Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The Time Is Now

Man, things have been incredibly busy here over the past couple of weeks. The holidays and stuff just ate up all of my time. I've got some new records that I haven't even had time to listen to yet. Shit's been crazy. One of my projects has been completing the shelving in my Music Room, the walk-in closet dedicated to nothing but record and CD storage. Damn, this has been a long, drawn out project. Back in April, we finished one wall of shelving for my vinyl, and here we are eight months later, finally finishing the opposite wall for my CD's. Steve came over on Saturday and helped me figure out the design, and get all the wood cut, and then I got it all assembled over the next few days. With today off from work, I spent about 6 hours organizing the room, and getting CD's on the shelves. Now I just need to buy a table to hold my stereo, finish the flooring, and this room will be complete.

Now that I've moved all the CD's to their proper place, I have a ton of room for more records.

I can't believe that I almost filled all of the shelves on my CD wall. 2,284 CD's in all. Along with the 634 albums and 705 seven inch records, this is my obsession.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Welcome to Boston: Part 2 (Celtics vs Magic)

My second trip to Boston in two weeks...this time for our annual trip to a Boston and Orlando game. Rob, Brent and I had plans to stop at Nuggets for some record shopping, but to our dismay, the store is closed on Monday. I guess that I missed the store hours that are posted on the front door when I was there a week ago! Too bad...there was a 97a picture disc that I was planning on picking up. Oh well, with the store closed, we decided to go and kill some time at Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. We were surprised to find that Newbury Comics had opened a store there since our last visit. Yes! Record shopping was back on! I head to the vinyl section and was on the verge of picking up the new Ceremony album when I found the new Toxic Holocaust album. Pretty much a one man show from Joel Grind, as he plays guitar, bass, and sings. This is some pretty raw thrash. Really fuckin' cool. Tim Junk Food posted about this record a couple months ago, so like his copy, I thought that I was going to find some yellow vinyl inside. It was kind of a cool surprise to find green wax instead...especially since we were on our way to see the Celtics. Relapse seems to press vinyl colors limited to 300, so I'm going to have to assume that is the pressing for this one.
After killing a ton of time walking around Boston, the three of us made our way to TD Banknorth Garden for the game. Following the tradition for when we go to these games, Boston wins. This was Brent's first trip to a game, and it was a lot of fun throwing up high fives as the Celtics steamrolled the Magic to end the game. Good times.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Welcome to Boston: Part 1

I already had plans at the first of December for a trip to Boston when Jeff asked if I wanted to make a trip down for some record shopping at the end of November. At first I declined. I already had plans to for a week later, I shouldn't spend the money, and the real reason was that I was afraid that my wife would kill me if I went record shopping again. In the end I said "fuck it", and took Jeff up on his offer. The guy has been through some rough shit this year, so I figured that if it was a shopping trip that he wanted, then damn it, he deserved it. Thankfully, my wife understood, and I didn't catch too much shit for it.


Our first stop was at In Your Ear Records. The store is packed, wall to wall, with used vinyl. You have to dig through a lot of shit to find any kind of treasures, but that is all part of the fun. Knowing that we had a couple of other stores to go to, I tried to not blow my entire load in the first store, and kept my purchases to a minimum.
  • Deep Purple - Burn : This is an album that I would have never expected myself to get into. The main reason is that David Coverdale is the singer...yeah, the guy from Whitesnake. But seriously, this friggin' rocks. Great album, and this copy was in such great condition, I couldn't resist. $10.00.

  • Dio - Mystery : A 12 inch single from Dio's Last in Line album. Nothing too special, but I have a small collection of Dio records, so I needed this one. $4.00.

  • The Meatmen - War of the Superbikes : Man, The Meatmen are, for better or for worse, classics. Rude, crude and as far from PC as you can get...but I'll be damned it they don't rage. This album isn't as hardcore as We're the Meatmen and you Suck, but it is still a lot of fun. Considering how un-PC this band is, it always struck me as odd that Lyle Preslar and Brian Baker, from Minor Threat, played on this record. $15.00.

Our next stop was at Nuggets. This store was kind of a bust. There was just so much junk...like they hadn't added anything new since I was there last year. I know that the owner sells stuff on eBay, so I'm sure that all the cool shit ends up there, and unfortunately it will probably mean the death of his store. I was prepared to walk out of there empty handed when I found Nothing To Nothing by Tear It Up. I was kind of surprised to find this at Nuggets, as they don't typically carry any hardcore or punk. I already own this one on CD, but the album is so good, I figured that I'd drop the $15.00 to have it on vinyl as well.

On a whim, Jeff and I decided to check out Newbury Comics in Harvard Square. I have a lot of history with this store, as Paul and I used to make annual trips down to Newbury's back in the early 90's. Man, we would save our money for months, and just go nuts, buying stacks of albums and CDs. This was at a time when mailorder wasn't exactly reliable, and Maine didn't really have any kind of independent record store...these trips to Newbury's was all we had. Somewhere down the line, Newbury Comics opened a store in Maine, and the trips to Harvard Square stopped. How long has it been? 10 years? 15 years? I'm not exactly sure, but when Jeff and I walked into the store, it was as amazing as it was all those years ago. It wasn't anywhere near as good as Generation Records in NYC, but it kicked the ass of anything that we have around here. The two of us agreed...if we had come to this store first, we wouldn't have bothered flipping through the dust bins of the other two stores. Since I was already running short on cash, I only picked up two pieces of vinyl...oh yeah, I got a couple of CD's here as well.

  • Suicidal Tendencies : I've been meaning to order this directly from Frontier Records for months now. When I saw it at Newbury's, I figured that it was as good a time as any to finally buy it. The bands classic first album, and along with Th' Inbred and Dead Kennedys, one of the first punk albums that I ever bought...of course my original copy was on cassette. This is the 25th anniversary pressing, on red and silver vinyl...which looks absolutely amazing. For this pressing, the LP jacket features a spot varnished logo, similar to what Champion did with their logo on their live album. Nice touch.
  • Annihilation Time III - Tales of the Ancient Age : I have fallen in love with this band. No one can touch this band on their blend of classic rock and punk. It doesn't sound like a really appealing mix, but damn, this shit is intense. A great mash of Black Flag and Thin Lizzy. The guitar work on Bald Headed Woman is so friggin' good, and the line in Germ Freak is a complete classic..."Hey baby, you wanna dance? I just shit my pants. Fuck you.". I know it may sound retarded, but you've got to hear it to appreciate the greatness...okay, even after you hear it, I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't "get it". Oh well, this album is easily in my top 5 for 2008. This pressing is on Tee Pee Records. At some point, I may need to track down the vinyl that Reflections Records released.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Losing My Head Over Dekapitator

Relapse released The Storm Before The Calm from Dekapitator last year. If I had heard this when it was released, it would have certainly made it to the top list for my top Metal albums in 2007. Man, this album thrashes from start to finish, but from dudes with names like Matt Hellfield, Dan Bulldoze, D. Attacker and Andy "Atomic" Maniac, it is exactly what you would expect. Great stuff from one of the better bands to come out of the thrash revival. This album was pressed on orange vinyl and limited to 1,000.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

You Complete Me

What a surprise! On Monday, I got home at 1:00 in the morning from the Celtics game, and there next to the computer was a box from Youngblood Records. What the Hell? I know that I'm not waiting for anything from Youngblood. I open the box and inside, along with the Fired Up 7 inch on purple, and the Lights Out LP on white (limited to 202), is a note that simply says "From Marcus". A few posts back I mentioned that I was missing these two records, and Marcus helps out my endless quest, and goes ahead and contacts Sean from Youngblood and has him send them to me. Wow. Impressive in the fact that this Lights Out pressing has been sold out for a while. I haven't known Marcus that long, and then only through our blogs, so the level of generosity from this man is mind blowing. Thank you so much, man.
So with this final pressing of the Lights Out LP, my collection of Overload is complete.