Leeds Hardcore

A month or so ago I took a trip up to Yorkshire for a couple of days to see a show and visit an old friend. We took a trip into Leeds on the first day, which is a city that I lived in for 13 years and always loved. I had a lot of great experiences and friends there, and it always attracted a lot of touring bands due to the strong hardcore and punk scene, with roots that stretched back many years. I moved away in 2006 and time has absolutely flown since, and I haven't been to Leeds too many times since I left, but every time I go back I enjoy walking around the so that I can see how the city has changed and reminisce about the years I spent living there.

I also know that there is a good record store there, as I visited it once a few years ago when I went to some show or other. Noiseisforheroes (seems to be written as one word) is a relatively small shop located in the centre of Leeds, a couple of minutes walk from the Town Hall on a street that for years I would walk down at least twice a day to go to university or work when I was young and poor. The shop has a good selection of used records, and the owner has a history in the hardcore punk scene, and its one of a very small handful of shops in the UK you can buy used hardcore records.

I spent a while flicking through most stuff in there and there were a few things I wanted, but in the end I just ended up buying things that I had a vague interest in due to them having a low price. These three were each £10 or less, which seems pretty good seeing as a new 7" is £10 these days, and most new LPs in the other record shops in the city were £25-30 each.

The first record I decided to buy was the Ecostrike 'A Truth We Still Believe' LP on Triple B Records. As a general rule I avoid anything on Triple B these days as the records and cover art are so ugly that I can't bare to look at them. But this clear orange vinyl copy of this record doesn't look overly offensive, and it was super cheap.

Triple B's pressing policy seems to be to make the uglier, splatter colours the rare copies, with the less offensive colours being the more common versions. This orange is the most common colour of the first pressing, out of 500 copies.

This record sounds like a forgotten Strife LP that recorded after 'One Truth'. It's good, although probably not so good that it will be on my playlist for years to come.

Next up I grabbed the second full length by End Of A Year, 'You Are Beneath Me' LP. This was released by Deathwish in 2010, and was the last record this band put out before changing their name to Self Defense Family. I bought this as I picked up another record of theirs last year and really enjoyed it.

The magenta vinyl was the most common colour of the first pressing, being out of 1000 copies. But for the price, I'm ok with that.

This is a really good album. It starts with a spoken word on how to best enjoy this record, which I really like. 'Grow your hair out' and 'Don't get married' are boxes that I have managed to tick, and as such I do enjoy the record.

And finally, I decided to pick up this white vinyl copy of the Some Kind Of Hate 'Undisputed' LP. This is from an era where Bridge Nine would press two colours of vinyl for most releases, with the more limited colour being out of 300 copies, and the more common colour being out of 700 copies.

I really liked this record when it first came out, but I'm not really sure that too many other people did at the time, and I'm sure even fewer people remember it or care about it in 2024. I still enojy it now and again, although there is definitely a slight nostalgia element in it, as I really enjoyed this era in hardcore. A time when things still seemed exciting.

Overall I kinda realised after I bought these that I mainly bought them because they were cheap. I probably wouldn't have bought any of these if they were for sale online and I had to pay postage (which would have made them more expensive). I guess this confirms two things. Firstly, that record shops are cool facilities and help encourage people to buy stuff 'in the moment' that they otherwise might not have bought. And secondly, that buying stuff is a kind of hobby in itself. A trip to a shop and buiyng something is a kind of passtime, and in a way shows that I just enjoy buying records as an activity in itself. So probably a good job that there aren't any record shops anywhere near where I live.