1990

I picked up a couple of records from someone on eBay. They had some pretty cool stuff for sale. But I honed in on a couple of items, both of which were released in 1990.

The first one has been on my wants list pretty much forever. It's one of those records that isn't even that great, but I always wanted a colour copy, and it ended up taking longer to get one than I could have imagined.

The 'Generation Of Hope' comp is kind of classic by nature of who is on it. Chain Of Strength and Brotherhood are the big hitters, and then Confront, Against The Wall and Pushed Aside (who I always regarded as kind of 'tier 2' bands), and then finally a band called Full On Straight (no idea who they are/were). But when I first got a copy of this I was super excited, only to be slightly disappointed that half of the songs were on other releases anyway.

Also, it almost goes without saying that this is a serious contender for the worst cover of all time. I mean, look at it - not only is is plain and boring, but you can't even read what it says easily. The leading 'A' is in a different font to the rest of it, and the word 'Of' takes up more space than the rest of the title put together. Oh, and the 'G's look like 'C's. If only someone would have had the sense to just put the photo from the back cover on the front instead, all would have been ok.

Well, that aside, and this really is a tough find on colour vinyl. It comes on purple and also gold. I've never really known the pressing info, nor which colour is rarest, but the gold does seem to pop up less, so I'm assuming that's rarer than the purple. But right now I'm pretty stoked on the purple. It looks rad.

Oh, and inside the sleeve was this extra insert:

I'm assuming that this is the original receipt for when this was purchased in 1990 for $4.19. Looks like it was $3.99 with the $0.20 US 'mystery tax' that only appears when you get to the checkout, haha! Normally I don't keep these things, but I think I'll keep this. If it's survived 29 years to date then I don't want to be the person who bins it.

Moving on, the second record was this copy of the Billingsgate 'Reach Out' 7" with promo sleeve. Just like the Integrity 7" that was put out around the same time by the same label, there were 100 of these sleeves made. I love the simplicity of this.

The inside of the sleeve was also stamped with the Victory logo.

It's also numbered on the back. I got number 78/100.

The craziest thing about the Billingsgate 7" is that the second press was on blue vinyl, and somehow you can still buy this from the label today! Check it out. Even funnier is that I don't have one, and am now considering buying one.