A Pink Crusade

It's been two and a half years since I picked up 3 copies of the first album from Mike's favourite band, Forced Order. I picked up the 2nd press record release copy, and third press copies on clear and orange vinyl. At some point probably a year or two before that, I had a friend in the States who picked up a couple of copies from the band on tour, but after realising he'd had them for over 3 years, it dawned on me that I was probably never actually going to get them. So when I spotted a first press pink vinyl copy appear for sale for cheap, I figured I should just grab it while I had the chance.

I've said this before, but I think pink vinyl is probably the nicest colour of vinyl that there is. There's something about pink that just seems so unsuitable for a hardcore record that it's somehow perfect.

Pink vinyl is the first press and the most limited colour made, being out of only 158 copies. And with 4 copies of this LP in my collection, you'd probably think that I'd be done with this record. But unfortunately there's also a yellow vinyl variant out there that I need to find. Yes, that's right, NEED.

Orange Transmission

One of my favourite releases from last year was Cave In's 'Final Transmission' LP. When it came out I missed the most limited colour (yellow) as it sold out at pre-order stage. I didn't place an order due to high postage costs, and ended up buying two colours of the LP when I saw the band play live.

Well, I still didn't manage to track down a yellow vinyl copy, but a few weeks ago I got an email telling me that Deathwish Inc. had set up a Cave In online store, so I followed the link and found an orange vinyl copy for sale. So I grabbed one quick.

I'm not entirely sure what the deal is with this one, but I think it is a colour that was pressed for some tour or other. I first noticed it when one popped up on eBay being sold by some flipper who claimed it was a tour press, and who was kindly giving people the chance to own it for the very reasonable buy it now price of $99.99. No way was I paying that much, so I figured that I would probably have to wait about three years to get one at a fair price, so it was nice to have the chance to pick one up for new release price.

Hopefully a yellow will appear in the not too distant future so that I can feel complete.

6 Night Stand

Last year for Record Store Day, Revelation released a new Youth Of Today 7". It wasn't 'new' in the sense of a new recording, more a new release of old recordings. It contains one studio song, 'One Night Stand', which was previously released on the 'Revelation 100' compilation from 2002. On the flipside is a cover of the Sex Pistols song 'Anarchy In The UK' recorded live in Vienna in 1989. There's also a weird spoken word track hidden in a 'secret' second groove on side A, with some babble from Ray Cappo.

Of course, everyone had an opinion on this record when it was announced. Some people were excited, some were outraged by the artwork and the vinyl colour, and others thought that this was a pointless release and a total cash grab. I kinda agreed with all of these views, but being a Rev collector, I wanted it anyway. I mean, things are what they are these days with record collecting. There's no point whining about whether this should have been released or not. You make a choice with your wallet. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Simple. My main concern was simply that I didn't want to have to pay inflated flipper prices, and neither did I want to wait 5 years to get the complete set. Fortunately it all worked out ok in the end...

There were two colours of this 7" available from record stores on RSD. The most common colour was 'magenta' (although I'd argue that this is closer to pink) which seemed pretty easy to find on the day. This was also the colour that seemed to annoy some people for being grossly inappropriate.

As RSD progressed, some people were also finding black vinyl copies, which at the time seemed a bit of a mystery as there hadn't been any announcement made about this colour. It felt that black could have been the most limited colour, as nothing was known about it, so I decided to grab one, even though I would usually leave black vinyl on the shelf.

Now, the story had gotten more interesting a couple of weeks before RSD, as Youth Of Today had played two shows in Brooklyn, and sold a small number of these 7"s each night. As pictures of them started to appear on instagram, it became clear that there were 4 different colours of vinyl made, each one having a different b-side label featuring a different member of the band. A few copies changed hands shortly after these shows for pretty significant amounts of money. People were starting to go crazy wanting to get a complete set. It felt that this was going to be a collection that would take a lot of time and money to complete. But fortunately, a few weeks later in June Revelation put up a few leftovers for sale in their online store, and I grabbed the 4 colours I needed to make a set for a very reasonable price. I'm really glad I did, because prices on discogs show that each of these individually have since sold for more than I paid for the whole set. My philosophy with new releases used to be 'buy now whilst you can or risk paying significantly more later', and whilst I don't buy as many new releases as I used to, clearly this tactic still makes sense.

Anyway, like I said, 4 members and 4 colours. So we get red vinyl for Ray Crappo:

Blue vinyl for John Porkle:

Purple vinyl for Where's Wally:

And yellow vinyl for Samantha Siegler:

Despite the wide ranging opinions on this record, I still think that from a record collector's perspective, this is a great 7". Different labels and vinyl colours for each band member is a great idea and really makes these worth collecting... although I still think it would be more fun if they kept it going and pressed more copies with a different label and vinyl colour for every person who had ever been in the band. That way there would be about another 12 copies to collect. Imagine that!

The pressing info states that there were 1,100 magenta and 880 black. The numbers for the other copies has not been released.

Silence Lies

There are some records that I don't set ot to collect, but over time the collection just happens. Case in point, the Voicebox 7". I owned a blue vinyl copy and a an orange vinyl copy for years and years. I would have been ok with owning just one copy of most records back then, but kept doubles if I had no idea which was first press or rarest. So I kept both. Then in 2008 I picked up a test press for a pretty good price. Then a green vinyl copy followed in 2012, although I wasn't overly happy with it as it was a very pale green that didn't look too dissimilar to the blue copy I already had. Five years later, in 2017, I then picked up another different blue vinyl copy because it was cheap. You see where I'm going with this right?

So last year I got the chance to pick up the color that was 'missing' from my collection, the clear vinyl copy. For some reason this one seems harder to come across than the other colours. At least, that's how it felt to me.

The seller had one of the most insane collections of this record I have ever seen, with a LOT of copies on varying shades. So I decided to also buy another green vinyl copy that looked to be way more green than my copy that I wasn't overly impressed with.

I previously posted a picture of my two blue copies together, and was going to post a new picture of the two green copies together. But then I decided to post all four to show the full colour spectrum of the blues and greens.

So of course, there was only one way I was going to end this post. This final pic shows my entire collection, which I'm now done with. No more blues, greens or any other colour from this point on. I'm done here.

Rejects

Swiz was one of the first hardcore bands I got into, and as such they have always held a special place in my heart. I picked up one copy of each of their records pretty early in my hardcore career, and as the years have rolled on I have picked up additional copies of some of them so that I can continue to experience the joy of owning more Swiz records. I was stoked to pick up an unplayed white vinyl copy of the 'Rejects' 7" way back in 2008, and twelve years later I'm every bit as stoked to add a test press of the same record to my collection.

The 'Rejects' 7" contains two songs that were recorded at the same time as the songs that were released on the band's first record, the 'Down' 7". For whatever reason, they were not included on that 7". But then these additional two songs were released as a 7" in their own right 6 years later on a different label (THD Records) after the band broke up.

There were 3000 copies of this 7" pressed on green vinyl, and only 100 on white vinyl. There were also only 3 test pressings. I know this because I bought this direct from the guy who used to run the label. I guess it was one of those 'right place right time' moments.

It's actually very rare for me to have a 'complete' collection of anything, so I thought I'd celebrate this event with a photo. There's only 3 records, so it was pretty quick to put together.

Death Becomes My Voice

Another year, another Ringworm LP. Or at least, that's how it feels. When I saw this had come out it felt like only a few months before I had picked up the one before. But when I look back at this blog it tells me that the last LP was 2.5 years ago, and the previous one was two years before that, so I guess it feels like these things come out more frequently than they do. Anyway, I'm digressing. The point is that last year there was a new Ringworm LP released entitled 'Death Becomes My Voice'. I've only just gotten around to acquiring and listening to it, and even though it is early days, it's already ranking up there as the best one in quite a while.

As usual, the cover is a pretty nice work of art in it's own right. And, as with the last two records, I held out for a clear vinyl copy. I mention this every time I pick one up, but Relapse have always made 100 clear vinyl copies of each release they put out which are not available to Joe Public. Regarding this LP, the label's webstore states: '100 x Clear (Not available to the public - Friends of band and label only)'. So not just the best looking version, but also the rarest. A double win.

At this point I have to admit that I struggled to fully appreciate the last couple of Ringworm LPs. They are so intensely heavy that I find it difficult to listen to either for more than about 4 songs in a row. As such, I felt that I never fully got into them. But something about this one is clicking with me more. I mean, this record is still undeniably Ringworm, but it generally feels a little less 'metal' and a little more 'hardcore' and thus it's easier on my ears. I doubt I could explain this in such a way that would convince anyone to agree that this isn't a metal record, but the important thing here is that I know what the hell I'm talking about even if nobody else does.

This World Is Too Much

Last year I discovered the debut 7" by Restraining Order (about a year after it came out), so I was excited for their full length, 'This World Is Too Much'. It came out at the end of October last year, and I finally got around to listening to it just before xmas. And now I have myself a vinyl copy.

Straight off the bat I'm impressed because 1) the cover is rad, and 2) the singer is wearing a Double-O shirt.

The white vinyl was exclusive to New Age Records and is limited to 200. There were 3 other colours available from the label that released this record, Triple B, but at this point it's completely sold out, unless you fancy paying $10 for a digital download.

I have to say, I am now kicking myself for not listening to this more last year, as it should definitely have been in my 'best of' list, because fuck me this is good. Why is this so good? Well, I think it's simply that this band has more of a 'punk' element. A lot of Triple B bands are definitely 'hardcore', or 'metal', but Restraining Order are definitely to be found sitting on the 'hardcore punk' shelf. Even though 'hardcore' was always just an abbreviation for 'hardcore punk', it definitely feels like a lot of bands these days have zero punk element to them. But Restraining Order really bring it. The whole record is done in 15 minutes. Only 2 of the 12 songs on this LP clock in at over 2 minutes, and 4 of them run for less than 60 seconds.

I hope I somehow get to see this band play at some point. I bet their live show is a lot of fun.

9

I make no secret of the fact that I'm a huge Saves The Day fan. I've always liked them, and unlike a lot of people I enjoy the new records as much as the older ones (the only real exception is the 'grapefruit' record from 2013). But when another album was released in 2018, I was still interested, despite the previous one having been a let down. The ninth album, titled simply '9', was released at the end of October 2018, although I wasn't really aware of it until January 2019. So at the start of last year I downloaded it, enjoyed it pretty much immediately, and then set out to buy a vinyl copy.

There were about 5 different versions of this record, but in the end I went with the pink vinyl, which is the most limited colour. I do love pink vinyl, but I nearly went with the white vinyl instead as it seemed a more appropriate choice.

I posted a Saves The Day record on instagram last year, and someone commented that this record was 'unlistenable'. I couldn't agree less. This is a great record, and sits well alongside the post 2003 albums 'Sound The Alarm', 'Under The Boards' and 'Daybreak'. This is definitely worth a listen if you like any of those records. And if you don't, what the hell is wrong with you?

SDK x RFTCC

I'm now catching up with some of the records that came out in 2019. I figured I'd start with another Integrity record, which is a split 12" with a band called Bleach Everything. The title of this record is simply 'SDK x RFTCC'. Sounds like a very cryptic title, but in reality it's just an abbreviation for what the record contains.

The Integrity side ('SDK') contains some Septic Death cover songs. In the past, Integrity have released two 7"s containing Septic Death covers - one on Blood Book records in 1995 (later repressed by Victory Records in 1997), and another in 2009. These records were informally referred to as 'Septic Death Karaoke' (SDK) and 'SDK2'. This 12" compiles all 4 songs previously released on those two 7"s, plus one extra.

The Bleach Everything side contains Rocket From The Crypt covers (RFTCC). I was never really into RFTC, although I am familiar with one of the songs on here, which is probably their most well known song, 'On A Rope'.

This record was released on Dark Operative Records and comes on 3 colours of vinyl. I currently only have the clear but will no doubt track down the others at some point.

As usual for an Integrity release, I also picked up a test press from Dwid with a hand drawn sleeve. I like this one a lot. The cover is a close up of part of the cover of the regular cover (above).

But after I had picked up this test press, I also saw pictures of a test press in a different cover which looked really nice. So I ended up picking up one of those too. This cover was made by Dom, is a rip off of a Septic Death record cover, and is numbered out of 10 copies.

I really, really didn't want to get into collecting test press variants, but in this case I totally couldn't help myself. I'm sure you can see why though. I mean, they both look great, right?

Fade Out

Next in the series of 'records I left in a box for two years and forgot about' is this copy of the Fade 'Demo' 7" in a special cover made for the band's final show.

I was about to say that I was really into this band a couple of years ago, but I just checked the blog and it's somehow over 4 years ago that I was mildly obsessed with this band. Wow. How on earth is it that long??? Time is absolutely flying by at a rate I just can't comprehend. Crazy.

Sadly, Fade broke up after putting out this demo and two 7"s, and despite me being utterly obsessed with them for a short period of time, I didn't get a chance to see them play live. And whilst this 7" is great, this particular version is slightly sad as it is dedicated to the younger brother of the singer, who was murdered in 2015.

Finally, fun fact - two of the members of Fade are now doing pretty well in another 90s tribute act that you may have heard of - Higher Power. Hopefully more on that band in the near future...

Another Let Down

The next in the series of 7"s that I found recently that I bought these a couple of years ago, put in a box and lost sight of...

There are some records that it is almost impossible to turn down owning more copies of, should the opportunity present itself. One such record for me is the Let Down 'Crossed Off' 7". It was released back in 2005 by Dead By 23 Records, and at the time it seemed quite difficult to get hold of. But as the years have rolled on, a few copies have come into my possession. These latest two are probably my favourite two copies of this record that I have in my collection.

The first copy is on pink vinyl, and sealed within vellum envelope that has with a DB23 logo on the front.

This copy is number 9/23.

The second copy is exactly the same, except is on clear vinyl instead of pink.

This copy is numbered 15/23.

I'm not sure if they are both part of the same run of 23 copies, or whether there were 46 copies packaged like this, with 23 on pink vinyl and 23 on clear vinyl. I would guess the former. I doubt there would be as many as 46 of these. Either way though, these look great.

I counted up and I now have 13 copies of this 7", which seems a lot, but I looked on discogs and there are way more that I don't have. It's insane. Some are numbered out of only 2 copies. There are even 4 different versions of the test press. It's insane. But every time I think i am done with this record, another copy seems to rear its head. Realistically though, I think I'm done with this one apart from a test press, which I still hope to pick up at some point.

Wake Up

Recently I 'found' a box with some records in that I purchased about two years ago, but never got around to featuring on here. So I thought I'd finally get around to posting them in the absence of anything else.

Tarpit was a band from Virginia Beach, VA who were around in the mid 00s. I ended up with one of their 7"s at some point and liked it, and have over the years managed to pick up their entire vinyl output for really cheap. And we all know that there's nothing quite so satisfying as picking something cool up for cheap.

This time I picked up two different versions of their 'Wake Up EP' from 2004:

Previously I only had a version of this with a limited cover. So it's cool to add the white vinyl (which is the only colour vinyl version) of this one to the collection. It's also nice that white was clearly the right choice for this one based on the artwork.

And I also was lucky enough to grab the test press too, which comes in an alternate sleeve:

I think everyone has a band that they like that they feel that the rest of the world completely missed or forgot about. Tarpit is one of these bands for me. They were never really huge in their day, and in some ways their sound was kinda typical of the mid 00s era, but they were really good at it. They released two 7"s, a split 7" and a full length and that's it. I've managed to pick up test pressings of all but the split 7" now, as well as colour vinyl pressings and some limited covers. Sometimes wonder what bands like this would think if they knew that some fool halfway across the world was still trying to collect their records over ten years after they broke up. I like to think they'd be stoked.

Anyway, here's a video I found on youtube of a song from their final show. If you've never heard them before then maybe invest one minute of your life to see what I'm rambling on about?

Harder They Fall x 30

First post of the new year, and in some ways there's no real change here. Here's a new version of an old Integrity record that came out at the end of last year.

Integrity originally released the 'Harder They Fall' 3 song demo in 1989 on cassette. 22 years later, Organized Crime Records put it out as a flexi disc, and then another 8 years on and it has been put on vinyl again in honour of the 30th anniversary by Backbite Records.

The b-side contains the same 3 songs, but remixed by Psywarfare (which is Dwid's noise side project). I'm not a big fan of Psywarfare generally, but I find these songs really interesting.

This was a one off pressing of 500 copies on two colours of vinyl. Both colours come with something I have never seen before - super tiny labels. They look really cool... although maybe only because they're 'different'.

The limited version was clear vinyl, out of 100 copies.

The more common colour is pink which is out of 400 copies. At the time of writing this, there are still pink copies for sale in the label's store.

And of course, it wouldn't be an Integrity post on here without a test press. This one comes in a hand drawn sleeve, and I have to say that this is possibly my favourite of all the hand drawn sleeves that I have in my collection...

2019 Wrap Up

I didn't do any kind of 'end of year' post in 2018, and twelve months on I kinda regret it. The only real point of this thing these days is to serve as some kind of documentation of what I buy, and without the year-end wrap up it isn't easy to look back on a year in one handy post. So I made myself do one this year mainly so I can look back in the future.

This was a weird year for me and records. It felt like I bought fewer new releases than any other year. It also felt like I added fewer records to my collection than any other year. Both of these are partly due to the way I have been buying records the past few years. I seem to have fallen into a habit of buying records and having them shipped to a friend in the states, and then getting them shipped over months later, which means that I generally receive the physical copies of new releases months (or years!) after the release date. As a result, the timeline of this blog is all over the place. It seems like a long time since I used to receive new releases a few days after they came out and blog about them a couple of days later. So in some ways, my year-end look back has become less meaningful as the years have passed.

Regardless of the delay in receiving new releases, this year was generally a pretty good year. On the personal front, I took two large chunks of time out of work, and also had 4 holidays, meaning that I worked for 9 months of the year had a total of 3 months off.

Our house renovation also got finished, allowing me to fulfill a lifetime dream and get my very own record room... which was definitely one of the highlights of the year.

One of my 4 holidays was to NYC back in March so that I could see Into Another play again. The band were great, and I brought home circa 75 records, which gave me something to blog about for a while. But other than that trip and the records I received, I probably only received about 10 packages in the rest of the year. So this blog was pretty quiet for long periods of time.

Anyway, enough chit chat. Time to get on with the show...

MY FAVOURITE RELEASES OF 2019

When pulling together this list, I actually surprised myself, as I listened to more new releases in 2019 than I initially thought. But due to the way I buy records (as mentioned above), I don't actually have many of them on vinyl. In previous years, I have been pretty strict on only listening to records once I have the vinyl, but this year I changed that approach and just listened to stuff whether i had the vinyl or not, as I was pretty hungry for some new music. So I decided to do a list of my favourite new releases in two parts...

PART 1 - STUFF I HAVE THE VINYL FOR:

(Or, in text format)

01. Magic Circle 'Departed Souls' LP (20 Buck Spin)
02. Cave In 'Final Transmission' LP (Hydrahead Records)
03. Morrissey 'California Son' LP
04. Stages In Faith LP (Quality Control HQ Records)
05. Tied Down 7" (Refuse Records / Sakari Empire)
06. Tørsö 7" (Revelation Records)
07. Dividing Line 7" (New Age Records)

PART 2 - STUFF I DON'T YET HAVE THE VINYL FOR:

01. Wild Side 'Who The Hell Is Wild Side?' LP (Triple B Records)
02. Payday 'Second To None' LP (Quality Control HQ Records)
03. Antagonize 'Slip Death' 12" (Triple B Records)
04. Orville Peck 'Pony' LP (Sub Pop Records)
05. Hammered Hulls 'S/T' 7" (Dischord Records)
06. Fury 'Failed Entertainment' LP (Run For Cover Records)
07. Angel Du$t 'Pretty Buff' LP (Roadrunner Records)

Overall I've kinda cheated by doing two lists. It seemed easy to figure out which records were Number 1 on each list, although I'm not sure I could decide which of the two number 1s is my favourite. As for the rest of the entries, I could probably change the order on a weekly basis. In fact, as I look at it now it looks wrong, as I played Orville Peck way more than Payday. I guess this list more represents where I am with these things this week.

BEST PICKUPS

I picked up a lot of great and rare records this year. I also spent more on records this year than in any other year in my life. I guess there were a lot of opportunities that I couldn't say no to. Hopefully my bank account will be able to chill a bit in 2020. Anyway, it was difficult to pick a top 5 or top 10, so I just picked a bunch of records that I was super happy to add to my collection. There was a very clear number 1 in this list though...

STUFF I LISTENED TO A LOT IN 2019

This list could also be called 'stuff I don't have on vinyl but will probably get around to buying at some point in the future'.

Other than the stuff highlighted above, this list represents some of the stuff that I have spent time listening to that's old and that I only just got around to listening to in 2019 (and not bought on vinyl for various reasons) is:

Bad Brains 'Rise' & 'Quickness' LPs
Black Sabbath 'Mob Rules' LP
Drain 'Time Enough At Last' demo
Jar 'Daylight' LP
Zozobra 'Bird Of Prey' LP
Saves The Day '9' LP
Shook Ones 'Body Feel' LP

AND FINALLY...

I seriously have no idea how many people still read this thing, although I'm guessing not too many. I'm mainly doing this for myself these days, but I very much appreciate anyone who does still read this. It is nice to get comments and interact with people, albeit less than I used to. But if you are still reading this in 2019 (or 2020!), I thank you!

Now, onward to 2020...