Outlast and Alert Second Pressings

In addition to the new Losin' It record, Life To Live also release second pressings for the Outlast and Alert demo 7 inches.

The Outlast demo from 2009 was a promising start, and they got even better with 2010's Take Control 7 inch on Bottled Up. Can't wait to see what their Harvcore record brings later this year.

Nothing too special about the second pressing of this record. The black vinyl is identical to the first pressing, the only difference is the hand numbered dust sleeve. Number 3 out of 100.

The Alert 7 inch at least comes with an altered cover to differentiate it from the first pressing.

Like the Outlast 7 inch, this one come with a hand numbered dust sleeve. Number 2 out of 100. I'm liking these low numbers!

With this latest Alert pressing, I decided to pull them all out for a photo. I was thinking that I was only missing the test pressing for the Demo '08 vinyl, but then I remembered that they did a very limited tour pressing for this record as well. I guess I need two more to fully complete this collection.

Losin' It In The Danger Zone

Not every band can land on REACT!, Triple B, Back To Back, or even Six Feet Under Records. There are a bunch of great Straight Edge bands kickin' it right now that don't get the benefit of the hype that those bigger labels provide. Truth Inside, Caught In A Crowd, Enough, Step Aside and Written Off...now you can add Losin' It to the list of great new bands.

Life To Live Records aren't as big a label as some of the heavy hitters, but they have put out some quality records, and I sit up and pay attention when they announce pre-orders. After downloading a couple of demos from Losin' It, they instantly won me over with a sound that is reminiscent of the early Mental stuff. Download this shit from their bandcamp page and tell me that you aren't hooked.

Of course I didn't hesitate when Life To Live put up the Losin' It pre-orders, and I grabbed everything available, including the special pre-order cover that was limited to 75.

I love the look of the violet colored vinyl. Limited to 155 pressed.

125 on coke bottle clear vinyl.

155 on black.

Now don't be fooled by the goofy record cover with the alien Floorpunch dude, this is seriously good...I guess the laid back/goofy vibe kind of plays into the Mental influence as well. Lyrically, Losin' It are on their game here, and with a song against homophobia, these guys give you more than your standard Youth Crew anthems. Great stuff.

Feeding The Fire

The special pressing of the Praise 7 inch wasn't the only thing that REACT! was giving away to the first kids through the door at last years Showcase.

Aram had originally released the What Feeds The Fire 7 inch on his first label, Anchor Records, back in 2001. He had some extra vinyl that was locked away in storage for the past 10 years, so he dug it out, printed up a special cover for the Showcase, and gave them away for free. True Hardcore Lives.

Number 8 out of 88.

Prior to the Showcase pressing, I didn't own any vinyl for What Feeds The Fire. It felt wrong that this was my only copy, so I set out on a mission to own one of the regular pressings. After a quick search of eBay, I was able to pick one up for fairly cheap.

The packaging on this is very good...very original. The whole thing is designed like a matchbook cover. Open it up and you've got a set of matches on the back of the lyric sheet.

Even the back cover has the strike area for lighting the match. Nicely done.

Of course members of What Feeds The Fire went on to bigger things with Verse and Soul Control, but this Set Me Free 7 inch is pretty solid as well, and should not be overlooked.

Taking A Couple Bad Trips

I kind of stumbled upon Bad Trip when I was on an early 90's kick recently. I only had their split with Go!, and the Elevator 7 inch, and while I enjoyed them when I picked up those records 20 years ago, I don't think they ever really made much of an impression on me. After listening to those songs recently, I suddenly found myself very interested to check out what else they had done.

Even after releasing two full length albums in the 90's, I don't believe that Bad Trip ever really generated much attention from the Hardcore scene. Hell, it's obvious that I'd never really been too interested in checking them out when they were around. Because of this, I figured that eBay would be flooded with cheap vinyl for the band. To my surprise, the pickings were pretty slim, and after months of searching for the Fear And Loathing LP, I was still sitting here empty handed. There were a couple copies of the Positively Bad 7 inch floating around with Buy It Now options, but I was holding out for the first Bad Trip LP. It finally got to the point where I couldn't take it any more, and I pulled the trigger on one of those Positively Bad records.

As soon as I sent my paypal payment, I noticed that the 7 inch that I bought was on Wreckage records. Hold on. I seem to remember seeing another copy with different labels. I did some research and discovered that the Wreckage pressing was not the original.

The original pressing of the Positively Bad 7 inch was on Bell Bottom Records. I found a recent auction on eBay that ended with zero bids. I took a chance and messaged the seller, asking if he'd be interested it throwing it back up on eBay with a Buy It Now option. He agreed, and I couldn't resist owning an original pressing. So within a couple of days, and for a total of $8.25, I now had two different copies in my collection.

I don't know if I'd say that this 7 inch is better than the Fear and Loathing LP, but damn, this record is really good. A nice surprise that I find myself spinning every couple of days.

Get The Most Peace

In addition to the two Praise 7 inches, I also scored a couple more records from Aram that were limited to the REACT! Showcase last year.

Easily one of the top 5 records that will be released this year, REACT! give us the debut EP from Peace...and while this copy was available at the 2011 Showcase, pre-orders didn't ship until this year, so I'm considering it a 2012 release.

Featuring Stephen from The First Step, plus some dudes from Mindset, Peace deliver the high level of intense and passionate Hardcore that you would expect.

Limited to 100 for the Showcase with a special cover and stamped labels. It's okay not to drink!

There are plenty of other Showcase pressings from the REACT! bands, but one of the last ones that I bought from Aram in this eBay spree was for one of my favorites from the REACT! roster, Get The Most.

Like most REACT! releases, the label presses one color to a limited 100 pieces. This pressing is then provided to the band so they can sell as they see fit. Get The Most took their orange pressing of the Collection LP and sold them at the Showcase.

Special Praise

When I was putting together my Top 10 list for 2011, the newest Praise 7 inch came pretty close to making the cut. In the end, I just couldn't justify a two song record on the list, so it got dropped. Still, there is no question as to how great these songs are.

For the REACT! Showcase last year, Aram, being the generous dude that he is, created two special pressings that he handed out for free to the first kids through the door. One of those records was a special pressing of the two song Praise 7 inch. Of course I wasn't at the show, so I had to resort to picking them up from Aram through eBay.

Special covers were made along with an explanation that the plant screwed up the original pressing. These were all rejected, with the exception of 88 copies which were set aside as a gift to those that attended the Showcase. Number 1 out of 88. Nice!

The second Praise record that I bought from Aram was the rejected test pressing of the Two Songs 7 inch. Sometimes I'm totally surprised at how cheap some test pressings sell for. Under $25 for a REACT! test press is a steal as far as I'm concerned.

Number 4 out of 21. There are only 5 copies of the accepted test press. Yeah, that one is going to be a little more difficult to get a hold of.

Grim Record Release

I was a little late to the party for Fire & Ice. I remember seeing their Gods & Devils 7 inch for sale in the Triple B store, and was completely turned off from the band due to the record's cover art. I expected some serious tough-guy/meat head Hardcore, and I stayed away. Back in 2010, they were scheduled to play the first Triple B showcase, so I downloaded Gods & Devils on a whim. I was surprised by how much I loved the band, and I quickly got to work making up for lost time and started building my FNI record collection.

A year or so later, Marcus gets into the band, and starts his own collection by picking up the record release version of Grim. What the hell? What's this? Since it's not listed on the Triple B discography page, I didn't even know this existed. It was kind of a dick move for him to pick up this record before I did, but record collecting is a cut throat hobby. Don't be fooled into believing that any of us are friends. All we do is make the game more difficult for each other.

A few months later, I took the opportunity to score my copy from FNI guitarist, Ryan Groat, through eBay.

The cover for Grim, with the four green heads, isn't any better than the one for Gods & Devils. The record release cover isn't too bad though, limiting it to just one green head.

The back cover includes the date of the record release show.

Hand numbered and limited to 50.

After acquiring this record release pressing, I was feeling pretty good about my collection. I knew that I was missing the black first press of Gods & Devils, but I thought I had everything else. I laid them all out for a photo, and realized that I'm also missing the orange vinyl pressing of Grim. Damn. So close. Come on...anyone want to help out an old friend?

Wig Out With Shawn

I picked up a couple of the Dag Nasty remasters from Dischord recently.

Before there was the Can I Say LP...before there was Swiz...Shawn Brown handled the vocal duties for Dag Nasty. There have been some unofficial releases floating around for years, but it's nice to see Dischord finally recognize those first recordings with a proper release.

The back of the album cover documents the brief history of the Shawn-era Dag. There is no mention of why Shawn left the band, but hey, it gave us Swiz, so I'm not complaining.

Until now, I have never bothered to really listen to anything past Can I Say that did not have Dave Smalley as the singer. Can I Say is perfection, and around 1990 I followed it up by buying the All Ages Show 7 inch. As a young kid whose world was starting to be taken over by Hardcore, the All Ages Show record was complete shit. I dropped the needle on the vinyl and immediately hated it. I couldn't believe how bad it was, and vowed to never bother with anything post-Can I Say.

Here we are 30 years later, and I get an introduction to the Dag Nasty song Safe from H2O's recent covers album. Of course I'd never heard this song before, so it was new to me. I did some research and found that it was from Dag's Wig Out At Denkos LP. I was diggin' H2O's cover, so I figured that I'd track down the original. Surprisingly, Wig Out isn't nearly as terrible as I expected...sure When I Move is painful to get through, and but overall, this is a solid album.

Since I liked Wig Out At Denkos a lot more than I expected, I decided to pull out the copy of All Ages Show that I bought so long ago. Upon first listen, I can certainly see what turned off the 20 year old version of me. Really, these songs are pretty far removed from Can I Say. After a couple of spins though, I'm not hating it, and I can see it fitting in with the whole Revolution Summer thing that DC had going on at the time. Yeah, I'll keep it. Who knows, maybe if I get daring enough, I may get around to checking out the Field Day LP.

The Golden Answer

The early 2000's were a strange time for me musically. While I still loved Hardcore, I was desperately searching for new musical styles. I was listening to a lot of Hip Hop, some healthy doses of Slipknot and Limp Bizkit, as well as some swing bands like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Access to free music via Napster and then WinMX and Soulseek, kicked off a kind of musical experimentation, and I was willing to try just about anything. Looking back now, I wasted a lot of time on music that I was interested in mainly because it was free and available. I downloaded hundreds of CDs that I could give a shit about today, and most of them ended up in the trash as the years ticked by. Add in the fact that I was only buying CD's at the time, and it is no surprise that I missed out on some great Hardcore bands of the time like The Answer.

I finally caught up to The Answer around 2009, picking up their second 7 inch on Aram's pre-REACT! label, Anchor Records. At this point, I can't remember what prompted me to check out the band, or even where I got the record. All I can say for sure is that it has been a slow growing appreciation of this band since that time. After picking up the 7 inch collection pack a couple years ago, and reading that Doug had 22 pieces of vinyl for the band...I was itching to jump into the game. I'm barely out of the starting gate at this point, but picking up the gold vinyl pressing from the Excursion 7 inch, only fuels the record collector in me. I need more.

500 on gold vinyl with the gold foil stamped cover. Such a nice look...and at 99 cents on ebay, it was a nice price.

Give and Give Again

A few months ago, I ordered one of the newest 7 inches from Give. Triple B released I Am Love, and for some reason I only ordered the clear vinyl pressing. Since then, I've become more interested in collecting Give vinyl, which means that I had to go back to Triple B to pick up the two other pressings that I passed by the first time around.

Red vinyl is limited to 300.

400 on black vinyl.

The World Is Ours

Motorhead recently released a live album this year. Do we really need another live album from this band? Including the live sets from the deluxe versions of Iron Fist, Just Another Day, and Orgasmatron, this marks my ninth live release from this band. It's a bit excessive...although I think that Iron Maiden may have them beat.

Overall, The World Is Ours does a decent job of capturing Motorhead live after more than 35 years of touring. That said, I'm not sure how many times I'll really listen to this. First of all, I don't really spend a lot of time with live albums, and even though this double LP has a great mix of songs, I don't need more versions of Ace of Spades and Overkill. Second, this record does not come with a digital download, and with free album downloads online becoming more and more scarce, I don't have a copy of this for my ipod. Seriously...is it worth it for me to rip the mp3s of this album myself?

Iron Chic

When I was picking up a 7 inch from The Ladies in the Dirtcult webstore, I was searching for something else to add to my cart. Buying just one record is kind of lame, and feels like a waste, so I wanted to add something else to my cart. There really wasn't a lot that I had much interest in, and then I saw the Not Like This LP from Iron Chic.

I remember that Sandwell had made numerous posts about this record on his blog, but I'd never really been interested in checking them out. Since I was desperate to buy a second record from Dirtcult, I thought that Iron Chic might be a decent option. I did a quick search of the internet, and found a download to check them out before I clicked the Add To Cart button.

I really didn't expect to like this at all. For the most part, it just seemed silly...and I struggle with "silly" in Hardcore/Punk. First off, I hated the band's name. Iron Chic = Iron Sheik...you know, like the pro wrestler from the early 80's...the one that Hulk Hogan defeated for his first WWF championship. Silly. Then there were the song titles like Cutesy Monster Man and Know What I Mean, Jellybean. Seriously? It made me want to punch this record in the face. In spite of all this, I still gave them a shot based on Sandwell's recommendation.

I queued up the songs for a spin. Fuck me. My head was bobbing. My foot was tapping. When the record was over, I felt tricked. I couldn't have possibly liked that as much as I thought it did. I better listen to it again to make sure that I really did enjoy Iron Chic's infectious style of "pop punk". I expected that the second listen would reveal that I didn't really enjoy it as much as I thought that I did. Goddamn it! Two listens in and I like it even more. How did this happen? You win Iron Chic. This album is crazy good. I'm hooked, and I finally add the record to my cart.

200 pressed on orange vinyl as part of the third pressing.

Petal Pushing

Painkiller recently released another 7 inch from the series of records that Give have been releasing. REACT!, Deranged, Triple B, Painkiller, and then the latest that should be arriving soon from Youngblood. This band gets around! While each 7 inch is released on a different label, I love that they continue to maintain the same look for each one.

I don't pay too close attention to what Painkiller releases, so I'm thankful that Marcus gave me a heads up when Petal Pushing was available for pre-order. Green vinyl was limited to 218 copies, and I expected it to sell out quick, so I didn't hesitate.

I only ordered the green vinyl from Painkiller, and as soon as it arrived, I was scratching my head as to why I didn't pick up the black vinyl as well. A quick shopping trip to the Revelation webstore solved this problem.

Choice Of Green

There are some albums that I listened to so much as a kid, that I rarely give them a spin nowadays. Albums that were so good, that I listened to them over and over again...until the magic had worn off. Screaming For Change was one of those albums. As a 20 year old, just discovering Straight Edge Hardcore around 1990, this record spoke to me. "If drinking's what it takes to be accepted, I'd rather stay aware and be rejected". Sure, I was digging Slapshot at the time, and I loved the anger in their message, but I wasn't going to fool anyone...I wasn't hard...I wasn't tough like those guys. Bands like UC and Insted were more my style.

I can't even begin to imagine how many times I listen to this record in those days (and by record, I mean CD). But you know, sitting here now, 20 years later, I can't remember the last time I listened to this. Thankfully, Wishingwell Records reissued Screaming For Change for 2012 and gave me a great excuse to revisit this album and remind me how great it really is.

I had originally heard of this reissue from Lins. As I mentioned earlier, I only owned it on CD, so I was stoked to pick up a copy on colored vinyl that didn't cost me a few hundred dollars. Lins had posted about a clear green copy, but soon I was hearing about a second green vinyl pressing...this one was a guacamole green. I finally got around to placing an order with REV, and discovered that I got the "ugly" green copy.

I still desperately wanted the clear green vinyl, so I rolled the dice and placed another order with REV. Luckily, I received the copy that I wanted.

Of course this pressing looks an awful lot like one of the original pressings. A few people have done all the comparisons as to how to tell the two apart, so I won't go into it here. I'm just happy to finally have this in my record collection.

The Ladies Love Dick

After buying my first 7 inch from The Ladies last year, I was on a quest to own all four of their records. Three of them were relatively easy to track down, but the Trashed 7 inch was a little bit more difficult to track down. The search finally paid off when I managed to track one down at the Dirtcult Records webstore.

Three songs in under three minutes. Fast, snotty and obnoxious. Damn, this band is fuckin' blast, and to top it off, we get a nice big cock on the front cover.

65 pressed on banana yellow vinyl.

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.