Face To Face Colour Reissue

Picked up the latest Fat Wreck colour vinyl reissue... the first Face To Face LP 'Don't Turn Away'. Turns out I was pretty lucky to get this as they only made 319 and they sold out in about one day.

I really should have bought two copies though, since they were selling on eBay for $50 right away.

Pretty cool that they reissued this on colour vinyl, since it was never on colour before... well, not on Fat Wreck anyway. This was, however, originally pressed on colour vinyl on Dr. Strange Records, and there were at least two different colours made back then. I got one in a good trade about 12 years ago. I think the original looks way better. Not just the colour of the sleeve, but also the labels on the record itself:

Such a good record. Funny how much I listened to this LP, yet I never heard so much as a single song that they did after this.

Barfight!

I've said it many times before, and I'll say it again... the only thing in life that I seem to have good luck with is records. Here's another recent example...

A few weeks ago I got home from some kind of evening out to find an email in my inbox from Six Feet Under Records. The email had been sent to everyone on their mailing list, and was announcing a super limited 12" re-press of the Barfight 7". SFU had pressed up 105 copies of this record as a one sided, clear vinyl 12" with silkscreened covers. The record was strictly for SFU mailing list customers, and you could only buy one. The email had arrived like an hour or more before I had got to it, so I figured I would have missed the chance to pick it up. But fortunately the record was still in the store. So I bought one. I then sent the link to a friend and advised him to buy one. Immediately he got back to tell me the link was to a blank page. So I clicked the link again myself to find that there was nothing there. Which of course meant that all 105 copies had been purchased. So I must have got one of the last few copies. If I had waited 5 minutes, I would have missed it. Which is, I'm sure you will agree, pretty damn lucky.

The only thing I wasn't into was how the cover is covered in some sticky brown shit. Then I read the SFU discography where it says "covers are silkscreened, stamped and sprayed with real blood". Nice.

For anyone who isn't familiar with this record, I thought I'd post up a pic of the original 7" on Malfunction Records for comparison purposes:

Whilst ordering, I did my usual trick of thinking that I should order some more records in order to justify the shipping charges. So I pre-ordered the latest SFU releases. In the past when I have pre-ordered from SFU, I have usually got the most common versions of things. But this time I did pretty well.

Dealing with them in alphabetical order, the first record is a 7" by a band called AS WE LET GO. I got one of the rarest colour, which is out of 104 copies and is described as "Coke Bottle Blue"... although, come on, did you ever see a Coke bottle that looked anything like this?

Since the band is Japanese, more than half of the 104 copies on this colour went to Japan. The band sounds very similar to early Blacklisted to me. Interestingly, the band sings in English and the dude doesn't sound in any way Japanese. I would seriously NEVER have guessed that this band wasn't from the States. I even went to the their myspace to check that they were really Japanese... haha! I'm into this 7". Definitely worth checking out if you are into stuff like this.

The next record, which is my favourite of the lot, is a 7" from a band called GYPSY. This has people in it from Blacklisted, Cold World and Let Down, but Gypsy sounds nothing like any of those bands. The SFU site compares them to Jawbreaker, Seaweed, which isn't far wrong, but this really reminds me of a band and I can't think of who it is, but it's bugging me a lot.

There are 50 copies on black/white mixed vinyl, and 100 copies on Black/Grey mixed vinyl. I'm pretty sure mine is one of the white/black ones, although if I flip it over it kinda looks more like grey/black:

The final record is a 7" by STREETWALKERS. Dunno how to describe this band. Reminds me of Some Kind Of Hate. I guess for most people that's a bad thing, but I like it. 204 copies on white vinyl.

The best thing about these records is that they all came with a download code so I could put them straight on my ipod without having to mess about ripping them. There's nothing better than buying records and not actually having to waste time playing them!

Pelican - March Into The Purple Sea

This one has taken me AGES to pick up. It's now over 3 years since the Pelican 'March Into The Sea' 12" came out. There were 4 colours of vinyl put out by Hydrahead, and their strict "one copy per person" ordering rule made it hard for nerds like me to get more than one. Back then I was REALLY into this band, so had a friend and my brother also place orders on my behalf. Which bagged me three of the four colours right off the bat. But by the time I found out about the record, the rarest version was already gone - the purple vinyl, which was the only version to come with a vellum overlay cover. I have watched many copies of this sell on eBay over the last couple of years. And the price just seemed to come down and down. When it first came out it was going for about $70 I think. But I stumbled across one on eBay UK with a buy it now price of £9.99... which is cheaper than you can get new releases these days.

This now means I have four out of four:

Now, anyone who likes Pelican and knows about records will know that this 12" was also repressed by another label on at least two different colours, which means that, in theory, I still "need" at least two copies of this. However, I'm not really bothered about those. Funny though... it's not like me to be satisfied and not want more. Maybe I'm falling ill or something?

Rot In Hell 'Hallways' Ltd Versions

I've been sat on these for a couple of weeks (I'll explain why in a bit). This is the release show version of the Rot In Hell 'Hallways Of The Always' LP. There were two different colour covers, and I was stupid enough to buy both:

They also have the band name on the dust sleeve:

And are numbered out of only 21 copies:

And there's some kind of sealed envelope. It probably has lyrics inside, but I haven't opened any of mine.

Now, I'm not entirely sure exactly why, but they also made another special version for their webstore. This one came in a spray-painted record mailer:

But it was sealed with a 'Give Up' sticker:

And this is why I have sat on this for a while. Part of me wanted to leave it sealed, whereas another part of me wanted to open it. So I thought about it for a while. In the end I decided to open it, but I figured I would open it carefully in order to preserve it as far as possible. So that's what I did. First I sliced the sticker with a razor blade, then slowly (very slowly) prised open the mailer flap. It took the best part of an hour. But I ended up with it opened with minimal damage, which I am happy with:

Inside is the standard gatefold sleeve, but the dust sleeve is sprayed and numbered out of 29 copies:

As you can see, it looks pretty good. This now means I have 5 copies of this record. Which is, I think, a first. I don't think I have five copies of any LP aside from this one. Man, it's a slippery slope from here...

Holy Terror & Strange Grooves

A few months ago Holy Terror Records put up a new pre-order for an LP by a band called Blind To Faith. However, the main attraction to this LP was nothing to do with the record or band itself, but the fact that the first 250 pre-orders would receive a limited new Integrity 7". Being a big Integrity fan, I placed an order right away. I mean, if you told me that if I'd get an Integrity 7" by mail-ordering a selection of gay porn dvds then I'd be straight over to ilovecock.com with my credit card ready for action. Anyway, after about three months of waiting, the records turned up last week.

The Blind To Faith LP comes on a nice, US pressed clear vinyl:

It's numbered out of 250:

The cover is also really nicely printed:

Also, I played this thing and the record has reversed grooves. Which means it plays backwards. You have to put the needle in the centre of the record, and it plays outwards. This is no problem for me now that I have a decent record player, but I remember a few years ago when I had a cheap record player and it would be impossible to drop the needle at the centre of the record because, when it got it near the centre, it would automatically return to its starting position, thinking the record was finished. So I feel sorry for anyone out there who bought this and has a cheap record player. Actually, no I don't feel sorry for such people. You get what you pay for. Fools. The record is good. Heavy and evil as you would expect from Holy Terror.

The Integrity 7" is a split with AVM. The Integ songs are apparently Septic Death covers (again). Like the last Septic Death covers 7", this sounds kinda like it as recorded on the back of a bus using an old walkman. At first I thought this sucked, but after playing it through about ten times I'm starting to really like it.

I have no idea who or what AVM is. Rumours suggest they are from Japan. Integrity has a history of putting out splits with nonsense bands - Psywarfare, Lockweld, The Kids of Widney High. I guess this is another one for the pile.

This 7" is also numbered out if 250. They seem to have matched the 7" numbers to the 12" numbers too, which is a nice piece of organisation:

Now... the interesting thing about this record is that this has two songs, the grooves of which run parallel to each other on the record. In simple terms, this means that you can drop the needle at the start of the record and one of the two songs will play,but you don't know which one. It almost feels random. In all my years of buying records I have never heard of anything like this before. Really cool.

The only problem with this record was that, just before this arrived, I saw that Dwid was selling test presses on eBay. And he also had a green vinyl copy of the Integ 7". It turns out that there are 100 copies on green vinyl, and obviously I didn't get one. But quite clearly I needed one, so I got in touch with Dwid and negotiated a deal. So now I don't have to stress about missing stuff. Here's the goods:

Integ/AVM on green:

Blind To Faith LP test press:

Integ/AVM test press:

Complete with personalised dust sleeve and Integrity guitar pick:

If you want the songs from the Integrity / AVM 7", Dwid is giving them away for free HERE

Hot Charity

Today I bought a record on my lunch break. This is good because it allowed me to support vinyl and give to charity at the same time. What the hell am I talking about? Well, here's the info (taken from the Oxfam website):

Arctic Monkeys have recorded another music industry first by releasing their new single, ‘Crying Lightning’, through Oxfam’s network of 700 charity shops on the high street and online. The release marks the first time Oxfam shops have sold a new release single for 25 years. All the proceeds from the sale in Oxfam’s shops go to our work fighting poverty.

Kinda cool that you can support two good causes at the same time for the price of a sandwich. If you live in the UK and want to support this cause and don't want to go outside then you can go HERE

All in all, a good thing. Shame the songs are shite though.

Hoover 2nd LP

Not particularly exciting, but I just picked up the 2nd Hoover LP. I bought the first one (the classic 'Lurid Traversal Of Route 7') when it came out in 1994. The second one, I missed. I could have bought it from some distro for about £6 when it came out, but delayed, then it sold out. As is often the case, I kinda wanted it but never really felt the need to chase it hard. Then, somehow, about 12 years went by... and then one popped up on eBay and I decided that it was time to finally cross this one off the want list.

I saw this band play relatively recently. Well, I say that, but it was five years ago now. December 2004. I went to the show on my own. Felt lonely and old. Sat there & didn't say a word to anyone all night. Watched Hoover then went home. Fun.

Necracedia LP

I used to like Wreck-age Records back in the 90s. They put out some interesting bands, e.g. Bad Trip, Yuppicide, Die 116, Mind Over Matter, Milhouse, Indecision, S.F.A, Neglect. Also, as stupid as it sounds, I liked the way that every single record they put out had the same label on side b - the Wreck-age logo. It just gave the records a nice consistency. Anyway, I have most (but not all) of the Wreck-age releases, and most I have tracked down on colour vinyl. A couple of them proved pretty hard to find. But one that I never had was the label's second release, which is an LP by a band called NECRACEDIA. In fact, until a few months ago, I had never even heard of it. The way it came to my attention was that I was chatting about Wreck-age releases with fellow enthusiast Nick Mango, and we tried to patch together a discography, and it was then that I realised I was missing Wreck-age #2. So I put it on my wants list. Then, a couple of weeks back, Nick sent me an email telling me that this record was on eBay. By some stroke of good luck, it was listed on eBay.co.uk, which would make things slightly easier for me. It was listed at £4. I figured nobody else would be interested in bidding. In the end I was right. I won it for £4 and was the only bidder.

I played this once, and then managed to find the mp3s on the internerd. So I've now listened to it twice. It's alright. Nothing too special. I guess it would have probably sounded better when it was released in about 1991. Flex! describes it as "Nice blend of politically aware HC, psychotic stuff à la Negative Approach and NYHC. Production is not that great, otherwise a good record" which is probably pretty fair. Not too exciting really, but another box ticked for me.

By the way - Thanks for the heads up, Nick! Appreciated.

Cave In - Planets Of Old

So it's 2009 and Cave In have just got back together after about three years to crank out a new EP called 'Planets Of Old'. Being a sucker for all of their previous records, I picked one up. Musically, it's interesting. It kind of mixes all of their different sounds and eras together. I'm not sure if it works to be honest... although in trying to work out if I like it or not, I have listened to it several times, and I want to keep going back to it. So I guess that, yes, it's growing on me. Visually though, it's a bit disappointing. The front cover is ok:

Although I'm not so into the back:

As for the sticker on the cover, I don't know whether to laugh or cry:

It describes the colour of the vinyl as "Green Tea Frozen Yogurt"... presumably because if it was just called "green" someone might buy it and then sue the label for false advertising when they took the record out and it looked nothing like the colour of their front lawn. Anyway, I'm going to give Hydrahead the benefit of the doubt on this one, and conclude that this is a joke designed to poke fun at modern record collectors who feel the need to describe the shade of the record like they're looking for a specific shade of paint. I mean, this has to be just about the most retarded name for a vinyl colour of all time.

Also, whilst I'm whinging, I'd just like to pick fault with the sleeve of this record. It's made of super thick, glossy card. "Why would he complain about that?" you may wonder. Well, because it makes the sleeve pretty much useless, that's why. The card is so thick that it is not actually possible to fit the record inside. It's been a couple of years now since Hydrahead started making these sleeves, and it's starting to irritate me. Call me old fashioned, but I actually like to put my records in their sleeves. If someone could please take this up with Hydrahead on my behalf, I'd be really grateful. Thanks.

The other highlight of this record has nothing to do with the record. It's the mailer that it came in. Seriously - how good is this?

Making Boxes

A few months ago I made a post about the mess in my flat, caused by having records all over the floor (you can read it HERE). A few weeks ago I finally got around to tidying them up into a small area of my room. But they were still on the floor, as shown here:

I wanted to tidy them up and move them off the floor into boxes because I was sick of my room looking messy. However, the reason I have had them on the floor for so long is simply because I didn't actually have any boxes to put them in.

Actually, that's not entirely true. I always have boxes. But the records on the floor are ones that I don't like to keep in boxes. Why? Because they are "at risk". This means they have photocopied (or low quality printed) sleeves. About three years ago I discovered over 100 of my 7"s had sleeve damage, where the ink on the covers had gone sticky. I am 99.9% sure that this results from heat, although I also think that it does not help to keep large quantities of records together, since I think that the weight of records pressing onto other records is not a good thing. So I keep my "at risk" records in little boxes like this:

The little boxes don't hold many 7"s, which means that there is less pressure on each record.

Unfortunately, I don't have any more of these little boxes, so I've been stuck with the records on the floor. But a few days ago I decided to sort it out. I figured I would MAKE some boxes, cos if there's one thing I have quite a lot of, it's cardboard:

So here's what I did. First up, grab a few standard mailers:

Next, take one of the little 7" storage boxes and open it up:

Next, open up the mailers and cut the tabs off:

Then draw round the unfolded 7" storage box:

Cut out:

And then make the necessary folds:

Then fold together, and tape to keep it secure:

Then simply repeat the whole process five more times:

Finally, fill each box with 7"s, then put these small boxes into a bigger box:

Job done.