Roadtrip for The First Step

Originally, we had planned to take our annual roadtrip up to northern Maine and spend the weekend four-wheeling through the mountains. Once I found out that The First Step was playing their last show at the beginning of September, the plans were changed. Rob, Paul and I piled into my car and took the eight and a half hour drive down to Pennsylvania for the weekend. We had a blast the whole weekend...shenanigans in the car, stopping at Sheetz for free sandwiches and a PB&J smoothie, walking around Harrisburg, hanging out by the river, and taking a trip to the movies to see Death Race. What a great time. The highlight of it all, of course, was the show.

We walked into the club and were greeted by Aram. So nice to catch up with him. The first couple of bands that played didn't do much for me...the only name I can remember was Warpriest. Hostage Calm and Mindset played great sets. I was hoping to pick up some vinyl from each band, but all they had was CD's, so I walked away from their merch tables empty handed. I went down to the front of the stage halfway through Mindset's set, for the Youth of Today cover, and then proceeded to have the guitarist jump straight into me. I caught him with no problem, but as you can see from the picture above, I wasn't aware that he had a serious case of "swamp ass". Get The Most were a lot of fun and played Straight on View by Unity...I felt like a dork when I wanted to sing along but couldn't remember the words. The First Step were amazing. They must have played damn near every song they wrote, and the crowd was right up front for the entire show. The set was full of sweet dives and sing alongs. What a great, positive atmosphere...no bullshit. The show was at Championship Records, so between the store and the merch tables, I walked out with a nice haul of vinyl.

I picked up the final Damage Control 7 inch. I can't remember which merch table I bought this one from. This is good melodic straight edge hardcore, and the packaging on this record is outstanding. Nice 12 page booklet that is a fitting end to this band. Great layout of pictures and a summary tribute to the band from Stephen from The First Step.

Man, I love Dead Stop. They play an angry, fast style of hardcore that is just straight out of the early 80's. This is the third pressing of their self titled 7 inch on Six Feet Under Records. Red vinyl. I have no idea how many were pressed for this color, or even if Six Feet Under was the label to originally release this.

I've always considered Cornerstone to be the band that really kicked off the Youth Crew revival in the mid-90's. I can't think of anyone else that was really doing this style when I picked up their demo in 1994. At the time I was buying too many shitty records from Ebullition, and this was a nice change of pace. Beating the Masses was released in 1995 on Lost and Found out of Europe. I can't remember when Under Estimated Records released this on vinyl with this awesome gatefold packaging. I was glad to finally grab this on vinyl from Championship.

Sean Youngblood was late to the show, but I was happy to see him finally arrive with some vinyl to sell. One of the things I bought from him was Worn Thin's Long Road Ahead record. This is the pressing from the Youngblood Showcase back in May. Black vinyl with white labels...hand stamped and numbered 47 out of 75.

Another record that I was happy to find at Championship was the Black SS album. I must have downloaded this a year ago, so it was about time that I finally bought a copy. Man, this is a fun record. Kind of a punked up early Boston Hardcore sound, and the singer really reminds me of Kill Your Idols. This is the second pressing on Reaper Records...limited to 1000 on "yellow with blue puke vinyl".