Familiar, Forgotten

A couple of months ago I got a friendly message from someone on instagram letting me know that there was a Walleye 'Familiar, Forgotten' LP test press for sale on discogs. I was pretty stoked, firstly because I love the record, but second because it wasn't too long ago I had added the regular version of the LP to my want list in the hope of finding a test, because there was no listing for a test press in the database. So I bought it pretty much immediately. What made this deal even better was that the seller was in the UK, so the record came pretty quickly.

I had never seen one of these before, so don't know if they all look the same, but this copy has a press sheet stapled to the paper sleeve that the record comes in. What I like about this is that it clearly shows the date of release of this record - September 8 1995. Almost 25 years ago. Wow.

I think every other Jade Tree Records test press that I have ever seen has had the same style label as this one. An off white label on the record, with the catalog number, artist and title added via a small, white rectangular sticker.

I mentioned this before somewhere, but I never actually bought this record when it came out. Back then I wasn't really interested in Walleye. I had the split 7" with Damnation a.d. but the Walleye side never really grabbed my attention, so I didn't bother with the LP. But all of a sudden I had the test press and it felt that I needed the regular version of the LP to go with it. And fortunately this is one that seems pretty easy to pick up for cheap on discogs these days, probably partly because there was no limited edition pressing.

I don't know why exactly, but I absolutely love finding old records that I either missed or didn't appreciate at the time, although there's also a feeling of wasted time and opportunities missed.