Let's Converge

I love Converge, their When Forever Comes Crashing and Jane Doe albums are completely responsible for getting me into that particular brand of noise and lead to me finding bands like Botch and Dillinger Escape Plan et al. Jane Doe is still one of my favourite albums and easily ranks in my top ten of all time. Now despite this I don't actually own Jane Doe on vinyl, simple reason is I was buying CD's when it came out and since getting back into vinyl I just haven't found a version of the album I want at a price I want to pay. I could easily buy the double black vinyl reissue that came out a while ago, but man, it just seems so boring for an album I love that much. Stupid way of thinking? Probably.

However I did pick these up a short time ago. First, 'No Heroes'.

This is my favourite of the post Jane Doe albums. This is the brown and clear second press of 1000.

I also picked up 'Axe To Fall'.

I have to admit I'm still not 100% sold on this album but then again it's probably the one I've listened to least of all so maybe I've just not delved into it enough. This is the solid light blue 1st pressing of 2000.

'No more heroes

No more

No more

In my world of enemies

I walk alone'

Insted

Seems me and Mario had the exact same idea recently, I'd say 'great minds think alike' but that would probably be an insult to Mario.

I decided that I needed some Insted vinyl, 'Bonds Of Friendship' has thus far eluded me but I did pick up these last week.



A first pressing of 'We'll Make a Difference' on black vinyl. I really like the colours and layout of this, it's simple but it just works!

And I also got a copy of 'What We Believe' dirt cheap off the Bay! I have no idea if any other colours of vinyl were issued but mines just a black vinyl version.

Try not to be too distracted by me taking the shot...man that photos awful. Does anyone know if this originally came with an insert? Feels like it should have one but there's not one with this.

London Calling

I'm up early (kids) and was watching some Olympic highlights. I have a staggering 25 channels of the games to choose from at the moment.  The title track from this album is used pretty heavily at the moment in conjunction (pretty strange as it's not exactly celebrating London) and as it played on the TV my eyes flicked to my records. As I picked this up reasonably recently and my last post was of a more punk rock nature I figured I'd feature it.

It doesn't really need an introduction but it's London Calling - The Clash -

I love this album, I always have and picked it up at a record fair a few months ago. Record Fairs in general I find are pretty poor for the kind of stuff I like but they are OK for picking up 'classics' at a decent price. There is a Fair maybe every 3 or 4 months about 5 minutes from my house so when it's on I always go on the off chance I'll find something decent...what else am I gonna do on a Sunday morning? It's where I tend to pick up older punk and metal stuff that I don't really feature on this 'ere blog but that I want on vinyl.

You can definitely tell vinyl has had a resurgence over the last few years, when I went to the fair let's say 3 years ago it was pretty sparse but the last occasion I went there was a queue maybe 75 deep to get in at opening. I wasn't particularly looking for this LP nor in any real hurry to add it to my collection. But the fact it was on red vinyl pretty much sold it's self to me as soon as I saw it. The one good thing about record fairs is you can haggle a bit and I managed to get £7 knocked off the price, so I was pretty happy.

You can't see in the photo really but the vinyl is a nice looking red with a slight marble.
'Rudie Can't Fail' is my favourite track on this. It's one of my favourite non hardcore songs of all time.

Normal service will resume next time I'm sure.

Harrington Saints

Quick post as I've just listened to this band again.

You know how it goes, you're buying a couple of things from a distro or label website and you just have to have a final look around to see if there is anything else you might have missed that takes your fancy. That's what happened with this. I was buying the In My Eyes re-presses but felt a bit unsatisfied because they were albums I already knew. Being on a bit of a punk rock kick at the time my eyes fell on this. Harrington Saints - Pride & Tradition.

I'd never heard the band before but noticed it was produced by Lars Frederiksen and I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Rancid. I love their first 4 maybe even 5 albums. If truth be told the Rancid and Lars and the Bastards sound/influence is their in spades, and when it's at it's most obvious the band do come across as a little bit of a poor mans version of the aforementioned. They do have some moments though when they sound like their own band that they are pretty good. It's pretty inoffensive catchy oi infused punk rock just right for the few warm afternoons we've had.
Anyway the cover of this thing looks awesome gold on black. Really stunning and striking.

The whole gate fold package is put together really well. It just looks great.

I was pleasantly surprised to find this is on white vinyl which I presume is the standard pressing.

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!!

Internal Affairs

Here's another recent ebay pick up. Internal Affairs - Deadly Visions.

This is the record release version that caught my eye and sold really cheaply which I was surprised about. I mean I didn't expect it to sell for a fortune but we're talking a few pounds including postage. It's always the way though, stuff I think will creep up in price doesn't and things I think I've nabbed at a steal with minutes to go because no-one else has spotted or interested in suddenly rockets up.

On yellow vinyl and obviously has a different cover to the normal release. This is number 169 of 230.

Reaper Round Up

I've had Turnstiles - Pressure To Succeed 7" first pressing on blue vinyl for quite a while now and it's a record I just don't get bored of. It's a hell of an impressive debut, I like it alot. So when I read on Mikes blog that a second pressing had been released by Reaper Records on the far less exciting black vinyl I knew I wanted a copy of that version too. I didn't even know it had been re-pressed, I just can't keep up sometimes.

Anyway here they both are. 830 on Blue and 300 on Black:

So in order to once again make a dent in my own back log - whilst in the Reaper webstore I also picked up some other releases by them that I didn't have.

S.O.S - I owe you nothing. I actually did have this but on CD, which I sold so I had to pick up a vinyl copy. Black and Gold Mix of 450.

Naysayer - No Remorse. This is the second press on red of 980. It has the familiar Reaper Records centre that a few other releases by them also use, such as Trapped Under Ice - Stay Cold.

Terror - Rhythm Amongst The Chaos. Which has some sweet packaging.

and Death Threat - Lost At Sea. Blue Vinyl of 980.