Trouble Is

Dag Nasty is one of those bands that I felt that I didn't really every set out to collect, but over the years opportunities to pick up their records have fallen in front of me, and I have taken them. So I have ended up with a pretty good collection just from taking advantage of opportunities over time. But despite having some pretty rare records, I am still missing some of their more common ones. I mean, here I am in 2022 and only now picking up a copy of the 'Trouble Is' 12".

I picked this up from someone who had been selling a few copies. Turns out he had a box of them. He only wanted $10 for one, which I figured was a good price for a new, unplayed copy. The only slight issue is that this is one of the copies without the sticker on the plastic sleeve. I would have preferred one with the sticker ideally. But the good thing about there not being a sticker, however, was that it was an easy decision to throw the plastic sleeve in the bin. Those pvc sleeves (the ones used for picture discs) are not good at all for records, as over time they stick to the record and end up ruining them.

I love the amount of dead was on this record. There's more vinyl here without music on it than with. Surely this could have been released as a 7" rather than a 12"?

I used to own one of these 12"s years ago but sold it because I didn't like it. As Dag Nasty records go, this is pretty far from the best, but in my older years it's a lot more acceptable than it was to a 20 year old me.

Hygiene

A couple of months ago Mike messaged me to tell me he was excited about the cover for the new Drug Church LP. I think he thought it looked awesome and expected me to think the same, but to me it just looked like a fish eye in an orange, and wasn't something that I found interesting at all. I'd never heard the band and couldn't care less about the artwork. Sorry dude! Then a month or so ago I was in California and the people I was staying with were going on about how good Drug Church is. I asked what they sounded like, and they said that they don't really sound like anything else, which left me intrigued. So I decided to check them out. I played the new record on their bandcamp and found it to be ok. The next day I checked it again and it somehow seemed to fit in quite nicely with the California lifestyle I was living. So of course I decided to just cut to the chase and invest in a physical copy, especially as I'd also made a decision on the trip that I should be less resistant to buying more new releases.

So a couple of days later I bought this copy from RevHQ. This is an 'exclusive' version sold only by Revelation, which is known as 'yellow with black splatter'. As well as deciding to buy more new releases, I have also decided to be less picky when it comes to colours and not only be satisfied with the most limited version, because being picky in the recent past has caused me to miss out on records completely and regret it later. So I bought this one without seeing what it looked like... which has proved to be an interesting decision, because if I had seen this before I bought it then I would not have bought it as it looks like shit. But hey, it's a 'limited edition colour vinyls' so I should probably just be grateful to have one at all.

It's kinda funny that I was told that Drug Church don't sound like anything else. To me it sounds slightly similar to the Culture Abuse LP that everyone went nuts for back in 2018... which was another Summer hit for me back then. As it stands, I'm quite enjoying this Drug Church LP right now. It's made it onto my daily playlist. It's definitely going to be one of the hits of Summer 2022.

All This Time 2

At the back end of last year I picked up a test press for the Freewill 'All This Time' LP. This was the second full length from the band, with the previous one having been recorded way back in 1988. I'd been familiar with the original LP for quite a few years, and was initially disappointed by last year's follow up as it sounded like a completely different band. But actually I grew to love the second album and played it a lot. Even though I was lucky enough to get a test press, I also wanted to get a regular copy of the record, because I don't like owning just a test press. There were several versions made, and I came to the conclusion that I didn't really care which one I got, so I just bought a copy from RevHQ, which turned out to be this purple vinyl version.

I really, really like this LP and I think that if there were only 2 or 3 versions I'd be tempted to chase them all. But with there being about 8 I can't even consider it.

Whilst I was poking about at Rev I also took the opportunity to pick up the second press green vinyl version of the band's demo that was put out by Mankind Records. The second press came out last year, somehow five years after the first press. Well given I had the previous versions I decided that I also needed the green one in my life to keep the collection complete.

And because I have a bit of time on my hands at the moment, I decided to take a picture of said collection.

Ro-Sham-Bo

Today's record is the result of a trade that had been discussed for about two and a half years. A fried picked up a test press of the first Farside LP and I was instantly super jealous it is one of my favourite records of all time. It helped me through a tough time somewhere around 2001. I asked the guy if he would ever consider letting it go, and the answer was yes... but only for a small handful of similar records. I thought I was going to have a chance to get one relatively quickly, but it actually took me two and a half years. But it came good in the end.

I got this sent to me whilst I was in California, and I was happy to find a spare sleeve at RevHQ to keep it in, which was nice. I've done pretty well over the years with getting sleeves for any Rev tests that I have managed to pick up, so hopefully this trend can continue.

I Wish I

Sometimes I wish I could resist buying the same records over and over. My bank balance would be higher and there would be less stuff in my house. But the problem is, when records you love get pressed on new colours of vinyl or in new packaging, you can't help but want to buy them because... well, because they're new and exciting. But the way things are these days, it seems smarter to buy them anyway, because if you don't and decide you want one later, the only option will be to pay a stupid price from a fool on discogs.

Anyway, I love the Embrace LP and always have, and couldn't resist picking up the latest green vinyl pressing.

I also got sucked into the latest blue vinyl pressing of the Minor Threat 12", simply because it's on a different colour blue than the previous pressing.

This pressing is on a dark, slightly clear blue vinyl, whereas the previous one was a baby blue marble. Side by side they are obviously very different colours.

As stupid as it is, I love stuff like this... although I think it'd be cooler if they changed the colour scheme to a red cover with red vinyl, and / or yellow cover with yellow vinyl. I'm sure they will come in the fullness of time, but I wouldn't bet against another blue version coming first. We shall see I guess.

Rather Be Alone

If you read this blog you'll probably have realised that I haven't listened to much hardcore this year. Or at least, not for the first three months of it. But there is pretty much only ONE hardcore record that I did listen to throughout February and March, which was the debut full length from Californian straight edge band Power Alone. I was wanting to check out some of the music that Indecision Records had put out the past few years, and I chose Power Alone as the start point. Well, first play or two and I wasn't really overly impressed as it didn't stand out in any way. But I kept at it and during the third play it started to grab me. And then it became my go to hardcore record. In between all the pop punk I was listening to, when I wanted something a bit harder, I wanted to listen to Power Alone. So when I visited Indecision HQ, the Power Alone LP was at the top of my shopping list.

Whilst 'Rather Be Alone' is a pretty new record for me, it actually came out in 2020, so it's not really a new release. There were two colours of vinyl pressed, with the first 100 copies being on white vinyl. I was pretty lucky to have got one of these as it sold out long ago.

The white vinyl is hand numbered on the b-side label, which is a nice touch.

And despite me trying to cut down on the number of versions of records I am buying these days, I couldn't help but also pick up a pink vinyl copy too, mainly because pink is the best colour there is.

I'm not a huge fan of the cover art on this record. I mean, it's interesting, but I'm not sure I get it. But what I am a big fan of is the insert. Sometimes straight edge can come across as corny, but sometimes it's unashamed and proud and inspiring. I love this pic of vocalist Eva and the accompanying quote:

The quote reads as follows:

In precarious times, one thing will stand. This world will erupt, but I know who I am. My life will change, over time, but not my vow. I'll protect my mind. I am straightedge. My will is sure. I'll wear the X as the last fires burn.

This record came out literally a couple of weeks before the virus hit and sent everyone into lockdown. As a result of that, plus the fact that the members live quite far apart, the band haven't played a single show since the record was released. So there is no footage of them playing on youtube. So despite this record being an absolutely stunning hardcore record, it feels to me that they haven't made as much of an impact as they should have done. I really hope that changes this year, and I hope that by some miracle I can get to see this band play at some point.

The Direction Of Things To Come

After almost 4 months of listening to nothing but pop punk, I'm finding my way back to listening to hardcore again. Following another trip to California a month ago, I've ended up with a huge amount of new records and music, so I need to increase my blogging rate else I'm never going to get through this stuff.

So I chose this record to post today mainly because of the title. It's an indication of what I've picked up recently and will be featuring on here for the next few posts. I stayed with Dave who runs Indecision Records, and it proved a good opportunity to catch up with some of the stuff he's put out that I was not familiar with. But amongst the sea of new releases, I found a couple of colour vinyl copies of the first Ensign LP, 'The Direction Of Things To Come'.

Originally released in 1997, there were 515 copies of this LP on grey vinyl. And even though I used to buy everything that Indecision put out around that time, I never owned this record on grey vinyl before. So it was really cool to get one that was brand new and still sealed twenty five years later.

Whilst I never owned the grey vinyl version of this record, I instead owned the purple vinyl version, which was pressed for a European tour. It also comes in a purple coloured cover. Apparently the LP covers came back and they were printed the wrong colour (purple). So instead of scrap them, the label decided to press up some matching colour vinyl to go inside. So it was cool to find out that the purple copies kinda came about by accident after owning one for almost twenty five years.

I hadn't listened to this one in quite some time, but grabbing this record made me check the record out again. I have to say, I had forgotten how good this one is. I used to like Ensign at the back end of the 90s, but for some reason my brain authomatically thinks of them as being second rate to other bands of the time. One play of this and I realised my memory failed me. This is a great record and I think has aged pretty well.

More Lookout! Records 7"s

I'm finally getting to the end of this pile of pop punk records that I kept for myself from my friend's collection. I decided to bunch the remaining Lookout! Records 7"s into one post, rather than do a post for each. Partly because I don't think I could say that much about some of them, and partly because I have a big backlog of new records building up that I want to get to post about. The only question I had with this post was in what order to post the records, so I decided to order them according to their catalog numbers. So here we go...

Starting off with Lookout! #9, the Yeastie Girlz 'Ovary Action' 7", released in 1988.

I actually used to own this 7" in the past but sold it because it wasn't great. But this time around I felt a little nostalgic about it. The band play no music whatsoever. They just kinda rap, but with no musical accompanyment whatsoever, on themes based around feminism and sex. I mean, just check the pic on the b-side label:

Adding this one to discogs I became aware for the first time in my life that this 7" exists on red vinyl. So obviously I want one of these now. Man, I love finding out about things like this for the first time 30 years after first hearing the record. Crazy.

Next up is Lookout! #13 from 1989, the Surrogate Brains 'Surrogate Serenades' 7".

This one I hadn't heard before. I do like the artwork as it is very much of the period. The songs here are super catchy, and this one just might be my favourite of the bunch, even though they do sound more pop than punk.

Next is Lookout! #14, also from 1989. The Eyeball 'Prosthetic Head' 7".

This one has some crazy artwork, and I love the whole concept of a prosthetic head. This band kinda reminds me of The Didjits. Fast with a similar vocal style, and slightly nonsense songs. But they are definitely fun. No ugly people allowed!

Next is another banger from 1989. Lookout! #16, the Kamala And The Karnivores 'Girl Band' 7".

The band features Kamala Parks, who is / was a bit of a scene legend in the old bay area punk rock scene of the late 80s / early 90s. She played in a few bands (including Cringer, who I featured in my last post), and was instrumental in getting the legendary 924 Gilman Street venue set up and established. This 7" features 4 poppy songs that border on 60s pop music. Again, this 7" contains some very catchy tunes. Sadly this copy is black vinyl rather than blue, but I hope in time to find a colour copy.

Next is Lookout! #31 from 1990. This is Blatz! 'Cheaper Than The Beer' 7".

Somehow Blatz is a band that I had completely overlooked until this year, somehow. They are raw and fast and fun. They had three vocalists, two of which were women. I love how punk and messy this band is. 'We're not gonna piss in a cup, no we're gonna fuck shit up'. Genius.

And finally, a slightly later release. This one is Lookout! #56 from 1993 - Jack Acid 'Destroy The Boat' 7":

This is another band with duel male and female vocals, and it works pretty well. The guitar on this one reminds me of H-Street skateboard videos, in that there's a lot of distortion and a kind of sloppiness. I don't know. I can't really do this one justice. But it has the same charm as all the other 7"s in this post.

At some point I am going to have to do a check of my collection to see which Lookout! 7"s I am missing. I mean, I'm not interested in owning the entire output of the label by any means, but anything up to about 1993 seems to be worth having, and I'm interested in trying to obtain a complete collection of all of the releases that have the Laytonville address, which I think is 30 or so. I already own the expensive big hitters (Green Day & Operation Ivy), so I think this is a realistic target to set myself. And obviously just what I need - another collection to pursue.

Cringer

Another band that I have been aware of for many years and only recently got a little more into is Cringer. Named after He-Man's feline sidekick, Cringer started life in the means streets of... Hawaii. I guess it's true that you learn something new every day. Apparently they started in Hawaii and then moved to LA and then to San Francisco. Anyway, my knowledge of the band is pretty much non existent. But one of my friends got into them a long time ago, and for whatever reason I was never too interested. But of course, when I inherited the record collection and was flicking through it, I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to give Cringer another try. And it was no real surprise given how much I have got back into the melodic stuff from the early 90s, that I found myself enjoying them.

I have ended up with three of their records. First up, the band's debut release, a 7" titled 'Perversion Is Their Destiny'. This was released by Vinyl Communications back in 1987. There were several different versions of this with different colour covers and colours of vinyl.

Unsurprisingly, this first releases showcases Cringer at their most basic. But as is often the case, a band's debut is where they sound the most unique. But also the least accessible.

Next, the band's only full length, which came out in 1990 on Vinly Communications, and which has one of the longest names for a record that I have ever seen. The record is titled 'Tikki Tikki Tembo No Sa Rembo Chari Bari Ruchi Pip Peri Pembo', which is the name of a character in a book.

This copy comes on clear vinyl. I have no idea if this is particularly rare or not, but it wasn't on discogs until I added it a few weeks ago.

The record is a definite step up from the debut 7" and contains some great pop punk, with a nice raw edge to it. It also contains a song that in my opinion should be the most played song in the world right now - the second song is called 'Russia'. It's one and a half minutes long, and takes 40 seconds to build up to a scream of 'Go back to Russia!'. Overall a very catchy record.

The third record I kept was a 7" called 'Karin'. This was released by Lookout! Records in 1990. I actually already had this one on red vinyl, but decided to keep this copy as it's more pink, as the photo completely fails to show:

I tried to take a photo of this one next to my red copy, but somehow they both looked exactly the same. So I had to resort to putting them on the window sill to get the light behind them to show the difference. The new one is the one on the right.

Anyway, given what is going on in Ukraine right now, I thought I'd end this post with the song I mentioned earlier in this post. Enjoy...

Porcelain Boys Marble

I've said it many times before, but it's crazy how bands can drift in and out of your life over time. Back in the early 90s I was picked up two 7"s by a band called Porcelain Boys. They appeared on one of my favourite compilations of all time (the Lookout! Records 'Can Of Pork' comp), and back then it seemed nigh on impossible to find records by most of the bands on that comp. So when I managed to pick up two Porcelain Boys 7"s, I was pretty stoked. There was only seven songs across those two 7"s, but I played them a lot and always wished there was a full length, as they played a pretty perfect blend of pop punk.

Well, after having not really thought much about them for many years, when I found a 7" in my friend's collection, I was intrigued. Turns out that it was released in 1996, when I had moved on from anything resembling pop punk. But I was surprised, as the band's previous 7"s were released in 1989 & 1990. I can only assume that the band reformed after a few years and cranked out some new songs. This 7" is a split with a band called Marble. Turns out that there were 300 copies on white vinyl and 300 copies on purple vinyl, and luckily I got the rare one.

The two Porcelain Boys songs on this 7" are as close to pop punk perfection as it is possible to get. So catchy. The Marble side, however, is pretty forgettable. There's one original song and then a cover of the song 'Holiday Road' from the National Lampoon's Vacation movies, which is a song that I feel I would be happy to never hear again by any artist.

A quick trip to discogs also showed me that the band did eventually put out a full length, which was released on CD only in 1997. I managed to find a download, and have been enjoying it in recent weeks. Kinda funny that I finally managed to hear a Porcelain Boys full length 25 years after it came out, and about 29 years after I was longing to hear one.

I'd Rather Be Flag Burning

Back in what feels like a former life I bought the first Progagandhi album, 'How To Clean Everything'. At the time I liked it, but for some reason I never bought another Propagandhi record after that one. Actually, that's not quite true. I bought the 'Where Quality Is Job #1' 7" and found it so awful that I sold it again not long after. That record just felt like they were trying to be everything that Fat Wreck was not, but I just found it messy and annoying. As I remember it, you couldn't even play the record without lifting and moving the arm of your record player after every single song. It managed to piss me off so much that I was done with Propagandhi and never listened to them again. I've had a few people tell me over the years that I should listen to them, but I just never really felt too interested in doing so.

Well, my friend's collection contained the split 10" with I-Spy that I remember missing out on back when it came out. The local record shop where I lived got some in, but by the time I decided to buy one it was sold out. So I never heard it until this year. I gave it a listen and decided that it would definitely not be out of place in my collection.

Discogs tells me that there are numerous different colours of cover for this record, and I honestly don't think that anyone really knows which were first or which are rarest. It kinda feels that they prbably made so many different versions just to fuck with people. But what I never appreciated before is that this record comes with two different covers, rather than just one that is different on each side. So you can literally choose which cover you prefer and use that one. My Propagandhi side is brown paper with brown ink.

The I-Spy cover is white with red ink.

I'd never heard of I-Spy before, but I actually prefer their side of the record. I checked out what else they released and it turns out they released another 10". If it was an LP I might try to track one down, but it's a 10" and I kinda feel that I already have way too many 10"s in my house already.

Lucky Fifteen

My last post was for two Crimpshrine records, so it seems fitting that this next post is a Fifteen LP. Fifteen was a band formed by Jeff Ott after Crimpshrine. They had a couple of releases on Lookout! Records, then released records on several other labels throughout the 90s. I picked up a couple of their earlier LPs back when they came out, and then (like a lot of bands) I moved on to other things and kinda forgot all about them.

Finding their seventh album from 1999 in my friend's collection, I thought it would be a good chance to check them out again, and I found myself enjoying it. 'Lucky' was released as a double LP on Sub City Records.

I always thought that Fifteen was less well known than Crimpshrine for some reason, even though they were also on Lookout! Records and were a band for much longer. Musically I think Fifteen were better. Their songs generally had more melody and didn't sound like they were recorded on a portable cassette recorder in a bathroom in a squat. But somehow they weren't quite as highly regarded, despite being very similar in a lot of ways. I can only assume it's because they came after the golden age of the Gilman Street scene.

I also just realised that this record comes on a limited red and blue vinyl set, so that's one new record added to the collection and one new record added to the want list at the same time. Yay!

The Sound Of A New Soup Being Born

I've always been a fan of Crimpshrine. I first heard them on the 'Turn It Around' compilation around 30 years ago, and I liked them right away because they sounded very similar to Operation Ivy but without the ska bits. They had a great 7" release in the very early days of Lookout! Records (released as Lookout! number 4), but for some reason their only full length release ('Lame Gig Contest') came out on a German label, Empty Records. I think I read somewhere once that the reason for this was that Lookout! Records didn't think that the full length was good enough and so declined to release it.

Well anyway, I guess in time Lookout! realised their mistake and decided that those songs were good enough after all. So most of them got released as originally intended, with it being titled 'Duct Tape Soup'. This was then released as Lookout! number 57 in 1992.

A lot of people regard this as a Crimpshrine album, but I always thought of it as a compilation of songs released on other records, so I never felt the need to pick it up. But the label did a good job of remixing the songs on here so they actually sound better.

This is a first press copy of this, denoted by the black & white cover. Later pressings had a yellow & red cover. And in the spirit of older Lookout! releases, this first press copy comes with a nice booklet.

A few years later, Lookout! released another Crimpshrine record. 'The Sound Of A New World Being Born' came out in as Lookout! 194 at a time when Lookout! were rolling in cash and putting out a lot of records. I remember than when this one dropped it definitely felt like a cash grab and an excuse for Lookout! to press some Crimpshrine songs onto vinyl for the newer fans. This record compiles their first two 7"s along with some other songs onto one 12", and I also never bought this one for the exact same reason that I never bought the above 12" - it didn't have anything really new or essential.

This one also comes with a huge fold out poster insert, which in 2022 I think is kinda cool.

So there we are. Two Crimpshrine records that I never had any intention of buying when they came out originally, but when I found them in my house and I had to decide to either sell them or keep them, I felt that I'd actually quite like to have them in my collection. Tell me you wouldn't do the same.