Monday 26 June 2023

Coffee Retentive

Another couple of records that I ended up keeping from my friend's collection, both of which are compilations released by Very Small Records in the earli 90s.

The first is a fun little 7" from 1990 titled 'If You Can See Through It... It Ain't Coffee'. I've no idea why it is called this, but it seemed that back in the late 80s and early 90s there was a shit tonne of pop punk compilations with stupid names (e.g. 'The Thing That Ate Floyd', 'Can Of Pork') so it's probably not worth podering too much.

This comp features three bands that were pretty well known (Fuel, Monsula, & Filth) and one other band that I'd never heard of before (Thumper). It looks like a few of the early Very Small releases, with a brown cover and art that someone drew by hand. As comps go, this is pretty cool, and I imagine back in the day would have been a nice introduction for people for a couple of these bands.

The second compilation is a double LP titled 'Vinyl Retentive'. Again, it feels that in the early 90s the double LP compilation of pop punk (and mainly bay area bands) was a pretty common thing. I guess it was just a good way for lots of new bands to get some material out there, and probably was a good way for people to check out new bands at an affordable price (obviously when records were cheaper than today).

There's a whopping 33 bands on this thing. It has some semi well known bands (Voodoo Glowskulls, Pinhead Gunpowder, Econochrist), some bands I have heard on other, similar comps (Pounded Clown, Logical Nonsense, Horny Mormons) and then there's a whole bunch of bands that I've never heard of, such as the brilliantly named Captain 9s And The Knickerbocker Trio.

This one totally takes me back to 1993/94 when I would spend whole days with my friends sat around listening to records desperately trying to find cool new bands to listen to. Fun times.

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