USA Trip, Part 3 - Philly (Day 1)

After the show in Brooklyn, we headed south to Philadelphia. We arrived in Philadelphia on a Friday evening, and were met at the station by our hosts Geoff and Jenn. I had been looking forward to this leg of the trip a lot. It's always good to catch up with friends you haven't seen for a while... especially when they have a lovely house and a Nintendo SNES Classic mini console.

After a night of playing Street Fighter, Saturday was a pretty major day for records. Not only did I acquire too many, but I also learnt how the record shops work. More on that in a bit. But the day started with some records that Geoff had picked up for me a year before at Rev30 that I had completely forgotten about...

First was the Fall Silent 'Cart Return' 7" that Rev put out earlier last year. The band made a limited cover to sell at the Rev 30 show. It's a 7 Seconds parody and looks pretty rad.

The cover is a fold-over job that sits on top of the regular sleeve.

Next is the first release from Unity Worldwide Records. It's a split 7" called 'Compilation Of Unity' and features LastLight (a band featuring dudes from Outspoken) and a German band called Tausend Löwen Unter Feinden. The copies sold at the show were technically test presses in a specially made sleeve.

And finally, the Revfest version of the Battery 'For The Rejected By The Rejected' LP. It has hand stamped labels and is numbered out of 135 copies.

The main difference between this version and the one sold at Damaged City fest is that these copies come with the booklet. It's a huge, thick, heavy booklet which is the story of the band. How they started and why they ended. It's a really interesting read. I just wish that they'd made it smaller as it weights a ton!

After a morning of local sightseeing, we jumped in the car and headed to Double Decker Records in Allentown. I was keen to check this place out, as I had heard a lot of positive things about it.

One of the first things I spotted was an Isis 'Sawblade' 12" on the wall. I've never owned one. I sent the money off to the guy who released it back when it came out, and he never received it. It then sat on my want list for years. Everytime I would make a play for one the price would jump up. So I never got around to picking one up. But the one I saw in Double Decker looked to be in great condition, and the price was good. So I grabbed it.

I then spent probably about half an hour flipping through the LP section. It was, generally, a lot like the Armageddon Shop, in the respect that most of the LPs seemed to be new releases (including a lot of reissues and represses). Then right at the end was a bin full of stuff that was on sale. I'm pretty sure that someone had dumped their entire React! collection in the store a few weeks before as there were a lot of React! releases in that bin. I grabbed the Breakaway LP on white as it was cheap.

When I went to show Geoff something I found back in the regular priced section, and he showed me an orange vinyl copy of the C.R. 'John Lisa' LP that he had found. He didn't want it, but I figured I'd be happy to give it a home. There were 100 of these pressed back in 1996, and it used to be pretty damn hard to get. I always kinda wanted one, but never desperately. But with one in front of me, the temptation was too great. I mean, it would have been stupid not to buy it really.

So that was that. I'd been through all the LPs and only found three that interested me. Once again, it felt that the store was a slight disappointment, with the majority of stock being new releases and represses. I was disappointed and ready to leave. And then Geoff persuaded me to look through the 7"s...

I would say that this was the point that I started to understand how US record shops work. As a general rule, it seems that the LPs are 90% new releases, whilst the 7"s are 90% used and reasonably priced. As I started flipping through the boxes, I couldn't help but find hidden gems at bargain prices. A lot of these were $3 or $4 each... which, for me, is impossibly cheap. I mean, these things may be that price on the internet, but then there would be shipping to pay on top. So I figured that I may as well pull out everything that interested me while I flipped through, and then decide which ones to actually buy at the end. But then at the end I couldn't find it in me to put any back, so I just bought them all. Haha. Anyway, here's the rundown... in alphabetical order, as that's the order that I pulled them out of the boxes...

What was it I said about someone dumping their React! collection in the store a few weeks before? Well, I decided to grab these two Ancient Heads 7"s on red (out of 150) and also on white (out of 350). I completely missed this record when it came out.

I then also picked up the band's Demos 7" on clear.

Next, an obscure 7" on Lockin' Out Records - the Back to Back 'Flesh & Bone' 7" on clear. I'd never heard this before, but grabbed it simply because it was on Lockin' Out.

The Consolation Prize 7" is also on Lockin' Out, and I grabbed the limited gold vinyl version. I had one of these go missing in my vanishing box a couple of years ago. This is such a good record. It sounds more like Supertouch than Supertouch do these days.

This next 7" is probably my favourite of the lot. The D.C. Disorder 'Naive To A World' 7" on Youngblood. I missed this on colour when it came out as it sold out in a couple of hours. I can understand why. This thing rips. Stoked to have grabbed both colours at one go - blue (150) and red (200). This is the stand out best 7" of the bunch for sure.

Continuing the Youngblood records theme, next up are two copies of the Disengage 7" that came out in 2015. I'd also missed this one when it came out. White was the This Is Hardcore press / 165, and blue was out of 200.

This next one I bought not being sure if I owned or not. For $3 I figured I'd take the chance. But given that my 7"s are in storage at the moment, I can't check, so I still don't know. It's a purple vinyl copy of The Final Plan 7" 'Dead End Nights' 7". Gotta love those Dead By 23 releases.

And back to the React! haul. I completely missed the Peace 7" when it came out, so it was cool to find both the the red and white.

This one I wanted for a while, so am glad I got it. The limited gold vinyl press of the Response 'There's No Choice EP'. Response is / were (not sure which) a California straight edge band featuring a couple of Rev employees.

Next, Right On 'Realty Vacation' 7" on clear. This came out in 2006 and was one of only a couple of Malfunction releases that I was missing. Cool to grab it for a couple of dollars.

Soul Search 'Bury The Blame' 7" on Triple B on clear. This is the more limited colour from the 2nd press (out of 110 copies).

And finally, this limited Stick Together 7". No idea what the deal is with this one. The back cover says that this is on Sprau Records. My guess is that there were some leftover records and someone made some limited covers. But I'm just speculating.

So that's the lot. As you can see, I was a lot more successful with the 7" boxes than the LP racks. So I took this technique with me to the remaining stores that I visited on the trip.

The final cool thing that I accomplished in this store was a discount. I had asked Geoff if it was the done thing to try to negotiate a discount on a bulk purchase. He said no, but I tried anyway and the dude knocked off about $30 fro the total, which was cool and made me feel like I had accomplished something other than spend a quarter of my record budget in one go.

Anyway, that was Day 1 in Philly. The next post will be Day 2 in Philly, which also involved similar shenanigans...

USA Trip, Part 2 - Brooklyn

After we left Boston, we spent a great couple of days in the Catskills. There were, however, no records involved in that stage of the trip. After the Catskills, we headed to Brooklyn in NYC, so that I could catch Bedard's new band, Antagonize. They were playing at Rough Trade supporting Culture Abuse, who were playing a record release show for their new LP 'Bay Dream'.

I'd known for a few weeks that I was going to this show. I'd never listened to Culture Abuse before, but decided to check them out, not least because I'd seen a lot of people posting pics of their new record on instagram. I could instantly understand why. It's a really catchy record, and perfect for Summer. I quickly found myself listening to it regularly in the couple of weeks before the trip. I also kinda hoped that they would have a special version of the LP at their release show. So I waited for the show to pick up a copy.

The band were selling sealed LPs and the price was reasonable, so I bought one and it turned out to be black vinyl. Nothing remotely special about it. Slightly disappointing, especially as there were colour copies in the Rough Trade shop. So this was slightly disappointing, although at least I can say that I bought my copy from their NYC release show, which in itself makes it cool. But with hindsight if I'd have known it was a 'regular' copy then I probably wouldn't have bought so that I could have saved the suitcase space.

Not much else to say about this, so here's a short video I shot of Culture Abuse. It's their big hit from this record, the song 'Bee Kind To The Bugs'. The vocals aren't exactly the same as the record probably due to alcohol consumption and, as a consequence, I wasn't as into the live show as I am the record.

And to finish, a video of the entire Antagonize set. This was their 4th show. Enjoy!

USA Trip, Part 1 - Boston

I haven't published much on here this year. Motivation, time and light are all reasons. I've been strongly considering letting this blog go. I'm still undecided. But I decided that I wanted to document my recent holiday to the States first. So here goes...

The trip started in Boston. Day 1 was a bit of tourist stuff and a trip to Salem to visit a friend. Day 2 was a day in Boston with a famous blogger.

So after a visit to the SSD steps and the Cheers! giftshop, we grabbed an uber to Harvard to check out the Armageddon Shop.

Walking into the shop was overwhelming. All the record shops I have ever been in have generally had very small hardcore sections. Armageddon Shop is full of it. I was faced with these racks of LPs:

The sheer volume of records was so overwhelming that after 5 minutes I was tempted to give up. It felt like I could have been in the store for hours, and didn't really want to be. But Anna forced me to carry on as this was a once in a lifetime trip, and she didn't want me to regret missing anything. So I pushed on, and found a couple of LPs that I couldn't resist...

First, a mint, sealed copy of SSD 'How We Rock'. This was never really on my want list, but finding a sealed copy in Boston... well, it just seemed like the right record to buy on that day. Plus, you know, I've always kinda liked the cover for some reason, even though the record itself isn't great.

The next one I was super stoked on. A test press of the Forced Forward 12" on Collapse Records. I have a couple of other copies of this record already. It's a real gem of the 00s in my opinion. So finding the test for $12.99 made my day.

I also love how this test comes in a handmade cover made with crayons. The Robot Whales 12" test has an almost identical cover. I know this because my friend / rival Mike managed to steal it from right under my nose!

So after flipping through the hundreds of LPs, it was then onto the 7" boxes...

By this point I was getting sick of looking at records, so went straight to the 'S' section. That's my method for judging the quality of a shop. There are way more bands with names starting with 'S', so if you look through the 'S' section and it's weak, it's probably safe to assume the rest of the stock is weak. So i looked through the 'S' section, and found one 7" I wanted, but the rest of it wasn't too great. So I didn't look through any more. I was truly bored of it.

The 7" I picked up was this Serpico 7" with a tour sleeve. I picked up this record when it came out, but had never seen one of these before.

I used to really like this band in the mid 90s. They had a couple of LPs on Equal Vision which were rad, and a bunch of records before those too. This was one of their last couple of releases. Also, random fact - they had a guy in the band called John Lisa. There was also a band once called 'C.R.' who named an album after him. More on that later...

So after the Armageddon Shop we headed to Newbury Comics to do a bit of loitering:

Newbury Comics was very disappointing. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was just full of new releases and reissues. And it wasn't cheap. Nothing was purchased, and we moved on quickly and walked a couple of miles to get some vegan ice cream.

At the end of the day a trade took place in a sketchy car park. I'd asked Mike to help me by picking up the 2nd press of the 2nd Battle Ruins LP a few weeks ago, as it was going on sale at a time when I would be safely tucked up in bed. He happily obliged, although we never really talked about how he was going to get it to me. So when he offered to bring it out to hand me directly, all I thought was 'cool, yeah - a record!'. I didn't think at all about having to carry it around America for three weeks. Oh well.

Anyway, I had intended to pay Mike for the record. I hadn't intended for it to be a freebie. But I'd tried to surprise him with a small gift from his want list. So we ended up calling it a trade. Even though really it was two dudes giving each other a gift.

I've been enjoying the Battle Ruins LP the last couple of weeks since I got home. Just like the first one, it's a slightly slower burner for me than the average hardcore record. But it's a cool record for sure. Very happy that I missed the black vinyl first press, and ended up with this blue copy for the collection.

Next stop, New York...

Antenna

Back in 2013 I bought a bunch of Cave In tests. And then some more. The stars came into allignment I guess, and I was able to pick up several of their tests in a very short space of time. I was then left needing only one test press to have a full collection of full length test pressings. So I started the search. But as you'd expect, a search for a test press is never going to be straight forward.

The missing test was their biggest 'hit', 'Antenna'. I describe it as a hit because it was released on (CD) on a major label. Around this time they went on tour with Foo Fighters too. So it was a big deal at the time.

The vinyl was released by Hydrahead back in 2002. Back then I didn't really collect test pressings. Heck, even getting the yellow & orange vinyl version was tough enough.

I had emailed the label about this a couple of times, getting no response either time. I also spoke to Steve Brodsky about this. He was selling some other Cave In records on eBay, so I messaged him asking if he had an Antenna test. I got a reply, but unfortunately no, he didn't have one.

As you can see, this comes in the standard Hydrahead test press sleeve, featuring the hippy that I ended up buying this from on the back.

About two and a half years ago, I randomly got a message one day from someone I follow on instagram, telling me he was going to some dude's house who had some Cave In records for sale. I didn't pay too much attention, just figuring it would be some random fartknocker whose collection was about ten steps behind mine. But the next day he sent me a pic of the 'Antenna' test press. Not only that, but the dude had FOUR copies of it! Turns out he went round to the house of the guy who used to help run Hydrahead! By the time he sent me the pic, he had left the guy's house. But he had got me the guy's phone number so I could get in touch with him to arrange buying one myself...

I tried to get hold of the dude to no avail. Phone call, whatsapp message, facebook, email and also email through discogs. No communications ever got a response. Knowing that he had 4 copies, and I only wanted one, it felt like I was painfully close. Yet I couldn't seal the deal. I couldn't even get close to a deal. I then asked a couple of people I vaguely knew in the LA area if they could go and visit the hippy in the record store he runs. Then eventually a friend in San Francisco got in touch to let me know he was going to the store in LA at the weekend, and asked if there was anything I was looking for. Well, the story ended nicely when it turned out that there was a copy out for sale in the racks in the shop. Being old and remembering life before the internet and obile phones, this was a total technology appreciation moment, as he sent me pics of all the Cave In records for sale and just ask which I wanted. If you'd have told me back when I first heard Cave In that one day I'd have some dude in a record shop in LA sending me 'live' pictures of records for sale and asking which I wanted, my brain probably would have melted.

Interiors

It feels like months ago that Quicksand released their 'comeback' LP 'Interiors'. In fact, it feels like months ago because it WAS months ago. It came out in November, although the pre-orders went live in August of last year. As is the case with every record these days, there were about 4 different colours launched, each exclusive to somewhere or other and, as is also common, most colours sold out pretty much immediately. I picked up the only option that was available to me, which was the clear vinyl. I even had the privilege of paying extra for this version as it came with a t-shirt that I didn't want.

This is one of the downsides of the way I buy records these days - I get them months after they came out. It therefore seems pointless saying anything about this record as it's old news at this point. So... good night!