One Great Test

So a couple of months ago I picked up a Dag Nasty test press and wrote this:

It's not too often the opportunity arises to pick up a Revelation Records test press... when a chance arises to pick one up, it's tough to say no.

Little could I have know that the near future would bring more opportunities that I could not say no to. But it did, and I couldn't. So here is the first example of my recent good luck - a test pressing of the Burn 'Last Great Sea' 7":

It's actually very rare for a Rev test press to come in anything other than a plain white paper sleeve. But this one has a custom made sleeve which is basically a photocopy of the regular cover art, but with a bunch of small stars added. It looks pretty rad.

At one point in time a few years ago this would probably have been highly desirable and I'm sure that it would have sold for a lot of money. I'm not sure that would still be the case as the band's reformation and LP that was released a couple of years ago ('Do Or Die') seems to have soiled their past and their reputation, for some people at least. I guess that's the risk you take when deciding to reform after a long time. You either play the same old songs and milk it for the money, or you write new songs. Both approaches can backfire. But for me, I respect a band more for coming back and trying something new. And I genuinely think that Burn did a good job. But I see that a lot of people think it was a bad mistake. So I would guess that demand for their records, and the values, have subsequently reduced. Not that this really matters. Either way though, this 7" is still mindblowingly good. I remember how stoked I was to hear this when it came out back in 2002, and I'm still almost as stoked every time I play it all these years later.

So of course, after picking up the test press it seemed only fitting that I pick up the latest colour vinyl repress of it too. I almost lose track of how many colours of this there are these days, but I know for sure I didn't have this as I gave up on the Rev represses a couple of years ago (ahem).

Normally I'd pull out all my copies of a 7" and take a group shot for fun, but I seriously don't have time for that right now. Sorry kids. But you'll have seen the set on instagram before I'm sure.