Sit On My Face

Earlier this year I picked up a cheap Dwarves 7" and wrote here '...this seems to be one of the band's least expensive records to buy, and there are a few different colours out there, so I feel a strong tempation to pick up more'. And here we are seven months later and I grabbed another one, this time on red vinyl.

It's interesting to consider at what point you're collecting a record. A few months ago I just happened to have two copies of this thing. And now I have three, and would definitely like ot pick up more. But I'm not sure at what point I decided that this was a 7" that I wanted to collect. Was it at the point I bought a second copy, or the third? I'm not actually sure. But what I do know is that there are 3 other colours out there that I need to now track down - purple, blue and white. I'm not sure how easy they are to find, but I think it could take a while.

Agression

Once again I found myself sucked into buying a record on It's Alive Records because the pacckaging looked top notch. The record is titled 'SSL' and it is by a band called Agression. I will admit that I picked this up just based on the label that released it and the front cover. I didn't really know or research anything about the band.

I'm not even sure what this record is to be honest. I say that because it's not a studio album. It's some kind of compilation. The label doesn't seem to have any kind of website or online store, so there's no 'official' description of what this is. DIscogs simply says 'Demo/Live/Studio Recordings'. Still, whatever it is, it comes on a 'hot' pink vinyl with a hand written b-side label. It looks good.

The paper inner sleeve is printed and numbered out of 300 copies.

As usual with most It's Alive releases, there are plenty of extras packed in here in the form of posters, flyers, stickers, etc. A really impressive package.

It turns out that I have probably been living in a vacuum for most of my life having not heard of Agression before. They were a band for many years and started very early, and are considered one of the earliest 'skate rock' bands. They play kinda 'classic' sounding west coast early 80s punk. Their debut LP was released by BYO back in 1983 and a 6th album was released in 2006. A couple of the early LPs have pretty iconic front covers too. So I'm looking at this record as a gateway to finding out more about this band.

Lost My Ways

So I mentioned in my last post about keeping my Supertouch collection complete, which brings me seemlessly to my next post... a Supertouch 7".

The 'Lost My Way' 7" was released ten years ago now, in 2011. WHen it came out I picked up both colour vinyl options that were available (blue and green). And then at some point not too long after, they sold two black vinyl copies in different limited covers, each out of 50 copies and only sold with some kind of shirt that made them really expensive. So I didn't buy either, and then spent the next decade trying to track them down. They limited covers were related to a couple of sites that were quite popular at the time. The first was the 'Double Cross' version, and the second the Vinly Noize version. The Double Cross version I managed to pick up in 2013, but the Vinly Noize one has taken quite a few years to land... which is slightly ironic given that I actually ended up writing for Vinyl Noize for a while.

As the picture shows, this one has a cover that is unique to this version, and it comes in a brown paper dust sleeve which is hand numbered out of 50. It's also numbered in the bottom left corner of the back cover.

This was the last version that I needed to complete my collection. So of course, this meant that I was legally obliged to get all of them out for a photo. Given I have 7 different versions, I wasn't sure of the best way to lay them out, but it kinda worked out ok.

Shown in the photo are:
Test press /15, Blue vinyl /208
Green vinyl /803, United Blood 2011 Stamp /20, Generation Records RSD 2012 cover /70
Double Cross cover /50, Vinyl Noize cover /50

I think that technically there is one that I don't have, which is a black vinyl in regular cover. But I'm not going to buy one of those. Of the 7 copies I have, 5 of them are on black, which is way more black than anyone needs in their life. Plus, one version is just a black vinyl in regular cover with a stamp on the front, so it's practically the same thing.

Consolation Prize Test

The great thing about hardcore is how many bands come and go and leave like one great record. We all have those records that we love and that they know most other people either haven't heard, have forgotten about, or just aren't interested in, and we all spend time now and again trying to persuade other people to give these records a chance. Pretty much every record that exists seems to be someone's favourite for one reason or another, so I just find it fascinating that something can be loved by one person and flicked past in a $2 used bin by someone else.

I picked up a 7" on Lockin' Out about three years ago by a band called Consolation Prize. I know nothing about the band whatsoever. I mainly just bought it because it was on colour vinyl on Lockin' Out Records, but it turned out to be a great find. The band sounds so much like Supertouch from 'The Earth Is Flat' that it's impossible for me to think anything other than this was completely intentional, but that's fine by me. This could easily pass as an unreleased Supertouch record, or songs that were cut from the LP due to length restrictions.

Anyway, I managed to grab a test press for this record, because you know how it is - I gotta keep my Supertouch collection complete.

A colour vinyl test press is always a nice thing to find. It's just a shame that there isn't a sleeve for it to sit in. I think United started issuing tests on colour for records that were going to be pressed on colour. I assume it was a way of testing not only that the record sounded correct, but also that the colour was what the customer wanted too.

Living With 2 God Complexes

Back in 2015 I picked up an orange vinyl copy of the Harvest 'Living With A God Complex' LP. I'd wanted one ever since the record was released back was 1997, and I really don't know why it took so long to find one, but hey, that's how the game plays out sometimes I guess. Anyway, I also hoped that one day I would also track down one of the more limited grey vinyl copies, and finally that day has arrived.

They grey vinyl is actually what the plants used to call 'scrap', being made up of lots of leftover colours that all got blended together. There are traces of other colours in there. It looks pretty rad.

Just in case you were wondering where the title of this post came from, here you are:

There are two other releases that I own released by the same label (Trustkill) that came on grey vinyl with hand numbered labels. One is a Harvest 7", the other is an Endeavor LP. I thought it would be fun to dig them out for a group photo. If nothing else, it shows how the grey for this LP isn't really grey like the others.

There is one more Harvest 7" on Trustkill that comes on grey vinyl with a hand numbered label. Given the amount of time that it has taken to get the LP, I'm probably scheduled to track it down in about 2038.

Tides Of Tomorrow

It's been a while since I added anything to my Cave In test press collection, so I'm stoked on this one. This is a test press for the 'Tides Of Tomorrow' EP. However, specifically, this is a test press for the picture disc version. I already have a test press for the regular version of the record, but at some point I found out that there was also a different test press for the picture disc. Just like the other test press for this record, it comes in a white paper sleeve with a Cave In sticker on and it's hand numbered out of 23 copies.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that this was a white vinyl record with no labels. The main thing that shows that this is a faux picture disc is the black rim around the outside edge. Admittedly, without labels, this isn't the most visually interesting record in my collection. But it was necessary to fill in a missing hole in the Cave In test press collection.

I'm not a fan of picture discs generally. In fact, I'm not aware of anyone who is. But I decided to take a photo of this against the 'regular' picture disc that I own of this one, and I think the photo is really cool.

I also decided to take a photo of the two different picture discs next to each other. Regular test press with Erika labels numer 1/23, and the picture disc test number 3/23. Pretty cool that there were 23 of each version.

Land Of The Free

A few years ago I thought it would be fun to try to collect multiple copies of the first Snapcase 7". I had two copies for years, then picked up another about three years ago. This copy I have just picked up is my 4th copy. I'm pretty sure that this latest version is a second pressing. You can tell because the sleeve is glossy and the lettering is in a pinkish colour.

I actually owned this version before many years ago. I bought it in 1996, but either sold or traded it away a couple of years later. Seems kinda weird to be reacquiring a record I used to own over 20 years after letting it go.

When I decided to make an effort to collect these it was partly because there are quite a few different colours and I thought it would be fun. But admittedly, it's been slow progress. They don't actually seem to come up for sale very often. But also, there are a few colours of this that are ridiculously rare and hard to find, which means I'm probably not going to get very far with this one. So maybe I've reached the end of the line with this one already.

The Most

Ten years ago, in 2011, Revelation made some screen printed covers for some left over copies of the Down To Nothing 'The Most' LP. It was only announced on Twitter (which is in my mind THE most pointless of all social media things), and there were only 33 copies made. Unsurprisingly, it sold out in minutes. I knew it was going to be tough to find, but I never really thought it would take a decade. Damn.

In reality, it 'only' took me 6 years to find this. A friend sold it to me 4 years ago, but for various reasons I have only just received it now, 4 years later. I am a patient boy... I wait, I wait, I wait.

Even though there were only 33 copies, there were two slight variations of this one. Numbers 1-13 were on colour vinyl (orange / purple split), and numbers 14-33 were on black. I'm actually happy to have a black one as I don't have any other version of this one on black. At least, I don't think I do.