February 3, 1998

Installment 8 of my recent haul from a friend who has decided to sell his collection.

I generally have always been a bit of a loner and, especially where music is concerned, never really had many friends into the same stuff when I was new to hardcore. So a lot of the reason I was buying records was because I had nobody to borrow stuff from to check out. This also meant that I spent a lot of time and effort reading about bands, and a lot of stuff I would buy because it was on a certain label. I was constantly exploring and wanting to listen to new stuff. But of course this meant that a lot of the time I was just buying stuff with no context and no preconceptions, and being based in the UK I certainly had no idea about which bands were part of which scenes or whatever. To me a lot of the stuff I liked was just a record that I liked and nothing else mattered. Of course, as the internet has grown, it has become possible to know everything about every band ever, but now and again I am reminded about how little I know about some bands.

I have owned the next record for probably 22 years, but I know absolutely nothing about the band whatsoever. All I know is that the band was called Sons Of Abraham and the record is titled 'Termites In His Smile'. This was one of those records that I picked up purely because it was on Exit Records (which was a kind of sister label of Wreck-age Records), but immediately I was into it. I mean, the drums on the first song are phenominal.

I have owned a blueish greenish vinyl copy of this one since it came out, but decided to buy another one just because it looked slightly different. Mine is pretty solid and has white swirls in it, whereas this copy is a 'pure' clear version of the blueish greenish colour.

I was also lucky enough to pick up a test press of this record too. It comes in a plain white sleeve, and has the standard RTI label.

It also includes a piece of paper from the plant which seems to be called a 'test evaluation'. The idea is that the recipient of this test would fill out the form and return it (by fax or mail - email was not an option!) to the plant and state whether you approved or rejected the test.

I am assuming that the label would have received these evaluation forms with every single record, but would have only needed to return one to the plant. I say that because obviously this one wasn't returned, but somehow the record still got pressed.

When taking these photos I also dug out my other copy to take a group shot:

I just did a quick google of this band and found a really short wikipedia article. It's short but interesting. Here it is in its entirety:

Sons of Abraham were a five piece jewish straight edge metalcore band from Long Island, New York. They released one demo, a split EP with Indecision, and CD/LP titled Termites In His Smile. They disbanded in 1998, as guitarists Justin Beck and Todd Weinstock decided to concentrate on their other band, Glassjaw with friend Daryl Palumbo.

It's kinda funny how these three sentences are way more than I have ever known about this band before and it has taken me 22 years to find out even this much.

Moving on, and I also picked up another test which comes with a test evaluation form from RTI that was pressed on the same day:

This is a test press for the Milhouse LP 'Obscenity In The Milk', which was released by Wreck-age records. I wonder how the label owners decided whether to put a band on Wreck-age or Exit? I don't think the two labels were actually too dissimilar. I mean, its not like one label was hardcore and the other was emo or something. So seems slightly odd to have two labels both putting out mainly NYHC bands. Anyway, this was the last Milhouse recording after a couple of 7" releases and, for me at least, their finest moment. This was another record I listened to a lot at the back end of the 90s, but I have largely forgotten in the years that followed. But I am glad to have rediscovered this again recently after picking up this test press. A real 90s gem.

I also dug out my white vinyl copy to make a more complete photo.

By the way, the title of this post is the date that these tests were pressed (or that the evaluation forms were completed), but it also happens to have been my 23rd birthday. I have no idea what I was doing on that day, and have no way of finding out, but it's kinda cool to think that thousands of miles away these records were being manaufacured and would then embark on a 22 year voyage to my collection.