Trading My Life

The third and final in my series of Liars Academy 12"s, and this one is somewhat of a 'frankenstein' record,being made up of two different releases joined together.

'Trading My Life' was a four song CD EP originally released by Equal Vision in 2002. I actualy bought this CD when it came out. Seems kinda weird to think that I actually paid money for CDs back then. What a fool.

The flipside of this record is the band's original five song demo from the year 2000. I'd never heard these songs before as I've never really been a demo kinda guy.

As with the other Liars Academy records, there are a few different colours of this one. This one is the 'peach yellow swirl' out of 100 copies. I was tempted by the 'coke clear' version as it seemed to match the front cover much better, but it was slightly more common being out of 150 copies, so in the end I picked based on scarcity.

As witht he other two LPs, I also managed to get a test press of this record direct from the label whcih was in the same style numbered and signed sleeve.

It's nice to have the set of all three tests, especially given that they come in matching covers. But I also realised that I also own test presses of both other Liars Academy test pressings. So I actually have a complete set of all Liars Academy test pressings, which is kinda cool. Not that any of you have ever heard them.

Demons

Following on from yesterday's post about the third Liars Academy LP, today I'm posting their second LP which I bought at the same time. This record, 'Demons', was originally released in 2004 by Equal Vision as a CD only release. Back then a lot of the bigger, more established labels seemed to think that vinyl was dead and opted for CD as the only format for new releases, so there are still a bunch of records from that era by bands that I like that I have never heard. This was one of them.

This record has been put to vinyl by a label called Steadfast Records, on a few different colours of vinyl. This one is 'clear with black smoke' and is out of 100 copies.

I was also able to grab a test press from the label which, like the test press for 'Ghosts', comes in a hand numbered sleeve signed by the band. Number 11 of 20.

For a fan of this band, this is another good record with some top singalong moments. And even though this is by definition more 'classic' Liars Academy, I think I actually prefer the newer / reunion record as it is a bit more 'rock' than this one. But still, I'm happy that this has finally come out on vinyl, else I may never have heard it.

Ghosts

Another of my favourite releases from last year for which I have just picked up the vinyl is the third full length album by Baltimore band Liars Academy, titled 'Ghosts'. I have been listenind to this band since their first album dropped on Equal Vision Records back in 2001, and prior to this it had been nineteen years since they last released anything. So I was intrigued to check this out when it came out at the beginning of last year.

This was put out by a label I was not previously familiar with, Steadfast Records, and they have also reissued a couple of other Liars Academy records on vinyl for the first time (more on those later). There were 150 copies of this one on clear blue vinyl, which I think goes quite nicely with the cover art.

I was also stoked to be able to pick up a test press from the label's store. It comes in a numbered sleeve and is signed by the band members.

Discogs categorises this band as indie rock / post hardcore, which is vaguely accurate. I originally gave them a chance because a couple of the dudes in the band used to be in a band called Cross My Heart who I used to love in years gone by, but I imagine that probably isn't a useful reference point to most people reading this. Anyway, the point is that Liars Academy play music that is melodic and you can sing along to, and this is a really good record. Unfortnately, however, just like the Drain LP from last year, this record also features a pointless and irritating cover song which is included as the second to last song. It's a cover of 'Changes' by Black Sabbath, which is a song I feel that I could happily never hear again in my whole life (and yes, that includes the Sabbath version). So I have to skip this sone every time I listen to this re ord, which midly irritates me. Being a bit more positive for a second though, the song 'Without a Warning' is probably the best song I heard last year, which more than makes up for the cover song issue.

Glowing Spazz

Back in 2016 there was a new Descendents album released, and at the time it seemed like a big deal. 'Hypercaffium Spazzinate' was the first studio album that they had released in 12 years, and I was keen to try to collect every version of it. I initially picked up 5 copies and then a year later got another two copies. At the end of that post, which is nearly 7 years old, I wrote this:

I'm still missing the glow in the dark vinyl copy of this record, which is annoying as hell. But at 7 copies already, I'm not losing sleep over it. It'll come one day.

Well, that 'one day' has finally arrived, and I have picked up a glow in the dark copy.

According to the info on discogs, this is one of the three most limited colours, being out of 500 copies. I tried to get a photo of it actually glowing in the dark, and this was the best that I could do:

So one thing that is interesting abotu this is that, little did I realise it at the time, but back when this LP came out in 2016, things in the record collecting world were changing. With hindsight, this was one of the first records to have lots of different colours of vinyl, with each one being available from a different vendor, meaning that anyone who was stupid enough to try to collect all copies would have to place multiple orders and pay multiple postage costs. In recent years I have decided that this practice is shitty, and I refuse the collect records that are sold in this way. So, in accordance with my current policy, I am going to keep this copy and sell all of my other copies.

If anyone wants to buy any one of the other 7 copies that I have, get in touch.

Last Rights

A few months ago I came across a red vinyl repress of the Last Rights 7" on eBay. The seller had multiple copies for sale. The Taang! webstore didn't seem to mention anything about a red vinyl press. I was concerned that this was like the green vinyl Negative Approach 7" and it had sold out super fast and would then only be available for 3 times as much. So I just bought it.

I've wanted a Last Rights 7" for years and never quite got around to it. At this point I'm not confident I'll ever get one. So a cheap colour vinyl reissue is absolutely fine for now.

Interestingly, there is a discogs entry for this which says that there are 200 copies. The listing was set up by Taang! Records ten months ago, so the info must be legit. But it just seems odd that I haven't seen a single person post a picture of this record. Somehow it has flown completely under the radar. Only 4 people in the discogs world have it, one of which is me and another is Mike. Only ten people want it, and no copies have sold on there. A very strange situation indeed. Is it that nobody cares at all? Or does nobody know this even exists?

Purple Approach

When I picked up a green vinyl copy of the Nagative Approach 7" a little over year or so ago, I said '...if they repress it again I will be right at the front of the queue'. This was beacuse I had initially decided that I didn't need a green vinyl repress in my life when it went up for order, but then when I saw everyone posting pictures I regretted it, and had to chasea copy on discogs for three times the price. So when I saw a purple vinyl copy go up for sale recently, I wasn't going to make the same mistake.

I love attention to detail, so I like that they changed the colour of the ink on the labels to match the vinyl.

Apparently there are 1,000 copies of this colour, which is the same as the green vinyl. But interestingly, there doesn't seem to have been anywhere near the same level of interest in this version. It's still readily available and the price on disocgs is roughly half of the price of the green version.I guess people prefer green to purple. Prince would certainly not be impressed.

Go To Hell

Here's another of my favourite 2023 releases that I have only just got the vinyl for, this isa 12" by Mean Season titled 'Go To Hell'. I absolutely loved their LP 'Grace' that was released way back in 1994. I always held that as one of my favourite 90s releases. So when I heard that they had some new music coming out last year, to say that I was excited was a bit of an understatement.

This came out on Indecision Records about a year ago with little fanfare. There were 500 copies pressed, all on silver vinyl. I was kinda expecting that the world would have gone nuts for a new Mean Season record, but I've seen pretty much nothing about this record posted online, so it feels that it went largely unnoticed.

As excited as I was for this one, it felt like a bit of an anti claimax. Or possibly a missed opportunity. At first glance this appears to contain eight songs. However, the first is a 40 second atmospheric noise intro, and the final three are covers. So when you exclude those, what is left is just four new songs.

The four new songs that we do get are really good. They sound pretty much exactly the same as Mean Season used to sound thirty years ago, which is exactly what I wanted. There's also a song that features dual vocals with Eva from Power Alone which sounds fantastic. So whilst the new songs are really, really good, I just wish they'd recorded a couple more.

Living Proof

I was trying to decide what to post about today, and I saw on instgram that it was a year ago today that the secod Drain LP came out, so that made the decision for me.

Drain came into my life when Revelation released their debut LP 'California Cursed' in 2020. I really liked that record and it ended up being my most played record of 2020, and the one I went have gone back to the most. So even though they moved on to a new label, I was interested in hearing their new record. It came out on Epitaph and there were different colours of vinyl pressed for both Europe and the US, but as is often the case, the European versions looked like shit. So I made the decision to buy a US copy and wait a while.

This colour is a nice clear blue colour, which I think seems like the most suitable given the cover art.

I did enjoy this record a lot last year even though I didn't have the vinyl. But in my view it doesn't touch 'California Cursed'. Overall it just doesn't quite flow as well. Firstly there is a hip hop track which is titled 'intermission' and which just seems to slow things down a bit. And then after two more songs there's a Descendents cover ('Good Good Things') which I don't like at all. I saw them play live last year and everyone seemed to love this cover, but it just feels out of place to me. The singer tries to sing it in a different style and it does not sound right to me. WHat makes it super annoying is that this cover ends and then there is one more song. It would have made far more sense to put the cover at the end, not one song before the end. It just plain irritates me having to press 'skip' every time I listen to it.

Orange Garden

I am a long way from being the world's biggest Bad Religion fan. I was really into them back in 1992/93 ish, but I lost interest after 'Recipe For Hate'. I bought the album after that, 'Stranger Than Fiction' in 1994, but was so disappointed in it that I sold it and never gave them another chance after that. So that's pretty much my Bad Religion history in a nutshell.

Well, back in 2019 I was searching on eBay and I found an orange vinyl copy of the 'Atomic Garden' 7" for sale. At the time I had never seen it before. The 7" was released in 1991 as a one sided 7" containing only one song ('Atomic Garden') with an etched b-side. It was essentially a promo single for the 'Generator' LP that came out in 1992. Anyway, even though I'm not a huge Bad Religion fan, I kinda wanted the 7" as it just looked kinda cool... even though the record itself is pretty much pointless.

Well, I thought about that 7" for a day or two, and then when I went back it had sold. I was bummed. So I made a mental note to keep my eyes open for another one. And five years later, I managed to find one.

As with a lot of records from the early 90s, pressing info isn't available. But whatever the numbers, this is pretty damn rare. I think I read somwhere that there are only about 50 of these, although I can't find that now. To give that number context, there must be probably 5,000 - 10,000 black vinyl copies of this record out there. This means that one in every 100-200 copies are orange. As I said, a pretty pointless record, but a pretty cool one to own for sure.

Say Less

Another recentish new Revelation release, 'Say Less' is the debut release from Calling Hours, a band that features Farside vocalist Michael Vogelsang, aka Popeye. The band is basically made up of the band Don't Sleep with Popeye on vocals instead of Dave Smalley. They formed in 2021 and clearly didn't need to bother with a demo as Rev were straight there with an offer.

The record is like a lot of records these days, being a 12" which isn't quite long enough to warrant being called an album, but is also a little bit too long to be just an EP. There are 7 songs on here that clock in at 23 minutes, which is longer than the average full length hardcore record. This particular colour is the retail store exclusive colour which is pretty damn limited for a modern Rev release, as there are only 128 copies.

I actually went to see this band play a few months ago. They were supporting As Friends Rust on their european tour, and I made a rare effort to travel into London to see them play. This record wasn't out so it was one of those situations where the show just wasn't too much fun as I was hearing every song for the first time. At the time, the highlight was two Farside songs that were saved to the end of the set. But after listening to these songs a fair bit over the last few months, I wish I could see them play again. The songs are really strong and I have been loving this record. I had it in my top releases from last year that I didn't have the vinyl for at the time.

Obviously I was stupid enough to pick up every version, although in this case there are only three copies (at the moment at least).

Blue with white splatter is out of 200 and is the Rev exclusive, and there are also 600 on grey. And best of all, this thing weas clearly pressed in the States as the records both look and feel really good. So a double win here.