Clear To Be You

It's funny, but around the time I started collecting Descendents records it seemed that vinyl in general started getting really popular again, and repressing older releases on new colours became a new trend. Kinda cool in a way, because if I had started collecting these things a little later I would have missed out on some represses and had to track them down on eBay or discogs. The other way of looking at it, of course, is that it's kinda shit because I got sucked into buying all these bloody represses, which I may have avoided if I had felt there were too many to chase when I first started.

This latest repress, as pictured here, is a clear vinyl repress of the final Descendents album 'Cool To Be You'. It came out on Fat Wreck Chords in 1997 and, until this colour got pressed a couple of months ago, the original colour (blue) vinyl version of this record was the rarest (and thus most expensive) Descendents record out there. Not sure if the price of that one will now go up or down as a result of this clear repress. Either could happen.

My copy initially looked like the labels hadn't been put on correctly as they weren't properly lined up. But then I realised that the labels were put on right, it's just that one side has an extra label stuck on top. Nice to have something a little quirky.

So I still badly need a purple vinyl reissue copy of 'ALL'. I'm starting to get desperate. It only came out in 2011, and there were loads of them about, yet for some reason it seems impossible to find. Help!

Sacrificial

Because I've just received my first shipment of records since December, I'm still catching up with some releases from last year. Here's an example - the third album by Ancient VVisdom, 'Sacrificial', which was released by Magic Bullet Records towards the tail end of 2014. I downloaded the songs when it came out but the vinyl didn't come in time for my December shipment. So whilst this now feels like it's been out for a while, this is the first time I've seen the actual vinyl.

There were two or three colours to choose from. I picked the clear because I like clear better than red. No idea which is rarest or anything. Sometimes you gotta just do what feels good.

I'm really into this record. Their first LP was amazing, but the second was a little meh, so it's good to see them head back towards the territory of the first with this one. I've played this more than I did the second one, especially the song 'Worm Ridden Skull' which is extremely catchy. As I said in my 2014 end of year rundown, this would have made it into my 'best releases of the year' list, save for the fact that I didn't actually receive the record in 2014. Not that it matters really.

I Am

Back at the end of 2008 I picked up a colour vinyl copy of the first Samiam 7" on Lookout! Records. Back then, I said that it had been on my want list for like 13 or 14 years. However, the colour that I picked up back then was technically not the colour that I was looking for. I had seen, and been searching for, a clear vinyl copy, but the copy I found in 2008 was on a kind of clear greenish yellow. Well, here we are just over 6 years later and I finally got aruond to finding a proper clear vinyl colour.

Of course, you know what happens next. New record is placed next to older record for a comparison shot to show the difference.

I used to listen to Samiam back in the 90s. I even saw them play a couple of times. But for some reason I never listened to anything after their major label debut 'Clumsy'. I think it was just one of those bands who seemed to have too many records, and I felt like I was tired of them. Kinda funny that they carried on making records and I have never heard any of them. Anyone still following this band and can give me a view on what their later stuff is like?

Undiscovered

This week I received a delivery of over 100 records, covering almost four months of purchases. They should keep me blogging for a while. I thought I'd start with one of the highlights, which has been a major want of mine for a few years.

Vision 'Undiscovered' 7" on New Scene Records on green vinyl. This thing is insanely rare. I have absolutely no idea how many exist, but what I do know is that this very rarely pops up for sale. If you don't believe me you should try finding one for yourself.

I came close to grabbing two copies of this in the last few years. The first was sold on eBay circa 2009 by Mark Porter of Floorpunch. I think I bid $62 and it sold for $63. Something like that. It was then five years before I got another shot. Another copy appeared on eBay towards the end of last year. In the end it sold for $108. I was in bed when it finished so had set up the sniper to bid for me, and entered a max bid of $150. But somehow the sniper malfunctioned and someone else won. I was particularly bummed as I figured my bid was high enough over the winning amount that I probably would have won... although obviously I could never know whether that was the case or not. I might still have lost even if the sniper had worked. At this point I figured it would be a few years before another appeared for sale.

Well, fortune smiled on me a couple of months later when this copy popped up on Discogs. The price was way lower than either of the two copies I just mentioned too, so I bought it right away. Technically I have owned this for almost four months, but I only just received it and had it in my possession for one day, but I'm stoked. Another major want crossed off the list...

Force Fed

It seems like I only buy green vinyl 7"s these days. This is the third green 7" in a row.

This is a self-titled 7" by a band called Force Fed. It came out on Painkiller Records back in 2009. No idea why i didn't pick one up back then.

I haven't really had many new records since back in December. All my records get sent over from the States about once every three months, and I haven't had a delivery yet in 2015, which is why the blog has been sparse. I picked up this record from ebay.co.uk, and I only really bought it because it was cheap.

The funny thing is, after I received this, I was surfing discogs and found a few copies on there, all cheaper than the one I bought. So even though I bought it because it was cheap, it ended up being relatively expensive. Ah well, can't win 'em all I guess.