...The Rest Were Dead

Nothing compares to discovering old bands that I'd previously ignored or wasn't into at the time. While I loved a lot of different styles of hardcore and punk in the 90's, once bands started to become more metallic and chaotic, I usually stopped paying attention. I kind of liked the first Disembodied CD EP, Existance In Suicide when it was released, but by the time I'd picked up their Confession 7 inch the following year, I decided that they weren't for me and then spent the next 25+ years ignoring the band.

At the start of this year, someone that I follow on Instagram posted a live clip of Disembodied. It had been so long since I'd given the band any thought, but seeing them absolutely lose their shit while playing live suddenly had me interested to check them out again. I selected If God Only Knew The Rest Were Dead on Spotify because it looked like the earliest Disembodied record that was available for streaming, and I queued it up to listen.

With my first listen, I thought it was just okay... nothing really special... but by the third time through it, the song Gone got my attention, and once it was done I immediately went back and listened to that song 3 or 4 times in a row. By that point, I was hooked on how raw and real it sounded and I started to obsess over this record.

Around the time that I was really starting to dig this record, I ended up on a call to catch up with Marcus. Conversation obviously centered around record collecting... our unexplainable strange attraction to it and what we had been buying recently... and of course we started talking about this Dismbodied 10 inch. Here was a record that I'd only just discovered from a band that I had zero interest in two weeks prior, there was one colored vinyl copy available on Discogs, and I was prepared swallow the high price tag that it was listed for. I was desperate for this record, and I wondered if Marcus would be the voice of reason and could talk me down off the ledge before I did something stupid. Oh, he just bought a copy last year? Well fuck, there was no way that I was going to be able to resist now.

Corrective Measure

A few weeks back, Municipal Waste came through town, and shockingly I actually got out of the house to see the band play. The plan was to meet my friend Rob in the city where we would grab dinner before the two of went to the show... so I kind of forced myself to commit by making plans with someone. I mean, I like Municipal Waste but I was having a hard time feeling too excited for the show, however as soon as the first band started playing, my mood suddenly changed and it felt really nice to be out seeing bands play live.

The first band to play that night was Corrective Measure. This is a Maine hardcore band that I'd never heard of, and had low expectations for, but as soon as they started playing I was immediately hooked. I don't what it was... maybe it was because I've spent so much time this year listening to stuff like The Cure... but seeing a straight forward hardcore band made me kind of nostalgic for that sound. I loved what I heard, and planned on visiting their merch table at the end of the night to pick up a couple of records. Another Maine punk band, Covered In Bees, played next and were a lot of fun, and then Municipal Waste stole the show and played an amazing set that was so fun and full of energy. It was just a good night for live music and made me realize that I need to do this more often (will I? probably not.)

But at the end of the night I went over to the merch table and was disappointed to see that the Corrective Measure dudes had already packed up and left. The next morning, I checked Discogs and found a seller that had the Refuse Records pressing on red availabe for a good price, so I quickly bought it. As it turned out, the seller was from the next town over from me so I had it in hand the following day.

110 pressed on red.

Flood Of Subs

Another record that was available from Tim's old collection, but one that I wasn't sure that I really wanted to bother with was the Flood Of Lies record from UK Subs. I was late getting into the UK Subs, and even then I've only bothered with their first two records from '79 and '80. Did I really want to bother with their 5th record... because realistically, can a punk band maintain a level of quality for that long? I put the record on the list of possible options, but I really wanted to listen to it before buying.

I pulled up the Flood Of Lies album on Spotify and after one listen, I thought that I might be telling Jeff that I was going to pass on this one. Nothing here really stuck with me. However, I did really like the cover art on this record, so before I made too hasty a judgement, I figured that I'd better listen to it a few more times to see if it would grow on me. I'm glad that I did, because with repeat listens this got better and better.

Obviously this record is no Another Kind Of Blues, or even Brand New Age, but Flood Of Lies is still a fun album. Guess I'm going to have to go back and check out other early UK Subs records.

When I was checking out Flood Of Lies on Spotify, I noticed that there were a few bonus songs included there. While it took a few listens to start to appreciate the album, the song Another Typical City Living In Another Typical Daydream immediately hooked me. I checked on Discogs to see where the song was from and discovered it was on a single the band released in 1983. Since I had the Flood Of Lies record, I had an urge to add the single to the collection as well.

Thankfully there was a US seller with the 12 inch available at a fair price and I immediately snatched it up.

Locals Only

While looking through Tim's collection, there were a few records available that, while not something that I would have sought out to purchase, had me thinking that I might as well buy them just because they were there.

I didn't hear Agression until around 2017, and I wish that I could remember what it was that put them on my radar at that time. I must have seen some online post or something at the time, and thought that it was time to finally check it out, so I downloaded the songs for Don't Be Mistaken. It is a cool record of good straight forward hardcore skater vibes, but I haven't spent much time with it since that initial download.

Seeing it in Tim's collection had me revisit it to see if should pick it up, and after a couple of spins, the answer was yes.

Restraining Order FYA

While I'm no longer buying every colored vinyl version for records that I like, I still have a hard time resisting a special cover. When I saw that Triple B was listing some leftover merch from the FYA Fest, I jumped to their webstore to see what was up.

While I was hoping to get the Gridiron album, that had quickly sold out, so instead I jumped on the latest Restraining Order record. I'm not sure what is happening with the cover, as the album is Locked In Time, while the FYA cover shows "Lost In Time". I don't know if that was intentional and I missed the meaning with the different title, but whatever, I'm still happy to own this limited version.

To be honest, this second LP from Restraining Order didn't excite me like their first, but this is still a good hardcore record. Buying this version has me listening to it on a regular basis recently, and appreciating it more these days.

Very happy to receive a low number for this one... 2 out of 50.

Quick Redness

Sometimes I get stuck with an older band. I'll discover them and fall in love with one record, and that will be all that I want to listen to from them. Either it is because I'll find that one record to be so perfect and I won't want to ruin that feeling by checking out anything else from them, or I will have heard something negative about their later records and I'll just avoid them blindly. With Bad Brains, for the longest time all I cared about was Rock For Light and in recent years, I've come to really appreciate I Against I... but still I figured that was as far as I'd go with my Bad Brains journey.

Last year, I picked up the Punk Note pressing of I Against I and it looked so good that I wanted to collect more from this Bad Brains reissue series. The one for Quickness looked so good, that I started thinking that maybe I should finally give it a chance... and when Ralf mentioned in his post for this record that the version here for Don't Blow Bubbles was an instrumental, that made it more attractive because I am not a homophobe and I'm not gonna fuck with that song.

Waiting until 2025 to give Quickness a chance may have been a bad idea. While not as great as Rock For Light or I Against I, this is still a pretty fucking rad record.

One From 1991

My favorite records to collect is the obscure shit that no one remembers or cares about. Oh, some mediocre hardcore band from the 90's? Fuck yes. Pump this shit straight into my veins.

While I would assume that the band ONE were kind of forgotten to time and dust, they did hit a few markers with their Remain 12 inch that were kind of a big deal for that time...Watermark Records and one of the Jordan brothers were involved, plus Jay Demko from Lincoln and Junction on guitar... so maybe there were a few people that might remember them. When I picked up that Remain record a few years ago, I saw the China Blue 7 inch listed for the band on Discogs. I didn't even know that this existed. Plus there was a blue vinyl pressing and only one had ever been sold through there? Oh hell yes. I put it on my wantlist and once one became available I grabbed it.

Look, the Remain record from ONE is good and I have a lot of fun with it, but it isn't going to blow minds. This 7 inch is a bit more raw, and not quite as good or catchy, but being the 90's fiend that I am, I still really enjoy it.

Out Of Step

Outside of a few reissues over recent years, I'd never much thought to chasing down Minor Threat records. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it is because I tend to buy records based on what I'm listening to at that moment, and I don't spend as much time sitting with those classic bands so they rarely spark the immediate excitement that makes me want to chase them down. Obscure bands from the 90's that no one cares about? Yes, give me that. Records from classic hardcore bands from the 80's that laid the foundation for everything that was to come? Meh.

Still, classics are classics for a reason, and there is no denying how great those Minor Threat records are. These songs played a major part in defining who I was going to be as we rolled into the 90's, and the lyrics still are still a core part of me. So as I was looking though Tim's collection, of course I had to put his Minor Threat records on the list of those records I wanted to buy.

Initially I was a bit intimidated by the price for this red cover 12 inch. I mean, I've definitely spent more than this for a record... but I wasn't sure that I wanted to lay down that amount of cash for something that seemed somewhat common. In the end, I obviously decided that I needed to take this opportunity to finally grab this classic.

One of the cool things about Tim's copy was the letter that he'd saved from Jeff Nelson from when he bought this in 1986. This one piece of paper with two simple sentences was really the deciding factor that had me buy this. It just seemed wrong to let this go to anyone else.

An early red cover, but reissues for yellow, green and blue. That should be enough for this collection.

The other Minor Threat record from Tim's collection was the Out Of Step 12 inch. I've only had these songs from the original Complete Discography CD that I bought as a kid, and never owned any version of this record. It was an easy decision to buy this one.

Third press with the blue stripe on the cover. I'm very happy to have this in the collection.

Jealous Again

Allow me to submit this post into evidence that I don't really know what the fuck I'm doing. A while back, I got it into my head that I wanted some older Black Flag colored vinyl, and I crossed a couple of big ones off my list in 2023. Sure I was following the idea that Marcus planted with his collection, but I knew that I wasn't going to take it as far as he had. I just wanted a piece of colored vinyl for each album.

Then when I was going through some of Tim's collection last year, and I saw an early pressing of the Jealous Again 12 inch, I couldn't resist buying it. I knew that there were a number of colored vinyl option for this on 10 inch, and I didn't want to fuck around with that. Ideally, I'd like to get the clear vinyl 12 inch, but they don't appear to show up too often on Discogs, so who knows when that might happen? So instead I have this 1983 black vinyl reissue copy because it was available and easy.

Still, the Jealous Again EP is probably my favorite Flag record, so I'm excited to finally have a copy in my collection.

Nice addition of the SST inserts in this one. Cool to check it out and remember a time when you could pick up the Nervous Breakdown 7 inch for $2.50 postpaid.

No Love At The L'Amour

Picking up a couple of live bootlegs during the year just seems inevitable at this point. Every once in a while I'll get an itch and start looking around to see what I can find. To be honest, I've had this Exodus live boot for a while now... I actually picked it up back when I bought my last Maiden boot... but I've just had other records that I wanted/needed to get up on the blog first. Time to finally get it up here.

Recorded live at the L'Amour in New York at the end of '85, this live bootleg sounds surprisingly good. Part of the reason that I waited so long to listen and post this here is that I expected it to sound really rough. I didn't even know that live boots from the 80's could be this nice. I'm impressed. The band rip through thier set of classic Exodus tunes, including some cool early unreleased songs like Hell's Breath and Death Row... and was probably one of their last shows with Baloff, before bringing in Zetro to replace him.

Of course because this is a bootleg, you know that you can't trust the packaging to be accurate, especially with Baloff pictured on the front, and Zetro in the photo on the back.

Number 150 out of 333 that were pressed on blue and black vinyl.

Discharge Warning

In my previous life as a fool, I didn't really like Discharge. I picked up the Clay Punk Singles CD around 1990, and it didn't hit me the way that bands like Sick Of It All and Cro-Mags were, and it wasn't as catchy as Clay Records labelmates, G.B.H., so I shelved that CD pretty quick, and remained pretty indifferent to the band for the next 25 years or so. When I was obsessed with collecting G.B.H. singles around 2015, I figured that I'd check out Discharge again, and while I enjoyed them enough to add their stuff to my iTunes, I was never moved enough to chase down their records.

When I was going through Tim's collection I wasn't surprised to find some Discharge in there. This totally makes sense and it something that I would expect that he was into in the early/mid-80's. Seeing this Warning 12 inch single in there made me want to check out Discharge again, and holy shit, I've been loving it. No big deal, just me showing up 40 years late to the party.

I don't know why I wasn't getting this back in the late 80's/early 90's. It is stripped down, raw and aggressive. Fuck, this is so good and right now I can't get enough of it. Give me more of this.

Return To Slumber

I spent the early 2010's deep in a doom obsession. I'd discovered bands like Orchid, Blood Ceremony, Magic Circle and Kadavar... plus Rise Above Records... and I just ate that shit up. One of the bands that was big for me at the time was The Gates Of Slumber. The band was so good with their traditional doom metal sound. After a couple of really solid albums, they released Stormcrow in 2013, and that record was just perfect to me. Then in 2014, their bass player died of an overdose, and the band broke up in the wake of that tragedy.

I never expected to hear from The Gates Of Slumber again, so I was shocked to discover that they were releasing a new album last year. As soon as I checked out a couple of their new songs, holy shit, I knew that I needed to get my hands on the vinyl. Svart Records is out of Europe, so I needed to be patient and not rush to buy the colored vinyl and pay overseas shipping costs... it took a couple of months, but I was happy to finally grab the blue vinyl from a US seller on eBay.

Man, this record is just so good. I'd listened to it a couple of times on Spotify when it was released, but I didn't really spend any time with it until the record arrived. I've been listening to this a lot over the last couple of weeks, and it easily would have made it into my list of favorite metal albums for 2024. It is so good.

Big Headache

I was thinking that it was a few years ago that I rekindled my interest in Big Black and had started to pick up some of their records... turns out it was nine years ago. Time doesn't exist anymore.

As a kid I had the Big Black CDs, including The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape which was compilation of a few of the band's records... including the Headache EP. To be honest, when I looked at the names of the four songs on this EP, I didn't recall what a single one of them sounded like. They certainly weren't as memorable as songs like Kerosene or the live version of Cables, that came earlier in the CD tracklist... in fact, the hype sticker on this Headache record warns you that this is "not as good as Atomizer, so don't get your hopes up, cheese". That is true... but still, on its own, this EP is a fun listen.

Of all of the records that I've scooped from Tim's collection, this one is easily the cheapest, and with the "friend's discount" from Jeff, I was able to pick this up for under $10.

New Kind Of Kick

As a kid, I rarely had the opportunity to listen to a band or a record before buying it. It was kind of a thrill to see a record that I'd never heard of before in a store, and use three criteria (cover art, what the band looked like, and record label) to determine if it was worth the gamble to purchase. Often times this process worked out, but there were a few times that young Mike was left with an album that left him wondering what the fuck he had purchased. One of those times was when I bought the cassette for Bad Music For Bad People from The Cramps.

I saw the cover for this album in the racks at the record store around 1987... and with that creepy face artwork, and the font for the band name, I thought that was in for some evil shit. What I imagined, and what The Cramps sounded like, did not match up at all. Still, as a kid with a limited budget for buying records, I was stuck with that tape, and even though it wasn't metal, I made myself listen to it and try to find something redeemable in the music... and there was a kind of depravity there that kept my attention and lyrics like "I cut your head off and put it in my tv set" were fun enough that I would play it for a laugh with my friends. So yeah, I came to enjoy that cassette.

I hadn't really given The Cramps much of a thought since those days when the Bad Music cassette was new to me. I've been opening my mind and enjoying different kinds of music the past couple of years... stuff that I would have told you with the utmost confidence that I hated... and when The Cramps came up on my radar last year, I thought that it was the perfect time to revisit the band. Man, I would just throw Spotify on a Cramps shuffle playlist and not hit a single bad song. So fun and so good. When I saw that Tim's collection included the vinyl for Bad Music Bad People, I had to make it mine. Also, I feel like I might need more Cramps vinyl this year.

Acting Like A Maniac

About 10 years ago, I was big on trying to collect all of the early Megaforce Records releases. I was hot for those silver label first pressings, and scooped up a bunch of those classic records. I'm still missing some of the smaller releases like Grave Digger and Blue Cheer, and to be honest, I'm not sure if I care enough about those to even bother... and my obsession stalled out once I'd checked off a number of the classics from the list. There were still a few others that I'd like to pick up, and seeing the Whiplash single from Metallica as I was going through Tim's collection, I knew that it was time to add another silver label to the collection.

As much as I love early Metallica, and needed to have the first pressings of the band's first four albums in my collection, I wasn't really overly interested in buying their early singles. I don't know if it was because of the price tag they carry, or if it was because the records didn't really offer me anything new that I hadn't heard, but I'd never bothered with them. Holding the 12 inch of Whiplash in my hands suddenly put it at the forefront of my mind, and I desperately needed to own this.

I just love those early photos of Metallica. Worth buying the record for that back cover alone.

Winds Of Praise

7 Seconds records don't seem to be very difficult to collect, and yet I've never really put much effort into it. When I saw a couple of them in Tim's collection, I figured that it was about time that I filled some holes.

I'd probably consider New Wind to be the end of the "classic" 7 Seconds era, although there are a few songs here that hint to where the band was going in the next year or so. I remember picking up the CD for this in the early 90's and being very unsure on what to think of this record. Some of the songs were great (hell, I named my single issue zine that I did in the mid-90's after the song Still Believe), but at the time I remember having a difficult time getting through this album and I didn't play it very often. I probably enjoy it a bit more these days though, so I'm glad to finally own a copy on wax.

Black vinyl with the green labels will do for now, but I'd really prefer the red vinyl version.

Look, my introduction to 7 Seconds was when I bought the CD for Soulforce Revolution. It was a bit confusing at the time because other hardcore kids seemed to talk highly of this band, and this U2/alternative influenced version of 7 Seconds was not what I was expecting... but I didn't know any better, so I listened to that record over and over until I forced myself to like it. Once I bought the Skins Brains & Guts 7 inch, then it all made sense, but Soulforce Revolution had still earned an appreciation in my mind.

While I did like Soulforce Revolution at the time, I considered it lessons learned and didn't bother to check out any other 7 Seconds record from that time period. So when I saw the Praise 12 inch in Tim's collection, I was excited to finally check it out. These past couple of years have proven that I'm hungry for different things and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it and give it a spin... and it is no surprise that it is exactly what I wanted from this record. Give me more of the Kevin Seconds goofy hat era.

Cool to see the two merch inserts with this record.

No Escape From The 90's

When No Escape released a new album in 2021, it had me hopeful that their underrated 1993 classic record, Just Accept It, was finally going to be pressed to vinyl. It took a few years, but I'm happy that it has finally happened.

No Escape were a hardcore band out of New Jersey in the early 90's. They released a split 7 inch with Turning Point, and I think that people tend to overlook those No Escape songs just because the TP songs are so good... plus they released an album that was only available on CD from Overkill Records, and not being available on vinyl, plus from an obscure hardcore record label, probably caused that album to be overlooked as the years went on. For me though, I've always thought highly of Just Accept It, so when I saw that REV was packaging the album along with the comp tracks and demo songs, and releasing it on wax, you better believe that I was grabbing it. I was so excited about it, that I even bought one of each color vinyl options they had in the store.

Blue vinyl was only available in the REVHQ store and was limited to 200. Ummm... why was this not on yellow to match the cover and the REV logo?

Man, it feels so good to have this record readily available and on streaming platforms.

250 pressed on coke bottle clear vinyl. There is also an indie record store exclusive of 250 pressed on green, and I'm wondering if I'm also going to need this one. But if I buy all three versions of this, do I also need to go back and buy more copies of Selective Punches? How far down this No Escape hole do I go?