Reason To Believe

It's funny, but when people talk about their favourite Revelation Records release, it's pretty much only the first 15 or so releases that get talked about. War Zone, Sick Of It All, Side By Side, Youth Of Today, Bold, Chain Of Strength, Judge, Quicksand, Inside Out, Burn. Most people's favourite Rev release is pretty much guaranteed to be one of these. I mean, yes, I can recognise why these bands and records are heralded as the best. They pretty much document a time, a place and a movement. They have gone on to inspire people for over twenty years now, and their impact & influence is still obvious today. For me personally, however, the answer to my favourite Rev release is quite different. All things considered, it's probably Sense Field's 'Killed For Less' LP.

When I bought it I had never heard Sense Field. I just bought it because it was on Rev. And the moment the needle dropped I was like "what the hell is this?". It was about as far from what I expected from Rev as.... well, as could be expected. But after I got over the shock, I gave it another chance and I started to get into it. In fact, I probably got more into it more than any other record in my life to that point. I listened to it at least once every day for about six months. I guess it hit me the way few records do these days. But back in 1994 it sounded fresh & different and I guess it just connected with me. I still remember the excitement I felt when they toured that LP in Summer 1995 with Four Walls Falling. One of those rare "I can't actually believe this band is stood in front of me playing these songs" kinda moments. Truly magic.

Well, it was probably a good couple of years later that I learnt that Sense Field's vocalist - Jon Bunch - used to be in another band. This band was called Reason To Believe. I somehow managed to pick up both of their records (a 7" and an LP, both on Nemesis Records) although god only knows how I managed that in a day before they turned on the internet. Reason To Believe were faster and more raw than Sense Field, and I wasn't that into them at first. But in time I would also learn to appreciate and love Reason To Believe in a similar way to Sense Field.

And then, many years later (i.e. only about two years ago) I found out that the Reason To Believe 7" on Nemesis, which I always knew came on either red, gold or blue vinyl, also existed on green vinyl numbered out of 50 copies. Not sure how I found this out. I probably just spotted it on Dietrich's trade list, since that dude has some incredible stuff that most people have never heard of. Well, I recently decided that this was my most wanted record, but given the huge problems and insanely long wait I had in acquiring the Pitchfork 7" on the same record label, which was numbered out of 100, I figured that a Nemesis records 7" numbered out of 50 copies would literally be twice as difficult to find. So I guessed that I would be about 60 before I got one. Fortunately not. I was pretty lucky recently and found one well ahead of schedule, thanks to Tru featuring it on his blog.

I'm a little disappointed by the numbering on this thing. I mean, it's stuck right in the corner and not very neat. At least they took the trouble to number the Pitchfork 7" with a silver pen to match the artwork, whereas the numbering on this thing is a pretty sloppy job. But still, I'd rather records that exist in low volumes be numbered than not, so I shouldn't complain really.

I spoke to Jon Bunch a couple of times over the years when I saw Sense Field play. Such a nice guy. Coincidentally, there's a dude at my gym who looks quite a lot like him. I call him 'Jon Bunch of bananas'. You know you have a good nickname when it makes you laugh every time you say it. Not that I call him it to his face, mind. Would be cool to ask him to sign this. I can just imagine it with 'bananas' scrawled across the front in black marker... haha!