Fuck Your Sympathy

So after what must be at least two years of talking about it, I finally caved in and traded away a record from my collection that I didn't really want to part with. I'm not going to say what record it was, but suffice to say that it was a test press, and the main reason that I gave it up was that I got an offer that I couldn't really refuse. So I finally said yes to the proposed deal and sent off my record, and I received this beauty in return:

To clarify matters, this is a test press for the Unbroken 'Ritual' LP on New Age Records. I don't think I have ever met anyone who thinks that this LP is superior to their second LP (the now legendary 'Life. Love. Regret'), although when I play this one I find it tough to imagine that there could be a better record in existence. As some general advice, I'd say that you should never allow yourself to forget how good this LP is. If you're at all sceptical, go and put the thing on right now. You'll be agreeing within seconds. It's fucking incredible. I'm lucky as hell to have this test press, and I'm stoked that it came in a sleeve too, for shelf filing purposes.

It doesn't just stop there though. In negotiating the trade, as often happens, we decided to expand the deal. I gave up something else that I'm not going to mention, and in return got hold of another legendary New Age records test press. Catalogue number 10.

For those of you not familiar with what NA10 is (which I can forgive as not even I know many catalogue numbers off the top of my head), I dug out the regular record so I could snap the test (not literally) with a cover. And all so that your brain could compute what this record is.

Man, I love this record. Back when I was getting into this shit, this 7" was one of the first straight edge records I heard, and it blew me away. I'm stoked to have this test, although it's not anywhere near enough compensation for the red vinyl version that got lost in my missing parcel.

In Faith & Loyalty

I lost touch with React! Records a long time ago. The label started strong, got a little lost for a while, and then Ev took it over and brought it back stronger than ever. But after the 'lost' period, I removed the label from my list of labels I could trust, and unfortunately it has never made it back on there. These days I pick up some of their releases, but I'm a long way behind the preorder crowd. So by the time that I started to see pictures of the For Pete's Sake 'In Faith & Loyalty' LP on clear blue vinyl appear, and decided that I wanted one, it was long gone. A couple of months later and I picked one up on Discogs.

I really like the artwork on this thing. I love how it's not typically hardcore. The front cover looks like something you'd find hanging on the walls of Tate Modern, and the clear blue vinyl goes with it perfectly.

This band features Peter from Sportswear on vocals, but this is nothing like that band at all. For Pete's Sake sounds a lot more mature, which is exactly what you'd expect from a band in their 40s. I've been enjoying it a lot recently, although it took a few plays to get into it. It's definitely a grower rather than an instant hit I guess, which is the exact opposite to the cover and lovely clear blue vinyl.

My World Be Free

A little over a month ago I had a parcel go missing. Inside was 98 records, a mix of old and new, rare and not so rare. The last month has been a roller coaster of emotions, but I'm now finally coming to terms with it. The parcel is officially lost and the records are gone. Fuck it.

Bizarrely, one of the records I was most excited about was the debut album by World Be Free, which came out at the start of the year. A friend had kindly picked me up a copy with a limited sleeve made for their tour in February, and I was looking forward to it. The band's logo is rad and I loved that the tour sleeve looked like a Chung King tribute. I also had the regular green and orange vinyl copies in the box too, which I was less fussed about. Well, that was until I realised that the first press was now completely sold out. Then replacing them became pretty urgent as I figured that I may still be able to find them in distros for relatively cheap.

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that the labels used on this LP matches the labels on the Warzone LESC 7". As do the vinyl colours. It's details like that which can only really be appreciated by true Rev nerds.

The green vinyl wasn't too easy to track down. There were 553 copies of this made, and being the limited colour, this version was only sold by Rev and a couple of distros in Europe that order from Rev in bulk. Come mid May there were no labels or distros selling this as new, so I had to go to Discogs and pay double what I paid the first time around.

The orange was slightly easier to find. With 1,354 copies made, I was able to find a distro that still had copies available for new price, which was good.

This best bit about this release, aside from the crazy characters on the back cover, is the photos on the insert. When your band is made up of old dudes who have been in bands for years, and who are probably looking a little past their best, then why would you use current photos when you can just dig out pictures from back in the day? Ha!

Back when this came out I was hugely underwhelmed. But I gave it a few tries and in time found myself enjoying it. It's quite catchy stuff... although not immediately catchy. Definitely worth persevering with if you have the patience.

There's now a second press of this available, and it sticks with the Warzone vinyl colour theme. But it's not about the ones you have. It's about the ones that got away, and it's gonna take me a fair amount of time (and money) to find a replacement for my lost tour press. Fucking parcel losing cunts.

1000th Post

I realised a few weeks ago that I was getting close to my thousandth post on here, and started wondering what I would put up to mark this occasion. At the time I had a parcel coming to me with nearly 100 records inside, and there were two records in there that I had been searching to for close to twenty years. So I figured one of those would be it. But then, unfortunately, that box went missing. So I needed an alternative choice. I figured this Sick Of It All 7" would be an apt choice for reasons I will get to at the end...

So Sick Of It All are now celebrating 30 years as a band, and back in March this year played a show at a venue called Conne Island in Leipzig, Germany, which is now celebrating 25 years as a venue. So when the two got together, it seemed fitting enough event to mark with a commemorative item. Revelation pressed up a gold vinyl copy of the 7" and some dude in Germany made a special cover and insert, and the records got sold at the one show on 12 March 2016. Now obviously I didn't go as that would have involved leaving the house, but luckily a friend helped me out.

As I mentioned, Rev didn't make the cover for this version, and the person who did went all out to make it unique. So whilst the front is the same picture as the regular version of this record that we all know and love, the back cover is something different:

Also, for some stupid reason the paper dust sleeves were stamped with characters from Batman. I'm guessing that it was some kind of tribute to the early Rev releases being stamped with Batman logo stamps, but in my mind this release could have done without it. I just don't think it adds anything really as it has nothing to do with the band or venue. Different numbers were stamped with different characters, so for anyone who's stupid (or rich) enough to try there are technically 5 different versions to go after.

The rest of the layout is pretty cool though, with lots of pictures of the band playing at Conne Island over the years. The inside of the cover is also hand numbered out of 330 copies, and there's a flyer for the show included.

The lyric sheet contains the lyrics on one side...

... and more photos of the band at the venue on the reverse. All in all, it's a pretty cool package.

The only thing I'm worried about is that the paper feels like it was made on a colour laser printer or colour photocopier. It's definitely got to go into my 'at risk' box. If it gets hot, it could end badly for all involved.

So when I thought about it, the reason I thought this would make an apt 1000th post was to do with this updated collection photo that I took. Back when I started this blog, I owned three SOIA 7"s - the Gilman press, and the grey vinyl and white vinyl represses. Over the last eight years since I started this blog, I've picked up a few more copies of this record, adding (on average) one more copy each year, to the point where I now have a pretty good collection going on. So in a way I think this photo acts as a pretty good representation of this blog and, in a way, me.

Still Got Something To Prove

I spent a lot of time on Discogs lately looking for stuff I lost. At some point I stumbled across this Spermbirds 'Something To Prove' LP on clear vinyl. It's a classic record and despite not really wanting to buy any records at the moment, I couldn't really help myself.

I don't know much about this band. They were a German band with an American G.I. on vocals and were active through the 80s and 90s. The rumours suggest that they never toured the States because the singer went AWOL from the army and so couln't return to the States. I don't really know if that's true or not, but it certainly sounds like a good story.

More Jungle Jamz

I really like the Jaguarz 7" so I bought another copy on yellow vinyl. It helped that it was pretty cheap.

I did also buy two other copies of this 7" from the label just before it folded, which meant I would have had a pretty good little collection going on. Unfortunately though, those two other copies have now been lost in the mail, so I don't. Ah well.

Rot In Finland

A couple of months ago Rot In Hell went to Finland to play two shows. I didn't know about it at the time as I don't know anything anymore, but I soon became aware when pictures of a tour record surfaced. Turns out it was actually a limited tour cover made for 60 copies of the 'Termini Terrae' 7" that came out on Dark Empire Records back at the end of 2012. I guess they had a few copies leftover. The tour cover was made by Sam Layzell, who is (I think) the current bass player and a tattoo artist. So it looks pretty good like.

The blue dust sleeve is numbered out of 60.

The record also comes with a flyer for the two Finland shows, which is a nice momento for those who were there. And also those who were not.

So apparently the old singer is now back in the band. The replacement left and the old one came back. It's a bit like one of those games of chess where a player makes a move and then three years later the opponent finds time to take their turn.

Last Great Stamp

So last night I saw BURN play for the second time in 7 months. And just like the last time they played, they had a 'special' 7" for sale at the show. Well, kind of. The 'Last Great Sea' 7" hasn't been available since it was first pressed back in 2002. Back then very few people cared about vinyl, so Rev only pressed 1000 copies of the record total. And that was it, until a month ago when it finally got the repress treatment in honour of Record Store Day. And then, as always seems to be the case, it got pressed again on a different colour vinyl. So this year we got 1100 copies on orange vinyl for RSD, and then 432 copies on clear green for Rev mailorder types. And of the 432 green copies, 120 copies got sent to Burn to sell on tour in Europe.

As you can see, my copy has a big dirty black smudge in it.

And just like last time BURN came over, the copies sold on tour were stamped inside the sleeve. However, unlike last time these aren't numbered. And the tour copies aren't a unique colour of vinyl. And there are only 120. So there aren't too many and they're not so easy to identify.

I'm guessing that this one will divide opinion. People will either think this is the dumbest thing ever and not give a shit, or they'll hunt high and low and pay out the nose for the privilege of having the stamp. If you're one of the latter then all I can say is... good luck!

Seems Like Forever

Another couple of records bought on Discogs using the 'make offer' feature, which I've become a big fan of. Both were from the same seller, and by the same band - Reach The Sky.

I was never the biggest fan of this band. When they were active I liked them, but they were never a favourite. They were good, and catchy, don't get me wrong. But a few weeks ago they came on my ipod and sounded better than ever. Then, by coincidence, I checked Discogs and found someone selling the two versions of their two LPs that I didn't already have. So it kinda felt like my duty to pick them up.

The first LP, 'So Far From Home' on green. Apparently this is the most limited colour, being out of 314 copies. It has pretty much the most basic labels ever made for any record.

The second LP, 'Friends, Lies And The End Of The World' on my second favourite vinyl colour.

I've been trying to decide recently which of these I prefer. My only conclusion is that I don't know. Anyone out there got a more interesting opinion?

Building, Dwelling, Thinking

I was listening to the new record by FOR PETE'S SAKE recently. I still haven't ordered one as the super cool clear blue colour sold out, and after seeing that I don't really want any of the other colours. But anyway, when I bought the Shook Ones LP a couple of weeks ago, I also made some offers on stuff from the same seller. One of the records was this Sportswear 'Building, Dwelling, Thinking' LP:

Sportswear were a band out of Norway in the 90s that came about at the same time as a lot of other youth crew revival bands. They had a couple of 7"s released by Crucial Response Records, and this LP came out on Supersoul & Good Life. I think there were three colours of vinyl, and this purple colour was probably the most common.

Funnily enough, I had never heard this LP until now. It came out in 1999. I guess it just never really stood out before as something I needed to listen to. I was always put off by the band name. But damn, this is good stuff.

In Search Of ALL

I started listening to Descendents in 2009. This was circa 16 years after I had first bought one of their records and subsequently decided that I didn't like them. A couple of months back I watched the Descendents movie/documentary 'Filmage: The Story Of Descendents/ALL', and they had interviews with the vocalists of their alter ego band, ALL. Well, one of these dudes seemed both puzzled and disappointed as to how ALL had never been as popular as Descendents. I remember him saying 'it's the same band', and it made me feel bad that I had not given ALL another chance after also dismissing them as a band I didn't like circa 1993. So I downloaded one of their albums and gave it a go. And it clicked pretty quickly. So I then downloaded a couple more. When I realised that I now definitely liked ALL, I also knew it would mean that I would want to start looking for their records. A couple of weeks ago I bought three from a UK seller on eBay, which felt like a good start.

The first LP, 'Allroy Sez.....' features Dave Smalley on vocals. This was the first band he did after leaving Dag Nasty.

The 'Allroy For Prez' 12" was the follow up to the first LP. Dave Smalley was still on vocals. This is a six song EP, not a full length.

Smalley left after this 12" due to the band's relentless tour schedule. He was replaced by Scott Reynolds, who stayed with the band for three albums. The third of these was 'Percolater' which came out in 1992, and which was the first LP to not feature the band's mascot, Allroy, on the cover.

So that's a start to an ALL collection. I do intend to pick up more of their LPs, and hopefully it shouldn't be too difficult or expensive as there aren't really any colour vinyl or limited pressings of any of them. I'm hoping to bag them by the end of the year, so expect to see more ALL records in the next few months.

Too Tired To Skate Tuff

When you have a few thousand records by several hundred bands, it's easy to forget some. Recently I was discussing trading away one of my Atari 7"s, which got me to listening to the band again for the first time in a while. I had completely forgotten how good they were. They were never my favourite youth crew revival band back when they came out (I always preferred Rain On The Parade & Floorpunch back then) but I know people who firmly rank them as the number 1 of that era. I can kinda see why too. Anyway, I decided to go to Discogs to see what was going down on the Atari scene, and realised that they had a discography LP that came out back in 2010 which completely passed me by. I hate discographies these days, but I found a copy of this one on limited clear vinyl for a really good price. Plus it's a 12" whereas all other Atari records are 7"s. So basically I got sucked in.

This was released on CD on Broken Man Records, and the vinyl edition was pressed by a couple of German labels - Prügelprinz Records and Drastic Actions. There were 400 back vinyl, and 100 on clear.

The clear vinyl copies also came with a pretty cool sticker made from griptape. Even better is that it's pink, which seems to have become my favourite colour.

Well, I got sucked in even more, as I spotted a test press for sale. The price wasn't too bad, but it also had a 'make offer' button, which I used to successfully get it a bit cheaper. The tests are numbered out of 25 copies, and I got number 8.

The test also came with a sticker, but this one is just a regular sticker. It's not made from griptape this time around.

Now, please excuse me while I got find my skateboard...

All Shook Up

Now this is pretty damn cool. Back in March 2013, I picked up a red vinyl copy of the Shook Ones 'Facetious Folly Feat' LP. It had taken me three years to track one down after picking up the other two copies, and as a result I ended my post with these words:

If you want to see pics of the release show version, then at the rate I'm going I'd advise you come back here sometime around March 2016.

Well, as much as I hate always being right, it seems that my prediction was absolutely spot on. As I type this, it's March 2016, and here's the record release version, featuring the red vinyl in a limited sleeve:

I always thought that this sleeve was one of the worst ever made when I saw photos. But that's because everyone's photos looked exactly like the one above. And let's be honest, based on that you're probably thinking the exact same thing - that it looks boring. So here's another prediction - that by the end of this post, you will have changed your mind and you too will think that this sleeve is awesome...

The first thing that's cool is that this is actually a proper sleeve. It's not just a piece of paper or card like a lot of release show covers. It's a screen printed LP jacket. As such I don't think that it really needed to also come with a regular sleeve too. Just the white one would have been fine by itself.

The back of the sleeve is left plain and untouched:

The best feature of this sleeve, however, is the one that you can't see. It glows in the dark. I took a couple of photos with the lights low (and off) to show what it looks like. I would guess that you probably haven't seen this before unless you own one.

So was I right? Is your opinion of this one higher than it was when you started reading this post? If not then I can only assume that you are either blind, or have no taste whatsoever.

And wouldn't you know it, but there also happens to be another limited sleeve for this record which was made for a tour, which also features some glow in the dark print. According to my previous schedule, I'll be due to find one circa March 2019. However, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict that I will find one before the end of this year. Fingers crossed...

What Can I Say?

Finally kicking off the 2016 test press campaign, and I think I'm starting off with a pretty good one:

Dischord's 19th release came out in 1986. It made zero impact on me at the time because I was 11 years old and not really interested in music. But I think it's fair to say that it made a pretty big impact on the rest of the world. It would take me about 7 years after its release to get around to hearing it, after which I would never tire of it. There's not many records that you can listen to over a 20+ year period and not find boring or dated, but here we are thirty years later and it still sounds good to me.

When I saw this pop up for sale I wasn't sure where it would go, or whether I would make a serious play for it. I only really made my mind up near the end, and was actually surprised that I won it, as I would have expected it to sell for more. Maybe people were sleeping, or maybe this alum isn't as iconic as to other people as I think it is. Who knows?

Despite this coming only in a plain white paper sleeve, it's customary for me to snap a pic with the proper cover as it makes for a more interesting photo:

I've already bought a few tests so far this year, but not received them yet. I've picked up way more than the one per week average that I was aiming for a couple of years ago, so I'm thinking that maybe this year I could hit the target of 52 for the year. Time will tell I guess...