Hammer Bros - The Kids Are Dead LP

It seems like yesterday that I got the Hammer Bros LP (see HERE) although, admittedly, that was after months of waiting. So when I found out a new LP had just come out I was surpised. It felt like a new LP three months after the last one. In reality though, it's probably been easily more than a year since the last one was recorded. I always liked this band, even though most people seem to think they're shite.

This new album is out on a label I had never heard of before - Welfare Records. Their online store didn't work for me and tried to charge me $87 for shipping, so I emailed the dude and he helped me out. I paid for two LPs and they came in 5 days, which is amazing service. Thanks Mike!

I was lucky enough to get the release show version, numbered out of 50. The sleeve is a regular sleeve with a different print stuck over the front. It subtley changes the name of the album fro "The Kids Are Dead" to "The Pigs Are Dead" and shows a picture of some dude punching the crap out of a pig with a police hat on. Nice work.

I also picked up the regular version on limited green vinyl with regular sleeve. I'm not really into the art on the front of the sleeve, although I do like the back of the sleeve:

After one listen I can safely report that this is a good record... although you probably won't believe me.

Jailbreak

My favourite record of the year so far is the RZL DZL LP (you can read about that HERE). Only a couple of weeks ago, I learned that those dudes used to be in a band called Jailbreak. Coincidentally, I then found a couple of their records for sale on eBay, one with a pre-cover, one on red vinyl:

Looking at the lyric sheet, this band was around circa 2002, which was a period that I was kind of out of touch with hardcore. I don't know how big they got, but I am stoked that I picked this up. Well worth $4 each.

Satanic Threat 7"

I picked this up from RevHQ after seeing & hearing it at my friend Robert's house, but thought it deserved a post of its own. It's basically a metal record done as some kind of joke or parody of Minor Threat songs. You can either view it as stupid, or quite cool. I see it as the latter.

Cool satanic artwork, fancy fold out sleeve & song titles like "Guilty Of Hating Christ", "Small God, Big Cross" and, of course, "Satanic Threat", this is a fun record that every family should own.

I love this picture:

Rev Distro Order

Latest order from RevHQ...

First up, the latest Annihilation Time LP. Mine is black, but came with some stupid credit card that allowed me to download the album. A good idea, although slightly annoying that I had to download it one song at a time.

Next, two versions of a new Internal Affairs 12". This one is referred to as "Internal Affairs x Dalek x Triumvir". A bit of a weird one. Dalek is some artist that I had never heard of until he did art on a Blacklisted record (you can see & read about that HERE). Triumvir is some kind of clothing company that I had never heard of who are apparently "cool". This record is limited to 500 copies... although I am not clear if there are 500 total, or 500 of each colour (there are 4 colours in total).

A new Down To Nothing split 7" with some Australian band. Fuck knows why I bought this. I have no intention of listening to it.

Finally, yet another Fired Up 7" on Youngblood. This version is part of the 3rd pressing - 300 on purple.

Dischord Colour Represses

A few months ago, Dischord started repressing some of their out of print classics on colour vinyl. I picked up a couple previously, but last week I got around to ordering the ones I was missing. I never ordered from the Dischord website before, but it was a pleasant experience. The stuff arrived in 4 or 5 days, and the even refunded me some postage money, since the postage costs I paid turned out to be higher than the actual shipping costs. Dischord has always represented integrity to me, and it's good to see they're still good, honest people.

They're obviously using a mix of different pressing plants to get these records made, since the vinyl and covers are of variable quality.

Flex Your Head comp LP - the sleeve is super thin card. It starts to bend in half the moment you take the record out. Not good. The vinyl is like the GZ vinyl, although to its credit it has a hand etched matrix:

Scream "Still Screaming" LP on white - this is the best of the bunch. The vinyl is US vinyl, and the sleeve is good thick card.

Dag Nasty "Wig Out At Denkos" LP. This is a GZ record, but the sleeve is good thick card.

Nation Of Ulysses "13 Point Program To Destroy America" LP. Like the Flex Your Head LP, this has a low quality thin sleeve. The vinyl isn't such a horrendously bright colour though.

The Fruits Of eBay

Three eBay related parcels turned up today. Nothing too exciting...

Cold World 7" on green marble. I have this on clear green, but haven't seen a green marble version before. It looks rad:

Next, a Let Down 12". This isn't an album, but rather the three 7"s compiled onto one handy 12".

Continuing today's theme of "green vinyl variations", next is a Drug Test 7" on a solid green. I already have this on clear green, but I prefer solid colours to clears generally. I think this is the 4th version of this 7" I have now, and I know there are others out there.

Quite how I have never managed to own this record I do not know. But I finally picked up the Half Off 7" on red. This one has some black streaks in the red, and was purchased from the CEO of How's Your Edge Corporation for the princely sum of $3.24

Even though I only paid $3.24 for the Half Off 7", Brian saw fit to throw in a couple of extra 7"s. I'm guessing that it probably worked out easier to put them into an envelope rather than shove them in the trash. First up, an Endeavor 7", which I am reltively happy with. I have two Endeavor LPs somewhere, and I remember that at least one of them is pretty damn good. So this is gratefully received. Thanks!

The second freebie is this thing... a 7" by a band called Half Man. I hadn't heard of this band before, so I had no idea what to expect.

The cover looks pretty nice. It's well printed on quality cardstock. But the label starts the warning bells sounding. I mean, how is anyone ever going to bring themselves to like a band that feature a 14 year old Harry Potter type dude on vocals? Then there's an insert that rambles on about immigrant workers and a booklet about the songs which also includes some kind of short story. I'm always wary of records with so much literature inside. A lot of the time stuff to read is interesting. But sometimes it means that the band are musically retarded, and hope to be taken seriously by writing some profound guff about some political crap, which usually doesn't wash, and is often just written badly. This band is the latter. Oh yeah, and the sound quality on this is appalling. How someone thought this needed to be pressed onto vinyl I have no idea. Why Brian Murphy saw fit to inflict this on me, I have no idea. Why he even owned it, I have no idea. And why I am sitting here at 20 past midnight rmbling on about a 7" from 1993 that nobody else will ever own, I have no idea. Christ.

Engine Kid

Does anyone care about Engine Kid in 2008 except me? I highly doubt it.(Come to think of it, did anyone EVER care about them?)

Test press of the first 7" via trade with Dietrich Schellenberg.

Thanks dude!

Jesu

I love this band. I don't know how to describe them to people who haven't heard them. They mix various 'styles' and are a difficult band to pigeonhole. A strange (but good) mix of ambient, metal & 'shoegaze'. Or 'kind of slow but kind of heavy but also kind of melodic'. Or, to put it another way - my girlfriend quite likes it, and she doesn't like most stuff I play.

These new records were released on CD last year. I stumbled across the website at some point in 2007. It mentioned that vinyl would be available to order to in January 2008. So I saved the url in my favourites, and then checked every day in January. But no vinyl. The then site said it would be available in April 2008. So I did the same and checked every day. But April came and April went and nothing. The site then said June 2008, but June came and went and no change. Next we were told August 2008. Based on previous experience, it seemed unlikely, but then, as if by magic, the vinyl was in stock & ready for order. So I ordered, was a little shocked by the price but paid anyway, and the records came in two days. At last!

Everything Went White

Another colour Black Flag record. This one arrived still sealed in the shrinkwrap.

Deathwish Order

Got an order from Deathwish today. I haven't ordered directly from them for a long time. The speed of their service blew me away. I placed my order online last Thursday evening, and my stuff came today, 5 days later. For an international order, that's pretty damn good.

The main point of the order was to pick up the Cold World LP before it sold out. I got two colors of this one, orange and grey, which match the cover art nicely:

I listened to this twice. I'm not sure I like it. But it's interesting, I'll give them that. Not a generic hardcore record by any means. The best thing about this record is that it marks the end of Deathwish using GZ vinyl, which makes me very happy indeed. Next a couple of 7"s... The Jake Bannon 7", and the XO Skeletons 7" (which was on sale):

I haven't had time to listen to either of these things yet. Where does my time go? Damn. The Jake Bannon 7" has some etching on the seond side of a skull. Not sure if I like this or not:

Finally, the new Have Heart LP. I figured that picking this up from Deathwish would save me having to deal with the thieving bastards that are Bridge 9 (yes, I am still bitter about the fact that I placed an order with them about 5 years ago and they didn't send me what I wanted, hence I will never order from them again)

[EDIT 04 JUNE 2009 - Chris Wrenn from Bridge Nine read this post, and got in touch to make things right. I now firmly believe that he is a stand up guy, and Bridge Nine runs an efficient service. I now believe in second chances. You can read the story HERE]

Even though I don't like them, I'm stoked that Bridge 9 also now seem to have stopped using GZ. All of a sudden it seems people are going back to US pressing plants. Good news!

Cheap Tragedies

After a long wait, the Cheap Tragedies 7" showed up today. The latest release from Livewire Records. I like what these guys are doing. Small runs of 7"s... although I'm not so into the fact that they only seem to be available from Merchnow, who charge high shipping prices. The record is nice though. A cool cover, nice big foldout poster lyric sheet and two nice pieces of vinyl. Unlike most records, I even played this one. Not sure what band this reminds me of. Maybe Redemption 87? I dunno. It's good, I'm into it.

I have a couple of spare copies if anyone needs one. Let me know.

Frostbite Test Press

A good way to close a shit week.

Surprise Trade

Getting a parcel of records is always a nice way to start the day, especially when it's a Monday. But today I received a parcel with an added degree of excitement attached because, unlike most things I receive, I had no idea what was inside. This was because I had done a "surprise" trade with Jeff of Start Today fanzine / Bottled Up Records. I sent him a record and said "send me whatever you think is fair". Obviously there was a risk that I might be disappointed with the result, but I figured this was minimal since I know Jeff is a reliable guy and I was able to highlight a few bits on his trade list that I had an interest in. It turns out that I was not disappointed...

The following record almost deserves a thread of it's own. By far the most exciting record in the batch - The Refuse To Fall 'Stalement Sessions' 7" on green vinyl:

This band did a 7" on Equal Vision many moons ago. In fact, they were the first band that EVR ever released. They then did this 2nd 7" on a little-known label called Drive Records, which was based in Austin, Texas. I've had this 7" since probably about 1995. Unlike a lot of early 90s releases, this is actually a really good record, and still sounds pretty good today. But that's irrelevent. The point is that this has been on my want list for a LONG time. I think it was probably in the days of the Revelation Trade Board, circa 1998 that I somehow discovered that this existed on green vinyl, and I put it on my want list. And since that day, I have never had a chance to pick one up. I have never seen it on eBay or known anyone (other than 90s collector-extraodinaire Dietrich Schellenberg) who has one. And I never knew of anyone else that even wanted it. But today I finally got one. After having this on my want list for ten years, I can finally cross it off. Which proves again what I have said many times before - that if you're prepared to wait long enough, you will eventually get everything you want at a price you're prepared to pay. There can't be many people who have waited ten years for a record. I think the fact that I didn't have to pay hundreds on eBay, or hound someone by email for months, makes this even more special. It almost feels like I just sat and waited ten years for it to fall into my hands, which it eventually did. So yeah, I'm stoked.

Next up, some items Jeff released on his own label, Bottled Up Records. I don't have many Bottled Up releases, but I plan to get more. This is a cool label and these are cool bands and records.

A couple of Learn 7"s (no idea on the pressing info):

Efforts Made 7" (not sure on the pressing detail of this one) and In Stride 7" on gold (which I think is out of 75):

Three versions of the Have Heart demo 7" - clear vinyl with original sleeve (which I think is the Posi Numbers '05 press of 200), white vinyl with the repress sleeve (98 copies) and the clear blue with repress sleeve (121 copies):

Finally, the marble blue vinyl (i.e. rarest) version of the 1st Paint It Black LP:

In short - a good start to the week.