Blackalicious

I got the new Paint It Black album, New Lexicon, a few weeks ago. The album is really good, but like their last album, I figure that it will take some time to really grow on me. I swear, Dan Yemin has one of the most intense voices in hardcore today. The words he screams just drip with passion and sincerity. The band is no different live. I've seen them twice, the first time was shortly after their first album was released and Paul and I saw them open up for Strike Anywhere in Boston. Dan opened up their set with the line, "In two seconds, the teacher will begin to speak.", which was a line lifted from the great hip hop artist KRS-One. One of the coolest intros that I've heard. The second time I saw them was when Rob and I drove to Posi Numbers in 2005. During the set, Dan got knocked in the nose and the guy was covered in blood. Apparently, the medication that he was on, thinned his blood and it just flowed from his nose. The guy didn't miss a beat as he ripped through their set. Like I said, intense. Unlike Tyler, who got lucky enough to get the limited friends press from Rivalry, mine was on black vinyl, which was limited to 270 for pre-orders.

Resisting A Career

Man, things have been pretty busy around here lately, and I haven't had time to get this blog updated. Between late nights watching movies and Celtics games with the wife, helping the kids with homework, to spending some time with Jeff as he works his way through a rough time in his life, to just kicking it with our friends Rob and Heidi as we managed some time away for a great dinner and a bad movie. Just loving life. Basketball has started up at work, and I'm playing as much as I can...and that means that I'm usually exhausted at night and falling asleep on the couch by 9:00. I've got so many records sitting here by my computer, that I need to start getting them cleaned up.

A while back I got some vinyl from REVHQ. I was excited to see the Resist record, We Want Our World Back, was finally released. It is always great to see Wrench from Ten Yard Fight and Stand & Fight taking the microphone for a straight edge band. You can't help but hear the similarities between Resist and Wrench's previous bands. Great straight edge hardcore. This vinyl was pressed on blue with black splatter colored vinyl.

The thing I love about Last.fm is all the great new bands that people have recommended to me. Tyler pulled through once again and sent me some mp3's from Career Suicide. The band friggin' rips, and I immediately fell in love with their Attempted Suicide album so I decided to pick it up from REVHQ as well. Sometimes I get stuck in a mood of only wanting to listen to Heavy Metal or 70's hard rock. Bands like Career Suicide bring me back to listening to only hardcore real quick. This copy is on black vinyl.

Back From The Dead

Mercyful Fate released Time in 1994. At the time of it's release, I had pretty much distanced myself from anything Metal. I was getting pretty immersed into the Ebulliton Records scene of politics and political correctness. Music was serious business for me at the time, and the theatrics of a band like Mercyful Fate were ridiculous. While I would still catch the occasional show by Strife or Mouthpiece, for the most part I was going to see shows by scruffy hardcore punk bands in an empty room behind a health food store in Alston, Massachusetts. It was a great way to distance myself from the tough-guy bullshit that was going on in the hardcore scene at the time. These shows were pretty small, roughly only 50 people at the most, and there was no dancing what so ever. Slamdancing was seriously frowned upon in the scene, and therefore we all stood there with our arms crossed, bobbing our heads to the music and watching the band. I saw a lot of really cool bands during this time...like Shotmaker, Bleed, Weston, Rye and Cable, but to be honest, the whole thing was pretty pretentious and way too serious (except for those early Weston shows which were always great fun). Over the next couple of years, the Youth Crew revival kicked in and reminded me how much fun hardcore could be with stagedives and sing alongs. What is the point of music if it can't be fun...and damn it, Metal is fun. Time was re-issued through Night of the Vinyl Dead early in 2008 on white splatter vinyl. Mine is number 309 of 500 pressed.

When I started checking out the back catalog of Night of the Vinyl Dead, I saw that they had released a couple of Sodom albums on vinyl. I hadn't heard this band since I bought Agent Orange in 1989. Code Red was released 10 years after that, and in looking into their discography I was surprised to see that they were still around and releasing albums. I downloaded the albums that the Vinyl Dead had to offer and holy shit, I had forgotten how much fun Metal could be. Sodom are great, and here they are still true to their roots and blasting out some totally ripping German thrash. Code Red just blew me away, and I started searching eBay for the vinyl. Released on red vinyl, and mine is numbered 310 of 500 pressed.