Can't Tell No One

I'm rarely interested in vinyl reissues. Every once in a while, I'll get sucked into the hype, but shortly after receiving it, I find that I usually regret it and wish that I'd put the money towards something else. For the most part I've conditioned myself to pretty much ignore the steady stream of reissues. Occasionally, however, one will come along that I figure I might as well grab... because the only other way that I'd get my hands on one would be if the majority of the world's population is decimated by an apocalyptic type plague, and as a survivor scavenging for supplies in the wastelands, I stumble upon some fool's record collection. So, I'm saying that there may still be a chance, but until that time, this reissue will have to do.

When the Negative Approach 7 inch was ressiued in 2021 on green vinyl, the news barely caught my attention. Another reissue. No thanks. Moving on. Marcus is famously a bad influence on me, and when I saw that he recently picked up a copy, suddenly I started having second thoughts about ignoring it. That green vinyl looked so good, and since I didn't see myself dropping a few thousand for an original, this reissue started to seem like a good option.

Of course the record was long sold out everywhere, and I had to hit up Discogs and hope for the best. In the end though, I didn't do too bad and paid well below the median price.

The Gear That Turns A Nation

I'm a huge fan of the hardcore band Voice Of Reason that was out of Texas in the early 90's. The band played a style that fit in with that early Ebullition roster like Struggle and Downcast, but I think they are wildly underrated, and find that both of the 7 inches that they released are fucking perfect. While I only owned the black vinyl pressings for the Voice Of Reason records back in the 90's, when I was tipped off a few years ago that Gear had a couple colored vinyl pressings, I started the hunt.

It took some time to find a green vinyl copy of the Gear 7 inch, so I was considered myself lucky when one popped up on Discogs last year. Still, I wanted the full collection was very happy to score the grey vinyl at the start of 2023.

According to Discogs, there were 400 pressed on the grey vinyl for the second press.

It was cool to get all three copies out and notice that covers for each are different. Nice to see that the grey vinyl pressing had the band name changed from blue to grey on the cover. Sometimes I just appreciate the little things like that.

Trial By Jury

Trial By Jury were a hardcore band out of Virginia in the early 90's, and at some point back in the day, I picked up a 7 inch record for their demo. For one reason or another, I didn't pay much attention to it, and it ended up getting tucked into a stack of records that I wasn't all that interested in. That 7 inch sat in my collection, ignored for around 25 years. I uncovered it a couple years ago, and decided to give it a quick spin. Much to my surprise, I fucking loved it. Shame that it took me so long to finally appreciate it.

Trial By Jury fit in with that early 90's style that Kingpin and Another Wall were doing at the time, and soon after spinning that demo 7 inch, I hit up Discogs to find if the band ever did anything else. A quick search and I found that there was also a 7 inch titled Ignite that was released in '92. Surprisingly I was able to download the songs from soulseek, and very quickly, I decided that I was going to need the record in my collection.

There are a couple different versions for this, but I was hot to pick up the blue vinyl pressing. I may also need to get that version with the black and white cover as well. This record is so good, and the copy that I picked up included a Trial By Jury sticker!

Rattle The Record Release

When I first bought the Struck Nerve record from Youngblood, I didn't think that I needed multiple copies of it, and I only ordered the red vinyl version. The record really grew on me once it arrived and I started to give it regular spins. When I had the opportunity to grab a copy with the special This Is Hardcore 2022 cover, I jumped on it because it seemed too good to pass up. Having two copies of Rattle The Cage just made me want to get more, and when the record release version popped up on Discogs at a fair price, I quickly added that one to my collection as well.

The record release cover uses the simple red and white variation on the art, and I like the look. I wish there was some note regarding the date and place of the record release show, but oh well, I guess it really isn't that important.

The record is numbered out of 50.

Now I have three copies of this thing, and I'm not sure what more I should do. I guess it would be nice to grab the clear vinyl pressing, but do I try to get a white vinyl with the regular cover as well? I suppose that if they came along at the right price, anything is possible.

Blues For The Gold Sun

I've been hot to pick up some Kyuss vinyl for a while now...where a "while" is defined as ten years. How has it been that long? Anyway... I first checked them out back in 2013 when I was discovering all kinds of great stoner bands like Fu Manchu, and I absolutely fell in love with both Blues For The Red Sun and Welcome To Sky Valley. Each time that I would start to make a move to pick up one of those records over the years, I'd read something about how shitty the vinyl pressing sounds (probably because they are squeezing over 50 minutes of music onto a single record) and I'd pull back and wait to see if they would possibly get a better pressing down the road.

In 2022, Blues For The Red Sun saw a reissue for the album's 30th anniversary, and I figured that it was time to finally pull the trigger and pick this one up. Sure there are still people complaining over the sound, but honestly, this is some super fuzzed out rock, so I'm not sure what people are looking for in terms of sound quality. It sounds fine to me.

I had actually seen this record in the bins at Wanna Hear It, and I was really tempted to pick it up when I was there in December. I ended up putting the Kyuss record back so that I could grab the Death album instead, but it was probably a couple weeks later that I grabbed it from a local Bull Moose store, so it all worked out in the end.

One of the reasons that I hesitated to buy this latest colored vinyl reissue was because the hype sticker noted that it was on gold. By today's standards, that typically means that ugly metallic gold vinyl, and if that was the case I would have stayed the fuck away from this. Thankfully, I discovered that this is a proper gold, and it looks fucking fantastic. Hopefully we see Welcome To Sky Valley get the same treatment this year.

Cinderblock

When I heard the announcement last year that War Records was going to be releasing a record from a long lost early 90's hardcore band, I could not wait to check them out. Cinderblock were from Buffalo and featured memebers that went on to Despair, Snapcase and Earth Crisis... and apparently they released one poorly recorded demo back in 1992. I'd never heard of this band, but I was fairly stoked to check them out.

The Breath The Fire 12 inch features six songs that Cinderblock originally wrote in the early 90's, and were finally given a proper recording last year. From the start of the first song, Sundial, you can feel those early 90's vibes, and the beginning of Samsara feels like it was influenced by Shelter's Freewill. I was pretty excited over this record after the first listen, but after a couple more spins, I'm having trouble maintaining that same level of enthusiasm. I mean, it is good, and it is a cool relic, but maybe I'd prefer those original rough demo versions instead of this re-recording. We'll see... maybe it will grow on me a bit more with more listens.

The vinyl options were the typical crap. There was a glow in the dark vinyl option, that looked cool, but I wasn't interested in paying the extra $10 that it cost compared to the other versions... and then there were the gross looking metallic gold and splatter options. The "galaxy" version probably looks the best out of all of them. 300 pressed.

Hello From The Gutter

I've said it before on this blog, but it bears repeating... one of the biggest kicks that I get out of record collecting is when I pick up an old school metal record that was a big deal to me as a teen in the 80's. This isn't meant to diminish how much I love 90's hardcore records, or how exciting those record release and special tour covers can be, but man, once that nostalgia kicks in and I pick up an original pressing of an old thrash record... it brings me back to those days of youth, and that feeling is hard to beat.

It is ridiculous how long I've been after the first four Overkill albums. I love those early records so much that I made one of them my 2,000th post milestone. That's how important those albums are to me. Each one is a thrash classic, so I was very fucking excited to finally grab the Under The Influence record and complete my Overkill favorite four collection.

Under The Influence was released shortly after I graduated from High School, and the chances were high that this one was not far from the tape deck in my car for that entire summer.

90's Hardcore Oversight

I've been listening to a lot of early 90's hardcore lately. This era has been hitting the 30 year anniversary, and I've found myself returning to those records again and again over the past few years. While I like to think that my collection of records from that era is fairly decent, I know that there are probably some bands that I totally missed out on at the time... so I'm always searching.

One of the bands that I recently discovered was Oversight. I probably should have been more aware of this band 30 years ago. I know that I have an issue of Extent fanzine with an Oversight interview... plus this is Conquer The World Records number one, so it is a mystery why it took until now for me to finally hear this band, but here we are. The thing that finally brought this band to my attention was that I've been listening to the Framework 7 inches a lot, and as I was digging into that band on Discogs, I noticed that the singer, Shane Durgee, had also been in Oversight. I immediately checked Soulseek, found the songs for the 7 inch and downloaded them. Fuck yes.

This is a nice find for me in 2023, and the grey colored vinyl looks sharp!

Civilian Straight Edge

At some point near the end of 2021, I discovered the two Civilian Mind demos. I believe it was a piece over on noecho.net that brought this Arizona straight edge band to my attention, and mentioning that Civilian Mind were for fans of Verse and Go It Alone really pushed me to check them out.

Yeah, Civilian Mind definitely falls into those comparisons with early Verse. The lyrics are more personal, and these songs don't have the same spark that made Verse so exciting, but I'm very much looking forward to what this band does next. Plus, you know that I'm always down to support a new straight edge band.

I was surprised to see that Irish Voodoo Records was pressing those two Civilian Mind demos to a 12 inch record. I haven't heard anything from that label since the Done Dying 7 inches back in 2013. It looks like they have busy since I last checked in with them... it doesn't look like they have released anything that I'd be interested in checking out, but I guess it is cool that they have still been active.

The purple colored vinyl was sold by Ugly And Proud Records over in Europe. It is limited to 150, but Irish Voodoo had a few available in their store so I grabbed one there because the US pressing on brown vinyl didn't sound that appealing. Apparently, Irish Voodoo numbered the copies they were selling and I ended up with number 12 of 35.

Early 90's Sideshow

One of things that I love about 90's hardcore/punk is how diverse the music was. Maybe it was just that I was more open to the different styles that were going on, but I fucking loved just about everything. It didn't matter if it was Rorshach, Reveal, or Rain Like The Sound Of Trains... I wasn't drawing lines and looking to divide, I was down with all of it. In 2023, it may be a bit harder to catch my attention with newer bands doing some of those styles that stray too far outside of hardcore, but fuck, back in the 90's it all just sounded good.

Sideshow were an indie / emo / hardcore / punk band out of Nebraska. They were on Caulfield Records, which was run by one of the Sideshow guys, so they kind of fall into that Christie Front Drive category of emo, but listening to this 7 inch I'm reminded more of Soulside... and holy shit, this is so good. I picked up this record on a whim, while I was buying a couple of other 7 inches from a Discogs seller, but wow, I'm really liking these songs.

Sideshow seemed to love to just self-title their records, with two 7 inches and an LP all titled Sideshow, so the discography can be a bit confusing. This one is their second Sideshow 7 inch that was released in 1991.

The Kids Can't Be Bought

Last year, as I was obsessing over early-2000's era hardcore, I ended up grabbing a 7 inch from Fields Of Fire. It was a lot of fun revisiting that record, and it got me looking to see what else the band had released on vinyl.

The Kids Can't Be Bought 7 inch was released in 2000, but I wasn't buying records at the time, so I didn't become familiar with Fields Of Fire until Phyte Records released the Keep It Alive CD the following year, and added these songs at the end of the tracklist. Unfortunately those songs for Keep It Alive were only released on CD, and I would assume that the chances of a vinyl pressing of those songs this late in the game are pretty slim. Either way, this is great punk influenced hardcore and I was excited to pick up another record from the band.

Discogs does not have an official entry for the blue vinyl pressing, so it was by chance that I noticed a seller with one available where they included "BLUE vinyl" in the comments for thier listing. I was happy to learn that there was a colored vinyl option and I quickly snatched it up.

Drug Free Adult

I've been slacking when it comes to posting here on the blog. Part it has to do with being unhappy with my photos recently, and not having the time to retake them, but also, it has been a weird start to the year and I just haven't been motivated to write about the huge backlog of records that I have sitting here next to me... most of which I picked up back in 2022. Time to get back to it, and we might as well stick to the theme of those older Indecision records... this time it is the No Runners 7 inch from Over My Dead Body.

I've picked up a few OMDB records over the past couple of years, but I still didn't own a single copy of their first 7 inch. Given how much I loved this record back in the day, it is strange that all these years later, I still didn't own a copy on vinyl. I mean, I used "drugfreeadult" as my messageboard screen name for years because of the Over My Dead Body song, so it really was a big hole in the collection to not own a copy.

I'm very happy to finally have a copy of this record in my collection. Now I really need to chase down more versions of this 7 inch.

Mike V And The Rats

I spent a lot of time last year hanging out in my early 2000's playlists. For one reason or another, records from those years just never got a lot of attention from me. It was probably because those years were such a weird time for me musically, and I was probably downloading about 20 albums a week in a search for something that would grab me, and never really spending much time with any of it. I left a lot of those downloaded albums in the dust many years ago because a lot of the nu metal, hip hop, pop punk stuff didn't make a lasting impact... but when I go back to the hardcore records from that time, some of that shit sound exciting and new to me.

One of the records that caught me off guard recently was the Mike V And The Rats EP from 2002. I remember thinking this EP was okay back in the day, but I could probably count the number of times that I've listened to this over the past 20 years on one hand. I wasn't a skater, so Mike Vallely wasn't a big deal for me, and their Black Flag influence didn't move me too much at the time. Yet somehow, listening to this thing in 2023, I'm really having a good time with it. As a bonus, I just discovered the other day that Mike V And The Rats also released a 3 song CD in 2006, so I've been jamming those songs as well.

Since I only had this on CD originally, I figured that it was time to grab the vinyl. Why not? No one else seems too interested the band, and you can grab the 7 inch for cheap. Nice looking blue vinyl.

Kill The Messenger

Similar to The Suicide File, Kill The Messenger were another band from that late 90's/early 2000 period that I didn't appreciate at the time. I remember picking up the All The Angels Crash And Burn CD back in the day, mainly because it had the singer from Outspoken, but I don't remember it really leaving much of an impression on me. I think that I wanted something that was more in the vein of My Heart Still Beats, but Kill The Messenger was seemed to be more influenced by Black Flag or B'last... and because it wasn't more of that Outspoken sound, I kind of dismissed it.

I dusted off that Kill The Messenger CD last year when I was obsessing over a bunch of stuff from around 2000, and I was surprised with how fucking great it was. Man, I slept on some really great bands during this time.

Everyone's favorite format... the 10 inch! Oh well, at $6, at least it was cheap.

Early Moods

About ten years ago, my playlists were packed with newer doom bands. Stuff like Orchid, Blood Ceremony, Kadavar and Orange Goblin were in constant rotation at the time, and I was super excited to be discovering all of those newer doom greats. It feels like it has been quite a while since a newer doom band has caught my attention like that, but as we were getting ready to close out 2022, I was introduced to Early Moods.

There was someone on Instagram that had the self-titled Early Moods record listed in their Top 10 for 2022. I'd never heard of this band, but since we shared a number of records on our top metal list for the year, I figured that I'd quickly check them out. I jumped to their youtube video for Return To Salem's Gate and holy fuck... I was floored. This was some amazing Pentagram/Candlemass influenced doom. Honestly, I can't remember the last time a newer doom metal band had me this excited. I was so impressed that I had to make a last minute change to get them included in my year end recap post, even though I didn't have the vinyl yet.

Riding Easy had a "hand pour" colored vinyl option. I wasn't sure what that meant, but it turned out to be this splatter pattern. I've seen worse, and I actually kind of like that way that it looks catching my camera flash in these photos.

The Pain I Face

Around '92, I originally bought the cassette single for Unbroken's You Won't Be Back. I don't seem to have that cassette in my possession anymore, so I probably sold it off to Doug when I unloaded a bunch of my tapes years ago. When I was recently picking up a couple of records from a Discogs seller, I noticed that they had the colored vinyl for that Unbroken 7 inch, I figured it was a good time to finally get this back in my collection, and in a better format.

I'm certain that I've seen this 7 inch in a local record store through the years, but I've always let it pass me by for the stupid reason that these two songs weren't as good as what Unbroken would release in the years following this. Dumb. While it may not be at the same level as Ritual, these two songs are still some solid early 90's hardcore. It definitely fits in with the other classic two song 7 inches that were released in '92, like Worlds Collide, Snapcase, Blindfold, Ressurection and Four Walls Falling.

I'd never really looked to collect this Unbroken 7 inch, and then shortly after I picked up this copy, Marcus found a pink vinyl version when we were at Wanna Hear It together. Having this orange vinyl makes me want that pink version so much more, and I wish that I'd grabbed it before he did.

Engaged And Empowered

There was a time when I thought that I was familiar with the history of Redemption Records. However, after discovering a few Redemption titles recently that I was completely unaware of, I realized that I was only ever really down with those first four releases (Intent, Encounter, Four Walls Falling and Ressurection). After that initial run, I guess that I had stopped paying attention.

One of the records that I discovered in recent months was Redemption number 12, the Empowerment LP from Engage. Originally released in 1993, this album musically fits in with the melodic hardcore sound of the time... Engage were out of California, but totally sound like they were out of the Northeast corner of the US, so they sound like a perfect fit to what Redemption had been doing up to this point. Definitely worth checking out if you are into this kind of thing, and a really cool find for me 30 years down the line.

After I received this LP, I realized that I actually own one of the Engage 7 inches from '91. I bought it through Ebullition mailorder at the time, but it never left much of an impact on me... other than it having a weird song about being okay with it when your friend wants to kill themself ("suicide, I understand. suicide, I cherish."). I didn't know what to make of that song, so the record got filed away in a corner with a bunch of other records that I pushed aside at the time. I might have to revisit it and see if it holds up next to this LP.

Record Store Damnation

Bouncing back to my haul from Wanna Hear It Records that I posted about here last month... there was one record that I picked up that proved to be a bit more trouble than I had expected. It took a couple of weeks to get things straightened out, so here we go.

As a collector of AC/DC records, over the past couple of years I've discovered a couple of cover variants with the For Those About To Rock design. Of course, I already own the regular pressing with the the copper cover and black print, but I've recently found that the pressing out of Spain had the colors inverted so it was copper print on a black cover. Very cool. I want one. Then shortly after finding out about the Spain press, I came to realize that the Let's Get It Up single in the US came with that same cannon design, except it was on a red cover. Yes! I want them all! When I was at Wanna Hear It, I was mostly focused on hardcore records, but as I was killing time and waiting for Marcus to finish up, I quickly flipped throught the rock singles, and there was the red cover. Without hesitating, I quickly added it to my pile before checking out.

A couple of weeks later, I was going through all of my records from that day, and something caught my eye. The picture sleeve cover was for the Let's Get It Up single, but the actual record itself was for Rock 'N' Roll Damnation. Fuck. I was going to have to fix this situation.

Thankfully, the Let's Get It Up 7 inch, without the cover, is pretty common and cheap on Discogs, so I quickly bought one to stick in the picture sleeve. The Rock 'N' Roll Damnation 7 inch never came with a picture sleeve, so I didn't have to worry about that one. Problem solved.

Clear Your Way

There was a time around 2014/2015 where I found myself losing some excitement over hardcore. The newer records at the time just weren't holding my attention, and I was more interested in what what was happening in rock and metal. Early in 2017, that tide began to shift back to hardcore's favor when I discovered a string of new bands on Triple B, including Free At Last.

That Embrace You record from Free At Last was so great and such a fantastic surprise. Shortly after discovering that record, I found that the band had also released a 7 inch a few years earlier. I found the Dog Years Records webstore and placed an order for the Pave Your Way EP, but I'm assuming that the label had collapsed by that point as I never received my order. Honestly, I was ordering so much shit at the time that I didn't even realize that I never received my record until probably eight months had passed. It sucked, but it was only one record, and I just wrote it off as a loss. Four years later, I finally made a move to pick up that 7 inch though Discogs.

The six songs on Pave Your Way aren't as great as what I found on the Embrace You LP, but this is still a fun 7 inch. It is a good listen when you are in the mood for some good straight forward hardcore, and why wouldn't you always be in the mood for that?

Intent Redemption

Intent were a hardcore band out of Texas in the early 90's, and while I absolutely loved their Drift 12 inch back in the day, it took me until 2013 to finally discover the band's 7 inch from 1990. Here we are, ten years later, and I figured that I might as well own another copy of it.

Initially, I didn't think too much of this 7 inch, but I've really come to appreciate it over the years since I bought my first copy. There is just something about early 90's hardcore that hits me, and I never seem to get tired of it.

I believe that this version on Redemption Records is only available on black vinyl, while the blue colored vinyl saw a release under the Punchline Records label with a different cover. For the longest time, I didn't think that I needed this black pressing, but as Redemption Records number one, I kind of needed it just for its historical significance. Plus, I needed that Empty cover version.

I figured that I might as well get a photo of both versions for this post.

Mega Bussin'

Last year, I was very surprised to discover that House Of Suffering had released a second 7 inch back in '92. Somehow, that record completely flew under my radar and it was a shock to stumble upon it 30 years after it's release. After picking up that Wired / Youth 7 inch, I started to dig around on Discogs to see if there was anything else that I was missing... and that's when I found the Bus Volume 2 complilation.

This Bus comp features four bands from the Southern California area in the early 90's. For me, this focal point of this 7 inch is the House Of Suffering song, which is similar to what the band did with Wired / Youth. The band just know how to groove. The other cool thing on this comp is the song from Beatless, which is just a Kevin Murphy one-man project. The song here is Kill Me, which obviously shows up on Farside's Rigged album two years later. It is kind of neat to find this early recording of the song.

White vinyl and numbered on the center label out of 580.

Time // Wounds

I absolutely loved Mos Generator when I first discovered them in 2014 with Electric Mountain Majesty. For years I was obsessed with that band and I picked up a number of very collectible records from the band... of which, I still get occasional messages on Discogs about, asking if I could please sell (never going to happen). While I was initially blown away with Mos Generator's heavy rock sound when I discovered them, the band have since been pushing their sound and incorporating some different influences to their style. Change makes me nervous, but with each album Mos Generator have proven that they still deliver the goods.

With the release of Time // Wounds in 2022, Mos Generator posted a number of messages on social media, thanking thier fans for sticking with them on "an album that steps way beyond the boundaries of our usual foundations". I was starting to wonder if this was the record that the band was going to get too proggy and maybe lose me. I didn't rush out to give any of the advance singles a listen, and was thinking that I may let this album pass me by... and then I saw a comment from Tony Reed (singer/guitarist) about the song Getting Good At Revenge where he describes the influences as starting with a No Means No intro riff before diving into a Black Flag My War-era sound for a bit. Okay, I needed to listen to that immediately. Damn. While this style is limited to that one song, it still convinced me to buy the album.

Much of what is pressed into these wax grooves still maintains that original Mos Generator identity. No doubt they are still rooted in heavy rock, but there are layers and a bit more complexity here, and I'm here for all of it. I can't believe almost let this one pass me by. First pressing limited to only 200 on the band's own Music Abuse label.