White Lift Off

This one is probably not overly for you, but it was for me. This white copy of Cave In's 'Lift Off / Lost In The Air' 7" is (or was) the final copy of this record I needed to have a complete collection.

Well, not quite. I don't have a regular black vinyl copy. So I can't take a collection photo. The funny thing, however, is that I used to have a black vinyl copy. I bought it from the band in 2000 when they toured 'Jupiter'. It was the only version they had for sale. Not long after I got two coloured copies from Hydrahead, so I gave away my black copy to a friend. Little did I know that twelve years later I would badly wish I still had it.

Gold TV Party

I'm pretty happy to have bagged another colour vinyl Black Flag 7". This time it's 'TV Party' on gold to go nicely with the red and orange copies I already have.

This copy is in great condition and I'm very happy to have tracked this one down. This is how I like collecting. Slowly adding one at a time every now and again. None of this buying everything in a couple of weeks malarky. Now I only have four more coloured Flag 7"s to find - two 'Nervouse Breakdown' and two colours of 'Six Pack'. They'll come. Eventually.

So I also bought a couple of other small 7"s from the same seller as they were both pretty cheap. The Guilt 'Empty' 7" on Initial Records was definitely one of the first 50 7"s I owned. I always liked this band, and I always wondered whether the cover was supposed to be a 90s take on the Minor Threat 7", complete with baggy jeans and hair. This version comes on white vinyl and in a blue sleeve. I also have white vinyl in a red sleeve.

I also grabbed this Set To Explode 7" on white. This was one of the best records of the 2006 era, and even though I have three copies I somehow missed this later pressing on white.

Casket Lottery New(ish) 7"

Anyone remember The Casket Lottery? They were one of my favourite bands of the early 00s. Not just mine either. When I first met Bane when they stayed at my house back in the year 2000, Bedard was rattling on about the The Casket Lottery's 'Moving Mountains' being the best LP of the year (and just for reference, he named the first American Nightmare as the best 7"). I'm not sure exactly when The Casket Lottery broke up, but it feels like it's been a LONG time. I think the last release I got by them was probably in about 2003. Wow.

Well all good things come to those who wait, and they seem to now be back and putting out records. This 7" came out on No Sleep Records last year. I won one of these white vinyl 'Subscription Series' copies on eBay months ago along with their new LP, but the parcel got lost in the mail. Eventually, however, another came along at a reasonable price, so I bagged it.

This white vinyl copy is limited to 200 copies and was only available as part of the label's subscription series, where you pay a load of money and get sent limited pressings of new releases that come out in the year. Kind of a good idea from the label's point of view I guess. Anyway, the best thing is not getting the most limited colour, but the obi-strip.

I wasn't sure I'd be into this band in this day and age, but I shouldn't have doubted The Casket Lottery. The new material is great and pretty much picks up where they left off years ago. I have the LP coming in the mail and I can't wait.

Rot In Hell

I picked up a couple of Rot In Hell records recently. Gaps in the collection, if you will. The band have been fairly quiet for a while which always helps with collecting records as people seem to forget and move on to whatever the latest band of the moment is. I didn't buy these from Joe Public though. These came direct from the band.

First up, the second press of the 'Pearls Before Swine' LP on no frills black vinyl. I wasn't overly into the colours chosen for the first press, so I think this second press on black looks best.

The second record is a test press of the split with Vegas. This was released by Organized Crime Records as a 6" record, but the test press comes on a 7" with about half an inch of dead wax around the edge. Pretty cool.

I think I now have a full compliment of this one. The test, the black vinyl sealed in a black envelope, and the red and yellow vinyl.

For anyone who's counting (which is me) that's now 38 tests this year. 14 more needed to hit the target with only 14 weeks of the year left. Seems increasingly unlikely.

Land Speed Record

I first heard Husker Du back in 1991 when I was 16. They had a song on the Blind Skateboards legendary film 'Video Days'. The song was 'Real World' and, like most good hardcore tunes, is a fast, rough sounding song. A year or so later some kid at school leant me a Husker Du CD and, to be frank, I thought it sucked. It was slow and kinda wussy. I wrote the band off as shit and life carried on. Well, wouldn't you know it, twenty years later and I've realised my mistake and I'm slowly picking up their records. Here's the latest. A green vinyl pressing of 'Land Speed Record' on SST Records.

This is actually a pretty poor record in my opinion. It's a live record and the sound quality isn't great. Still, it's an SST color vinyl record. I'll gladly take it.

Gimme Gimme Gimme... Gimme Some More

I figured that I didn't have enough Give records recently. I mean, as usual, I took the time to collect all of the coloured versions, but never bothered with the black. And recently I just figured that, at $5 a pop, I might as well grab the ones I was missing before they vanished and I would have to resort to eBay.

Actually, having said that I needed the black vinyl, I also realised that I never picked up the second press of the React! 7" on white because... well, because by the time that came out, React! was being distributed by Hellfish, and I didn't want to go there.

I also picked up the same React! 7" on black, along with the Deranged and Youngblood 7"s also on black.

Obviously these are not exactly exciting, but essential in order to build that complete Give collection... which I'm still a long way away from owning. I'm not in a hurry though. They will come eventually.

Casualty Of The Core

Sometimes I end up collecting bands not because they are my favourites, but because their records are cheap and plentiful. Internal Affairs is the latest example of this. Back when they were active I did enjoy them and bought one of each of their records, but recently I've picked some extra copies up on the cheap. Like ridiculously cheap. This is the latest. The 'Casualty Of The Core' 7" on Malfunction Records on blue vinyl. This cost me all of £0.99 on eBay and, as seems to have been the case a few times lately, I was the only bidder.

This is the 'common' version of the first press, being out of 700 copies. Fuck only knows how many versions there are of this thing, but this is my third. Probably in about six years time I will have added another three to my collection. Watch this space.

Nancy Loves Walter And Mike

I started last month with a Youth Of Today record, and I'm doing the same again this month. That's the beauty of Youth Of Today LPs - there are so many that even seasoned collectors can carry on collecting these things for years. This is one variant that I only realised that I didn't have a couple of months ago - the first pressing on Revelation. This one was black vinyl only, with the first pressing identifiable by the blue and yellow labels.

I've had a Revelation copy for years. In fact, my Rev copy was the first copy of this album that I ever owned. I probably bought it in 1993, taped it to listen to on my walkman, and then never played it again. Recently i took it out of it's sleeve to find that it didn't have the blue and yellow labels. Instead, it had the 'photograph' labels. I always thought I had the blue and yellow label copy, but no, it would appear not. So I made a mental note to pick one up if I saw one, and recently I spotted a copy on eBay UK which I won with one bid. Very efficiently done.

There's not much else to say, so I thought I'd fill the rest of this post with a few photos that show the difference between the first press with blue and yellow labels and the second press with photograph labels. Enjoy...

It is commonly believed that there are two pressings of this one. However, Dobek has found a third variant - a blue and yellow labelled copy with a different matrix. Check out his awesome BDTW pressing info page if you are interested.

Promotional Copy Only Not For Resale

Understand were a UK band active in the early - mid 90s. They hailed from Southend on Sea, where I also lived during that time for a couple of years, and as a consequence I saw them play a lot of times. For a UK band at that time, they did pretty well, and probably played with every major US band touring the UK at that time. I think I saw them open for Quicksand, Sick Of It All and Into Another amongst others, although they never quite made it big in their own right. Shame as they deserved it. Their were way ahead of their time musically and, aside from their first 7", they still hold up today. Anyway, I was listening to them again last week and decided to check if I could find any records for sale. I found a promo copy of their debut major label 7" for £0.99 (plus postage) so I bought it. It's not overly exciting to look at, as you can see.

I bought this on discogs, so didn't see a picture of it. I was expecting perhaps a 7" in plain sleeve or something, but this is basically a regular copy of the 7" in a PVC sleeve that has a 'promotional' sticker on the front. Slightly disappointing. I even started to think that the promotional copy sticker on the PVC sleeve could have related to a different record completely, and maybe someone at some point just put this record in it.

Well, I also own two different promo copies of the same record in 12" format, so I dug one out to compare.

As you can see, the 12" version has a 'promotional copy' sticker which, despite being a different shape, contains the exact same wording. I therefore conclude that the 7" is/was a legitimate promo copy. Cool.

The only previous copy I owned of this 7" was the US pressing on Equal Vision Records. Fun fact - I read once (or possibly someone told me) that owner of EVR, Steve Reddy, rated this 7" as his second favourite EVR release. That may or may not have been entirely true, but I guess the point is that he liked them. Enough to release this record. Bedard from Bane mentioned this record to me once. Said he loved it, but had no idea that the band were from the UK. Anyway, just for fun I dug out the EVR pressing and put it next to this UK promo copy to compare. If you have two minutes spare you can play 'spot the difference'.

Interesting also how the EVR copy is on wafer thin vinyl. When I was younger I used to think that such records were on brown vinyl. I thought that not many people realised this colour existed. What a dipshit.

If you are interested in hearing this record, I recently uploaded it for a friend. If you like stuff in the Quicksand / Fugazi type ballpark then CHECK IT OUT and show some 90s UKHC love.

Patience

It seems that Doug is finally starting to learn to be patient in order to save money. Me, I've known that shit for years and am a master. Here's an example that showed up in the mail today. The Alert 'Demo 08' 7" with an Up Front rip off cover.

I can barely believe it, but Mike posted about this record one week shy of four years ago. Wow. At the time I immediately liked the look of the Up Front rip off cover and decided I wanted one. Well, after watching a few on eBay and never really wanting to pay whatever it was going for, my time finally came around. A couple of weeks ago one appeared on eBay UK. All it took was one bid, and then £0.99 (plus postage) later, it was mine. Let that be a lesson to you all.

Absolution

Reissues and repressings are pretty common these days. From Revelation repressing a lot of their catalogue on new colours of vinyl to Bridge Nine reissuing some of their releases from ten years ago in new packaging with extra songs, I have very different opinions on these things. My opinions don't even make sense really as there is no consistency. I mean, sometimes I'll buy a modern day repress of a record I already have just because it's on a different colour, such as the recent colour Rev stuff. But sometimes I won't, e.g. Victory Records repressings. Even though I love the first Strife LP, I'm happy enough with my original colour copies and I don't need another. Similarly, sometimes I like discography packages, such as the Turning Point discography that Think Fast! put out, but other times I have no interest in such things and am happy with my original records. For example, I have zero interest in owning the Underdog or Resurrection discographies, even though I have loved both bands for years. Generally there is no real pattern to it. Sometimes I'm interested, other times I am not. I can't really explain it.

So without being able to explain why I do or do not want these things, I can tell you that for some inexplicable reason I definitely WAS interested in picking up the Absolution 7" reissue. And to keep things interesting, there were two coloured vinyl pressings, so obviously I had to grab both. Firstlyis gold, the most limited colour out of only 60 copies.

And second, here's the clear purple vinyl out of 150 copies. It's one of those purples that looks black unless you hold it to the light.

I think that what makes this interesting is that this isn't just a reissue. The band actually went back into the studio in 2012 and re-recorded the four songs that made up the original 7". And believe me, it sounds WAY better. Also, as you can see, they recreated the original artwork for the record cover and the labels. Aside from switching the old Combined records logo for the new Lush Life logo, it looks exactly the same. So a reissue on a new label with nice looking colour vinyl and re-recorded, better quality songs. Is there anyone who WOULDN'T want this?

Violent Reaction US 7"

So I finally got my order for the US pressing of the Violent Reaction 7". In theory I should have been one of the first to blog about this one, as I got my order in on the first day and they were sent out only a day or two later. However, due to a postal system mystery, the parcel took two and a half months to reach me. Still, can't complain. Better than two and a half months than never showing up at all.

You've seen these on other blogs by now and you probably have your own copies, so I'm just going to cut straight to the photos. The colour breakdown was White (100), Red (300) and Black (600).

Great to see this 7" on colour vinyl, but kinda funny that it took a US label to put it together, as neither of the three pressings made in the UK bothered with anything other than black.

If anyone still needs one of these, the red and black vinyl copies are still available in the Mind Rot Store. Go get 'em!

i ♥ instagram

So, just checking - everyone's got instagram now, right? I have to admit, I had it on my phone for months before I actually used it. I opened it but didn't really understand what was going on. Then, months later I was bored so I opened it & started playing about, and then over a few days I started to understand how it worked. Well, that was over a year ago. Now it has become one of my daily passtimes, and over the last few months I have really enjoyed it. And it seems that the more time passes, the more people jump on it, and the more people there out are posting pictures of cool records. Some of the stuff on there is really great and no matter what your interests (records or otherwise), there's a lot of stuff to check out. In short, it's good fun, and if you don't have it then you need to step up to the plate.

A couple of months back I picked up a No Tolerance 7" test press that someone listed for sale on there. That was a breakthrough moment. And now I've just succesfully completed my first trade through it, for an item that just so happened to be a test press by one of my all time favourite bands.

This test press is just a regular Rainbo Records test in a no frills plain white paper sleeve. As with most tests like this, it's not much to look at:

So of course I pulled out the regular copy of the 7" to make for a more interesting photo:

So this turns out to be for the Farside 'Keep My Soul Awake' 7". Not only Farside's first release, but also the first release for Revelation's sister label Crisis Records. Ok, so technically it's not a Revelation test... but in my mind it sure as hell is. Besides, it's a Farside test. Who the hell cares what label it's on?

The funny thing is that when I arranged this trade I was told that the test was for the Farside 'S/T' 7" on Rev. But the day the previous owner was about to pack it up & mail it out to me, she decided to play it, and then discovered it wasn't the record she had told me. Overall though, it made no difference. I still wanted it. As I've said, it's a farside test. Anything else is just a minor detail.

Just for the sake of posting another picture, here's the test with the other copy of this 7" that I own:

This now brings the test press count to 37 so far in 2013. That means I still need 15 to hit the target of 52 for the year, and it's almost September. Pressure.