Steelworker Records

Following on from my last post which was about my trip to Third Man Records in Nashville, this post is on the US next record store that I bought from, which was Steelworker Records in Tampa, Florida. We had a couple of days in Tampa, and I found a couple of stores to check out, and this one was a lot of fun as it was packed with records and the prices were really good.

The store mainly sells metal, but also had a few hardcore records and similar stuff mixed in. I ended up flipping through pretty much every rack in the shop, and found a few things that seemed attractive because the prices were really low. I ended up buying five records and in total it cost me about $35. I kinda realised at the time that I probably would not have bought any of these if the prices were $15 or more, but each of these was around $6, and for that price I just couldn't resist taking them home.

First thing I came across was the second 97A LP, 'Society's Running On Empty'. I got a copy of this back when it came out on wite vinyl, which was the rarer colour, and at no point in my life did I ever consider buying a second copy. But when it was in my hand, all I could think about was how nice the orange vinyl looked and that I just may as well grab it.

Next up was an LP called 'Out Freakage' by a band called Drive. I used to own this about thirty years ago but sold it at a point where I was getting rid of anything that wasn't straight edge hardcore. This record was released by First Strike Records in the UK (most famous for releasing a Chain Of Strength 7"). Drive were around in the early 90s and played pop punk style music, and I have to say that in 2025 this sounds better than ever. There was no colour vinyl pressed, although it does seem that there was a version that came with a 7" too, so this is the cheaper version.

Next up is an LP by a band called DUH!. Again, I used to own this thirty years or so ago. I vaguely remembered a couple of songs, and I mainly decided to pick this up based on my own nostalgic memories of it. I hadn't seen or thought of this for decades, but when I saw it my brain was like 'oh cool, I remember this!' so I decided to buy it back again.

In the past I owned this as it had a connection to a band called Steelpole Bathtub, who I had heard of as members did a record with Jello Biafra (Tumor Circus), but I was never massivly excited by it. The band are described on discogs as 'a San Francisco-based alternative and noise rock supergroup'. It's definitely the kind of dirty , noisy sounding stuff that seemed more common in the early 90s. But they have a song on here called 'Hot Day For The Ice Cream Man' which is a great song.

Next is a record that was released by Nemesis Records by a band called Hunger Farm. I actually had this one on my discogs want list for a few years since Mike spoke so positively about it a fews back. So buying it for super cheap and not having to pay for postage was a double win.

The back cover photo is slightly odd. It looks a bit like a photo of Napoleon Dynamite sucking someone off.

The last record I picked up was a 7". I was super happy to find this. I could probably have done a post just on this 7", so I'll try to keep it short. Basically, I own this on green vinyl and many years ago I bought a 'purple' vinyl copy from the label, only when it arrived it was black. Over the years I came to realise that the copies in this black and white sleeve were all on purple vinyl, except for some reason my copy wasn't. I even started thinking that maybe it was super dark purple, so dark that the human eye could not see it. But no, seeing one in real life for the first time, it's a nice dark, clear purple. SO I finally managed to get one getting on for thirty years after I sent off cash in an envelope to Initial Records for one.

If you've never heard this then I can say that its a very early 90s sounding record. Kinda heavy but with a lot of groove, and the recording isn't great as the drums sound very flat. But without doubt, this is the typical early 90s hardcore that I love, and it was cool to find this bargain bin 7" in mint condition for cheap.

So there we go, a fun trip to a rural record store in Florida. I really enjoyed this shop, and the guy who ran it was really smart. He told me he was adding 200 records a day to his inventory, and generally priced stuff at 30% less than the mediam price on discogs. It was nice to find someone who was interested in selling records, and not trying to extract every last penny of value from every item. Sure, a lot of the stock wasn't really my thing, but this was without doubt a really fun place to explore, and I would without a doubt head back if I was ever in Tampa again.