Box of Odds & Ends

I won a record on eBay a couple of weeks ago. Nothing great. But when the auction was over I noticed that the description mentioned that the seller had lots of other records for sale, and a list was available to anyone who might be interested. So, as you would expect, I asked for the list. And, as you would also expect, I found a few items of interest. I'll run through them in alphabetical order...

First one is a good one. The first release from the Beastie Boys,which is a 7" called 'Polly Wog Stew':

For the younger readers of this blog who may not be aware, The Beastie Boys started out as a NY hardcore band. The rumour is that they were such big Bad Brains fans that they named their band Beastie Boys just so that the band initials were BB like HR's crew. As the photo shows, they look pretty young here. But also, notice that there used to be a girl in the band. The other point of note about this 7" is that it was released by Rat Cage Records, who are probably most well known for putting out the Agnostic Front 'Victim In Pain' LP.

Overall, I'm stoked to own this. I remember thinking when I was about 19 that I would never ever be able to find one of these, let alone find one at a reasonable price. I guess this is a lesson that all good things come to those who wait!

Next up, a couple of Descendents LPs on New Alliance Records. Firstly, 'Enjoy':

And secondly, 'I Don't Want To Grow Up'. I don't usually like using the flash for pictures, but the way the first pic came out made me laugh:

Next, a couple of Gameface split 7"s out out by Speedowax Records (one out of 500, one out of 50). These sleeves aren't too pretty.

Next up, another release by Rat Cage Records. A 7" by a band called Neos with a ridiculous title - 'Hassibah Gets The Martian Brain Squeeze'. To be honest, I only picked this one up because it was on Rat Cage and was cheap, so I figured I could either trade or sell it on. But I haven't listened to it yet, and maybe when I do I will decide to keep it. So if you want this, get in touch quick before I give it a spin and decide that i want to hang on to it!

And to finish, a couple of Suicidal Tendencies records. The first LP, on Frontier Records (I believe this to be a first pressing), which is now 27 years old. Goddamn. I don't know which is worse - that this is 27 years old, or that I have never owned a copy of this before.

The second Suicidal record is a bit of a funny one. It's either a test press, or a promo copy (although, to be honest, it was probably the same thing) of the 'Possessed To Skate' 12" EP. It comes in a plain black sleeve with a sticker on the front:

So there you go. I think this is a nice, if eclectic, little haul. And for a change, nothing here cost very much, which somehow makes it even better.

Ceremony Rohnert Park LP

Because I am so disorganised at times, I kinda forgot to order the new Ceremony LP from Bridge Nine when it went up for preorder. I think I checked the store once when the preorder was up, and the I thought "nah, I'll order it another day"... and then I forgot all about it. Well, in a fortunate twist of fate, Mike got sent two copies of the clear vinyl, so I said I'd happily take the spare off his hands.

There were 700 copies on clear vinyl. The most limited colour was red, of which there were 300. There was also a blue vinyl of 1000, making a total first pressing of 2000 copies... which believe it or not, sold out in a VERY short space of time. There's already a second press (on white) in the B9 store, and it wouldn't surprise me if there's need to do a third press too.

First thing I wondered was why the record is called Rohnert Park. I looked it up on Wikipedia. Doesn't tell me much. I'm guessing the band comes from this dump. It does sound like a pretty dull place. Also, not that it's relevant, but the house on the cover looks to me must like the house out of the movie 'Paranormal Activity' which I watched recently.

I've said before how I slept on this band for a long time. Their previous records have been ferocious hardcore which at times borders on some of that 90s power violence type stuff. But this record is completely different. I was so intrigued about this change of sound that I decided to read about it on the nerd, which is something that I never do. The consensus seems to be that even the most devoted fans were surprised by this record.

To get to the point, this sounds like something that would have come out in the early 80s. I would say that this is more of a 'hardcore punk' record than a 'hardcore' record, if that makes sense. I can't be specific as to who it might sounds like, but I don't think it matters. It's just a damn good record. People who like stuff like Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys, Adolescents, TSOL and similar should check this record out. Seriously. Even if you are a bitter old fart who refuses to listen to anything new on principle. If you like hardcore punk then you will surely like this.

This, for me, is the record of the year so far, hands down. And this band is fast becoming one of my favourites. Clearly they have a lot more about them than most modern hardcore bands. If it weren't for the fact that it'll be cold, dark & wet, I'd be really looking forward to the UK Tour in October.

SOIA 'Based On A True Story' LP

Today's entry is the latest album by Sick Of It All, 'Based On A True Story'.

My copy is on blue vinyl. But I have also seen clear and also green for sale on eBay. God knows how many colours there may be.

As the sticker says, it also comes with a CD of the same songs so you don't have to waste your precious time typing the name of the album into google and downloading it from mediafire or rapidshare or something.

I have a funny relationship with Sick Of It All records. I seem to listen to every other one on average. The last one I bought was 'Death To Tyrants' in 2006 which I have probably listened to about once in four years, although part of the reason for that is that I forgot it even existed. I have so much music on my ipod that I have a tendency to forget things that I have added before I have even got around to listening to them. Yet I've listened to this new album about 6 times in the past week. There are also a couple of albums on Fat Wreck Chords that I probably listened to about twice each, yet the albums on Equal Vision were played to death. Pretty funny, especially given that I do really like this band. One moment of clarity came to me in 2002 when I was at the Leeds festival with my then girlfriend watching Foo Fighters, and I looked around and saw loads of mums and dads, and I thought to myself "fuck me, where did my life go so wrong?". I then told my girlfriend that I was going to watch a real band, and waded through the mud to some tent to watch Sick Of It All, whereupon I got involved in a circle pit and also jumped on top of some fat dude. A good way to end a shite weekend! Anyway, this is a damn good record. Even if you think you know SOIA and have heard it all before, I don't think you could deny that this is a good record, and most likely the best one they have done since 'Scratch The Surface'. This reminds me of everything good I ever thought about this band, and even makes me want to go back and check out the other three albums that I didn't really get around to listening to properly despite owning for years. It's just a shame that I missed them play a couple of weeks back because I was painting my walls.

VValpurgisnacht 4th press

It doesn't seem like it was only three weeks ago that I put up pics of my latest two copies of the Integrity 'VValpurgisnacht' 7"... but it was... and here I am doing exactly the same again three Tuesdays later!

This time, I have four colours of wax from the fourth(!) pressing. For those of you who don't know or care (which is probably most of you), the difference between the fourth press and previous pressings is that the sleeve now features a silver Charlie (instead of a red one). Here's an example:

So yeah, there were a few different colours of wax made for this fourth pressing. A couple were stupidly limited... but I was lucky enough to hit up the A389 Store before they sold out. So here's what I ended up with:

As you can see, a couple of these colours are pretty similar, but this is what I think the picture shows (with numbers made shown in brackets):

Burnt Red (25), Grape (Standard Pressing Color)
Blueberry/Blue Marble (50), Bubblegum/Pink (150)

I now have a ridiculous number of copies of this record. But the worst thing is, there are still a couple more from this recent repress that I still need. And like any self-respecting idiot, I know I'm going to have to add them to my collection or feel like my life is somehow lacking. Oh dear...

Godflesh Cold World

This is/was the first record I received at my new residence... the Godflesh 'Cold World' 12". Got this on ebay UK (which is becoming my favourite site for bargains) for about £4.

Ok, so summer isn't really the right time of year to be listening to this band. But considering how cold it felt this morning as I rode my bike to work, it'll soon be dark, cold & wet and the perfect weather to rock this dismal crap. Can't wait!!!

Oh yeah, I hope you noticed (and are suitably impressed by) the wooden floor backdrop to these photos.

My Friend The Pit

After a week at home without internet access, I'm back, trying to make a dent into this backlog of records I've picked up over the last few weeks...

This one I won on eBay for a bit less than I expected. A clear(ish) pink vinyl copy of the Impact Unit 7" entitled 'My Friend The Pit':

I don't know too much about this band, and the internet doesn't seem to hold too much info either. I guess the main claim to fame this band has is that the vocalist was Dicky Barrett, who went on to sing for The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. This 7" represents, as far as I am aware, their only recorded output, which is/was a demo, recorded circa 1982. This band was a Boston hardcore band around during the first wave of Boston hardcore with bands like DYS & SSD etc. However, the weird thing I always found about this record is that it was only pressed onto wax seven years after it was recorded, and was put out by everyone's favourite German-based hardcore label, Crucial Response Records. I've always been intrigued as to why Impact Unit never had anything released when they were around. Were they only around for a short while? Or did they just not get around to recording? If anyone knows, please comment.

Kinda related but kinda not, whilst searching for Impact Unit info I stumbled across THIS T-SHIRT. God only knows what is going on with the world...

Bane EVR Tests

Don't think I have done this before, but I'm dedicating this post to my man bmurph...

First up, a test press of EVR 53... otherwise known as Bane's first LP 'It All Comes Down To This':

Interestingly, this has Revelation Records written on the labels, despite the record being released by Equal Vision. I guess back then Revelation used to order records on behalf of EVR. I wonder how & why this happened? Maybe I'll ask...

This test does not come with a sleeve, but I thought I would take a pic of it with the sleeve just because:

And for once I think this means that I have finished a collection:

Second, a test press of EVR 45, aka Bane's 'Holding This Moment' 7":

Once again, the customer was Revelation Records, despite the record being released by Equal Vision.

And once again, no sleeve. But this is what it might look like if it did come with one:

I was slightly annoyed with this one, since I realised that I don't own a regular black copy. So this picture is not complete:

If anyone wants to send me a black vinyl copy of this 7" as a gift, that would be great. And if you could do it ASAP, that would be better. Thanks!

PS - Thanks again to Mike for helping me out with this! Greatly appreciated, bro!

Sick Of It All 7" Trade

After the recent Record Store Day reissue on clear vinyl, I decided that my Sick Of It All 7" collection was rather lacking. So I set up a trade with Tru Pray to get one of the more common versions of the original pressing. Or rather, the fourth pressing. Here's what the Revelation discography has to say about it:

4th press : 2000 black vinyl
Maroon lettering, cover photo a bit closer up then the rest, 33rpm. There are two sleeves that are known to come with this press. The most common one has nothing printed on the inner portion of the sleeve, while others have catalog and ordering info printed there. How many of each sleeve is not known.

It's also funny how the discography says that the first pressing is on "thin vinyl" as if this somehow differentiates it from the later pressings. Yet this later pressing is not exactly on what I would call thick vinyl. Check it:

What's funny about this is the stickers that were on it when it showed up. There were two, one on the front cover and one on the label:

Yup, that's right... this cost one dollar. You can read Tru's little story about it HERE if you wish... and while you are at it take some time to check out the rest of his blog.

The only problem with this trade was that initially it went a bit wrong. The record pictured above is the second copy I got sent. The first I was not happy with. It had clearly suffered from water damage at some point. I don't think it happened in transit because the package itself was fine. So this must have happened in the store at some point in the last twenty years. But anyway, the sleeve was all crinkly and I wasn't happy with it. Here are some photos so you can see what turned up on in my postbox:

I gotta say though, big thanks for Tru for sending me a second one. He did this without me even sending pics of the damaged record. A very trusting guy, and a clearly great dude to deal with.

New Blog

I started a second blog a few days ago to document my impending house move. At some point in the next few days it will feature photos of records being moved about. Check it out:

http://11to2.blogspot.com/

Mo Integrity, Mo Problems

Another day, another blog post about some new Integrity records. That's pretty much all I seem to do these days.

Here's the recent split with Pale Creation on clear. I think there were 100 copies of this, but I may be wrong seeing as I literally cannot keep up these days.

And here's a test press of the same record:

As you may or may not know, there's also a new 7" just come out on Magic Bullet Records. So far, the only version that I have of this one is a test press:

Kinda cool because it features a laser etching of the Integ skull on the flipside:

And finally, a test press of the (not yet released) repress of the 'Those Who Fear Tomorrow' LP which is about to drop in the next couple of weeks from Organized Crime Records:

I probably mentioned this about 400 times before, but I did a trade with Dwid in 1996 and he threw in a test press of the Toybox Records vinyl pressing of this album for nothing. And then for some dumbass reason I traded that test away. I have no idea what for. Probably some total gash. I didn't used to see the point of tests and I just let it go. I don't think I will ever get over that instance of stupidity for as long as I live.