Promotional Copy Only Not For Resale

Understand were a UK band active in the early - mid 90s. They hailed from Southend on Sea, where I also lived during that time for a couple of years, and as a consequence I saw them play a lot of times. For a UK band at that time, they did pretty well, and probably played with every major US band touring the UK at that time. I think I saw them open for Quicksand, Sick Of It All and Into Another amongst others, although they never quite made it big in their own right. Shame as they deserved it. Their were way ahead of their time musically and, aside from their first 7", they still hold up today. Anyway, I was listening to them again last week and decided to check if I could find any records for sale. I found a promo copy of their debut major label 7" for £0.99 (plus postage) so I bought it. It's not overly exciting to look at, as you can see.

I bought this on discogs, so didn't see a picture of it. I was expecting perhaps a 7" in plain sleeve or something, but this is basically a regular copy of the 7" in a PVC sleeve that has a 'promotional' sticker on the front. Slightly disappointing. I even started to think that the promotional copy sticker on the PVC sleeve could have related to a different record completely, and maybe someone at some point just put this record in it.

Well, I also own two different promo copies of the same record in 12" format, so I dug one out to compare.

As you can see, the 12" version has a 'promotional copy' sticker which, despite being a different shape, contains the exact same wording. I therefore conclude that the 7" is/was a legitimate promo copy. Cool.

The only previous copy I owned of this 7" was the US pressing on Equal Vision Records. Fun fact - I read once (or possibly someone told me) that owner of EVR, Steve Reddy, rated this 7" as his second favourite EVR release. That may or may not have been entirely true, but I guess the point is that he liked them. Enough to release this record. Bedard from Bane mentioned this record to me once. Said he loved it, but had no idea that the band were from the UK. Anyway, just for fun I dug out the EVR pressing and put it next to this UK promo copy to compare. If you have two minutes spare you can play 'spot the difference'.

Interesting also how the EVR copy is on wafer thin vinyl. When I was younger I used to think that such records were on brown vinyl. I thought that not many people realised this colour existed. What a dipshit.

If you are interested in hearing this record, I recently uploaded it for a friend. If you like stuff in the Quicksand / Fugazi type ballpark then CHECK IT OUT and show some 90s UKHC love.

Patience

It seems that Doug is finally starting to learn to be patient in order to save money. Me, I've known that shit for years and am a master. Here's an example that showed up in the mail today. The Alert 'Demo 08' 7" with an Up Front rip off cover.

I can barely believe it, but Mike posted about this record one week shy of four years ago. Wow. At the time I immediately liked the look of the Up Front rip off cover and decided I wanted one. Well, after watching a few on eBay and never really wanting to pay whatever it was going for, my time finally came around. A couple of weeks ago one appeared on eBay UK. All it took was one bid, and then £0.99 (plus postage) later, it was mine. Let that be a lesson to you all.

Absolution

Reissues and repressings are pretty common these days. From Revelation repressing a lot of their catalogue on new colours of vinyl to Bridge Nine reissuing some of their releases from ten years ago in new packaging with extra songs, I have very different opinions on these things. My opinions don't even make sense really as there is no consistency. I mean, sometimes I'll buy a modern day repress of a record I already have just because it's on a different colour, such as the recent colour Rev stuff. But sometimes I won't, e.g. Victory Records repressings. Even though I love the first Strife LP, I'm happy enough with my original colour copies and I don't need another. Similarly, sometimes I like discography packages, such as the Turning Point discography that Think Fast! put out, but other times I have no interest in such things and am happy with my original records. For example, I have zero interest in owning the Underdog or Resurrection discographies, even though I have loved both bands for years. Generally there is no real pattern to it. Sometimes I'm interested, other times I am not. I can't really explain it.

So without being able to explain why I do or do not want these things, I can tell you that for some inexplicable reason I definitely WAS interested in picking up the Absolution 7" reissue. And to keep things interesting, there were two coloured vinyl pressings, so obviously I had to grab both. Firstlyis gold, the most limited colour out of only 60 copies.

And second, here's the clear purple vinyl out of 150 copies. It's one of those purples that looks black unless you hold it to the light.

I think that what makes this interesting is that this isn't just a reissue. The band actually went back into the studio in 2012 and re-recorded the four songs that made up the original 7". And believe me, it sounds WAY better. Also, as you can see, they recreated the original artwork for the record cover and the labels. Aside from switching the old Combined records logo for the new Lush Life logo, it looks exactly the same. So a reissue on a new label with nice looking colour vinyl and re-recorded, better quality songs. Is there anyone who WOULDN'T want this?

Violent Reaction US 7"

So I finally got my order for the US pressing of the Violent Reaction 7". In theory I should have been one of the first to blog about this one, as I got my order in on the first day and they were sent out only a day or two later. However, due to a postal system mystery, the parcel took two and a half months to reach me. Still, can't complain. Better than two and a half months than never showing up at all.

You've seen these on other blogs by now and you probably have your own copies, so I'm just going to cut straight to the photos. The colour breakdown was White (100), Red (300) and Black (600).

Great to see this 7" on colour vinyl, but kinda funny that it took a US label to put it together, as neither of the three pressings made in the UK bothered with anything other than black.

If anyone still needs one of these, the red and black vinyl copies are still available in the Mind Rot Store. Go get 'em!

i ♥ instagram

So, just checking - everyone's got instagram now, right? I have to admit, I had it on my phone for months before I actually used it. I opened it but didn't really understand what was going on. Then, months later I was bored so I opened it & started playing about, and then over a few days I started to understand how it worked. Well, that was over a year ago. Now it has become one of my daily passtimes, and over the last few months I have really enjoyed it. And it seems that the more time passes, the more people jump on it, and the more people there out are posting pictures of cool records. Some of the stuff on there is really great and no matter what your interests (records or otherwise), there's a lot of stuff to check out. In short, it's good fun, and if you don't have it then you need to step up to the plate.

A couple of months back I picked up a No Tolerance 7" test press that someone listed for sale on there. That was a breakthrough moment. And now I've just succesfully completed my first trade through it, for an item that just so happened to be a test press by one of my all time favourite bands.

This test press is just a regular Rainbo Records test in a no frills plain white paper sleeve. As with most tests like this, it's not much to look at:

So of course I pulled out the regular copy of the 7" to make for a more interesting photo:

So this turns out to be for the Farside 'Keep My Soul Awake' 7". Not only Farside's first release, but also the first release for Revelation's sister label Crisis Records. Ok, so technically it's not a Revelation test... but in my mind it sure as hell is. Besides, it's a Farside test. Who the hell cares what label it's on?

The funny thing is that when I arranged this trade I was told that the test was for the Farside 'S/T' 7" on Rev. But the day the previous owner was about to pack it up & mail it out to me, she decided to play it, and then discovered it wasn't the record she had told me. Overall though, it made no difference. I still wanted it. As I've said, it's a farside test. Anything else is just a minor detail.

Just for the sake of posting another picture, here's the test with the other copy of this 7" that I own:

This now brings the test press count to 37 so far in 2013. That means I still need 15 to hit the target of 52 for the year, and it's almost September. Pressure.

White Flag

I'm still trying to collect the color vinyl Black Flag 7"s. Somehow they seem harder to get than the LPs. But every once in a while one of them will pop up. Here's the latest - a white vinyl copy of 'Louie Louie' with large centre hole:

This is the first 7" where I have acquired all the color variants - white, greenish grey, red and grey. But rather than take a picture of them all, I figured I'd save the collection shot until I have all of the Black Flag color 7"s. So probably sometime circa 2016...

Where They Talk

There's nothing quite so satisfying as crossing an item off your wants list. And as anyone who keeps a want list knows, the satisfaction is higher the longer the item has been on your list. Here's an item that was on my wants list for quite a few years. The first Ignite 7" on purple vinyl. I don't know how many years this was on my wants list exactly, but I would guess that it has been at least seven years. Possibly as many as ten. I guess it doesn't really matter. The point is, it's been a long time want.

'Where They Talk' came out on Ringside Records in 1994. That was about two years before I heard of, or heard, Ignite. I picked this record up originally a couple of years after the 'Call On My Brothers' LP came out. It was then a few years later that I found out it existed on purple vinyl. So I added it to my wants list and eventually one appeared on eBay. As soon as I saw it listed I knew I was going to win it and... voila!

This 7" features original vocalist Randy Johnson, and as a result sounds different to the rest of the Ignite catalog. It's not as good as the stuff with Zoli, but the rarity of this one makes it a must have as far as I'm concerned.

We're Back!

I've not posted much on here lately. This has not been intentional. More just that I haven't actually received any new records for some time. Today, however, the floodgates opened and I received enough records to blog about for the next couple of weeks. Cool.

So where better to start that with the weirdest / most interesting Youth Of Today LP. This is the German Funhouse Records pressing of 'We're Not In This Alone', on yellow vinyl.

This is weird because it was the only YOT record released by Funhouse, which was a German label. Weird because all other YOT records were released in Germany by We Bite Records. In fact, this album was also released by We Bite Records. Two different German pressings? Really? And weird because of the layout. I mean, look at it...

The worst thing about this layout / package is the reverse of the lyric sheet. This is one of those printed dust sleeves. One side has the lyrics over a great live shot, whereas the reverse is this dumbass 'advert' for other records that Funhouse were selling at the time. Kinda whack... although, in some ways, a document of a time and place. So semi acceptable. Just would have been better as a separate insert rather than printed on the back of the lyric sheet.

Regan has some pretty good records, and a pretty good YOT collection, but he said recently that he had no interest in the European pressings of the LPs as he regards them as bootlegs. I can see his point as I used to feel the same. I thought that all of the Euro YOT LPs just looked like cheap copies of the US pressings. But at some point things changed and I began to kinda like them. I now have three YOT Euro LPs on yellow vinyl. I'm not sure I like them enough to want to also collect them on black, but then again, the one thing I have realised over the years is that, in record collecting, you never say never!

Internal Affairs Red LP

A few weeks ago I picked up an orange vinyl copy of the Internal Affairs LP and thought I had a complete collection. but then, a few days ago, I spotted a red vinyl copy on ebay uk that I had never seen before. So I watched, bid and won. It was cheap pretty cheap. I guess nobody really cares about Internal Affairs these days.

I'm now pretty sure that I pretty much have a complete collection of this one. I'm not sure if there is a black vinyl in regular sleeve or not, but I'm not fussed about it anyway, so I took the time to take a group shot.

Pictured is the test press, the silk screened version (made for Posi Numbers), green vinyl, orange vinyl and red vinyl. No idea on the pressing info on any of these.

Roses Never Fade Test

Somehow I had forgotten about this one. I picked it up a couple of weeks back along with the last batch of Integrity records. It's a test press of the first Roses Never Fade 7", 'The Man They Want To Hang'.

When this 7" went up for preorder a few years ago, I paid up and then weeks later received a refund without explanation. Fortunately I was able to get a copy of the 7" from Dwid. I was happy with that as it's rare enough in itself - there were only 100 copies made total. So having a test press is pretty lucky.

I don't know, but I'm guessing that these didn't originally come with a cover and they were made recently. This is because it says 'File Under Non Fiction' at the top. I would guess that this is because Nick Fiction was not in the band on this release and this is some kind of joke at his expense.

2013 Test press count is now 36.