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.

Hang Your Head

Foundation have really grown on me. I remember initially not being terribly impressed with their Never Stops Raining 7 inch a while back, but by the time I grabbed the tour pressing of Hang Your Head, I was sold on this band. I don't know if I'd buy into many bands doing this mid-90's sound, but Foundation can pull it off. In the past I've compared them to Outspoken and Unbroken, but listening to this tonight, I hear a lot of Trial in this band's sound.

308 pressed on clear brown vinyl with cream splatter from Six Feet Under Records.

Talking Trash, Walking Disease

I've heard Trash Talk's name jocked for years now in the hardcore scene, and while their Walking Disease 7 inch was recorded in 2006, it took me until 2010 to finally give this band a listen. Holy shit, this has a strong Ceremony/Outbreak vibe to it. Pissed off, full of rage, and looking for a fight. This 7 inch doesn't let up, and just rips from start to finish...plus the whole thing is topped off with some sick looking cover art. Very cool and definitely a band that I'll have to check out further.

Record Store Day 2010

It's funny, I didn't really think that I had bought a lot for this year's Record Store Day, until I started going through my big bag of stuff. I think that the reason that I felt underwhelmed is because I had high expectations of buying a ton of vinyl this year, and that didn't really happen. I picked up a couple Record Store Day exclusives at Bull Moose Music when the store opened at 9:00, but I was really looking forward to arriving at Newbury Comics in Harvard Square and buying the bulk of my vinyl at that store. I was kind of disappointed. Newbury's didn't really have anything really exciting. I picked up a few re-issue LPs, but for the most part the selection was pretty thin. Once I started digging into the used CDs, that's when I really started spending some money.

I love The Doors. Jim Morrison has a voice that can give me goosebumps. "Music is your only friend.....until the end.". Damn, some of their stuff is so profound. I had no idea that there was a new movie coming out this Spring about the band, but this two song 7 inch serves as a promo for the When You're Strange film.


The embossed silver foil stamp on the front cover is a nice touch.

Another Record Store Day exclusive that I picked up was a live 12 inch of The Jimi Hendrix Experience from 1968.

While not nearly as cool as the foil stamp on the Doors record, the Hendrix 12 inch came with a Record Store Day sticker.

The Black Keys are amazing. Their Rubber Factory and Magic Potion albums are incredible slabs of blues/rock, drawing comparisons to The White Stripes. Their last album, Attack & Release, had a different vibe to it...maybe a little more laid back, and I'm looking forward to what the new record brings. Picked up their new 12 inch single for Tighten Up b/w Howlin' For You. Not as good as the two albums that I mentioned, maybe lacking that dirty blues guitar sound, but the songs are still good, and I'll be picking up their new album next month.

The record that I was most looking forward to was the new pressing of the first Sick Of It All 7 inch. I have never owned this record...Hell, I've never even HEARD this record! Heresy, I know. I knew the songs from the Blood, Sweat and No Tears LP, so I never even bothered to track this record down. With the Record Store Day release, I figured that it was time to right this wrong...if I could get my hands one. There were only 500 pressed on clear vinyl for this release, and I was seriously doubtful that any copies would make it to the small independent record store that I frequent in South Portland, Maine. Much to my surprise, Bull Moose Music had about 5 copies. Both Marcus and Doug had asked me to pick them up a copy if I had the opportunity. Being from the UK and Canada, didn't give them much hope in picking this up. The store limited each customer, so I was only able to buy one copy. I then had my friend, Jeff, grab an extra copy for me. Still needed one more to cover both Marcus and Doug, so at the end of the day, on our way back from Boston, we stopped in at Bull Moose again. They had one copy left and I grabbed it. Mission accomplished.

A couple of cool bonuses with this record...first is the little insert that explains that this is a press for Record Store Day.


The second cool little touch is the hand stamped "Record Store Day 2010" on the inside cover.

Apparently there are a few different cover variations on this pressing...like REV just grabbed whatever extra covers they had lying around, and stuffed the new pressing into them.

Friday Music repressed Alice Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare album to vinyl. Even though all of the original band members had split by this album, it still stands up well next to the original classics. Vincent Price's spoken word piece on the Black Widow is spine chilling.

I downloaded the Gray Matter CD a few years ago, but I've never bought a copy. I love this band and took the opportunity of of the Dischord re-issues to finally pick up a copy on vinyl. One of the better Revolution Summer bands.

I probably didn't really get into Agent Orange until about a year ago. I had never really heard them, and so I downloaded their album to check them out. The CDR sat in my collection unnoticed for a while, and at one point I decided to finally listen to it to decide if I should keep it or not. Wow, I was impressed. Great early hardcore/punk. Apparently Drastic Plastic repressed this recently, so when I saw this at Newbury Comics, I figured that I'd grab a copy on colored vinyl.

It was nice to see that Agent Orange gave me writing credits for this classic song. Ha!

Another hardcore/punk classic re-issue...this time we have a compilation of songs from The Middle Class on Frontier Records. The record includes a couple of 7 inches from the band, plus some demo sessions. I had never really heard the band before and decided to take a chance. Pretty cool stuff, especially from a hardcore/punk history perspective.

Originally released in 1978, some say that the Out of Vogue 7 inch was the first hardcore record, and the band highlighted this fact in the liner notes for the insert.

New Mindset

I don't really get out to see many shows anymore, but I would make every effort to see Mindset any time that they make a stop in Massachusetts. This band is just so amazing live, and have blown me away every time that I've seen them. The new Mindset 7 inch, Time & Pressure, is just as good as their first, and continues on with their brand of Youth Crew styled hardcore. This record is going to top my list for the best of 2010.

Too bad about the record cover though. Someone pointed out that the back of the kid's head in the photo looks like a smiling Crimson Ghost, and now that is all I can see. Sorry if I just ruined it for you too.

200 copies pressed on white vinyl, 400 on red, and 900 on black. The screened mailer that I received has the image of the 7 inch cover, plus it comes with other cool stuff that has become the high standard of REACT! releases, including a nice big poster that I'm going to have to have framed for my music room.

Force Fed Painkillers

Picked up this Force Fed 7 inch through the Six Feet Under distro. Truth be told, I was actually looking for the Fed Up 7 inch, but I got confused by the name and ordered this one instead. I had never heard of Force Fed before, but they play some very cool, early 80's influenced straight edge hardcore. The 7 inch was released on Painkiller Records, and is limited to 229 pressed on green vinyl with black streaking.

The Final Connection

The First Step and Champion are my favorite bands from the last 10 years. I guess they are my Gorilla Biscuits and Youth of Today of the 00's. - clichejon

Someone on the REACT! messageboard has the above quote as their signature. It rings so true for me, that I figured I'd post it here as well. I absolutely love the late 80's hardcore, and it certainly produced some of my favorite bands and records. Yet, I find that I rarely collect anything from the time period. I do not own Start Today on vinyl. While I own a copy of the Confusion press for Chain, the rest of my collection for them is pretty weak. And Judge...seriously, way out of my price range. For some reason, I find myself concentrating my collecting efforts on bands from the last 10 years...and one of my favorites would be The First Step.

I recently received my annual bonus at work. The amount that I received would have gotten me a Chung King pressing of the Judge LP. There was no way that I would have been able to get away with that, but it did allow me to throw a nice size maximum bid on the eBay auction for the pre-order press of the Connection EP from The First Step. Dobek Ohashi sells the coolest records, and when he listed this record, the final piece in my Connection collection, I was going to win it at any cost. Thankfully that cost didn't end up breaking the bank. I now have 9 copies of this record.

This pressing of the last EP from The First Step was released by Waking The Dead Records out of Argentina. Red vinyl with a special cover just for this pressing.

Especial edition for pre-orders. Hand numbered and limited to 50.

Just Another Day

Man, I've been struggling to find the time to get this updated. March didn't even see double digit posts. The last time I had that few posts was a year ago. I'm disappointed that I dropped the ball last month, but hopefully I'll be able to make up for it in April. Hell, after not getting home until after 3:00 AM last night, coming back from the Overkill show with Rob, here I am past 11:00 PM tonight, just to get this up. I'm going to have to sleep in tomorrow. Let's start this month off in a big way.

I got a huge box of records from Just Another Day Records a couple of weeks ago. This package has been a long time coming, and Seb from the label has been plagued with delays for most of these releases. In the end, he certainly made the wait worth while.

First up is the pre-order press for the Won't Stand By LP from Resolve. Out of the St. Louis area, Resolve play straight up youth crew hardcore. The singer has a strong influence from the Turning Point demo. Hell, every once in a while I expect him to break into "If you were smart, you'd lose that fuckin' joint, it's finally time for my turning point". Now granted Resolve are no Turning Point, but I can't deny the influence. The pre-order press for this LP comes with special silkscreened cover.

Pre-order press is limited to 80, and hand numbered on the plain white back cover.

Just Another Day also pressed 400 copies on a red/multicolor splatter vinyl. There is something about the splatter design on vinyl that turns me off. Not sure what it is, but I'm not a fan of it. What I do enjoy is that Seb convinced the band to include a second special cover for this press...The Trooper rip off. Awesome.


Finally we have the "regular" press for the Resolve LP. I did not order either one of these. Money was tight at the time, and adding two extra albums with overseas shipping was too much for me when I placed the original order. I didn't have any note from Seb, explaining why these two albums were included, but I can only assume that he threw them in with the order since there was a 4 month wait from the time that pre-orders went up to when they actually shipped. Thanks Seb...much appreciated. 220 on burgundy colored vinyl, and 300 pressed on solid green.


Just Another Day Records has always had top quality packaging, and the Resolve LP is another testament to that fact. Three different covers must have cost a fortune. Not only are the covers different, but Seb spared no expense and the inside gatefold designs are different for both the Trooper and regular covers.

It goes without saying that the back covers are different as well.

I had never heard of Times Together, but when the pre-orders for The Changing Of The Leaves 7 inch went up alongside the Resolve LP, I figured that I'd take a chance on them. The bio for this UK band on myspace states that their influences are Uniform Choice, Unity and Insted, but the vocals really remind me of the Call On My Brothers LP from Ignite...which makes sense since those bands are all out of the Orange County scene. I ordered the three 7 inch package for this record, and once again, Seb threw in the purple vinyl as a bonus. 90 copies on red vinyl for pre-orders...120 pressed on solid green...180 pressed on white vinyl. The purple vinyl was only available through the band, and was limited to 110 copies. Another solid release from this label.

Another release that struggled with lots of delays was the vinyl pressing of the Overload demo. I think that I had originally ordered this back in October. I believe that the pressing plant that the label was working with did not bother with a test press, and when the vinyl was received, the majority of them skipped. They managed to salvage 50 of them, and decided to sell them as a strictly limited release. I enjoyed their 7 inch that Just Another Day released last year, and so was pretty happy that I was able to pick up this record.

The record came hand numbered on the inside cover, and includes the story, explaining why only 50 exist of this record. Another example on the level of quality from this record label...just look at the hand stamping on this...it looks perfect!

Finally, in this long list of records received, we have the second pressing of the Rich White Boys 7 inch from Debaser. This record ended up on my Top 10 List from 2009, so if you haven't checked out this band, I suggest you do so. They have since called it quits, which is a shame because this 7 inch is amazing. 190 copies pressed on green vinyl, and 225 pressed on white.

True Colors North American Tour

I don't get out for shows very often these days, but some how I ended up with one a week for a three week period. Last week, Rob and I caught the spoken word gig from Henry Rollins, this week was True Colors, and next week will be the Killfest with Overkill. Paul and I made the trip to Haverhill, Massachusetts a couple days ago for True Colors. I missed them the last time they toured North America, and there was no way that I was going to miss them this time through.

The whole night was a blast, and I enjoyed every band that played. Caught In A Crowd started the show with a nice youth crew sound. I'm not sure what it was, maybe it was just my exceptionally good mood, but there was something about watching these kids tear through their set on the small stage at Anchors Up...it just reminded me how special hardcore is to me. Here was a new band of kids, playing a style of music that I fell in love with about 20 years ago. There was nothing pretentious about it...just some friends playing music that they love and having a good time doing it. They had demo tapes for sale, but I'm fighting the tape revival tooth and nail, so I didn't buy one. Next up was Street Sweeper. They had a great Lockin' Out vibe going on, and it made sense that Justin DeTore and Doug Cho from Rival Mob helped the band record their Stylin' On You demo. I was really looking forward to Alert. I've been listing to their demo 7 inch a lot since the Mindset show a few months ago, and couldn't wait to get up front and sing along. They played a great set, and it was cool to catch up with Keith and Puffer during the night.

The crowd was pretty small for a Thursday night, but I still hung around at the front of the stage with a few guys for the True Colors set. When they started everything off with a Straight Ahead cover, I lost it and found that I would have moshed over puppies to get up to the mic to sing along. The singer had tremendous energy and was all over the stage for the entire set. The Rival Mob ended the night. This was my third time seeing them, and they just get better each time around. The singer know how to work a crowd, and if I had known their songs better, I would have piled on to the crowd that gathered for the chorus of Mob Rules All and Raw Life. Intense. I need to pull out the vinyl I have for their album and give it another spin.

I made sure that I was first in line at the True Colors merch table, and as soon as I saw the True Colors Straight Edge North American Tour shirt, I knew that I had to have it. There is something about a tour shirt with dates and cities on the back that is special to me.

The band also had a tour pressing of Focus On The Light with them. This was the same white vinyl, blank label pressing that Six Feet Under used for the special release of the album at the end of 2009. This one comes with a special screened cover. This now gives me 5 different pressings for this album. All of them are from Six Feet Under, and I don't own a single copy of the Powered pressing.


The back of the album cover is plain white with the exception of the hand numbering down in the lower corner. True Colors had a sign up that said they only had 40 left, and I got number 59 of the 94 pressed.

Government Execution

Back in 2007, a fellow blogger, Tyler, introduced me to Government Warning. Tyler was a good kid, and while I was struggling to keep up with what was new in the punk/hardcore scene, he helped keep me in touch. He made the conscious decision to step away from the internet over a year ago, and he let his blog die. Government Warning, however, are still cranking out records. Their newest 7 inch continues down that same road of attitude filled punk. Only three songs on this one, and one of them is a Battalion of Saints cover. Punk rock, don't stop.

Gaining Control

I recently dropped a ton of money on pre-orders from REACT! Records. The label had 3 records go up at the same time, and since I needed 3 different colors of each one, it quickly added up to a big chunk of change. That was it, I told myself, I'm done spending money for the month. Then Jim Hesketh, the singer for Champion and ON, posted a link on the REACT! board for some stuff that he was selling on eBay. Fuck. How am I supposed to just walk away from that? I don't know, there is just something special about buying a record from someone in the band...but maybe I'm just a geek fanboy like that. Jim was selling some crucial records, and since the ON test press was going to be out of my league, I focused on the record release of the band's second 7 inch.

The record release comes with a nice alternate cover and was pressed on red vinyl.

The back of the cover is hand numbered out of 100, and has the date of the record release show. The date looks strange to me. I'm not sure why they didn't just put March 3, 2009, instead of making it March 3RD. Just doesn't look right. The record also came with a mini flyer for the show, which was a great touch.

Finally, the record release date was included on the lyric sheet insert. Quality release all around.

Cry Wolf

I'm not terribly excited about this post. In case you don't know, Wolf Whistle features Pat Flynn, of Have Heart fame, on vocals. If you want a Have Heart knock off, you will want to look somewhere else. Wolf Whistle is ugly...nothing uplifting here...just pure rage in the same vein as The Swarm or maybe Mind Eraser. I may be off base on the Mind Eraser comparison, but I'll use it because, like Wolf Whistle, they don't leave a lasting impression on me. It's not that I don't like it, it's just no longer a style of hardcore that I easily embrace. I'll continue to give it a spin...my buddy, Rob, really likes them and I will be going to see them play with True Colors in a couple of weeks, so I'll keep kicking it around and see if it grows on me. This copy is from the second press on Triple-B Records and limited to 200.

Supporting The Scene

At the start of 2010, Aram decided to sell off some records to help clear out some debts from running REACT!. The guy was selling so many great records, and I was feeling pretty broke after the Christmas holiday, so I tried to limit my spending. He had one Have Heart pressing of the demo on Bottled Up that I didn't grab, and I have regretted not buying it when I had the chance. Who knows when I'll see it come around again.

I had missed the opportunity to grab the Time Flies 7 inch with the Misfits rip off cover a few weeks back on eBay. When I saw that Aram was selling his copy, I didn't hesitate to pick it up. I love the Walk Among Us cover, and Time Flies did a great job with it.


Malfunction Fiend Club. Number 68 of 138. Time Flies is one of those bands that I've been thinking about collecting for a long time now. This record looked so good, that I'd figured that it was time to get it started.


The other one that I bought from Aram was the record release pressing of the Perspective 7 inch from True Colors. I had never seen a copy of this and had no idea what it would look like, but I really like True Colors and therefore I needed this for the collection.

The record release pressing comes with a cool looking comic strip style cover, hand numbered 44 out of 200, plus a promo shot of the band.