Friday, May 25, 2012

Still A Champion

I'd heard rumors a while ago that Bridge Nine was going to press Champion's Promises Kept LP on vinyl again. While I already had 11 copies of this album on vinyl, I was pretty excited at the prospect of another pressing. Promises Kept was my starting point for collecting vinyl. Not just buying it, but COLLECTING it. It had been quite a few years since I'd really bought any vinyl, but I happened to pick up a copy of the LP at one of Champion's east coast shows...it was the clear blue pressing that the band was selling on tour. I remember looking at the vinyl after the show, and having that feeling I was holding something truly special. That moment breathed new life into my love of Hardcore, and at that moment I knew that I needed to become a record collector.

No matter how many times Bridge Nine presses this record, I'll be first in line to order a copy. When preorders went up, I quickly added the two copies that the label had available for the fourth pressing...one gold and one clear colored vinyl. Yeah, there was also a "package deal" available that included both the Promises Kept and Time Slips Away LPs, and a poster. I could give a fuck about posters, so I passed it by. It wasn't until I saw Doug's post, that I realized that the package deal included a piece of vinyl that you couldn't order individually. It seems that Bridge Nine made this more difficult than it had to be, and now I'll have to make a special effort to pick up the last piece of the puzzle.

The gatefold packaging looks great. Bridge Nine lists that the jacket was printed with "metallic ink"...I'm not too sure what that means, but it does look pretty sweet.

In addition to the Promises Kept vinyl, Bridge Nine also made the Time Slips Away compilation available for the first time on vinyl. Sure I have multiple copies of Champion's first two 7 inches, I've got CD copies of each EP, plus the Time Slips Away CD and it's loaded to my ipod...still it feels good to have these songs combined and available as one vinyl LP. Of course I'm never happy, and I wish that they had fully completed the compilation of material and included the three songs from the split with Betrayed, and even thrown on the SSD cover of Glue.

I'm really impressed with how great this looks. From the album cover, to the colors chosen for the vinyl...Bridge Nine did an amazing job.

As typical with Bridge Nine, they haven't posted any pressing information for these records, so as of right now, the numbers for each is a mystery.

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