Ceremony - Zoo

I don't think I've seen any pictures or reviews of the new Ceremony album on any record collecting blogs yet. Seems odd seeing as I am never first these days. But hey, I'm happy to go first for once. Makes a nice change...

So, everybody probably knows by now that Ceremony jumped ship from Bridge Nine a while ago and moved to Matador Records. I'm not sure that Matador is a label that has bothered with limited edition records before, but interestingly they seem to have got down with the concept after signing Ceremony. I can only guess that the band had some influence in this. The latest album 'Zoo' was released on three limited edition colours of vinyl - Red for pre-order, green for independent record stores, and blue for tour. And the usual unlimited black vinyl for people who couldn't care less.

Well, as usual these days I missed the pre-order, so I hit up eBay and got a sealed copy which, after opening, turned out to be green.

It seems there is a bit of a competition going on recently with records I buy for which one can have the largest insert. This album comes close with a big fold out lyric sheet poster thing, although I don't think anything is ever going to beat the insert on the Fire & Ice 'Collections' LP.

After Ceremony's surprising change of direction with their last album, this one isn't really much of a surprise at all. It continues down the same path, heading further away from the short, angry blasts of their past. They now sound to me like a completely mediocre English punk band from the late 70s. I don't know... I've listened to this album ten times now and all I can say is that it's ok. Not mind blowing. Just ok. I do find myself getting a couple of songs stuck in my head, but it really is taking me a lot of effort to get this one. However, as I know from years of experience, the slow burners always turn out to be the best ones in the end. So no doubt this still has a lot of mileage in it yet.

Cave In 'Anchor' 7" RED

Another day, another Cave In record. This time it's a red vinyl copy of the 'Anchor' 7" that Magic Bullet released back in 2003.

I was mainly interested in picking this copy up because I've never seen one of these on red before. Pressing info as per the label is as follows:

First press = 3000 on black, 600 on clear, 100 on blue
Second press = 1000 on marble/mess/swirl
Third press = 2500 on marble/mess/swirl
Fourth press = 500 on gold

I have to assume that this is one of the 3500 copies on marble/mess/swirl colours, although all of those that I have seen in the past have been the usual grey/purple (aka 'scrap') colour. So this one seems kinda unusual and thus cool. I'm curious though, has anyone else got one on this colour?

Cave In 'Jupiter' Clear

As I said over on Vinyl Noize yesterday, I've been on a bit of a Cave In trip recently. I finally got around to listening to their newest album, and it made me go back and listen to the older stuff, which in turn made me start looking for some more of their records. I was more than stoked to find this clear vinyl copy of 'Jupiter' and knew I had to have it.

This clear vinyl version is a European pressing on Chrome Saint Magnus Records, which was a label owned/run by some dude who used to be in the band ACME. Anyway, Chrome Saint Magnus released a European pressing of 'Jupiter' and the limited vinyl colour was clear orange. Everyone knows that. Oh... except what nobody knew originally, and few people are still unaware of today, is that there is also a super rare clear vinyl version. It was only a few years after the record came out when it popped up on eBay that people realised it existed, and it left most Cave In collectors scratching their heads. Even now nobody seems to know how many (or rather, how few) exist. I heard a rumour that it is a friends press type deal and there are only 25, but I think this is really just speculation. Still, you get the point - no matter how many there may be, this is hard to find.

The funny thing is, rare as this may be, it still seems easier to find than any vinyl copy of their last LP. Getting hold of anything on Hydrahead these days is like mission impossible.

Roses Never Fade 7"

One of my favourite discoveries of the last couple of years has been Roses Never Fade. The LP that came out on A389 was one of my top records of 2011. If I'm honest, the main point of interest originally that drove me to pick up the record was that the band contained Dwid, whose work I have always enjoyed. The latest release is a 7" courtesy of Neuropa Records, and the biggest change is that Dwid is no longer present. I'll get to that in a bit. But first up, the record.

The label tells me that this comes packaged in a 'spot varnished heavy cardboard sleeve'. I'm not a printer or an artist so I didn't know what that meant, but my plain English interpretation is that it means a sleeve where the band name is somehow printed in an almost invisible gloss over the top of the artwork. Hopefully you get the idea from these photos:

The spot-varnished heavy cardboard sleeve then unfolds to reveal the lyrics printed on the inside:

So as I said at the start, Dwid appears to no longer be in the band. Instead, Nathan Opposition is in (dude was in one of the incarnations of Integrity from a couple of years ago, and was in The Final Plan before that, and now he fronts my new favourite band, Ancient VVisdom, whose sound is not a million miles away from Roses Never Fade. Anyway, the change in sound for RNF is hard for someone like me to describe. All I can say is that it has gone from sounding like some dude is whispering the lyrics in a dark cellar late at night, trying not to wake the people in the house (probably because he's going to murder them as they sleep), to sounding like a the words are now being sung/spoken by dudes who sound like they have pretty much given up because they know that they are about to be murdered. Of course, this probably makes no sense, but its the best I can do at this hour. In short though, if you liked Roses Never Fade before then I can't imagine that the change in sound is radical enough to turn you off.

As you might expect, I picked up all three versions of this. 75 on grey, 125 on white and 250 on black.

The grey is really cool. Has some great swirls going on which make it visually more interesting than the standard grey vinyl you will have seen before.

Surpisingly, it looks like you can still buy all three colours from the Neuropa Store. I'd therefore advise you pick up at least one ASAP.

Finally, if anyone can hook me up with good quality mp3s of this record I'd be extremely grateful.

Nervous Breakdown Red Sleeve

When I started collecting Black Flag records I was only interested in the color vinyl pressings. Yes, I know they are not original first pressings, but I don't care. They just look better. Except as usual, when I start down a track I get diverted. So recently I found a copy of 'Nervous Breakdown' 7" with a red cover and decided I wanted it, even though it was on black vinyl. The first pressing of this record from 1978 will not sell for less than $500 these days, so that's off limits really, but this slightly later pressing in a red sleeve is quite sought after because the majority of pressings of this record out there come in a blue sleeve.

There is also a later pressing of this one in a red sleeve on gold vinyl. One sold on eBay a few weeks ago that I saw and then forgot to bid on. Hopefully another one will show up at some point.

Fire & Ice... Twice

I think that Mike seems to be under the impression that I am not interested in current or new bands. I'd say he's probably half right. I mean, its not as if I have zero interest in listening to something new. Au contraire. I love to find new bands and new songs to play. Even though I have about 17,000 songs on my ipod, that represents 20 years worth of my life, and a lot of it I have played to death & am bored of. No, I want new music and I need new music. The problem is simply that I don't quite have the same appetite (nor time) to check out every single new band these days. I used to buy pretty much everything that came out, but these days it seems that there are no labels that I can trust 100%, and there are just way too many bands to sift through. So I guess my problem is just that I don't know how to cut through all of the crap to find the diamonds. Sometimes I just pick up on buzz bands through internet gossip. And other times people give me recommendations.

Fire & Ice was a recommendation Mike made last summer. I checked 'em out & loved 'em. But I still didn't make much progress in picking up their vinyl. Although, having said that, things are now starting to change on that front...

My latest parcel contained two copies of their 'Collections' 12" on Triple B Records, which look good side by side:

First up, a test press. As with a lot of test presses, this isn't much to look at. It comes in a plain white disco sleeve with a sticker in the top left corner:

The second version is the United Blood 2011 press. There were 100 of these made. Again, minimal packaging in a black disco sleeve:

These dudes have a new album coming out in the next month or so on Reaper Records. Unlike most new stuff that comes out these days, I got my preorder in nice and early. Can't wait.

Heaven Is Pink

Not sure why it took me so long to pick one of these up, but I guess with the recent GIVE 7"s my attention got brought back to this band and I realised I had some holes in my collection to fill. This is the record release version of their 7" on React! Records, which I think also served as a tour press.

The entire first pressing of this record was rejected by the label, but only after some copies had been sold, including all of the pink vinyl copies. Here's what the label's pressing info says about it:

All the first press copies of the GIVE EP showed slightly “bowed” and were returned to the plant for a repress. However, we had already shipped copies out to the band and some distros meaning that there are “rejected press” copies floating around. This is what we estimate got out there before the repress: 100 on Pink vinyl with alternate cover, 25 on Yellow vinyl, 25 on Blue vinyl, 100 on Black vinyl

Fuel / Angry Son 7"

It's funny how my record buying is influenced sometimes. Like a couple of weeks back I was playing my ipod on shuffle mode and a Fuel song came on & my mind kinda went "wow, this band is great, I need to make sure I have their entire output on this ipod". I only had the album in my itunes and I knew I also had a 7" in my collection which I needed the mp3s for. So I was looking around internet land and then discovered (aka remembered) that they did a split 7" with a band called Angry Son on Skene! Records, which I never owned or heard. So I headed over to eBay and found a copy on red vinyl up for sale. Easy.

If you've never heard Fuel, they were often regarded as a West Coast Fugazi. They were part of that Bay Area and Gilman Street scene, but unlike most bands of that era were quite serious in their approach. They had an LP out and a 7" on Lookout! Records. Everybody I knew liked them, and my friend Neil even went as far as getting their logo tattooed on his arm. And you know what? They still hold up today. Check out their website and use your google skills to listen to their tunes.

Ragin' Full On Gold

One of my all time favourite records is by a band called fIREHOSE. I picked up on them many moons ago because they had a song on a skateboard video. Anyway, they had three albums released by SST Records, and I guess they were relatively popular at some point. But even though I know that SST pressed a fair chunk of their catalogue on colour vinyl in the early 90s, it was only about two years ago that I found out that the first fIREHOSE album came on colour wax. Finally I have managed to track one down via good old eBay UK.

I found out that this existed a couple of years ago when Chuck Dukowski was selling some records on eBay. He sold a Black Flag 7" for abuot three grand and a few color Descendents albums for top end prices too. Then one day he listed this gold fIREHOSE record for a starting bid of $50. I figured that nobody would buy it seeing as I don't think many people care about this band these days, and in the end I was proved right as it attracted no bids.

So I decided to email Chuck to ask if I could maybe buy it from him for a slightly lower price without the hassle & fees of eBay.

In the end it didn't work out. But what was funny about the episode was that I did actually get a couple of replies from Chuck, but his responses seemed to bear no relation to the messages that I sent him. I can't remember exactly what was said, but I think it was something like this:

"Hi, I noticed that the auction ended without any bids. Any chance you would sell this record to me without listing it through an eBay auction?".

"I'll be a selling a few more records on eBay next week, please check 'em out".

"Thanks, but I'm interested in the gold vinyl fIREHOSE record. Are you able to sell that one to me?"

"I have some color Descendents records that I will be listing next week".

After that I just gave up. It was like trying to have a conversation with a machine that was programmed to give one of three set responses at random. A very odd experience.

Green Painkillers

Here's the second in the recent trilogy of 7"s on a trilogy of labels from GIVE. The 'Petal Pushing' 7" has just come out on Painkiller Records. I picked up one copy on green vinyl, which is limited to 218 copies.

Once again, the artwork and layouts are top notch, and consistent with the band's previous 7" releases. The green colour scheme in particular of this one looks great.

I'm slightly bummed that I missed out on the limited tour sleeves for all of these 7"s. No doubt they will take time and money to track down. Because obviously I now need them. Yes, that's right. Need.

Whilst in the Painkiller store I was looking for something else to buy seeing as picking up one 7" seemed inefficient. I don't know why I didn't order a second Give 7" on black as I now feel that I want one of those. What a fool. But I did spot this green vinyl second pressing of the Knife Fight 'Isolated EP'. First press was 1000 on black vinyl, whereas this green second pressing is limited to only 306 copies... so well worth picking up. Musically, this 7" is much more in the vein of their demo and first 7" than the LP, which is a good thing.

The sleeve unfolds into a giant poster with lyrics on the reverse. Looks really good:

Painkiller is one of those labels that I have a few things by but far from everything. But I'm not sure why that is. Dudes put out some really great stuff. I should probably look into picking up some of their older releases that I don't have.

Descendents Hallraker Live!

Oh, how the SST color vinyl gods have been smiling on me lately. This is the fourth SST color vinyl long time want that I have picked up in the last two months. 2012 has already seen me pick up two colour vinyl Black Flag records (not including the recent reissues, I hasten to add) and now here's the second colour Descendents record of the year, 'Hallraker Live!' on green vinyl.

A weird record this one. The second live Descendents album that SST Records released. I mean, live records seem pointless at the best of times, but if you've already put out a live LP then why would you put out another? Could it have been because the band had broken up and the label needed an excuse to issue another Descendents record to make some more money? Who knows? But despite the fact that there seems little point to this record, I gotta say that I do love the cover.

Trial 'Foundation' 7" Repress

Yet another repress from the vaults of New Age Records, and this time out is the TRIAL 'Foundation' 7". This one originally came out in about 1995 and, oddly for New Age at the time, was pressed on black vinyl only. So 16 years later they finally decided to get it pressed on colour vinyl. And, like the other New Age represses of recent times, they really went to town on it, making 4 different versions...

The rarest colour is marble grey. There are 200 of these suckers:

Or should I say, there are 277 grey, but 77 of them got given the old Walk Proud labels (as with every other record New Age has repressed in the last couple of years) to become to rarest version - the '77 pressing. My two grey copies are slightly different shades of grey. The '77 pressing is a lighter grey than the regular grey copy, but I don't think it shows up too well here.

There were also 300 on clear, and 500 on 'brown'. Well, the label calls it 'brown', but the copy I got was definitely a dark red.

And here you can see the four copies together:

It's funny how some things are never quite how they seem. I remembered this 7" as a really good record that I liked a lot back when it came out. But if I'm honest, I haven't listened to Trial for a long time, and when I re-listened to this recently, it just sounded like a weak version of Strain to me. I was a little disappointed. But I really enjoyed reading the story that came with this record, which is a band history that leads right up to an explanation of how this repress came about. There was quite a lot to read for such a small piece of paper, and I found it a really nice extra to throw in with the records.

Looks like New Age still have all colours in their store if you're interested.

More BANE bits & bobs

Ok I admit it, I have a few records. I've been collecting records now for close to 20 years. Jesus Christ, that in itself is a scary fact. It makes me sound OLD. Fuck. Anyway, despite having something like 3800 records in my collection, I don't think that I have a complete collection of any single band. There are a lot of bands for which I own all their releases, but I don't think there is a single band of which I own a complete collection. Not one.

Having said that though, it's not easy. For the last ten years or so, every single record released is likely to have at least 5 versions. There will be a test press, a record release version, a pre-order version, probably a couple more 'regular' vinyl colours, a tour version, and probably a last show version. So if you try collecting records by a band that releases say 3 records in a year, that means that you most likely have about 15 different records to track down. Not to mention any uber rare variants like transitions, friends presses, etc. So really, what I am saying is that it's a tall order for anyone to ever get a complete collection of any band these days. So it's perhaps no surprise that I don't have any complete collections.

However, if there was one band that I might conceivably achieve this feat for, it would be Bane. I now own 11 different Bane test pressings and most of the rarest variants of their releases. But ironically, I realised recently that what I am now missing is the common versions of some of their records. Although, after more than ten years since they were released, suddenly even the common versions aren't that common any more. So I got in touch with a friend who I knew would be able to help me out, and I was able to add a couple of variants to the collection that I was missing so that I could one (or four) steps closer to being complete...

First up, the third 7" that was released by Equal Vision Records, 'Holding This Moment' on plain old black vinyl. I have three colours of this already and a test press. And ironically, this regular black copy was the last one I needed to complete that particular set. But at least it's now done.

(Note the b-side label which features a picture of Ben Affleck)

Next, the split 7" with Adamantium on Indecision Records, also on black vinyl. Again, I have a test press and also the more limited grey vinyl, but this black copy now completes that set.

I once heard that this 7" was supposed to come with a set of dog tags, but for some reason that never happened. I imagine cost and packaging would have caused a few problems.

Next up is a(nother) copy of the second 7", 'Free To Think, Free To Be' 7" that was released by the Life Recording Company, on green vinyl. This one is both interesting and annoying. There were 200 of these things made on green vinyl. One hundred were stamped and numbered out of 100. The other 100 were simply stamped with the Bane stamp and left unnumbered. This copy is one of the numbered copies.

However, there is a quirk to this copy. As I just said, one hundred of these were numbered. They were numbered using a mixture of hand writing and a rubber stamp. The stamp says '/100' and the numbers (1-100) were then written on by hand. This copy follows that same pattern. However, as you can see, rather than this one being number 8/100, it is 8/300.

Now, hang on a second... this is number 8 out of THREE hundred? That can't be right. There weren't even 300 of these things made. So how the hell did the '/300' stamp find its way on to here? It doesn't make sense. I mean, if you were going to sit down to stamp 100 records, then by my reckoning you would need one hundred and one things - a stamp reading '/100' and one hundred seven inch records. So how on earth does a situation arise where would you stamp 99 copies with '/100' and then somehow stamp another one with a different '/300' stamp? And how or why would you then number that particular copy number 8? As you can imagine, I'm keen to try to figure out how this weird stamping error may have happened, although I fear that I will never get an answer because the person who released this is unlikely to remember.

Finally, here's another quirky variant. This is another copy of the 'Free To Think, Free To Be' 7", but this one is on black vinyl. There were originally two different black vinyl versions of this record. One with printed labels (with the Bane logo printed on them that I still don't own), and three hundred copies which came with plain white labels. However, these plain label copies were (just like the green vinyl copy above) stamped and numbered out of 300 (using that damn '/300' stamp). This copy I have just acquired has plain white unstamped labels, and also does not come in a sleeve. In pretty much every way it looks like a test press. However, the person who sent it to me is as sure as can be that it's not a test press. It's just one of the 300 copies that had plain white labels that never got stamped & numbered (and also never given a sleeve it seems). Apparently there were only about 30 copies that were not numbered, although as they are not numbered and there is no official record, there seems no way of verifying that.

So that's that. Four steps closer to completion. But still several steps away. I am aware that I now need one of the black vinyl versions of the first 7" (I think the one with the white labels), a test of the second 7" (which is impossible), the black vinyl copy of the second 7" with bane logo labels, and a test of the 6131 Records 7". Oh, and possibly a test of the 10 Year Anniversary 7", if such a thing exists. And also I once heard of a clear yellow copy of the second 7" that is ultra rare. And then there's the compilations too. Ugh. It never ends.