Consolation Prize

About a month ago, Marcus posted over on his blog about the Consolation Prize 7 inch that Lockin' Out released back in 2014. Nope. I'd never heard of it. I guess it isn't that big of a surprise, as I was heavily into metal bands back at that time, but here in 2021, when Marcus mentions a hardcore band that I'd never heard of before I jump on it.

Marcus described Consolation Prize as sounding like a long lost Supertouch recording, and man, there is no question about it... this band wanted to wear their inspiration on thier sleeve. There was a time when I wasn't really a big Supertouch fan, but I've really come around to them over the past 10 years...ever since I saw them play at the REV 25th anniversary show in NYC. Now I found myself excited to check out a band that totally cops that Supertouch sound. Yeah, I was digging these Consolation Prize songs and the day after reading the post from Marcus, I was on Discogs buying a copy of the record.

200 pressed on a nice looking gold vinyl.

Struck Nerve

We are a few days short of the one year anniversary for when Youngblood Records started preorders for their latest release, the Rattle The Cage 12 inch from Struck Nerve. I'm used to Youngblood preorders taking a long time, and I've got more patience than most, but this one seemed to take longer than usual and I was starting to question if they were ever going to ship. The label posted on Instagram back in July that records were starting to go out, and after three more months I finaly broke down and dropped them a line asking what was up. I got a quick response that it would ship soon, and a few weeks later it finally arrived.

When preorders opened up last November, I remember not being too impressed with what I'd heard from Struck Nerve, but it was Youngblood so I ordered a copy anyway. I mean, what I'd heard wasn't bad, it just didn't immediately knock me on my ass. Where I usually buy multiple copies from Youngblood releases, this time I just bought the one record and hoped it would grow on me.

As expected, I liked this Struck Nerve record more and more with each spin. Had this record actually arrived in 2020, there is a very good chance it would have made my Top 10 list for the year. Solid aggressive straight edge hardcore. You can always count on Youngblood to deliver... even if that delivery seems to take forever.

Owe You Nothing

I've discovered a lot of newer hardcore bands this year, and I've been having a blast digging into records from the last few years that I somehow missed the first time around. There have been so many great hardcore bands kicking it recently, but one of my favorite finds this year was The Dividing Line. I love my straight edge hardcore full of anger and rage, and TDL certainly hit that sweet spot for me. Their 7 inch from 2018 has been an amazing find for me this year, and when I heard that the band was going to be releasing an album on New Age, I was on the edge of my seat waiting to mash that preorder button.

It feels like I've missed the start of a number of preorders lately, so it felt good to be there on the New Age site as soon as they were launched for the Owe You Nothing record from The Dividing Line. I got burned not having any media mail options, and was stuck having to pay $17 for Priority Mail, but fuck it, I was desperate to get my order in for this record.

I was so excited for this record that I bought two copies...and I'm tempted to go back and grab the white vinyl as well as I think the three colors go great with the cover art. The shitty REVHQ and Cortex colors are gross, so I don't feel the need to get those, so any "collection" I build for this will most likely be incomplete. This album rules though. So pissed off. So straight edge. I can't get enough of it.

I completely forgot that I'd ordered the clear vinyl pressing for the Turn My Back On The World 7 inch. When I opened the package, I was surpised to see this and I thought that New Age might have dropped it in for free. Nope. I guess I was just super excited for TDL records and I forgot that I'd added it to my order.

Spark Eliminator

One of the best heavy rock bands to emerge over the past five years or so has to be Freeways. The perfect blend of 70's hard rock in the vein of Thin Lizzy, and the driving rhythms from the melodic side of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. As far as I'm concerned, the band is perfect.

Spark Eliminator is the band's third release after their debut 7 inch, Cold Front, and their album, True Bearings, from last year. Two more songs that are so smooth that I've instantly fallen in love with them. Everything this band has released has been gold. Give me more because I can't get enough.

Green vinyl was limited to 150... and the cool thing here is unlike some labels that press about ten different colored vinyl option, here you get either the limited green or the standard black... which makes this colored vinyl feel a bit more special.

I picked up Die Hard editions for both Cold Front and True Bearings that included a nice looking patch, so I was obviously going that route with the Spark Eliminator 7 inch as well. These things look so great, and will be stored with the record and tucked away where no one will see them again.

Intent To Collect

A while back, I rediscovered the Naked Angels Hardline 7 inch. I'd originally picked up a copy in the early 90's, but over the years I'd kind of forgotten about it and it got stuck in a pile of 7 inches that were ignored. For one reason or another I stumbled upon it years later and decided to give it a spin to see how it held up. Goddamn, those songs hit me hard. I obsessed over that record and then proceeded to buy three more copies of it. That was the only record that I'd heard from Naked Angels, but since I was loving it so much I figured that at some point I should check out what else the band had released... seven years later, here we are.

I figured that my next jumping off point for Naked Angels was their 7 inch that was released on Doghouse Records, Intent To Kill. Doghouse was a pretty big deal back in the day, and since Intent To Kill was released alongside records from Endpoint and Split Lip, it seemed like a safe gamble. Oh hell yes. This is exactly what I was hoping for, and discovering this record almost 30 years after it was originally released was like finding a long lost treasure.

When I looked to pick up a copy, I noticed that there was a seller that had a copy of Intent To Injure listed as a "tour edition". This special edition wasn't listed on Discogs, so I was curious as to what it looked like. I desperately wanted to own it and unravel this mystery so without hesitating, I added it to my cart and checked out.

The limited tour edition comes with a cover printed on yellow paper and numbered on the back out of 50. I have a feeling that there aren't too many people that would be as excited as I was to receive this.

After sitting with the tour cover for a couple weeks, I was burning to get the regular green vinyl pressing into my collection as well. I don't know if it makes sense to buy another copy on green vinyl, but we are talking about collecting Naked Angels records here, so just let me be fucking ridiculous and happy, okay?

As I was buying NA records and getting stupid, I figured that I'd buy a pointless live 7 inch as well. Recorded while the band was on tour in'92, it contains a song that I don't think showed up anywhere else, Stranded. So I guess it might not be so pointless after all.

Might as well pick up all the Naked Angels 7 inches while I'm at it. No More Heroes was released in '95, and I was a bit skeptical that NA would be able to still record something that kept my attention at this point in their existance. I've never even heard about this record before, so it obviously didn't leave much of an impact, but I figured that I'd check it out anyway. When I initially heard it, I thought these two songs were seriously lacking the punch of their earlier records, but with each listen I find that I like this more and more. The band was definitely trying to grow and push their boundaries to try something a bit different. It was the 90's and this is exactly what hardcore bands like this did. I dig it.

Ill Blood

I've been a fiend for newer hardcore bands lately, and I've been willing to check out anything and give it a chance. Even if the record has an awkward and unappealing cover, and the band is named after a hardcore record from the early 2000's that I rarely pull off the shelf. Yeah, sure. I'll even give that a shot.

I don't think that I'd ever heard of Ill Blood before, but REVHQ recently had their 7 inch listed as a new arrival... and with talk of NYHC and Youth Crew... I was down to check it out. I was kind of surprised with out much I liked this record. At times the guitars make me think of In My Eyes, while the songs also remind me quite a bit of Risky Business (who are sadly probably forgotten by most). I may have missed it when this 7 inch came out a couple years ago, but given how quickly time flies lately, two years is nothing, so this is basically a new release.

To match the cover art, this record was pressed on a rainbow of different colors. REV had the yellow vinyl available, but I bet the purple, green and red options look great too.

This Is Boston, Not LA

I have a hard time walking away from a live bootleg record. They just look fucking badass, and that goes double for Maiden boots.

The latest live boot from Maiden that I picked up was from the Ed Hunter tour in 1999. I already had a live record from the Los Angeles date on this tour, so I might have ordinarily walked away from this one. However, this record was from Maiden's Boston show at the Orpheum (where I saw Testament, Nuclear Assault and Savatage eight or nine years earlier)... and with Eddie on the cover with an SSD shirt and standing on the steps from The Kids Will Have Their Say cover, I couldn't resist grabbing a copy.

This was Bruce's return to the band, and thier first tour together in six years. They were touring on their greatest hits release, Ed Hunter, and had yet to get in the studio to record Brave New World, so the band had a few songs from the Blaze Bayley era in their set. It is always so cool to hear Bruce sing songs like Futureal and Man On The Edge as I think that this was the only tour that he sang them.

This puts me at nine live bootleg records for Maiden. I still desperately need something from the Piece Of Mind and Somewhere In Time tours!

KK's Priest

When K.K. Downing announced that he had a new band after his ten year retirement from Judas Priest, I had pretty low expectations. I wasn't impressed with his exit from Priest and the mud slinging that followed... plus his launch of a "metal" men's cologne was laughable, so when he mentioned a return to heavy metal, I expected it to be weak tea. When it was announced that his new band was going to be called KK's Priest, I rolled my eyes. Christ, with Ripper Owens in the band, they could have recycled the Jugulator name or something. KK's Priest is one of the lamest band names in the history of terrible band names. Either way, I expected this band to shit the bed.

Maybe it was because my expectations were so low, but when I heard the first single, Hellfire Thunderbolt, I found myself pleasantly surprised. I mean, it didn't compare the the last couple of Judas Priest records, but it was some solid metal. I kind of got caught up in the hype and jumped into buying a signed copy of the Sermons Of The Sinner album.

By the time the record arrived in the mail, I'd talked myself out of the hype and was back to my low expectations. I just really wasn't in the mood for this record. I haven't found a lot of new metal albums that have excited me this year, so I was kind of down on this record before I'd even listened to it. I dropped the needle on this thing a couple of days ago, and by the end of it, I was kind of bored with the whole thing. I have started to warm up to this with a few more listens, and there are a few songs that really give me a kick...so this isn't as terrible as I thought it might be.

It's kind of a fun listen, but time will tell how well this holds up over the years.

Want List Full Of Metal

The Chromium Dioxide channel over on Youtube recently posted a video on the dangers of drinking and eBaying. It was a fantastic celebration of poor decisions and impulse spending for records, and I wanted a piece of that action. My Top Wants list for 2021 was staring me in the face, and I wanted to ignore price tags and see what kind of trouble I could get into. I don't need alcohol to influence me into doing some damage when record shopping.

The Fistful Of Metal album from Anthrax has been near the top of my want list for more years than I'd care to mention. I went nuts over those silver Megaforce labels for a while, but it has been a few years since I've picked one up, so it felt good to get back to it. I didn't end up with a triple digit price tag, so I don't think that I got suckered into spending too much, and this thing is in such great condition, so who fucking cares how much it cost.

Shortly after winning this eBay auction, the seller sent me a message to thank me for the purchase and he mentioned that he was 65 years old and was selling off his collection, listing a few records each weekend. It got me thinking about my own mortality and where I might be at that age. 65 for me is only in another 15 years. What the fuck? I've been doing this blog for 15 years, and to think that in another 15 I might be in a position where I've got to sell my collection kind of fucked me up mentally. Realistically, how long can I keep this up? Am I just wasting time acquiring things that I'm just going to have to eventually sell off. What's the point? Tough questions came to the surface that I fully intend to bury under the purchases of more records.

Cool Blue Whip

Look. I fucked up. I know I did. When I first heard that Chain Whip had preorders up for their new record, Two Step To Hell, I ignored it. I don't know what my problem was. I assumed that I had plenty of time to pick up the colored vinyl, but I blinked and they was gone. I've been waiting for one to show up on Discogs so that I can pay a stupid price for it, but I keep coming up empty there as well. I may have to suck it up and just get the black vinyl pressing.

When I saw that Chain Whip put a few blue vinyl copies of their 2020 demo in their Bandcamp store, I wasn't going to make the same mistake and I quickly added one to my cart and checked out. I had no idea what songs were on here, but I wasn't fucking around anymore.

Chain Whip play a frantic style of punk with some ragged edges and this demo presents a more raw version of that. Three of these songs ended up on the Two Step To Hell 12 inch, but the other five only appear on this demo. I'm glad someone pressed this to vinyl.

Never Say Die Tour

Earlier this year I picked up an Ozzy live bootleg from the Rock Brigade label. The cover art for that Ozzy boot was amazing. The black and white cover design with the gold OBI strip was a great look, and as soon as I saw that the label also released a live bootleg for Black Sabbath as well, I jumped on it.

Back in 1978, Black Sabbath went on tour to support their Never Say Die album, and they took Van Halen out with them as the opening act. Seems that most people love to talk about how Van Halen blew Sabbath off the stage each night... that Sabbath were dinosaurs and could not keep up with those young guns from California. Fuck that noise. Sabbath may have been on the verge of crashing during this tour, but this bootleg shows that the band could still bring some heat live from the stage. The band is tight and Ozzy sounds fantastic. In fact, this may be my favorite live recording of the song Black Sabbath ever... when Ozzy says "Let's dance with the devil" mid-song, it gives me chills. Plus live versions of Shock Wave and the title track from Never Say Die, plus Dirty Women and Rock 'n' Roll Doctor off Technical Ecstacy make this well worth the price of admission.

This live boot does have it's flaws though. It is a bit rough for me to sit through the drum solo, guitar solo, instrumental of Orchid, and then another guitar solo. Ugh...it is not interesting at all to me. Plus there is a drastic cut at the end of Dirty Women and Electric Funeral, to end Side B and Side C, that is jarring as hell. Still, overall, this shows how strong Sabbath still was on the road at the time, especially when you think that in a little over six months, Ozzy was out of the band and Dio came in to take his place.

Blue Beaker

Back in the early 90's I picked up the Phleg Camp split with Fuel and those two songs were fantastic. They drew obvious influence from what Dischord was releasing a few years previous, and they nailed that sound. A couple of years later I saw their Blind 7 inch at a local record store and I quickly snatched it up. That record was such a dud that it took me 27 years before I dared to give one of their other records a chance.

When I was picking up the Three Penny Opera LP from a Discogs seller recently, I noticed that they also had the Phleg Camp Beaker 7 inch available. It was on blue vinyl and it was released in 1991, so for a few bucks I decided to take a chance on it.

Yes! This is exactly what I was looking for, and it pairs with the Three Penny Opera record perfectly. I've been playing the two of them back to back repeatedly since they have arrived.

...Countless Trips

Earlier this year, I had a test press of the self titled Three Penny Opera record land in my lap. Getting my hands on that album had me revisiting the entire 3PO catalog, and I'd forgotten just how great this band was. It had been a while since I'd given this band much of my time, but I suddenly couldn't get enough of them and I was listening to them daily. I was only missing one of their records from the collection, so of course I needed to get on it immediately.

Three Penny Opera released their first album, ...Countless Trips From Here To There, back in 1998 on the Spectra Sonic Sound label. The label was run by Shawn Scallen, who was a photographer and I remember seeing his name attached to photos of a few great Canadian bands at the time like Shotmaker and Sparkmarker (who named a 7 inch after him). Well, apparently Shawn still has some of the old Spectra Sonic stock laying around, and I was able to grab this album from him on Discogs.

Man, I can't get over just how great this record is. It is funny how you can forget about a record for years, and then suddenly become obsessed with it. Right now, I can't get enough of this thing.

Blue Bomber

As we enter the last couple of months for the year, I wanted to make another move on the Top Wants list that I post in the sidebar for this blog each year. I'm typically unfocused and all over the map with my record collecting... I get excited about chasing a record, but then when I don't immediately pull the trigger for one reason or another, I forget about it and move on to the next shiny object that captures my attention... this list helps me set a couple of goals and not lose sight of a few records that I really want to add to the collection.

When I recently picked up a Motorhead bootleg, it got me thinking about the pressing of Bomber that I'd added to my Top Wants list at the start of the year. I've been wanting the UK Bronze pressings for the classic early Motorhead records for while now, and I've slowly picked off a few of them. The Bomber album was the next logical stop in my quest. For Overkill and Ace Of Spades, I went with the standard black vinyl pressing, and I was content with that... but for Bomber, I wanted one of those early colored vinyl pressings. It seems that Bronze did these colored vinyl pressings for some of their releases. I grabbed one for the Girlschool record I picked up a few years ago, and it was cool to grab Bomber on blue.

Just like Overkill and Ace Of Spades, Bomber is absolute perfection. Each song is a perfect fit into the record, and it plays so smoothly that it's over before I realize it... and then I immediately want to listen to it again.

Face The Flag

A day after picking up the Split Lip 7 inch, I was back to Discogs checking to see what other 90's hardcore records I could grab.

One of the records that I've had my eye on for the past few years is the 411 album, This Isn't Me. This record was a pretty big deal in the early 90's... especially to this scrawny kid from Maine that was just a little late to the hardcore scene and missed out on Dan O'Mahony's previous band No For An Answer. I got to see 411 play Boston in '92, but attendence at the show was pretty low... I think that Vision cancelled last minute, so maybe people bailed because of that, but man, I was still there and up front, screaming along to songs like Face The Flag with all the youthful excitement I could muster.

One of the reasons that I'd been wanting to chase this 411 album was because of how great that vinyl looks.