Goodbye 2024

I probably say this every year, but 2024 felt like the quickest year of my life. It feels like it was only a few weeks ago that it was starting, and now here we are already at the end. Crazy.

It feels like I spent a lot of time this year working. And whilst it is certainly true that I worked a lot of hours this year, I also did some other fun stuff. In Feb I went to Bristol, which is a great UK city I had never been to before, then in April we popped over to the States for 5 days to pick up records and visit a couple of awesome people and a couple of new states. In July we had a couple of weeks in the sun in the South of France, and then at the back end of the year we nipped over to Berlin (Germany) for a few days in October, then Lisbon (Portugal) for a long weekend in November. To end the year we popped back over to the States for a couple of weeks in December, taking in Nashville, Florida and Boston. All were enjoyable in different ways, and after years of having a phobia of flying I am now at a point where I am regularly thinking 'when can I next go on a plane?'.

I also continued to do 100 push ups a day for the entirety of 2024. This means that I have done at least 36,500 push ups in 2024. I had to stop for four days back in early April as I had back pain, but I made sure to catch up the deficit by doing 500 in one day once I felt better. I'm not sure anyone really cares about this, but I'm proud of keeping this going for so long.

In terms of music, I'm still not using any streaming services but continuing to download files as my primary means of playing songs. iTunes tells me that I added 127 'albums' (some of which are actually just 7"s) in 2024, which averages one every 2.8 days, which is nuts. I have bought and listened to a lot of music this year, so there is a lot for me to dissect with this post.

Even though I didn't actually buy too many records this year, I welcomed a lot of records into my house, mainly because I received the majority of records I bought in 2023 this year (yeah, don't ask). I came back from the States in April with over 200 records, and went into blogging overdrive. 2024 marked the 17th year of my doing this blog, and somehow it became the year with the most posts I have ever made. And yet I stil have a backlog, mainly as I picked up a few things earlier this month in the States that I haven't had time to get to yet. As I have said before, there is simply too much music and not enough time...

MY FAVOURITE 2024 RELEASES

When I came to write this post, I thought that I had only picked up a couple of new releases this year. Turns out there were a few more than a couple, and I had enough to make a list and take a nice photo:

I haven't tried to limit this to a 'top 10' or put these into any kind of order. I just picked my favourites. From the top left (and moving to the right), are the following:

Eyeteeth / Burial Rot Split LP - beautiful packing for an ugly as hell record from these two evil UK bands.
Fast Blood 'Sunny Blunts' LP - great UK poppy punk record with a great female vocal. Top 3 this year if I was ranking them.
Planet On A Chain 'Culture Of Death' LP - a great hardcore record with a fun cover.
Spaced 'This Is All We Ever Get' - possibly my favourite 'hardcore' record this year, the second song is so good!
No Plan 'Lotsa Potential' LP - Eva from Power Alone's pop punk band, this is a great sound.
J Mascis 'What Do We Do Now?' LP - a great new solo LP from the Dinosaur Jr frontman with the usual cute cover art.
Major Pain 'Intent' LP - great debut LP from this young Orange County hardcore band.
Jade Dust 'Grey Skies' 12" - the best current DC hardcore band... even thoguht they are from Oregon.
Chat Pile 'Cool World' LP - a great LP cover and a very dark and strange sounding record. Difficult to pigeonhole, but brilliant.
Stand Still 'Steps Ascending' LP - thanks to Nico for drawing this to my attention. A great Long Island band reminiscent of Capital, Movielife and even Saves The Day.
Karate 'Make It Fit' LP - I haven't listened to this band for a while, but Ralf and Mike put them back on my radar and I am grateful they did. I love this new LP so much.
High Vis 'Guided Tour' LP - this one was definitely a bit of a disappointment after the last one, but I have still ended up playing it every day since I got it, and I feel it still has a lot of play left it it.

SUB POP 7" MANIA

At the end of last year I did as I always do and posted a pic of my favourite pickups of the year, and a friend sent me a message to say that he was particularly impressed by the Nirvana 'Sliver' 7"s I had bought, and that this drove him to decide to pick up more old Sub Pop 7"s in 2024. After a couple of weeks I asked him how it was going, and then I also decided that this would also be a fun activity for me to get involved in too. There were a few Sub Pop 7"s that I have always wanted and never really got around to picking up, so I figured I'd prioritise them in 2024. Before I knew it, I had bought about 30 Sub Pop 7"s. Unlike a lot of records I collect, it turns out that majority of the early Sub Pop 7"s are really cheap these days, and readily available in the UK. Sub Pop 7"s then became a mini obsession, and I spent a lot of time researching the old Sub Pop catalogue (thanks to John Pette's discography), and scouring discogs and eBay. In the end I picked up 64 Sub Pop 7"s in the year, which forms a nice 8x8 square (although I had to overlap them slightly to get them in a photo):

A lot of these records I had never heard of before, and some I had seen a lot of the years but ignored. But actually buying these things was a great way for me to hear some new music or get reacquainted with older bands from the distant past. My favourites were 7"s by Dickless, The Reverend Horton Heat, Gas Huffer, Sister Double Happiness, Rein Sanction, Hole, Creep and Codeine. All really great bands that I'm so glad I gave a chance to, albeit 25-30 years too late, and all of which I have already (or will) explore further.

There are still a few more Sub Pop 7"s that I didn't manage to find, and then there are also a bunch of early Sub Pop LPs that I also decided I would like, so this mission will run on into 2025 for sure. Watch this space.

MY FAVOURITE PICKUPS

In terms of rarities, I don't really feel that I picked up many big hitters in 2024. But I definitely managed to find some nice items, a few of which had been on my want list for many years. Here's a photo of my favourites:

Starting at the top left are:

Annihilation Time 1st LP Test presses - 2 are pictured, but I actually bought 3 different tests of the same record. Love this record and these tests all look really nice.
Understand Test Press - a really important record for me personally, I was stoked to be able to grab a test press from the label.
Gas Huffer LPs and Test Press - I forgot how much fun this band is, and picked up two albums I had never heard before, then found a test press of one.
Quicksand 'Slip' test press - ok, so this is a test press of some 2012 repress, but it'sstill a nice one to have.
Uniform Choice 'Screaming For Change' LP 1st press - this one had been on the want list for many years, and I finally found one with a poster and sticker.
Mouthpiece discography LP with Natefest sleeve - this was the last version of this record I was missing for a complete collection.
Lights Out 'Overload' LP Test press - a great test press of a great LP, I really like the special cover on this one.
Soundgarden 'Superunknown' LP clear vinyl - my favourite record of the year, and I was very happy to find an affordable vinyl copy.
Disembodied 10" on Purple - I think this had been on my want list since it came out, so it was good to finally find one all these years later.
Swiz 'With Dave' 7" Test press - this is the 3rd Swiz 7" test press in my collection, I felt very lucky indeed to find this.
Blood For Blood / Hudson Falcons Split 7" on clear vinyl - another one that had been on my want list since the late 90s, I was very happy to finally get this and see that it does actually exist.
Bad Religion 'Atomic Garden' 7" on orange vinyl - this one is stupidly rare. I'm not really a Bad Religion collector, but I've wanted this for a few years after missing one about 5 years ago.

We Are The End

I think the format of this post is slightly flawed, as I spent a lot of time listening to Olivia Rodrigo this year, yet somehow didn't find a way to get her in any of the above categories. Oh well...

As ever, thanks to those who carry on reading this guff, and hopefully 2025 will be a good one for us all...