contain 25 record covers. There are 21 piles... and thus 525 PVC covers from today's adventure.

A few weeks ago I removed 850 covers, which are currently stacked in my room. If I add today's work to that pile, I will have a total of 1,375 7" PVC covers to dispose of.

I probably paid an average of about £0.15 for these things over the years. That means that the original cost of this unwanted crap was about £206. Madness! Hopefully I can recover some of that via eBay at some point...

Mind Eraser

One of my favourite current bands is MIND ERASER, although I don't have any rare versions of any of their records. I recently decided that I need to work on that, and so just picked up two versions of the LPs I didn't have.

Cave LP, third (final) press no gold of 109 copies:

Glacial Reign LP, first press on white of 284 copies:

I'm very much looking forward to the new 7" on Youngblood, whenever that materialises...

Reality - Altered States 7"

REALITY is a new UK band that I know nothing about. I mainly bought this because it was released by new UK label called Shutout Records, which is run by a good dude called Billy 27 (whose biggest dilemma in life seems to be which pair of trainers to wear - see his blog in my links for evidence).

The record isn't much to look at, being pressed only on black GZ vinyl, but having said that, I was stoked to get one of the '2 Real Crew' pre-order covers, "numbered" out of 50:

I haven't heard this band before, but this is good hardcore. Actually, no... this is REALLY good hardcore. I'm generally bad at describing how bands sound, but this reminds me of Right Brigade, Stop And Think and Knockdown. HARDcore. And these guys do it well. The lyrics are also pretty good. Not corny or stupid. Usually I lower the bar when listening to UK hardcore bands, because the majority are behind the standard of their US counterparts, but this definitely is not. I'm stoked on this record. I could imagine this band being at home on Bridge 9 (circa 2001) or Youngblood. Good shit.

Check out:
http://www.myspace.com/realitybrah

To order the 7" from Shutout Records:
http://shutoutrecords.bigcartel.com/

Nothing To Hide

"Hey dude, what's the best straight edge hardcore record of the past ten years?"
"Hmmm…that's an easy one. It's the second IN MY EYES LP"
"Correct! Would you like a test press of it?"
"Of course I would. What do you want for it?"
"More money than you have ever spent on a record before in your life"
"Oh. Okay"

What The Hell Is Going On?

Another day, another parcel of records. Today I got a couple of 7"s I pre-ordered from Six Feet Under Records.

First, a new 7" by Mental. Except, of course, it's not really a new 7". As I understand it, these songs are from some old demo, finally put onto vinyl, and then wrapped in some stupid sleeve with a cat wearing slippers:

The second 7" is some kind of Down To Nothing record that I also do not understand. I'm not sure what is going on here. After listening to it, I think these songs are joke songs. And the cover is obviously some kind of joke too. I guess the joke was wasted on me, because I just don't get it.

Then again, perhaps the joke is really on me, since I just parted with my hard-earned money for this nonsense.

Dead By 23

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, when Dead By 23 Records emerged back in 2001/2 and started putting out ten versions of each record, i thought it was stupid. But later on I changed my mind and decided it was the total opposite - ultra cool.
A couple of weeks ago I chanced upon some DB23 auctions on eBay. Dave Walling was selling Robbie Redcheeks's entire DB23 collection. Apparently Robbie is buying a house and needs as much money as possible in a short space of time. Fair play.
There were over 100 records for sale. I ended up sitting in front of the computer for about 3 hours straight bidding on things at the last second. I won a few items. At the time, none of them seemed particularly expensive... but when the dust settled I added up the cost of everything I had won and it came to over $300, which suddenly seemed like a lot. Oops!
Anyway, I'm pretty happy with what I won. I got some nice items...

GO TIME 7" Test Press:

Also included with this test press were a couple of interesting extras. First, a letter from some dude in the band which accompanied the master recording:

Second, an invoice from the pressing plant:

Next item is a GO TIME 7" with a limited 'Nerd's Gold' sleeve:

According to Dictionary.com, a nerd is defined as "An intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit" . I like this. Sums me up perfectly.

There were 14 'Nerd's Gold' sleeves, and at least three colours of vinyl. The blue one I have is aparently one of two copies on that colour.

Next, the Very Mailorder version of the GO TIME 7", number 23 of 145. This one is a kind of clear greenish colour with white streaks, of which there are apparently 4-6 copies:


FINAL PLAN 7" Test Press, with acetate sleeve (front):

Back:

FINAL PLAN 7" on weird swirl colour vinyl with "Adult Crash" sleeve:


FROSTBITE 7" on baby blue vinyl:


DOWN TO NOTHING 7" TEST PRESS, (which is strangely not numbered, and apparently out of 10 copies):

The 'regular' DTN 7" has 3 songs on it. There was also a separate version that had 6 songs. Only 55 copies of the 6 song version exist (5 Tests, 16 Pink vinyl, 34 Clear vinyl). Here they are:

DOWN TO NOTHING 6 Song 7" Test Press #1/5:

DOWN TO NOTHING 6 Song 7" on pink:


DOWN TO NOTHING 6 Song 7" on Clear:


And finally, the NO RIGHTS 7" Test Press:


Personally, I think this is a really under-rated record. NO RIGHTS was a pre-BLACKLISTED band. Although the songs are short, this is good shit.

This haul means that I now have a total of a grand total of 45 DB23 pieces of vinyl. What an utter cretin.