The Gear That Turns A Nation

I'm a huge fan of the hardcore band Voice Of Reason that was out of Texas in the early 90's. The band played a style that fit in with that early Ebullition roster like Struggle and Downcast, but I think they are wildly underrated, and find that both of the 7 inches that they released are fucking perfect. While I only owned the black vinyl pressings for the Voice Of Reason records back in the 90's, when I was tipped off a few years ago that Gear had a couple colored vinyl pressings, I started the hunt.

It took some time to find a green vinyl copy of the Gear 7 inch, so I was considered myself lucky when one popped up on Discogs last year. Still, I wanted the full collection was very happy to score the grey vinyl at the start of 2023.

According to Discogs, there were 400 pressed on the grey vinyl for the second press.

It was cool to get all three copies out and notice that covers for each are different. Nice to see that the grey vinyl pressing had the band name changed from blue to grey on the cover. Sometimes I just appreciate the little things like that.

Trial By Jury

Trial By Jury were a hardcore band out of Virginia in the early 90's, and at some point back in the day, I picked up a 7 inch record for their demo. For one reason or another, I didn't pay much attention to it, and it ended up getting tucked into a stack of records that I wasn't all that interested in. That 7 inch sat in my collection, ignored for around 25 years. I uncovered it a couple years ago, and decided to give it a quick spin. Much to my surprise, I fucking loved it. Shame that it took me so long to finally appreciate it.

Trial By Jury fit in with that early 90's style that Kingpin and Another Wall were doing at the time, and soon after spinning that demo 7 inch, I hit up Discogs to find if the band ever did anything else. A quick search and I found that there was also a 7 inch titled Ignite that was released in '92. Surprisingly I was able to download the songs from soulseek, and very quickly, I decided that I was going to need the record in my collection.

There are a couple different versions for this, but I was hot to pick up the blue vinyl pressing. I may also need to get that version with the black and white cover as well. This record is so good, and the copy that I picked up included a Trial By Jury sticker!

Rattle The Record Release

When I first bought the Struck Nerve record from Youngblood, I didn't think that I needed multiple copies of it, and I only ordered the red vinyl version. The record really grew on me once it arrived and I started to give it regular spins. When I had the opportunity to grab a copy with the special This Is Hardcore 2022 cover, I jumped on it because it seemed too good to pass up. Having two copies of Rattle The Cage just made me want to get more, and when the record release version popped up on Discogs at a fair price, I quickly added that one to my collection as well.

The record release cover uses the simple red and white variation on the art, and I like the look. I wish there was some note regarding the date and place of the record release show, but oh well, I guess it really isn't that important.

The record is numbered out of 50.

Now I have three copies of this thing, and I'm not sure what more I should do. I guess it would be nice to grab the clear vinyl pressing, but do I try to get a white vinyl with the regular cover as well? I suppose that if they came along at the right price, anything is possible.

Blues For The Gold Sun

I've been hot to pick up some Kyuss vinyl for a while now...where a "while" is defined as ten years. How has it been that long? Anyway... I first checked them out back in 2013 when I was discovering all kinds of great stoner bands like Fu Manchu, and I absolutely fell in love with both Blues For The Red Sun and Welcome To Sky Valley. Each time that I would start to make a move to pick up one of those records over the years, I'd read something about how shitty the vinyl pressing sounds (probably because they are squeezing over 50 minutes of music onto a single record) and I'd pull back and wait to see if they would possibly get a better pressing down the road.

In 2022, Blues For The Red Sun saw a reissue for the album's 30th anniversary, and I figured that it was time to finally pull the trigger and pick this one up. Sure there are still people complaining over the sound, but honestly, this is some super fuzzed out rock, so I'm not sure what people are looking for in terms of sound quality. It sounds fine to me.

I had actually seen this record in the bins at Wanna Hear It, and I was really tempted to pick it up when I was there in December. I ended up putting the Kyuss record back so that I could grab the Death album instead, but it was probably a couple weeks later that I grabbed it from a local Bull Moose store, so it all worked out in the end.

One of the reasons that I hesitated to buy this latest colored vinyl reissue was because the hype sticker noted that it was on gold. By today's standards, that typically means that ugly metallic gold vinyl, and if that was the case I would have stayed the fuck away from this. Thankfully, I discovered that this is a proper gold, and it looks fucking fantastic. Hopefully we see Welcome To Sky Valley get the same treatment this year.

Cinderblock

When I heard the announcement last year that War Records was going to be releasing a record from a long lost early 90's hardcore band, I could not wait to check them out. Cinderblock were from Buffalo and featured memebers that went on to Despair, Snapcase and Earth Crisis... and apparently they released one poorly recorded demo back in 1992. I'd never heard of this band, but I was fairly stoked to check them out.

The Breath The Fire 12 inch features six songs that Cinderblock originally wrote in the early 90's, and were finally given a proper recording last year. From the start of the first song, Sundial, you can feel those early 90's vibes, and the beginning of Samsara feels like it was influenced by Shelter's Freewill. I was pretty excited over this record after the first listen, but after a couple more spins, I'm having trouble maintaining that same level of enthusiasm. I mean, it is good, and it is a cool relic, but maybe I'd prefer those original rough demo versions instead of this re-recording. We'll see... maybe it will grow on me a bit more with more listens.

The vinyl options were the typical crap. There was a glow in the dark vinyl option, that looked cool, but I wasn't interested in paying the extra $10 that it cost compared to the other versions... and then there were the gross looking metallic gold and splatter options. The "galaxy" version probably looks the best out of all of them. 300 pressed.

Hello From The Gutter

I've said it before on this blog, but it bears repeating... one of the biggest kicks that I get out of record collecting is when I pick up an old school metal record that was a big deal to me as a teen in the 80's. This isn't meant to diminish how much I love 90's hardcore records, or how exciting those record release and special tour covers can be, but man, once that nostalgia kicks in and I pick up an original pressing of an old thrash record... it brings me back to those days of youth, and that feeling is hard to beat.

It is ridiculous how long I've been after the first four Overkill albums. I love those early records so much that I made one of them my 2,000th post milestone. That's how important those albums are to me. Each one is a thrash classic, so I was very fucking excited to finally grab the Under The Influence record and complete my Overkill favorite four collection.

Under The Influence was released shortly after I graduated from High School, and the chances were high that this one was not far from the tape deck in my car for that entire summer.

90's Hardcore Oversight

I've been listening to a lot of early 90's hardcore lately. This era has been hitting the 30 year anniversary, and I've found myself returning to those records again and again over the past few years. While I like to think that my collection of records from that era is fairly decent, I know that there are probably some bands that I totally missed out on at the time... so I'm always searching.

One of the bands that I recently discovered was Oversight. I probably should have been more aware of this band 30 years ago. I know that I have an issue of Extent fanzine with an Oversight interview... plus this is Conquer The World Records number one, so it is a mystery why it took until now for me to finally hear this band, but here we are. The thing that finally brought this band to my attention was that I've been listening to the Framework 7 inches a lot, and as I was digging into that band on Discogs, I noticed that the singer, Shane Durgee, had also been in Oversight. I immediately checked Soulseek, found the songs for the 7 inch and downloaded them. Fuck yes.

This is a nice find for me in 2023, and the grey colored vinyl looks sharp!

Civilian Straight Edge

At some point near the end of 2021, I discovered the two Civilian Mind demos. I believe it was a piece over on noecho.net that brought this Arizona straight edge band to my attention, and mentioning that Civilian Mind were for fans of Verse and Go It Alone really pushed me to check them out.

Yeah, Civilian Mind definitely falls into those comparisons with early Verse. The lyrics are more personal, and these songs don't have the same spark that made Verse so exciting, but I'm very much looking forward to what this band does next. Plus, you know that I'm always down to support a new straight edge band.

I was surprised to see that Irish Voodoo Records was pressing those two Civilian Mind demos to a 12 inch record. I haven't heard anything from that label since the Done Dying 7 inches back in 2013. It looks like they have busy since I last checked in with them... it doesn't look like they have released anything that I'd be interested in checking out, but I guess it is cool that they have still been active.

The purple colored vinyl was sold by Ugly And Proud Records over in Europe. It is limited to 150, but Irish Voodoo had a few available in their store so I grabbed one there because the US pressing on brown vinyl didn't sound that appealing. Apparently, Irish Voodoo numbered the copies they were selling and I ended up with number 12 of 35.

Early 90's Sideshow

One of things that I love about 90's hardcore/punk is how diverse the music was. Maybe it was just that I was more open to the different styles that were going on, but I fucking loved just about everything. It didn't matter if it was Rorshach, Reveal, or Rain Like The Sound Of Trains... I wasn't drawing lines and looking to divide, I was down with all of it. In 2023, it may be a bit harder to catch my attention with newer bands doing some of those styles that stray too far outside of hardcore, but fuck, back in the 90's it all just sounded good.

Sideshow were an indie / emo / hardcore / punk band out of Nebraska. They were on Caulfield Records, which was run by one of the Sideshow guys, so they kind of fall into that Christie Front Drive category of emo, but listening to this 7 inch I'm reminded more of Soulside... and holy shit, this is so good. I picked up this record on a whim, while I was buying a couple of other 7 inches from a Discogs seller, but wow, I'm really liking these songs.

Sideshow seemed to love to just self-title their records, with two 7 inches and an LP all titled Sideshow, so the discography can be a bit confusing. This one is their second Sideshow 7 inch that was released in 1991.

The Kids Can't Be Bought

Last year, as I was obsessing over early-2000's era hardcore, I ended up grabbing a 7 inch from Fields Of Fire. It was a lot of fun revisiting that record, and it got me looking to see what else the band had released on vinyl.

The Kids Can't Be Bought 7 inch was released in 2000, but I wasn't buying records at the time, so I didn't become familiar with Fields Of Fire until Phyte Records released the Keep It Alive CD the following year, and added these songs at the end of the tracklist. Unfortunately those songs for Keep It Alive were only released on CD, and I would assume that the chances of a vinyl pressing of those songs this late in the game are pretty slim. Either way, this is great punk influenced hardcore and I was excited to pick up another record from the band.

Discogs does not have an official entry for the blue vinyl pressing, so it was by chance that I noticed a seller with one available where they included "BLUE vinyl" in the comments for thier listing. I was happy to learn that there was a colored vinyl option and I quickly snatched it up.

Drug Free Adult

I've been slacking when it comes to posting here on the blog. Part it has to do with being unhappy with my photos recently, and not having the time to retake them, but also, it has been a weird start to the year and I just haven't been motivated to write about the huge backlog of records that I have sitting here next to me... most of which I picked up back in 2022. Time to get back to it, and we might as well stick to the theme of those older Indecision records... this time it is the No Runners 7 inch from Over My Dead Body.

I've picked up a few OMDB records over the past couple of years, but I still didn't own a single copy of their first 7 inch. Given how much I loved this record back in the day, it is strange that all these years later, I still didn't own a copy on vinyl. I mean, I used "drugfreeadult" as my messageboard screen name for years because of the Over My Dead Body song, so it really was a big hole in the collection to not own a copy.

I'm very happy to finally have a copy of this record in my collection. Now I really need to chase down more versions of this 7 inch.