Friday, January 31, 2025

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.

Monday, January 27, 2025

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.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

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.

Saturday, January 18, 2025

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.

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

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.

Monday, January 13, 2025

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.

Monday, January 06, 2025

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.

Saturday, January 04, 2025

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?