'No Peace / VVar' Box Set & Tests

Record Store Day. It was the best of days, it was the worst of days. But one release that didn't even make it on to the radar of most people who were participating in the day was a compilation that was sneaked out by Organized Crime Records.

Entitled 'No Peace / War' this 7" features Integrity and Rot In Hell (both of which I think are ok, as you may have gathered) as well as some other Holy Terror favourites like Gehenna, Vegas and Cape Of Bats. The idea of the comp is that each of these bands covers a song by a Japanese hardcore band. What I know about Japanese hardcore could probably be documented on a single grain of rice, but hey, this seems as good a place as any to start my schooling.

The Record Store Day deal was that there were 135 copies on blue vinyl made for punters in the States, and 185 copies on yellow for the rest of the VVorld. Unlike most of the RSD output though, there were only about two stores in the whole world that actually knew about and ordered this thing. In other words, this was next level hard to get. I mean, this one was so limited that there was no point in even trying to THINK about putting it on your want list for the day. No chance.

However, those of us in the know were always destined to get one through the secret channels in which we mix. So when the time came, I took the chance to own this thing on the most glorious format known to man - the box set.

The box itself is a regular 7" mailer, which has been adorned with some of the usual HT symbology. It is numbered out of 35 copies. I picked up number 34/35:

The box is then sealed by a thread of cotton wrapped around two Japanese coins which have been attached with some kind of rivet type thing.

Once opened, the inside of the box is decorated with the band logos.

Inside are four versions of the 7". Now, I know that I mentioned before that there were 135 on blue and 185 on yellow for the States and the VVworld respectively, but then you also get a green copy (mail order version) and red (band colour). Just like Japanese records, each record sleeve comes wrapped in an obi-strip, and the obi-strips here are printed in the colour of the vinyl inside. A great little touch if you ask me.

The care and attention that has gone into making these things is once again impressive. Putting these things together is clearly a labour of love for label owner Clint. As you can probably tell, it's not just any old fartknocker that gets the chance to pick up such special items, and I feel both lucky and privileged to get in on this.

But it doesn't end there. Oh no. I also had to go one stage further and pick up the tests.

Organized Crime does seem to have some bad luck with pressing plants. Pretty much every release seems to have a rejected test press, and an accepted test press. I'd probably start looking for a new pressing plant if I had this many problems. Anyway, this also means that there are two sleeve variations on the tests.

First up, the rejected test. Not sure what the cover is, but my guess would be that it is taken from a G.I.S.M record.

The accepted test is the 'punk' cover. I think this is taken from some Japanese punk comp LP (featuring G.I.S.M.) that came out before you were born.

A truly beautiful piece of art.