Two Brain Cells

Twelve years ago I picked up a copy of the 1987 debut from Dead Brain Cells. I was a little disappointed that I ended up with the UK Rough Justice pressing, and not the Combat one, but it was cheap and at the time I figured that it did the job. At some point over the following years, I actually saw the US pressing on Combat records, and realized what a terrible mistake I'd made.

While the Rough Justice pressing comes in a regular album sleeve, the Combat one has the red lightning bolts embossed in a metallic red that looks really great. This one is far superior, and when I saw that Jeff was selling one from Tim's collection, and knew it was time for an upgrade.

I didn't appreciate this record when I first heard it in the late 80's because it was buried behind the band's second album on the compilation CD that I'd picked up at the time. The second album, Universe, doesn't have the same spark that the band show on their debut, so I probably gave up on the CD before it really started to cook. I guarantee that if I'd heard the self-titled debut from Dead Brain Cells at the time, it would have been one of my favorites. Excellent crossover thrash that I still get a charge listening to today.

The Rough Trade cover with the Combat one on top to try and show the comparison.

Stiff Richards

I will check out new music based on which record label they are on. I will sometimes follow internet hype of a new band. I will accept music recommendations from friends. What I typically do not do, is pay attention to Spotify recommendations based on their algorithm... but they got me the other day when they dropped in a Stiff Richards song into the playlist that I was listening to.

I'd never heard of Stiff Richards before, but since they are a punk band out of Australia and I'd been listening to some songs from the latest Amyl And The Sniffers album (which I'm still not 100% sold on, although there are some fun songs on there), I guess Spotify decided that this band fit the theme and dropped the song GFC into the mix for me to hear... and this time, they got it right. Fuck. That was a fun song full of frantic energy and a good snotty early 80's vibe. Man, I can picture this being a fun Summer soundtrack as we move into warmer weather.

When I started looking for a record to buy, I didn't have any options. Like I said, the band was from Australia, so most of their stuff wasn't availble from a US seller. The 7 inch for GFC / Empty Barrels, however, saw a US pressing, so I didn't hesitate to grab it. 250 pressed on green vinyl.

Argument For More Fugazi

At the start of this year, Marcus posted about The Argument from Fugazi. His story sounded similar to mine, as I'd started to lose interest in Fugazi records with Red Medicine and then never really cared for End Hits... so by the time The Argument was released in 2001, I barely gave it any attention. At some point I did download it, and put it on a CDR in an attempt to try and hang with the album, but I quickly wrote it off and it ended up in the trash. My mind is more open these days and I spend most of my time lately obsessing over bands that I thought that I hated... so when I saw the post from Marcus talking about how surprised he was that he was enjoying The Argument, I thought that maybe it was time for me to give it a fair chance as well.

Look, I can completely understand why I didn't like this record in 2001. This was not nearly aggressive enough for me at the time. There are times when it was far too laid back and slow for my frantic hardcore kid energy. Listening to this in 2025, I can hear that it is still very much a Fugazi record, but there are layers and moods here that I just didn't understand or appreciate at the time. The Argument is kind of perfect for me at this time and place, and I'm tempted to check out other Fugazi recods that I haven't listened to in the past 25 years to see how I feel about them now.

This "thor" blue marbled colored vinyl looks great.

(Not So) Vital Times

Records for the band ON might not have the same draw as they did when their 7 inches were initially released back in 2008. Maybe people aren't collecting ON records because this era of hardcore seems to be largely forgotten, or maybe it is because of... reasons. Either way, I still love the songs from those two records, so when I saw a version on Discogs that I didn't have, I added it to my cart that was sitting there with a couple of other records that I was buying from that seller.

The green vinyl for Vital Times was only used for the record release show and for the west coast tour, and back in the day, they seemed like they were very difficult to get a hold of. Things have obviously calmed down for these limited editions, and while the tour pressing once was pulling a $50 to $60 auction price on eBay back in 2009... I was able to pick this one up off Discogs earlier this year for only $10.

Number 44 out of 75 with the west coast tour stamp.

Green Crusade

There was so much great hardcore released in the late 2000's, and I imagine that a lot of it tends to be forgotten about and overlooked these days. That includes me too. Rarely do I spend much time in my playlist for those years, but looking back at the records in my collection... damn, there is some good stuff from that period that I need to revisit more often.

One of the recent triggers in digging through my late 2000's hardcore records was finding the record release version of It's Our War by Thought Crusade. This 7 inch was released in 2009 by Triple B, and man, I loved this record. I've lost track of it under the weight of all the music that has been released in the 15 years since then, but getting my hands on this record release version has been a great reminder. Fuck, it makes me excited to listen to hardcore.

Special handnumbered record release cover. Number 45 of 50. And the $3 pricetag on this record proves to me how overlooked this band is. I'm grateful for such a great price, but it is a shame how easily records like this get lost over time.

Initial Ricochet

You know that I'm a fan of most 90's hardcore, so when you put a record on my radar that I've never listened to before, I'm gonna pay attention. That was the case when Marcus posted about the Ricochet record he'd picked up when he was in the States for a visit.

Initial Records was a label that I never paid much attention to. Outside of Falling Forward and the first Guilt 7 inch, the label never made much of an impact on me at the time, so it's no surprise that something like this Ricochet record was missed by me. However, reading the post from Marcus, and his description of it as a "a very early 90s sounding record" I knew that I needed to hear it. Surprisingly I found the songs available to download on Soulseek and so within minutes of reading his post, I was listening to the songs, and quickly knew that I was going to need the 7 inch in my hands.

Oh hell yeah, this is definitely an early 90's hardcore record. It has a very straight forward hardcore sound and plenty of groove. This is really good, and I can't believe that I'd never heard this band before... okay, that's a bit of a lie, because as I was writing this post, I discovered that Ricochet were actually on the Only The Strong 1993 comp, but alongside Resurrection, Snapcase, Strife and Black Train Jack, the Ricochet song was kind of forgettable at the time. Happy to discover them 30 years later though!

Pressed on a dark purple colored vinyl and number out of 300. Funny how a few months ago, I'd never heard of this record, and now I'm thinking that I wouldn't mind owning a few different pressings for it.

Original Brains

When I was looking through the list of Tim's old records that were available, I noticed an original PVC pressing of Rock For Light from Bad Brains. I had intially wanted a copy of this, but in the end I ended up going with the gold vinyl pressing from Caroline because it looked so good. Once I had the colored vinyl, I gave up on the dream of an original pressing... but having it served up to me from Tim's collection, I knew that it was finally time to buy one.

When I had originally settled on the gold vinyl Rock For Light, someone along the way told me that I should still get the PVC pressing because it sounds so much better. I'm not a big audiophile, and hardly pay attention to the sound of a record... people complain about how Bold's Speak Out sounds and honestly I've never noticed... but I was curious to hear the difference here with Rock For Light. Yeah, the PVC version definitely sounds better. Not that I'll notice when I'm listening to the record, unless I'm really paying attention, but the PVC songs do sound more clear here.

This edition didn't come with an insert, so maybe it isn't a true first press, but it is close enough for me. Very happy to have this in my collection.

Both editions side by side with the different track listing for the two versions.

Colored Vinyl Like God's Shoeshine

Last year I rediscovered and became heavily obsessed with Modest Mouse. I had checked them out back in the early 2000's but they never made much of an impact on me and I quickly forgot about them. Fast forward 20+ years, and at the very tail end of 2023 I heard the song Dramamine and it sent me spiraling through all of 2024 checking out more and more from them. By the end of last year, I'd listened to Modest Mouse more than any other band, and I'd gone to see them live, but still I'd only picked up one record for them. I needed to correct that and add more MM records to the collection this year.

Last year I picked up the 20th anniversary edition of Good News For People Who Love Bad News, and that thing was so well done. So when I was thinking about adding another Modest Mouse record to the collection, I started to look around to see if other records had done similar anniversary reissues. I spent a lot of time last year with The Lonesome Crowded West, so when I saw that there was a colored vinyl 25th anniversary edition that was released in 2022... and there was one available for a decent price on discogs... I figured that I'd pick it up.

This is such a great record. Sure there are a couple of songs that may be too long or drag a bit, but it still very fills that need when I crave something out of line with what I've listened to for the past 30 years.

The packaging on this record is amazing. Great heavy weight cover, a booklet with plenty of writing, and an art print. This thing looks so good.

Lightning In A Pentagram

I had high hopes for getting back on track with blog posts in March, and then my computer died... so yeah... three posts for last month. Maybe I'll get my shit together in April. Let's get back to it with my first new release for 2025.

I was excited to learn that Pentagram were releasing a new album this year. It has been nine years since their last album, Curious Volume, and while I haven't bothered to listen to that record since it came out, I still found myself excited for something new from the band. The main reason for my excitement was that the band now included Tony Reed on guitar. A few years back I was obsessed with what he was doing with Mos Generator and Stone Axe, so I was very interested to see what he would do with Pentagram. I was looking forward to it so much, that I excitedly preordered the "ultra limited" version of the album from overseas.

This version of Lightning In A Bottle, looks amazing and I think it was worth the price that I paid to get one. Limited to 100 for this color.

After receiving this record and spinning it occasionally over the past few weeks, I'm not sure exactly where it is going to land for me. I've just spent so much time with the first couple of Pentagram records, and they are so perfect... so it makes me wonder how often I'll actually reach for a new record from the band. No doubt this is good stuff... Tony Reed brings a spark to the band that may have been missing with the last record, and Bobby Liebling sounds like Bobby Liebling... but time will tell how often I'll revisit it in a few years.