Take A Stand

My friend Jeff recently came into possession of someone's record collection. It is a long story with a tragic ending that I won't get into here, but at the end of the day, Tim isn't with us any longer... and well, someone had to get his records. I didn't really know Tim that well, but our paths crossed a few times in the early 90's because of Jeff as our mutual friend, and I knew that he was a big lover of music... in fact he made me a couple of mixtapes back then, full of early punk bands that I'd never heard of before. Man, I wish that I'd kept those just as a reference point as to what he was trying to turn me on to at the time (the only band that I remember was on there was Christ On Parade)... but Tim was a few years older than I was and therefore had first hand experience with some of that early 80's punk stuff. Either way, when Jeff told me that he was getting Tim's record collection, I immediately called for first refusal on anything that he wasn't interested... and knowing that Jeff isn't a fan of punk, I was hoping for some good shit. Jeff wasn't going to be giving this stuff away, but a sizable discount made some of this much more affordable compared to trying to scoop it from Discogs.

One of the records that surprised me when Jeff started showing me some what he'd received from Tim's collection was the Break Down The Walls album from Youth Of Today. I knew that Tim was into early punk, but I had no idea that he would have some hardcore stuff like this. Seeing how I owned four REV reissues for this record, I was kind of excited to finally get my hands on the original REV pressing. I know that we aren't talking Wishingwell here, but the blue and yellow labels just look so good to me.

I don't really collect REV or Youth Of Today records, and I never really set out to own this one (although I imagine that it wouldn't have been too hard to acquire over the years), but it feels good to finally have this on my shelf. Knowing that Tim kept his records in top shape made this an easy purchase.