Cheap 7 Inch Haul: 1998 - The Third Degree

The Third Degree were the band that kicked off this entire "cheap 7 inch" shopping spree. I've been listening to their Concrete Warriors album a lot recently, and even though I knew that it had never been pressed to vinyl, I still had to jump to the band's Discogs page just to double check and make sure I had my facts straight. Sigh...yeah, as I remembered, it was a CD only release.

While I was visiting the band's Discogs page, their first 7 inch caught my eye. I never bothered with this record back in the day, but in my desperation to buy some vinyl for The Third Degree, I decided that now was the time to check it out...and the $3 price tag certainly helped it's cause.

According to Discogs there were 220 pressed on blue vinyl, but the copy that I received was numbered out of 100. Not sure what the deal was, I reached out to Inspector Marcus to see if he knew any details. Of course he did. The scoop that he gave me was that the record was a split release between Indecision and Finn Records...his copy from Indecision wasn't numbered, so the assumption was that Finn numbered thiers. Good info, and I'm glad that the copy I picked up happened to be numbered.

While Marcus and I were talking about The Third Degree, their Switchblades & Urethane 7 inch came up. Again, I'd never heard it, so I asked for his opinion if I should bother checking it out...I found that the skull and crossbones cover to be a bit dumb, so I was a bit cautious on picking it up...Marcus came back with a smartass reply that there was one on Discogs for $5 and I should take the chance to find out. Fucker. 5 seconds later I was adding it to my cart.

Goddamn. This band's entire output is flawless. This two song 7 inch from 1999 is a perfect fit between the 1998 self titled 7 inch and the Concrete Warriors album from 2000.

Numbered out of 300, and The Third Degree are on target to be my favorite band that I'll listen to all year.