Monday 28 January 2013

Slow Mindset

I'm not saying I'm slow on the uptake or anything but you've gotta laugh that in the same week Mario posts up his copies of the new Mindset LP I'm only just getting round to putting this up:


I was a bit late to the Mindset party and ever since then I seem to be constantly behind with picking up their stuff on vinyl. They are a fine band who I like a lot and have all their stuff downloaded on my Ipod and I listen to it a fair amount so I don't know why I keep stalling with them. I still haven't got round to even picking up a copy of the new record.


Anyway, I was looking on eBay a few weeks ago and saw this so realised I had no more excused to pick it up. This joins the only other piece of Mindset vinyl I have, the Real Power 7". This is the red vinyl first press version of 400.

I Got The Time Travelling Blues

So how the deuce does this work? I've been on a right old doom rock/stoner rock trip for the last few months so when I saw in November that Rise Above had given Orange Goblins first two albums a vinyl press for the first time, I knew I wanted to grab my favourite of the two Time Travelling Blues, but man did the price put me off. I mean, once you'd factored in postage from the Rise Above store you were looking at a £26 LP and I couldn't shake the fact that I could buy maybe two hardcore records for that price.

This weekend however I ventured to my favourite record shop The Music Exchange in it's new bigger premises in Nottingham (apt as that's where the record was recorded). I picked up some decent stuff and in amongst them was this:


Priced at a very reasonable £16!! A whole £10 cheaper than if I'd have bought the record direct from the label. I dunno, it just doesn't make sense to me. I should have picked Mike one up too actually as I know he's been after this and the bands debut Frequencies From Planet Ten but the price has quite rightly been putting him off.


This is a fairly common pressing of the album on purple vinyl of 300. As always with Rise Above though the packaging looks superb.

 
Sweet gate fold layout. I haven't heard this record since maybe 99/00 properly and I forgot how good it is, I haven't really dug the bands later stuff but I'm tempted to give them a bit of a revisit now. Fun stuff that's been on constant rotation for the last two days here. 
 


The inner of the record has the band talking about the recording of this record and the hi-jinx of living with Iron Monkey for two weeks, I can only imagine it was messy.
The record also comes with this 10"  bonus EP.


This is pressed on the same colour as the album

 
Don't get me wrong I'm yet to see a Rise Above package that's not been put together superbly, and you could of course argue that with the bonus 10" the price isn't that high, maybe even pretty good. I just find it weird that I can go to a shop and buy the record that much cheaper than the label have it for sale for though.

Friday 25 January 2013

We've Got To Disengage

I don't really know how it happened but I realised today that I somehow didn't blog about an album I got last year. This -


Disengage - Expressions. I really enjoyed this album, it's a total ripper so I'm not sure why I didn't write about it at the time, in fact I thought I had. I must have got it in one of those months where loads of records came through almost all at once. 12 tracks in about as many minutes.


Here's some late  photos of the record and it's sweet old skool feeling sleeve. Which surely takes it's inspiration from Uniform Choice?


880 on Black like this one and 120 on White. The white one looks especially nice but I missed out on one of those unfortunately.

So moving on. What prompted me to realise that I hadn't featured this previously, was this week's arrival of a record I'd been hoping to grab a copy of since I got Expressions. Disengages previous release Look Back.


I only caught on to the band just as the full length was coming out so by the time I looked to see if I could grab this too it was sold out. It finally appeared on eBay a week or so ago though and I was finally able to nab it. Stoked!


Once again the layout and art work for this thing is gloriously simple. This 7" EP that came out in 2010, whilst not as instant as the LP, is great too.


Sweet looking black vinyl with the Wishing Well style centre labels. 362 on Black with this sleeve. Another 38 have a record release show sleeve.

Sunday 20 January 2013

Losin' It


Don't you just hate it when a fellow blog brother posts about a record that's yet to drop onto your door mat. That's what happened with this one. Mario posted this up last week and was already tipping it to be one of his albums of the year. I'd been waiting eagerly to hear this, so now I was climbing the walls waiting for it. Anyway it finally came this week and yeah it's a bit of a stormer. Losin' It - No Apology.

I liked the previous 7" Welcome To The Dangerzone that I had by the band but this is a real step up and sounds like a much more rounded band on display here. It's just more focused without losing any of the flavour that made that 7" so good.


I jumped on the pre-order for this sucker fairly early so managed to nab a 'pre-order' colour of the release which turned out to be a kinda swirl mix of the two more common pink and blue versions of the record. Although at pre-order it said this was out of 100 but the centre label has it marked out of 50 as you can see. Not sure what happened there, is there two different pre-order colours of 50?


I've got number 38 out of 50.


Now in Marios post he mentioned getting a poster with his copies of the records but I didn't get one with mine which I'm actually a bit bummed about as if they were supposed to come with one makes this feel a little incomplete! Ah well, great record all the same and a great start to what should be a good year for music and hardcore. Bring it on.

* I apologise that the photos suck a bit, I'm still having problems uploading pictures onto the blog.

Sunday 13 January 2013

The Middle Class Are Out Of Vogue

Widely regarded as the first ever hardcore record I picked this up the other day. The Middle Class - Out Of Vogue.
The 'first' argument is an old one and something that can be argued for and against, either way I think this is an important piece from a historical stand point. I haven't heard this in years but it first came out in 1978 around 6 months before Black Flags Nervous Breakdown. If story's are to be believed The Middle Class actually influenced Black Flag around this time too although that of course could be nonsense. What is true is that this is certainly an early blueprint for the fast paced snotty music that would come to be called hardcore as the 80's rolled in. Musically it's fairly similar to Nervous Breakdown era Flag.

This is a 2008 repress on blue vinyl. Looks great actually.





Friday 11 January 2013

Triple The Terror


I apologise if this post looks a bit shit. For some reason I can't upload any photos to my blog so I'm having to do it with my phone.
Anyway, a pre-order placed what seems like months ago has finally arrived with me this week. Terrors new output Hard Lessons, which is acting as a taster for their upcoming LP Live By The Code.
It's more of the same from Terror, not that I'm complaining, it's all good. With this 7" it's actually the second track Only The Devil Knows that I prefer, it's a total high speed ripper!!




Three one sided colours were available. Red of 300, Gold of 700 and Clear of 2000. As usual with reaper the package for all three was pretty good so I grabbed them all. The Fact it's one sided seems a bit of a waste to me, think I'd have preferred a track on each side even if it meant the hassle of flipping the record when listening.



I'm looking forward to the new LP after this.

Monday 7 January 2013

Justice - Look Alive

I dunno about you but it's like eBay sellers can read my mind sometimes. No sooner had I rediscovered Justice and the two slabs of wax I had by them Live and Learn and Escapades then this appeared on the Bay calling my name.
Justice - Look Alive EP their debut six tracker from 2004. This is on clear with green splatter and looks awesome with the cover art/sleeve. Just check out that Spoiler cover art - Badass! I believe this is the second press of 500.

I'd heard this before but jumped from this to Escapades so I haven't really heard much of the self titled album, I need to get a copy of that too really.











Wednesday 2 January 2013

Higher Learning

Another recent pick up that probably doesn't need a whole lot of commentary or explaining. Rev 140 Down To Nothing - Higher Learning


Down To Nothing are a rad band and this is a rad song, in fact I don't have enough Down To Nothing a couple of 7"s and an LP I think, I should correct this.


This is the green second press of 500. I have a small but reasonably formed and growing collection of Revelation vinyl and this is another good addition, especially as I don't think you see this for sale much and I think it's all sold out at Rev HQ,



In fact whilst I'm at it I've just dug out and listened to my copies of the On Thin Ice / DTN split. So here they are too.

Grave Mistake version



Dead and Gone Version on blue wax






Tuesday 1 January 2013

Posi Affairs

 
I'll probably spend the first few days of this year posting up some backlog vinyl. I picked this Internal Affairs / Allegiance Split up from eBay a month or so ago. This is the Posi Numbers sleeve version from 2004.

 
Pretty cool screen printed cover artwork. Which is a different take on the regular release cover. The paper material it's pressed on feels a bit odd though, it's almost like wallpaper. Anyway, one of the reasons I'm posting this up is I'm slightly puzzled by the numbering on this.
 

Number 37 of 1200?? That can't be right, looks more like it was going to say 200 and is supposed to now say 120? I have no idea, 120 seems more realistic though. Anyone know how many of these were knocked up?