A Pink Crusade

It's been two and a half years since I picked up 3 copies of the first album from Mike's favourite band, Forced Order. I picked up the 2nd press record release copy, and third press copies on clear and orange vinyl. At some point probably a year or two before that, I had a friend in the States who picked up a couple of copies from the band on tour, but after realising he'd had them for over 3 years, it dawned on me that I was probably never actually going to get them. So when I spotted a first press pink vinyl copy appear for sale for cheap, I figured I should just grab it while I had the chance.

I've said this before, but I think pink vinyl is probably the nicest colour of vinyl that there is. There's something about pink that just seems so unsuitable for a hardcore record that it's somehow perfect.

Pink vinyl is the first press and the most limited colour made, being out of only 158 copies. And with 4 copies of this LP in my collection, you'd probably think that I'd be done with this record. But unfortunately there's also a yellow vinyl variant out there that I need to find. Yes, that's right, NEED.

Orange Transmission

One of my favourite releases from last year was Cave In's 'Final Transmission' LP. When it came out I missed the most limited colour (yellow) as it sold out at pre-order stage. I didn't place an order due to high postage costs, and ended up buying two colours of the LP when I saw the band play live.

Well, I still didn't manage to track down a yellow vinyl copy, but a few weeks ago I got an email telling me that Deathwish Inc. had set up a Cave In online store, so I followed the link and found an orange vinyl copy for sale. So I grabbed one quick.

I'm not entirely sure what the deal is with this one, but I think it is a colour that was pressed for some tour or other. I first noticed it when one popped up on eBay being sold by some flipper who claimed it was a tour press, and who was kindly giving people the chance to own it for the very reasonable buy it now price of $99.99. No way was I paying that much, so I figured that I would probably have to wait about three years to get one at a fair price, so it was nice to have the chance to pick one up for new release price.

Hopefully a yellow will appear in the not too distant future so that I can feel complete.

6 Night Stand

Last year for Record Store Day, Revelation released a new Youth Of Today 7". It wasn't 'new' in the sense of a new recording, more a new release of old recordings. It contains one studio song, 'One Night Stand', which was previously released on the 'Revelation 100' compilation from 2002. On the flipside is a cover of the Sex Pistols song 'Anarchy In The UK' recorded live in Vienna in 1989. There's also a weird spoken word track hidden in a 'secret' second groove on side A, with some babble from Ray Cappo.

Of course, everyone had an opinion on this record when it was announced. Some people were excited, some were outraged by the artwork and the vinyl colour, and others thought that this was a pointless release and a total cash grab. I kinda agreed with all of these views, but being a Rev collector, I wanted it anyway. I mean, things are what they are these days with record collecting. There's no point whining about whether this should have been released or not. You make a choice with your wallet. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Simple. My main concern was simply that I didn't want to have to pay inflated flipper prices, and neither did I want to wait 5 years to get the complete set. Fortunately it all worked out ok in the end...

There were two colours of this 7" available from record stores on RSD. The most common colour was 'magenta' (although I'd argue that this is closer to pink) which seemed pretty easy to find on the day. This was also the colour that seemed to annoy some people for being grossly inappropriate.

As RSD progressed, some people were also finding black vinyl copies, which at the time seemed a bit of a mystery as there hadn't been any announcement made about this colour. It felt that black could have been the most limited colour, as nothing was known about it, so I decided to grab one, even though I would usually leave black vinyl on the shelf.

Now, the story had gotten more interesting a couple of weeks before RSD, as Youth Of Today had played two shows in Brooklyn, and sold a small number of these 7"s each night. As pictures of them started to appear on instagram, it became clear that there were 4 different colours of vinyl made, each one having a different b-side label featuring a different member of the band. A few copies changed hands shortly after these shows for pretty significant amounts of money. People were starting to go crazy wanting to get a complete set. It felt that this was going to be a collection that would take a lot of time and money to complete. But fortunately, a few weeks later in June Revelation put up a few leftovers for sale in their online store, and I grabbed the 4 colours I needed to make a set for a very reasonable price. I'm really glad I did, because prices on discogs show that each of these individually have since sold for more than I paid for the whole set. My philosophy with new releases used to be 'buy now whilst you can or risk paying significantly more later', and whilst I don't buy as many new releases as I used to, clearly this tactic still makes sense.

Anyway, like I said, 4 members and 4 colours. So we get red vinyl for Ray Crappo:

Blue vinyl for John Porkle:

Purple vinyl for Where's Wally:

And yellow vinyl for Samantha Siegler:

Despite the wide ranging opinions on this record, I still think that from a record collector's perspective, this is a great 7". Different labels and vinyl colours for each band member is a great idea and really makes these worth collecting... although I still think it would be more fun if they kept it going and pressed more copies with a different label and vinyl colour for every person who had ever been in the band. That way there would be about another 12 copies to collect. Imagine that!

The pressing info states that there were 1,100 magenta and 880 black. The numbers for the other copies has not been released.

Silence Lies

There are some records that I don't set ot to collect, but over time the collection just happens. Case in point, the Voicebox 7". I owned a blue vinyl copy and a an orange vinyl copy for years and years. I would have been ok with owning just one copy of most records back then, but kept doubles if I had no idea which was first press or rarest. So I kept both. Then in 2008 I picked up a test press for a pretty good price. Then a green vinyl copy followed in 2012, although I wasn't overly happy with it as it was a very pale green that didn't look too dissimilar to the blue copy I already had. Five years later, in 2017, I then picked up another different blue vinyl copy because it was cheap. You see where I'm going with this right?

So last year I got the chance to pick up the color that was 'missing' from my collection, the clear vinyl copy. For some reason this one seems harder to come across than the other colours. At least, that's how it felt to me.

The seller had one of the most insane collections of this record I have ever seen, with a LOT of copies on varying shades. So I decided to also buy another green vinyl copy that looked to be way more green than my copy that I wasn't overly impressed with.

I previously posted a picture of my two blue copies together, and was going to post a new picture of the two green copies together. But then I decided to post all four to show the full colour spectrum of the blues and greens.

So of course, there was only one way I was going to end this post. This final pic shows my entire collection, which I'm now done with. No more blues, greens or any other colour from this point on. I'm done here.

Rejects

Swiz was one of the first hardcore bands I got into, and as such they have always held a special place in my heart. I picked up one copy of each of their records pretty early in my hardcore career, and as the years have rolled on I have picked up additional copies of some of them so that I can continue to experience the joy of owning more Swiz records. I was stoked to pick up an unplayed white vinyl copy of the 'Rejects' 7" way back in 2008, and twelve years later I'm every bit as stoked to add a test press of the same record to my collection.

The 'Rejects' 7" contains two songs that were recorded at the same time as the songs that were released on the band's first record, the 'Down' 7". For whatever reason, they were not included on that 7". But then these additional two songs were released as a 7" in their own right 6 years later on a different label (THD Records) after the band broke up.

There were 3000 copies of this 7" pressed on green vinyl, and only 100 on white vinyl. There were also only 3 test pressings. I know this because I bought this direct from the guy who used to run the label. I guess it was one of those 'right place right time' moments.

It's actually very rare for me to have a 'complete' collection of anything, so I thought I'd celebrate this event with a photo. There's only 3 records, so it was pretty quick to put together.

Death Becomes My Voice

Another year, another Ringworm LP. Or at least, that's how it feels. When I saw this had come out it felt like only a few months before I had picked up the one before. But when I look back at this blog it tells me that the last LP was 2.5 years ago, and the previous one was two years before that, so I guess it feels like these things come out more frequently than they do. Anyway, I'm digressing. The point is that last year there was a new Ringworm LP released entitled 'Death Becomes My Voice'. I've only just gotten around to acquiring and listening to it, and even though it is early days, it's already ranking up there as the best one in quite a while.

As usual, the cover is a pretty nice work of art in it's own right. And, as with the last two records, I held out for a clear vinyl copy. I mention this every time I pick one up, but Relapse have always made 100 clear vinyl copies of each release they put out which are not available to Joe Public. Regarding this LP, the label's webstore states: '100 x Clear (Not available to the public - Friends of band and label only)'. So not just the best looking version, but also the rarest. A double win.

At this point I have to admit that I struggled to fully appreciate the last couple of Ringworm LPs. They are so intensely heavy that I find it difficult to listen to either for more than about 4 songs in a row. As such, I felt that I never fully got into them. But something about this one is clicking with me more. I mean, this record is still undeniably Ringworm, but it generally feels a little less 'metal' and a little more 'hardcore' and thus it's easier on my ears. I doubt I could explain this in such a way that would convince anyone to agree that this isn't a metal record, but the important thing here is that I know what the hell I'm talking about even if nobody else does.

This World Is Too Much

Last year I discovered the debut 7" by Restraining Order (about a year after it came out), so I was excited for their full length, 'This World Is Too Much'. It came out at the end of October last year, and I finally got around to listening to it just before xmas. And now I have myself a vinyl copy.

Straight off the bat I'm impressed because 1) the cover is rad, and 2) the singer is wearing a Double-O shirt.

The white vinyl was exclusive to New Age Records and is limited to 200. There were 3 other colours available from the label that released this record, Triple B, but at this point it's completely sold out, unless you fancy paying $10 for a digital download.

I have to say, I am now kicking myself for not listening to this more last year, as it should definitely have been in my 'best of' list, because fuck me this is good. Why is this so good? Well, I think it's simply that this band has more of a 'punk' element. A lot of Triple B bands are definitely 'hardcore', or 'metal', but Restraining Order are definitely to be found sitting on the 'hardcore punk' shelf. Even though 'hardcore' was always just an abbreviation for 'hardcore punk', it definitely feels like a lot of bands these days have zero punk element to them. But Restraining Order really bring it. The whole record is done in 15 minutes. Only 2 of the 12 songs on this LP clock in at over 2 minutes, and 4 of them run for less than 60 seconds.

I hope I somehow get to see this band play at some point. I bet their live show is a lot of fun.

9

I make no secret of the fact that I'm a huge Saves The Day fan. I've always liked them, and unlike a lot of people I enjoy the new records as much as the older ones (the only real exception is the 'grapefruit' record from 2013). But when another album was released in 2018, I was still interested, despite the previous one having been a let down. The ninth album, titled simply '9', was released at the end of October 2018, although I wasn't really aware of it until January 2019. So at the start of last year I downloaded it, enjoyed it pretty much immediately, and then set out to buy a vinyl copy.

There were about 5 different versions of this record, but in the end I went with the pink vinyl, which is the most limited colour. I do love pink vinyl, but I nearly went with the white vinyl instead as it seemed a more appropriate choice.

I posted a Saves The Day record on instagram last year, and someone commented that this record was 'unlistenable'. I couldn't agree less. This is a great record, and sits well alongside the post 2003 albums 'Sound The Alarm', 'Under The Boards' and 'Daybreak'. This is definitely worth a listen if you like any of those records. And if you don't, what the hell is wrong with you?

SDK x RFTCC

I'm now catching up with some of the records that came out in 2019. I figured I'd start with another Integrity record, which is a split 12" with a band called Bleach Everything. The title of this record is simply 'SDK x RFTCC'. Sounds like a very cryptic title, but in reality it's just an abbreviation for what the record contains.

The Integrity side ('SDK') contains some Septic Death cover songs. In the past, Integrity have released two 7"s containing Septic Death covers - one on Blood Book records in 1995 (later repressed by Victory Records in 1997), and another in 2009. These records were informally referred to as 'Septic Death Karaoke' (SDK) and 'SDK2'. This 12" compiles all 4 songs previously released on those two 7"s, plus one extra.

The Bleach Everything side contains Rocket From The Crypt covers (RFTCC). I was never really into RFTC, although I am familiar with one of the songs on here, which is probably their most well known song, 'On A Rope'.

This record was released on Dark Operative Records and comes on 3 colours of vinyl. I currently only have the clear but will no doubt track down the others at some point.

As usual for an Integrity release, I also picked up a test press from Dwid with a hand drawn sleeve. I like this one a lot. The cover is a close up of part of the cover of the regular cover (above).

But after I had picked up this test press, I also saw pictures of a test press in a different cover which looked really nice. So I ended up picking up one of those too. This cover was made by Dom, is a rip off of a Septic Death record cover, and is numbered out of 10 copies.

I really, really didn't want to get into collecting test press variants, but in this case I totally couldn't help myself. I'm sure you can see why though. I mean, they both look great, right?