Straight And Alert

Alert are a fairly new Straight Edge band out of Western Massachusetts. I downloaded their 2008 demo a while back and caught them play with Mindset and The Effort way back in February this year. I was really impressed with them, and you can tell that these kids love the old school sounds of Uniform Choice and Insted. Needless to say, I was pretty excited when I found out that Life To Live Records was releasing the demo on vinyl.

I jumped right on the pre-orders when they went up, but the vinyl package deal had already sold out, and I was left with only the clear and black vinyl...limited to 200 each. I couldn't believe how fast the red vinyl, with the special pre-order cover, had sold out! After catching Alert back in February, I had exchanged a few messages with the band's bass player Keith. A wise man once told me "If you don't ask, you don't get." and every once in a while I'll put that into practice. It worked for me with the Daysgone test press, and I figured that since I missed out on the Alert pre-orders, I'd hit up Keith to see if he could help me get my hands on the red vinyl. To my surprise, Keith had a copy that he would sell to me. I immediately sent him the money via paypal, and waited for the records to arrive. Each day, I was sure that today was the day that the records would arrive from either Keith or from Life To Live, and each day I was disappointed with my empty mailbox. I finally followed up with both of them. Dan at Life To Live wasn't sure what had happened. He said that my records had shipped, but offered to send them again. I told Dan, that there was no reason for him to be on the losing end of this transaction, and that I hated to see a cool new label lose some money, so I told him that I'd order them again when I got my next paycheck. At the same time I was having the conversation with Life To Live, I heard back from Keith. He was very apologetic that the records hadn't been sent. He had been away on tour and hadn't sent them before he left. I told him the bad luck that I was having in getting my hands on this vinyl, and so he said that he was leaving for the post office at that moment, and was mailing me all three pressings of the demo. Sure enough, the very next day, I received the package from him in the mail. Man, it feels good to finally have this in my hands! Thanks Keith!