Monday 28 September 2015

Swimmer's Ear

There are some records that really don't look particularly impressive when photographed. The impact comes more from knowing what the thing is. Here is a classic example:

Godspeed was a band that Skip and Jay from Turning Point did after Turning Point finished. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they sounded a lot like the later era Turning Point songs from the split with No Escape. They released one record back in 1993, a 12" (and CD) EP on Temperance Records. Now, I have owned this record for a long time and always loved it. It never gets old, not to me at least. So imagine how stoked I was to see a test press on eBay? Yeah, pretty stoked, as no doubt anyone would be who has this record. So I knew I had to have it at any cost.

Now, I'm gonna say this and I realise it may be controversial, but I don't care... I will gladly take this record over Turning Point's entire recorded output any day of the week. For me, Turning Point got better with age, and the split with No Escape was their high point. This record was the natural next step, but what makes this better than the split with No Escape is that this contains six songs rather than two. They're two very different bands, but obviously they are linked, so it seems fair to say that this band could and should be compared to Turning Point. And Godspeed wins. Disagree? Yeah, well, you have the right. But you're wrong.

It's funny, but this is one of those records that I would never have dreamed of even seeing a test press of, let alone owning one, so I'm pretty happy right now. Even as I sit here with it in my hands, I can't believe I have this. I even checked the matrix against the regular copy I have thinking that there must have been some mistake, but no, it exists and somehow I own it. Cool huh?

7 comments:

chris said...

If this is the same record I'm thinking of I was actually also bidding on this but for some reason the price kept going up and I decided to just let it go. Ha!

geoff said...

im with 100% on this record. i will take it over turning point. the 12" is hard enough to find, even the cd is tough to come by, but a test press? crazy. im glad i didnt see this on ebay.

Mark-Sandwell said...

I always remember the trustkill review of this; 'Straight from the ashes of skip's joint...I mean Turning point'.

Mike said...

This was the follow up to Turning Point, and yet all these years later and I've still never bothered to listen to a single song from this. I'm going to have to change that.

mcs said...

I can't imagine you'd like this, Mike. But I hope I am wrong.

geoff said...

when you decided to open up your own hardcore record museum, make sure that this record gets a quality spot on the wall and not hidden in a corner.

strangeisthenewfruit said...

I love this record, but I only own the CD that came out on Lost&Found.