In The Blink Of An Eye

Here we are, a full four months into 2017, and each month I've crossed at least one huge record off my Want List. January was DYS, February was Articles of Faith, March was the first Damned record, and last month it was the Gorilla Biscuits album on purple. I can't be stopped right now, and I'm hitting it out of the park again in April.

I've had Vision's In The Blink Of An Eye on my Want List for a while now, but I've never really chased it with much seriousness. That changed when I saw Chris post his purple vinyl collection for this record over at Unwavering Spirit. The kid has four different shades of purple vinyl, and I was feeling pretty inadequate not owning a single copy. I can't let these other vinyl bloggers make me look like a chump. Time to stop fucking around.

I had the record in my Discogs want list, and then I just had to wait until one was available. Before I'd even received my email update on new records that had been added to Discogs, Chris was already reaching out to me to let me know that one was finally available. I immediately jumped on it, and crossed another one off my 2017 Want List.

Fight Fire With Fire

I've made some real progress with my Top 10 Wants this year...crossing some nice heavy hitters from the list. It is a nice contrast from last year, when I only picked up one. This year I'm focused, and making big moves. Once I checked off the DYS record, the floodgates opened and all restraint went out the window. Everything was fair game at that point, and I became a man on a mission.

When the end of February rolled around, and some dude bought almost $200 worth of records from my Discogs store, I knew that the time was right to turn around and roll that money back into another big record from my 2017 Want List.

I've lost some focus on my Megaforce silver label collection lately. I've just been pulled in other directions, and knowing that a big ticket item like Ride The Lightning was on there, kind of made it a bit intimidating to stick with. After getting sidetracked for a couple of years, it feels pretty damn good to add another silver label to the collection.

Who knows, maybe this will get moving on some of the other ones that I'm currently missing. If not, I might have to just add them to the Top Wants of 2018 list for motivation.

Because Metallica were picked up by Elektra shortly after the release of Ride The Lightning, only a limited amount were pressed by Megaforce Records. While the silver label Megaforce pressing isn't rare by any stretch, given the popularity of the album, they still command a serious price tag.

While on the hunt for the perfect copy, once I saw one listed on Discogs with the Metal Militia membership form, I knew that I had to grab it, even with the higher than normal price tag.

If It Ain't Stiff, It Ain't Worth A Damn

Last year, I got myself hooked on '77 punk. I spent a lot of time in those late 70's years, spinning old, well known classics, and discovering a number of bands that I'd never bothered with until I found myself neck deep in this obsession. The Clash, Sex Pistols, The Adverts, UK Subs, Heartbreakers, The Saints...and of course, The Damned.

I lusted after a UK pressing on Stiff Records for the debut from the Damned most of the year, but I was playing it cautious. Playing the waiting game, and holding out for the best condition at the best price left me empty handed and frustrated.

As I started checking off a couple of boxes on my Top 10 Wants Of 2017 list, I felt energized to make another run at Damned Damned Damned. This time, I was determined to get one at any cost.

Considering that I never really paid them too much attention until last year, I fucking love this band. I'm only familiar with their first three records, but god damn, those are flawless. Might be time to venture outside my comfort zone, and check out their Black Album soon.

Record Collecting Is My Business...

I've had Megadeth's Killing Is My Business on my Want List for a long time. Years ago, I set my eBay profile to alert me whenever a copy became available. My email inbox saw countless notifications, and I ignored most of them. The record seemed to show up pretty regularly, so I figured there was no rush, and I kept putting off buying a copy. Then, at the start of last year, I posted my Top 10 Wants In 2016 here on the blog. I thought that if I published it here, it would keep it at the forefront of my mind, and it would motivate me to finally cross it off my list. No dice. I didn't make anymore headway on it than years past.

I vowed that 2017 was going to be different. While I only crossed one record off my Top 10 Want List in 2016, I committed myself to doing better this year. With some cash in my Paypal account from recently selling off some records, I figured that it was time to finally make a move on the first Megadeth record.

One of the things that made an original pressing of Killing Is My Business so attractive, was that it is really the only place that you are going to get their cover version of These Boots. Seems that Lee Hazelwood wasn't too impressed with Mustaine's interpretation, and forbid them from ever releasing it again. Too bad...Megadeth's version is great.

I fucking love those green Combat labels. I want them all. When looking to buy a copy of Killing Is My Business, this was really the only way to go. Man, this thing is in amazing condition for a record that over 30 years old.

One of the reasons that I paid a bit more for my copy of this record was that it included the original merchandise order form. Gotta have it for the Metal history!

Department Of Youth Services

Let me just say that the new year has been extremely lucrative for my record collecting game. January started off with a big win with the Accused LP, and has just continued to rain nothing but gold in the weeks that followed that score. Record release and tour pressings, new discoveries of old bands, and a nice slab of pink vinyl have caused 2017 to come roaring out of the gate.

Seriously, the eleven remaining months in 2017 were going to struggle to keep up with how great January was...and now that we are throwing an XClaim pressing in the mix...February through December might as well pack it in and go home. There isn't any way to top this month now.

When you are just starting to get serious about record collecting, you resign yourself to the fact that there are some classic records that you are probably just never going to be able to get your hands on. Some records, no matter how great they are, just seem out of your reach.

For me that impossibility seemed to be an XClaim collection. I thought that I'd be able to pick up a few of them here and there, but the harsh reality was that some of these are serious business in the collecting game. They ain't going to come cheap.

I surprised myself by picking up Get It Away a few years ago (Holy shit, that was six years ago!), but at the time I'd figured that I'd picked up the one and only XClaim record that I could actually afford.

Collecting the Black Sabbath UK Vertigo pressings really opened my mind to the possibility of knocking off some of those big time Hardcore players. If I could get things done with Sabbath, maybe things weren't so bleak for some of those other records that I thought were out of my reach. I keep a list of my Top Ten Wants for the year in the sidebar of this blog, and last year I grew a pair, and added the DYS 'Brotherhood' album to it. I didn't really expect to make a move on it, but I wanted it there as constant reminder to keep my sights set on bigger and better things.

I don't have many notifications set with eBay, but one of them is to alert me when there is a new auction for the Brotherhood album from DYS. I've had this set for years, but I've never acted on it...in fact, most times I just delete the alert without checking the auction. This month, however, when I saw the email alert, I decided to at least look at it. Of course the auction had a high starting bid amount, so the only people that were going to be interested were bound to be serious buyers...and in the end it was just me and one other guy slugging it out for the chance at this one. I was flying high on some other recent wins, and was feeling invincible, so I went "all in", determined to finally own a copy of this classic.

When buying Xclaim records, the insert is a must. If it doesn't include one, keep walking.

About four years ago...you know, back when buying 17 copies of the same record gave me fits of excitement, I picked up the latest colored vinyl reissue that TAANG! did for the Brotherhood record. I was afraid that by buying the reissue it was going to somehow smother the flame of desire to own the original XClaim pressing, so I refused to play it...refused to blog about it...refused to officially add it to my collection. It was just a ghost. Now that I've got the original pressing, I can open Capone's vault and finally acknowledge the existence of the Brotherhood LP on red vinyl. It might pale in comparison to the original, but that vinyl sure looks good.