Classic Hardcore

I've not been as prolific this year as I would have liked, my enthusiasm for posting up my new purchases and buying records hasn't diminished at all, I've just found my self with far less free time. Anyway, let's end 2015 in style with some hardcore classics that don't really need much introduction.

Judge - Bringin' It Down

Bringin' It Down was recently reissued and the package was so nice I couldn't resist picking up this version. Featuring a lovey embossed cover this looks great.

1000 of these were pressed on black vinyl.

As well as the poster/lyric insert the record also comes with these die-cut hammers. Which is a nice touch.

Leeway - Born To Expire

Having never owned a copy of Leeway's classic record Born To Expire on vinyl before I was eager to pick up one of these repressed copies.

This white vinyl version is out of 500 copies. Fantastic.

Sick Of It All - Just Look Around

Another classic I picked up recently was this gold repress of Sick Of It All's 1992 offering. Another I'd never owned on vinyl before. 

Is it just me or does 'gold' vinyl, unless it's in keeping with the album artwork always look a bit crap? If I hadn't bought from a store I might have tried to find one of the red or white versions.

Sick Of It All - Life On The Ropes

Probably a bit of a stretch to call 2003's Life On The Ropes a 'classic' of course, but this was cheap in the same store I picked Just Look Around up from, so I'm including it here too.

Back when this came out in 2003, having not given Yours Truly that came out in 2000 much of a listen, I didn't bother with this record, instead picking back up with SOIA for 2006's Death To Tyrants. It's not a bad record at all though.

That's it for 2015, see you all in 2016 and as always thanks for reading and commenting.

R.I.P Lemmy and John Bradbury

East Meets West

Sick Of It All, Killing Time, Vision - 1990 was a good year for the East and West to collide. Classic!

Hardcore 1990 - East meets West

Just black vinyl I'm afraid, however I know there's a Clear vinyl version. 

Scratch The Surface

If I can get my ass into gear and find time this could start a little run of records I've got recently that I've owned different versions or formats of before.

Sick Of It All - Scratch The Surface

I have such fond memory's of this record and time of listening to music back when this came out in '94, not necessarily because the record is amazing (don't get me wrong it's a damn fine album), but because it was one of the first records I can remember, at least amongst my circle of friends that seemed to unite punk fans, hardcore fans and metal fans. A lot of dudes I knew seemed to get into hardcore off the back of this record.

So yeah having never owned this on wax before I jumped at the chance to grab this when Music On Vinyl repressed it recently. I've had a few things from them now and they tend to do a great job. This is no exception. The glossy cover and orange vinyl look really good. 1500 pressed.

Love the 'Hidden Track' being advertised on the front cover sticker.

Whilst were on the Scratch The Surface vibe this foul looking slab of cheap 90's red vinyl is the single.

It's a one sided 7" that also has a cover of Sham 69's awesome Borstal Breakout. 

If you haven't seen this before the B-side is etched and really difficult to take a picture of. However, if you can see it below you'll see it has 'Scratch The Surface Sick Of It All' errrm Scratched into it.

NYC Classics

First post of October? Arrrghhhh I'm busy right now.
It pains me these days that when I originally collected vinyl back in the 90's I got rid of the vast majority in favour of CD's and what not. What a doofus. Anyway, here's two compilation records from my collection that I didn't get rid of that I figured would be fun to post up here.

Revelation Records #7 New York City Hardcore, a record no hardcore collection should be without. Just look at that cover.

This is the first pressing of the record from 1988 and I'm gonna hazard a guess that I got this around 92/93 after a strict diet of metal had lead me to hardcore music. I used to love getting compilations like this back in the day as it was a good way to hear lots of bands all at once to weed out the ones you might like. I'm fairly sure this was my first exposure to Revelation Records.

 

 

Instantly bands like Gorilla Biscuits, Sick Of It All and Youth Of Today jumped out at me and I would quickly pursue their individual releases.

 

 

Made all the easier by this catalogue/trade insert that was inside. Pre-internet this sort of thing was invaluable.

 

The flip side of that insert listing all the bands. I still don't know a huge amount about Youth Defense League.

 

Also included is a rather nice lyric booklet with each band getting their own section with band logo and photo etc and a intro to the compilation from Ray Cappo.

 

 

Great tracks, great bands and like I said before a must have for any hardcore or Rev collector.

 

Standard black vinyl. I think there was a 2000's repressing of this record on blue.

 

Next up this:

 

 

Where The Wild Things Are... another New York Hardcore compilation that came out around the same time as the Rev compilation, maybe a year later.

 

 

This one features bands like Killing Time, Sheer Terror and Maximum Penalty. Interestingly Breakdown and Gorilla Biscuits are the only bands to appear on both compilations with GB contributing Buzzcocks cover Sitting Round At Home here.

 

This is on Link Records, which I always figured was the UK version of this record, especially as the insert looks badly reproduced, I'm sure the original on Blackout Records would have been clearer than this but I've never seen one so could be wrong.

 

 

Eleven Random Records

I'm gonna take the easy way out and once again do a post with a load of random 7"s all together. There's just nothing remarkable about any of these to really warrant taking the time to do individual posts. Not to say they aren't decent records of course, but I've got other stuff to get posted up here that I'm more excited about.
It's all so random I actually don't know where to start. Let's kick off with two from Revelation Records.

Sick Of It All - S/T. The 1997 repress.

Texas Is The Reason - S/T. One of the better bands from that era of Rev releases for me.

Next some more recent Sick Of It All. Death To Tyrants on clear, with a nice little etched Alleyway Crew dragon on the front. I think clear was the most common pressing of this.

 

Off! - Compared To What b/w Rotten Apple. This is on some proper heavy duty vinyl.

 

 

On to two releases I got from Commitment Records UK. First I finally got round to checking out and buying Losin' It - Danger Zone that I saw Mario raving about on his blog.

 

 

Whilst picking that up I also bagged this compilation featuring bands like xCurraheex, Enough and Step Aside. Youth Crew 2012 from Positive and Focused Records. The centre labels pretty amusing. I don't know why i didn't pick up Provider - Wasteland whilst i was getting these as I've been meaning to buy it.

 

 

 So next on to 3 records I bought for 30p a piece...30p!! Can't even buy a chocolate bar for 30p these days, that's value folks!!!

Breaker Breaker - Demo

 

 

Blue Monday - What's Done Is Done 

 

The Damage Done - Never Wash Away on blue / 500.

 

And finally two old releases, one because I was talking to someone about this band but couldn't actually remember what they sounded like. Onion - S/T on Crisis

 

 

Billingsgate - Reach Out. What a weird looking band, I can only think these guys got together because they were the only guys who could play instruments in their town, I don't think I've ever seen a band so mismatched in the looks/style department. And don't get me started on the guy smoking a cigarette on the front. Weird.