Torture Culture

Back in October last year news emerged of a new No Warning LP with, quite literally, no warning whatsoever. One day, nothing, the next there was a pre-order up. I hit up some friends to let them know, to find that none of them were remotely interested. Discussion turned to one of the pre-order bundles that offered some kind of vape pen with the record, and everyone agreed that No Warning were a fucking joke and the new album wasn't worth buying. Well, everyone except me that is. I listened to a song and it was pretty good, so I ordered the most limited colour vinyl (called 'Pink Kush') and waited.

Eventually I got my hands on it. And the first thing to note is that 'Pink Kush' got changed to 'shitty green' due to a pressing plant mistake. Makes no difference to me though. It's still the most limited colour.

I don't have too much to say about this record. I actually like it. It's pretty much as per the last couple of NW 7"s but with a power ballad thrown in for good measure. I've listened to it a lot, and even though it's probably my least favourite No Warning album, it's not a bad record by any means. Even the terrible cover art has grown on me. Shame I didn't manage to bag the vape pen, but you can't have it all I guess.

To Die For The Eighth Time

I finally got these two colours of the Integrity 'To Die For' 10". These things went up for sale in August 2017. I ordered them on the first day that they went up for sale, and I have finally now received them. Kinda crazy how long it takes for records to reach me sometimes. Anyway, these constitute the final pressing of this record, as A389 Recordings has now closed its doors for good.

Green vinyl was out of 200 copies.

Glow in the dark vinyl, out of 100 copies:

Adding these two to the copies I already had means I now have a total of 8 copies, including 3 different test pressings. Job done.

A New Beat From A Dead Heart

I saw 108 play a show back in December of last year. I wasn't really that bothered about seeing them to be honest. I saw them play twice back in 1995 and that was it. That was always enough for me. I mean, I loved their first two records, but never really followed them after that. For me they were a band I loved at a certain time, and I haven't listened to them for quite a few years. Well anyway, their performance a few months ago blew me away. They sounded great, the crowd loved it and there was a good atmosphere, Kate was back in the band, and they all really seemed to be enjoying it. It got my attention big time, and made me want to add more records to my collection. So I picked up copies of all three albums that I was missing...

'Threefold Misery' came out in 1996 on Lost & Found Records. Back them it bothered me a lot. Lost & Found was a well known rip off label that put out records either without bands consent, or with their consent but without paying them any royalties. At the time I couldn't get my head around why they would jump from Equal Vision to Lost & Found. It just didn't make sense. And more annoyingly, the only vinyl version was some awful looking picture disc. So I never bought one. I did acquire a promo CD copy, which I played quite a bit. Twenty years later, in 2016, Six Feet Under reissued it. So I picked up one of those copies.

I have to say, SFU did a good job on this. The cover and vinyl look rad. 166 copies on black/white starburst swirl.

'A New Beat From A Dead Heart' was 108's comeback record. It was released in 2007 by Deathwish Inc. I downloaded it at the time and thought it was ok. But it just wasn't quite what I was looking for at that time. It's funny, but listening to it eleven years later, it sounds good. Or maybe I was just more in the mood for it?

I picked up a copy with a limited cover made for a Cal Robbins benefit show back in 2007. I got this copy from a good friend who I have never met.

And finally, the final LP, '18.61' which was released in 2010, also on Deathwish. If I am completely honest, I didn't even know this one existed until recently. I have no memory of it coming out whatsoever. I guess 108 were just not on my radar at all in 2010. I picked up this clear vinyl copy, which is the rarest color being out of 300 copies.

This one is clearly the weakest of the bunch. There are a couple of good songs, but it generally seems to lack the urgency of the others. I don't know, maybe I need to give it more time? We shall see.

Anyway, that's how you catch up on 20 years of a band's history that you missed in one fell swoop.

Jersey's 2nd Best Dancers

So I've been on a Lifetime kick the last couple of months after finally getting round to picking up their final album about ten years too late. So of course I started looking for more of their records. Truth be told, I already own all of their records, but as ever, that's not enough. So to keep myself entertained I figured I'd pick up more copies of records I already own. You know how it is right? I very rarely buy anything from Discogs, but when this red vinyl copy of 'Jersey's Best Dancers' popped up from a UK seller at a reasonable price, I couldn't resist.

I remember when this came out. In those days pretty much all labels made one limited colour vinyl pressing and that was it. But Jade Tree kinda stood out, as for some reason they seemed to make two different colours of their releases, with many of the two variants being a solid and clear version of the same colour. What's more, they never released any pressing info, so you couldn't know which colour was the rarest. I used to order from them directly, and ordered one copy of each release, and I was just happy to accept whatever colour I got. But looking back I kinda wish I had picked up both colours of some releases as some have gone on to be classics, and now cost quite a bit. And whilst there are a few I'd like, I don't think that this is a bad place to start.