20 Have Heart 2003

A couple months back, REV added four new pieces of colored vinyl to their distro for the Have Heart demo. The Bottled Up pressing history for the Have Heart is full on ridiculous, and in trying to contain my record spending, the last thing that I needed were four more copies of this thing. While I already had stupid amounts of Have Heart vinyl, I had lost all desire to try and keep up any longer. Fuck it. I quit this stupid game.

That was my line of thinking when I ignored the new pressings available over at REVHQ. A few months later, Rune over at Droid Rage posted up an article on record collecting. Marcus and Lins participated in the interview, and since I've known those dudes for a while, I figured that I'd check it out. As I read through it, and saw the photos capturing the idiocy of everyone's collections, it ignited that old spark of doing stupid shit and having fun. Did I need more Have Heart records? No. Did I want more, and increase how dumb I could get with my collection? Oh hell yes.

By the time I'd returned to the REV store, two of the four new pressings were sold out, so I grabbed what was available. 150 pressed on mint green, and 200 pressed on red vinyl.

It was stupid how excited I was to receive these two 7 inches. It was a complete waste of money, and I had much better things to buy...but I don't know if anything else would have put a smile on my face the same way that taking this group picture did. 20 copies of the Have Heart 2003 demo, and I have still barely scratched the surface.

Little Effort Made Towards A Test Press

I never really made much of an effort to collect the Efforts Made 7 inch. I picked up a copy when the record was released back in 2006, and while I enjoyed it, I never set out to collect more of them.

When I saw a copy of the test pressing on eBay, I knew that interest in this little known band was going to be low. While I wasn't out to really collect the band's vinyl, I figured that if I could grab the test press for cheap, I'd take it. Yeah, the three other bidders for this didn't want to invest much either, but I came out on top for ten dollars and some change.

Jeff, who runs Bottled Up and Start Today Fanzine has an amazing Misfits collection, so it is no surprise that his label produced this great looking rip off cover for this test press.

Test press count for 2014 is at five.

Bringin' It Down With Outlast

I've kind of gotten away from it lately, but I've made a commitment to add to my Have Heart collection for 2013. I thought that the year was going to get off to a great start when Jeff from Bottled Up posted a ton of vinyl on ebay. There were tons of vinyl from his pressing of the Have Heart demo, plus lots of other Bottled Up rarities. In the past, I've seen those ridiculously limited transition pressings go for a reasonable amount of money (between $30 to $40), but just because I had my eye on them this time, the price quickly rose, and I got the fuck out. I just didn't have the cash to get into a bidding war, so instead, I concentrated more on the Outlast records that Jeff had available.

Outlast are one of today's best Edge bands, so I couldn't have been more happy to add a couple more records to the collection. First up is the special release they had made for the Edge Day show in Philly last year. Honestly, this has to be one of the best rip off covers that I've ever seen. Bringin' It Down!

Everything about this Edge Day release is perfect. The photoshopped cover...the use of color for the back panel...even the selection of using green vinyl. Excellent job. Limited to 100.

I'm not usually too bothered with transition pressings, but Bottled Up likes to do individual special covers for each different transition, so of course I'm sucked in to wanting them.

Green and white transition press out of 9.

Truth Inside

A few months back, I wrote about a 7 inch compilation from Camp Records. At the time, I was a bit underwhelmed, but hopeful that the bands on the comp keep at it. One of those bands were Truth Inside, and they truly impressed me with their 7 inch on Bottled Up Records this year.

They recently posted the record release version of their 7 inch in their webstore. They had a few left over from the show, so they made them available to those that weren't able to attend. I love it when bands do this, and I jumped at the chance to grab one for Truth Inside.

The record release pressing is limited to 30.

More Have Heart Vinyl

When Bottled Up posted pre-orders for the Truth Inside 7 inch, they also put up the seventh pressing of the Have Heart demo. You know that I can't resist new Have Heart vinyl, so I grabbed each of the new pressings.

The vinyl looks amazing, with each color getting a slight streak of black in them. 100 pressed on gold, 150 pressed on red, and 250 on green.

Even though I have 18 copies of this record, my collection still pales in comparison to Doug's. Man, I've got to step up my game.

Speak The Truth

Who has two thumbs and digs new Straight Edge bands? This guy! Combine that with a new release from Bottled Up Records, and I'm ready to open up my wallet to buy each pressing.

When Bottled Up posted that pre-orders were available, I scooped in and grabbed all three pressings. If you want to download the 7 inch before you buy it, you might be able to pick it up HERE. I trust the quality of Bottled Up, so I didn't hesitate.

The most limited of the three was on black vinyl.

Hand numbered on the record labels, and limited to 92.

150 pressed on white vinyl.

250 pressed on purple vinyl.

Of course clear purple vinyl looks best when held up to the light.

Another quality Bottled Up release.

If You're Not First, You're Outlast

Just when I was starting to make a dent in my blogging backlog, my computer went and shit the bed. Third time in the past year. While I've been lucky enough in the past to recover all my data before rebuilding my machine, this time I wasn't as lucky. Four months of photo, and music files were lost. All music that I had added between November and the end of February was lost. All records and CD's that I had cataloged in my database for that time period vanished. Four months of work flushed down the toilet as my computer experience a hardware failure and crashed. At least I had bought an external hard drive back in November, and backed up my info then, so all was not lost. Sure the blog hit a bit of an obstacle with my computer down for a week, but now I'll probably have to devote most of my time to rebuilding what can be recovered.

Bottled Up is a small time record label. They don't crank out a ton of releases...hell, the last time we heard from Jeff was back in 2009 when he released the Right Idea 'Our World' 7 inch. Bottled Up may not be huge, but when they do release a record, you know that it is going to be something honest and heartfelt.

Bottled Up have released some solid releases over the years, with One Up, Have Heart, and The First Step in their back catalog. When I heard the label was going to be releasing the new Outlast 7 inch, I knew that this was going to be their best release yet.

The band had a solid demo in 2009, and I was really looking forward to some new stuff from this Straight Edge band. This record does not disappoint, and I will be spinning it all week in anticipation of catching their live show at the end of next week in Boston.

100 on green, 150 on white, and 250 on black.

I Remember Halloween

I love finding record pressings that I didn't know existed. Now granted, there are a ton of different pressings for the Have Heart demo, but still, I thought that I had a handle on them all. My collection is far from complete, but I thought that I knew what was out there. A couple months back, Aram posted a list of records for sale with set prices. On that list was the Have Heart demo with the Halloween cover. What the fuck? What is that? I'd never heard of the Halloween cover...plus it was listed as being limited to 20! God damn! At the time, I had cooled off on Have Heart vinyl, and didn't want to pay the $50 price tag. I picked up a couple of other records, and then immediately regretted on the Have Heart one. Suddenly, $50 for a Have Heart record limited to 20 seemed like a great price. ONLY 20 OF THEM PRESSED! When am I going to get another chance at this record? Well, to my surprise, a month later, Jeff from Bottled Up, was unloading a bunch of rare stuff from his label on eBay. Lo and behold, there was the Halloween pressing. I dropped a huge max bid on it at the last second, determined to win it. To my surprise, the auction ended at a lower price than Aram's. Stoked. I now have 15 copies of this one record.

First Steps From The Past

Bottled Up Records recently released the What We Know Sessions from The First Step. As the story goes, TFS broke up during the Spring of 2001. When they got back together at the end of the year, they went into the studio and banged out these six tunes that which, as Stephen writes in the excellent overview on the inside cover, "explain the core spirit and ideology of TFS". The majority of these songs ended up being re-recorded with Walter from Gorilla Biscuits for the What We Know LP, with the exception of Cutting Through, which showed up on a MRR comp, but this session captures the band boiling over with positivity and passion for what the future holds for them. This record stands as a fitting tribute to a band that went out at the top of their game.

Bottled Up released three pressings of this, but I only ordered two copies. I received the hand numbered black vinyl pressing (number 56 of 100), as well as the clear blue pressing (limited to 150). There is also a white vinyl pressing that is limited to 250, and I'll have to pick that up at some point as well.

Mailorder Euro Tour

I happened to be browsing the Six Feet Under webstore the other day, and to my surprise, I found myself on tour across Europe with some of today's best bands...all without leaving the safety of my office cubicle. Belgium's Loud and Clear took a few days to play in Denmark and Sweden, and they printed off these special tour covers for the occasion. I can't say enough good things about this band. When I was on a listening streak of early 80's hardcore, somehow Loud and Clear fit in with that playlist, and would often times follow up a round of SSD and DYS with this album. Band is so good it made me pull out the Elephant Skin album from Justice. I found that I loved that album as well, and need to find some more early Justice stuff.

Black vinyl from the U.S. pressing on Six Feet Under. I was surprised that they only made 36 of these covers, and then had some left over for the webstore. Why didn't this shit sell out on tour? Either way, I'm very happy to have one. Hand numbered, and I got 14.

Next up was Common Cause from Oslo, Norway...a great straight edge hardcore band featuring ex-members of Damage Control and Eyeball. They did a tour across Europe last year, and sold this pressing along the way. Black vinyl, with hand written labels, packaged in a "DJ sleeve" and limited to 250.

Have Heart also did a Euro tour, and Bottled Up Records pressed the demo on a special orange colored vinyl (limited to 250) for the band to take over the Atlantic with them. Yeah, the picture makes it look like it's red vinyl, but trust me, it is a nice dark orange.


As you can see, I have many different pressings of this record. This record has been pressed so many times, it is insane. I don't care though. In fact, I love it when a label will press an absurd amount of colors for one record...it makes for a great picture. I think that I only need two more pressings of this to make it complete.


The last album that I bought from Six Feet Under was for a band called Dean Dirg. Don't let the odd name turn you away. This German punk band rips it up...just a lot of fun. 100 made on green and black vinyl.

Four of a Kind

Here is another pressing of the Have Heart demo from Bottled Up Records. This time around we get 4 new versions...a black vinyl pressing, and mine was hand numbered 43 out of 100, plus 145 on clear purple, 177 on solid orange, and then 234 on solid purple. These four copies push my collection up to 13 pieces for the Have Heart demo 7 inch! That has got to be the most copies I own of a single record. At one point I was keeping a checklist for a bunch of records that I wanted. All the Have Heart stuff was on that list. I'm going to need to dig that out and figure out what I am missing.

When I ordered the Have Heart stuff, I figured that I'd give another band from the Bottled Up catalog a chance, and I picked up the Crumbler 7 inch. Meh, it is okay. I guess songs about prostitutes and beaver shots aren't really my bag.

Have Heart Collection

Back when I had a day off to myself, I pulled out the Have Heart collection. I received a new pressing of The Things We Carry from Bridge Nine Records, and figured that it was a good time to get a picture. The latest pressing is yellow with green splatter. It was the final gatefold pressing, limited to 1,000. My Have Heart collection has a little ways to go before it is complete, and I'm not really concentrating on it like I was 6 months ago. Still, I aim to get this complete at some point.