Maimed For The Masses

As an unashamed old school wrestling fan (can't stomach anything after about 2003) when I heard Night Birds were releasing a new 7" on Fat Wreck with the title Maimed For The Masses I knew exactly what it was about and the cover art only went further to confirm my suspicions. Shit, Night Birds one of my favourite bands of 2012 releasing a record/song about one of my favourite ever wrestlers, Mick Foley? You know I wanted a piece of that action.

To the untrained eye a cover written in blood surrounded by thumb tacks and barbed wire might seem a bit over the top but when you know the subject matter and that these things are synonymous with Mick Foley and 'hardcore' wrestling (the man literally had his ear ripped off in a match in Germany) it makes perfect sense. I really like the Night Birds bat logo on the inlay too.

The back of the record sleeve and inlay are more traditionally Night Birds I think. The record it's self comes on two different versions, this standard black version and a limited to 70 gram vinyl version also on black. The sticker on the front differentiates the two records with the 70 gram version having a blue and yellow sticker. In fact the sticker is the only part of the sleeve that mentions the band name, I wonder if this was an after thought.

 

Mick Foley is also an author, so just for shits I took a photo of the record with the books I have by him.

 

 

 

 

                                     

Fresh Kills

I toyed with not buying this release because I'd already heard or had the tracks on it, and i'd already spent a fair amount on records that week. Then I remembered that this band rule so I slapped my self around the face and quickly headed over to Grave Mistake to order it.

This is Night Birds - Fresh Kills Vol.1 a collection of tracks from the bands 7" and Demo releases. All of this pressing is on black vinyl so I presume to add a limited addition/collectors version of the record Grave Mistake pressed 200 with this obi strip. I think by the time I came to order this, granted I think still on the first day, there were only a handful left.

 

The obi adds a little something I guess and looks decent against the black and white cover.

 

 

I really dig this band and could listen to this collection of songs as much as the awesome The Other Side Of Darkness LP they put out last year. They just don't really have a bad song.

 

 

 When I blogged about the TOSOD LP I mentioned that the centre label for some reason looked really good. Same can be said again here, the simple silver and black looks really good with the black vinyl (unlike my hand, I have a real problem taking pics of black vinyl).

I could do with adding the Killer Waves 7" to the collection but I haven't seen it anywhere for sale.

 



Stranglers Gonna Make Me Pay (a fair price)

I some how managed to get hold of one of the most sought after records of recent times it seems. Boston Strangler - Primitive. I didn't hear this band straight away and when I eventually caught on, it seemed like everyone was talking about how hard it was to track down a copy rather than the music on the record it's self. I scored a copy all thanks to Twitter.

A few months ago I was talking to Mario about this and that when he mentioned that he had joined Facebook/Twitter recently just to keep up with new releases, because he found that this was where labels and the like dropped the information first. I'm a bit stuck in my ways I have to say and don't really go in for social networking, but a few weeks later after a conversation with my friend Ross who runs thisisnotascene about how useful he finds it, I decided I couldn't just keep relying on Mario's heads up on things (doesn't mean you can stop the emails mate) and I should really investigate this 'Twitter' as the kids were calling it thing myself.
I saw the benefits almost straight away when one morning at what seemed to be a weird time I saw a message from Grave Mistake Records saying ' Boston Strangler LP - got a few back in stock'. 'Hmmm that's gotta be a weird time in the states' I thought 'hopefully everyone else will literally be sleeping on this'. Seems they were. I headed straight over, paid my $12 and got the hell out of there. A couple of hours later I checked back out of curiosity and just as expected, they had all gone.

If anyone doesn't use twitter then I do recommend it for stuff like this, I've scored a few other things since that I think have solely been announced on there. Then again I'm probably the only one who didn't already know this haha.

So Boston Strangler and this album - Well it's good, frantic, old school fun that's for sure. It's never gonna live up to the kind of hype the record has created, you'd have thought they'd reinvented the whole hardcore genre the way that hype has gotten. It's certainly a cracking album though, played with an infectious and obvious sense of humour.

Visually it's a nice looking album all clean and black and white, much like the Off! LP.

Twitter Core!!

For The Sake Of Time...

...I'm gonna post up some recent 7" scores all at once. I've bought loads of stuff recently and I'm never gonna get through it unless I start grouping some stuff together. I mean I bought some Rev represses what seems like ages ago now and I still haven't posted anything up about them.

First up Sectarian Violence S/T

But no ordinary S/T release, this is the U.S Tour Version of the record

Limited to 100. I spotted this announced somewhere that the band had some left overs on their big cartel and struck fast as I was about to buy the regular version anyway. I like this band.

Next a related release as both bands feature Nicktape on vocals. Coke Bust - Live On WMVC. Released on Carry The Weight Records. This is the brown version limited to 150 copies.

Next up Cornered a band I first heard on their split with Cold Snap. Released by Carry The Weight also. This is the blue with white splatter version of 200.

I was impressed by Cornered so picked up their charmingly titled FUCK OFF! 7"on 6131 Records. This is good too, fast as hell, brutal, heavy ass hardcore.

Lastly whilst picking up the Cornered release and some other stuff I picked up Bracewar - Whatever It Takes Demo too. I'd had a download of this but not a physical copy so got the clear version limited to 300.

That's made a small dent in the stuff I still need to write about at least.

Night Birds

My laptops power supply has been on the blink, which means I've not been able to post anything up for a few days. Out of desperate hope I just tried it and through a combination of gentle precision movements, curse words that would make a sailor blush and sellotape I've got the thing working. Honestly, it was like a scene out of a mid 90's action film (think Lethal Weapon or Die Hard) where a dirty and bleeding but ruggedly handsome (me) cop is trying to defuse a bomb - beads of sweat and all.

I might be on borrowed time so lets get cracking. Night Birds - now I'd heard the name and wanted to check them out but I don't think it was until I read Mike over at The One Thing That Still Holds True write about them earlier this year that I finally did. I subsequently picked up the Night Birds 7" and the Midnight Movies 7". Instantly I thought they were great, almost as instantly I kinda forgot about them, I don't know why, I think I just bought a load of records around that time and they got pushed to the back. A few weeks ago though I listened to those 7"s again and thought 'I really must track down the LP', and wouldn't you know it as if by magic the very next day it appeared on the Vrevolution web store, and then said 'sold out' once I'd bought it so they either only got one in or it flew off the shelves.

The LP The Other Side Of Darkness is an extension of the earlier stuff and it hasn't been off my turntable this week. A super cool, B-movie, surf, rockabilly, punk, lo-fi mash up is the best way I can describe them (which is a shit way to describe them), Night Birds are a band who are oddly depressing, I guess in a similar way to the Dead Kennedys although the Kennedys comparison is a bit lazy I think, they've probably got as much in common with bands like The Meteors.

I don't really have any idea of pressing details or numbers for the LP, but I think I have the 2nd pressing as other versions I've seen have white centre labels as opposed to red. That might be shame actually as, although I can't really do it justice that red on black really pops from the black of the vinyl.

Maybe because it's late I can't seem to find the Midnight Movies 7" but here's the self titled one I spoke about earlier.

This like the LP is from Grave Mistake Records but again I've got no idea of pressing details or if other colours etc were available.

That simple cover and logo really suit the band though. In fact I think that Night Birds logo should have been used on the back cover of the LP in the top left corner, it would have looked bad ass.

So yeah that's Night Birds, great band just doing their own thing, check 'em out if you haven't already.

'The other side of darkness - The one you truly fear

There's no one watching over all of us down here

The other side of darkness- The one you can't face

It's the colour of cold and endless space

The other side of darkness'