I'm With Stu

Earlier this year it was announced that one of Bane's later era bass players, Brendan 'Stu' Mcguire, had been diagnosed with cancer. I saw Bane quite a lot of times over the years, and got to know most of them, although I never really got to know Stu. Before Bane, he played in another Boston band from the 90s/00s that I was into - Reach The Sky. After joining Bane, he played on the Dublin / Rome / Boston / Los Angeles series of 7"s & CDs that came out in 2009 (which I always seem to forget exist), so it seemed fitting that one of the labels that released a couple of those 7"s put together a limited version of one to help raise some money for his cause. Hurry Up Records had a box of the 'Dublin, 11:58 PM' 7"s left over, so they made up a different cover for them and sold them online to raise some cash and they sold out within a couple of hours.

Given there were two different versions available, I had to buy both in order to keep my Bane collection as complete as possible. I figured that the limited sleeve would just be a piece of paper made on a photocopier, but when it arrived I was pleasantly surprised as it was a printed and glued card sleeve of the highest quality. There were two different colours of vinyl, both leftovers from the 2nd press.

The red vinyl is slightly rarer than the other colour, being numbered out of 52 copies:

The green / black split vinyl is numbered out of 57:

Overall, this is exactly what it is - a good way to use up some leftover records and contribute to a good cause at the same time. It also served as a good reminder that these 7"s exist, which made me listen to them again for the first time in a long while. I seem to remember thinking at the time that they weren't that good, but listening again all these years later and clearly I was wrong. There are some great songs here, so it has been cool to rediscover them.