Bane. I love this band and I love these guys. It all started on 7 October 2000. I went to see them play in some shithole town in the north of England called Bradford. They played on a bill with about 10 other bands, none of whom I can name today. As usual with shows at the 1in12 Club, things were poorly organised and the show overran by a couple of hours. Bane didn't come on until about 1am or something stupid, but which time a lot of people had left to catch trains home. Afterwards I got tricked into putting Bane up at my house, because the promoters didn't have any room at their houses because the other 20 bands had taken all the space. So I had to sleep 6 Americans and a German in my one bedroom flat, along with my friend Mark who was staying over. During the night there was an incident when Mark decided to wake up Tre and demand his cushions back, although Tre has no memory of this today. All Tre remembers is my talk about breakdancing lessons. Anyway, the point is that from that day on I stayed in touch with the dudes in the band and I count them as friends. And the fact that they're my friends means that I have a stronger desire to collect their records than I do for most other bands.
Having said that, however, they released a 7" two years ago that I only just got around to picking up. I have no excuse for this slackness... well, except that the 7" was never actually available for public sale. It was sold at the 10 year anniversary show in December 2006, which (obviously) I didn't go to. Except, in a way, it wasn't sold at the show at all, because the 7" wasn't ready in time for the show, so instead kids got given a CD and then had to later use a redemption code to order the 7" from Equal Vision direct. Something like that.
First up I need to talk about the songs themselves. As strange as it sounds, I actually ended up listening to this record. It makes a nice change to play one for a change. The first song sounds like something from the first album. I don't even know what the crack is with this song, when it was written and recorded. Man, I feel like an amateur here. The second song, a Bjork cover, is one of the best songs I have ever heard in my life. I have listened to this song about fifteen times in a row tonight. How the fuck did I never hear this before? Shit me.
This, unfortunately, brings me onto one of the flaws of this record - the sound quality of the vinyl, which is not good. There is a lot of hiss and crackle on this record, which I'm surprised about. I have to wonder if EVR decided not to bother with a test press. I can't imagine why else the quality would be lacking. Strange.
Generally though, this 7" is well packaged, although it suffers from the obvious flaw of being pressed on euro vinyl and has 'Pirates Press' stamped into the matrix, which irritates me. But the cool thing is that, whilst I got both colours of this record, I could blag that I have four, since each 7" is a different colour on each side, as shown here:
The inside of the sleeve:
And a special thank you note:
However, even though I am happy to finally have this 7" in my collection, I'm still bummed. Why? Well, for a start, the sleeves are supposed to be numbered, although mine aren't, as you can see:
This means that, me being an idiot, I will not be happy until I have also tracked down a numbered version. But then I'm probably only going to be happy if I get a numbered version of each colour. But also, the inside sleeve makes mention of a CD, which I don't have. So I need that too, to feel like I have the complete package. I guess I'm never happy.
Finally... I would just like to send a big thank you to Pete for sorting me out with this.
THANKS PETE!
On a separate (but related) note, does anyone have any Bane test pressings? I only have a test press of the split 7" with Adamantium. I need tests of all the other records. If anyone can help, please get in touch!
10 comments:
I remember the first time I saw Bane. It was at some teen space in New Hampshire...it was snowing and I took off to the show with my wife and a friend with no idea where we were really going...just the name of the town and place the show was at. We drove around the city for hours, and finally found the place. The only other band that I remember playing was Cave In. Anyway, I didn't know any Bane songs...they only had their demo out, and had just released their first 7 inch which I picked up. All night long, I was just hoping they would play a cover so that I could go off to a song that I knew. Saw a lot of great Bane shows, but I lost interest in going to see them after the first full length...nothing compares to those first 7 inches.
Yo
Pete showed up to the 10th Anniversary show with 5 boxes of stuff: a box of cds, a box of cd sleeves, a box of EP dust sleeves, a box of EP mylars and a box of unfolded, unnumbered, recently spray painted EP sleeves. We then created a factory line to fold and stuff these while sitting behind the very over crowded merch table. I think I ended up folding and numbering most of the EPs. I probably did 250 out of 500 numberings that night.
Then again, Stevie or others would grab a sleeve and number it weirdly for a friend. So I saw a few that were like "SF1 out of 10" and stuff like that.
I've never seen that special note. I don't have one. But I probably have a few extra numbered sleeves with CDs. I'll trade one for your Bane test press. ;)
Reckoning Day was on the demo, man!! Your Baniac status may be revoked! I can't recall when the Bjork cover was recorded. Probably a while back as I think Nick played on it.
Oooofffff < / nerd fest >
Peace
Crap, now I need to correct myself.
We actually numbered them out of 450. 50 were supposed to be set aside for Bane and Co for a friends and family press, or something like that.
I don't think it ever happened though.
I think the Bjork cover was being played live when they toured over here in 2002, when Nick was still about, so yeah, probably recorded back then. I don't remember it though, and I wouldn't have known it was a Bjork cover anyway. How the hell am I supposed to know a Bjork song?
Also, you refer to a demo. What the hell is a demo? Is it those things that come on tape? Why the hell would I want any of those? Jesus, man.
Bane
I remember when their first 7" came out and they were a big hype. So they come over to Europe and everyone expected a lot.
But damn, for once a band actually delivered and more.
I must admit I stopped buying their records after the Give Blood lp though.
My first encounter with Bane was a gig I did for them in Newcastle at the dog and Parrot pub. Can't remember the exact date but it went really well until at the the stroke of 11 the landlord decided to cut the power during very last song Can We Start Again...anyway the crowd continued to sing the words along with the band all the way through! Fast forward 2 years and I'm putting Bane on again at a packed rowing club in Durham for a benefit gig for a local womens refuge. Aaaron gets teh mic and his first words are "lets start the set where we tried to finish off last time we were up here"...boom straight into Can We Start Again!! suffice to say the room went nuts. Other notable Bane observations were that they were all great guys and that Aaron Bedard is the clumsiest human being on this planet!
Never seen this. Impressed.
Marcus, did you ever get those bane action figures?
I bought what I thought was the 7" but got just the CD labelled 25/200. Apparently bought in the UK when they played in the Underworld. Would this have come with the 7" originally?
Martin - I think what happened was that the 7"s weren't ready in time for the show, so the band sold the covers with CDs inside and then people got sent their 7"s in the mail later. But yes, the CD came out at the show that the 7" was supposed to be released at, and the CD was supposed to be given away with the 7". So having just a 7" may have come from a kid who never received his 7". Who knows?
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