Ghost - Infestissumam

I am going off the rails a bit on this one and have decided to post on a metal album. I'm calling it "pulling a Mike Preston". What can I say? It can't be hardcore all the time. To tell the truth I have been collecting metal albums (and tapes) since I was seven years old. While I may have transitioned from metal to thrash and then crossover, I never really stopped with the metal. I have some of the dumbest records in existence on vinyl just to keep collections intact. St Anger anyone?
Well for the last couple years no band in any genre has captured my attention more than Ghost. I have been lucky enough to catch them live a couple times, once opening for Mastodon and the other on their own headlining tour a couple weeks back. Such a good time. One thing though, burly drunk dudes trying to sing along to Ghost is bad news.
Anyway, when word came down a new Ghost album was due, I was all over the internet. Mike and I exchanged emails, I joined Facebook pages, shared links to preview songs like Secular Haze, etc. Once the Canadian pre-order happened, I didn't hesitate. Well yeah, I kind of did. I was pretty bummed about the dumb legal name change to Ghost BC. Still they offered a package where you could score the Secular Haze 10" that previously was only available in Sweden. That sealed it for me.

The domestic version comes as a gatefold on red vinyl. There was some grumbling online that the vinyl was too thin, easily warped and came delivered in cheap mailers resulting in split seams. Mine arrived just fine.

This is the B side label art that caused quite a stir when they tried to put it on the cd. Apparently the pressing plant objected to the scene depicting a satanic witch orgy. Dude, you ain't seen anything yet.

Here is the Secular Haze 10" that came with the package. I dig the Abba cover on the B side.

This is the t-shirt that also was in the pre-order package. The B.C. is still lame. I will probably never wear it. I already have four Ghost t-shirts in regular rotation.

The best news came down a few weeks ago when I read that there was a Swedish/Scandinavian version of the album pressed on high quality clear vinyl that would contain additional deluxe artwork and best yet, would not have the lame B.C. in the name. I found a link to a webstore in Sweden that shipped to Canada and two weeks later - bingo!

The cover is also a gatefold but with an attached artwork book on the right fold. There are full 12"x12" drawings for each of the songs in addition to thank you's and all that.

There is also the dreaded printed inner sleeve with lyrics and the full size artwork of the domestic B side label.

The Swedish version is by far the superior version and I am really glad I ordered it. Drop me an email if you want the link to the place I got it.
As far as the music goes,  this album has really grown on me. Originally I was disappointed there was nothing as catchy as Ritual, but now I think songs like Year Zero and Jigolo Har Megiddo are as good or better. Awesome.

Verse - BCUG Record Release

I am a sucker for special one off covers. Record releases, fest pressings or farewell shows, give me a good looking cover with decent artwork and hand number it and I will be there with cash in hand.
The last one to really catch my attention was the Verse Bitter Clarity, Uncommon Grace record release. The stark yellow cover just really impressed me.
When it first popped up on ebay I tracked it with every intention of bidding and winning. I mean, how much could it really go for? Well when it crossed the $100 threshold I had to back out. There is no way that could have been right?!?! I chalked it up to the fact it was put up for sale on ebay the day after the damn record release show and people were just bummed they couldn't make it. Instant gratification and all that.
Well patience and time let me score one for a reasonable price and now I get to file it away next to my other four copies of this record.
The version I scored was on the limited color of clear and black split.

There were only 300 of them pressed in total and apparently either 50 or 60 were used for the record release. I'm going to go with 50 just because that was the number used in the description of the record I won. Oh and I just happened to win it from this guy. I think he would know.

I scored the incredibly random number of 94 out of 150. There s absolutely nothing special or meaningful about that at all.

The good thing about finally getting this album almost a year after it was released is that I kind of forgot how much I liked it. Damn fine album no matter what Preston thinks. Dude, you are just wrong on this one.

Cursed III - Good Friday Edition : Record Release

A couple years back, I did a post on the Cursed III: Architects of Troubled Sleep lp. You can check it out here. One of the things I wrote about was needing to get my hands on a copy of the record release edition. Well today, that finally happened.
I don't really like record swap meets. In fact, they kind of bum me out. Huge sausage fests with some of the weirdest obsessive compulsive or just insane dudes milling around like walkers in the zombie apocalypse. Boxes of crap that their owners seem to think are worth their weight in gold. Mountains of boring mainstream vinyl to flip through and on top of it all - please pay $5 for the privilege to do so. No thanks.
My buddy Shawn was going to head down and check it out. He is good like that. I just asked him to let me know if there was anything cool. I had forgotten all about the "show" and was surprised to see  a picture of this bad boy come through on messenger. After a few minutes of planning and texting back and forth, I was loading the kids into the family car, heading to the ATM and then off to a community recreation centre where they set up the show. I had Shawn watch my kids while I made my way into the hall (Thanks again dude!) and snatched this bad boy up for $15 less than the lowest ebay price it had ever sold for. Not a bad Sunday afternoon. We went for candy after.

The Good Friday Edition Record Release was hand numbered out of 85. I like that the numbers on the artwork and DJ sleeve match. Too bad about the smear, but it wasn't exactly a deal breaker; especially after the effort it took to get it.

The record release came on the more common black vinyl with the standard dreaded printed inner sleeve.

The table I scored this was like a Toronto punk rock museum that had it's own Chris Colohan wing. Ruination and The Swarm 7"s, Cursed albums, the Cursed demo cd-r and I think there was some Left For Dead there too. I just didn't have the cash to buy much more and plus my kids were waiting outside. I left with only this album and a Fucked Up 7", but I think I did just fine.

Prisoner Abuse - s/t

I have never been more out of touch with the hardcore scene than with my epic fail regarding the Prisoner Abuse lp. I try to stay on top of things through blogs, message boards, twitter and facebook and still this one eluded me completely.
It wasn't until Marcus emailed me asking if I scored a copy of the Prisoner Abuse album that I had ever even heard of them. I literally had no idea what he was talking about. The next thing I know blogs all over the place are posting their copies of the record. What the fuck?!?!?
So after reading up about the band and listening to a couple songs it was back to the salt mines and yet another album ends up on my want list.

The first one I was able to score was the clear vinyl version. This one has quite a bit of black swirled in which I assume is common with the everyone else's. There is no info on the pressing numbers on the Painkiller discography page yet, but a few on HYE? have it as only 100 copies on clear.

The next one on black vinyl was relatively easy to score as a message on the Painkiller site stated that after a brief hiatus, black vinyl copies were available again. I can only assume it is a second press but with Painkiller you never know. Their pressings of common black vinyl usually ends up being identical with the first.

Pretty standard layout with a single insert.

Musically, this stuff is awesome. Boston straight edge hardcore in the vein of 80's bands like SSD and Negative FX. But you know that already. I'm the one with the late pass.

Stick Together - Surviving The Times

Sometime just before Christmas, right around the same time I was finishing off my Beware 7" collection, I decided to also get serious about my Stick Together collection as well. I ended up with a pile of records for just two releases. One of them was Surviving The Times.
Surviving The Times is a great record and was easily one of my favorites of 2012. I think that by slowing down, the songs ended up being so much more memorable and catchy. Pure youth crew straight edge hardcore. So good.
As is the trend these days, anything super good, popular or hyped has to get the multiple color and pressing treatment. Time to dive in.

Triple B starts things off with red vinyl. This was the most limited color and it sold out quickly during preorders. There were a total of 165 pressed.

The next color up is clear with black swirl. It just ends up looking like clear with smoke, one of my least favorite looking color patterns ever. There were 406 pressed on this color.

Finally, the first press is finished off with good old black vinyl. This is out of 924.

The cover is a tri-fold with plenty of pictures, lyrics and thank you's. Sharp!

Next up is this cool white vinyl version complete with this awesome In My Blood Records fold over cover. The layout, dust sleeve sticker and Brett Beach shout out is super awesome and harkens back to the Floorpunch D1C 7". I ended up with #100 out of 100.

Control Records stepped up once again to do a European pressing and the results were awesome as expected. They changed things up for the cover layout but obviously used shots from the same show. The layout also goes to a single foldout instead of the tri-fold.

There was a small limited color pressing on blue vinyl. These were hand numbered out of 100 by a sticker on the dust sleeve.

 There was also a black vinyl pressing which is out of 300. Not exactly a huge number and surprisingly was still available the last time I checked. You should buy one.

The Great Youngblood Records Catch Up of 2013

A few weeks ago I got an email from Sean Youngblood inquiring if I was interested in buying a No Tolerance test. Luckily, I made the choice years ago not to get into that game. I politely declined his offer, but in return I asked him if he had some doubles or spares of records from his back catalog.
At first I hit him up for a No Remorse, No Tolerance on blue. It was the first thing that came to mind and one record that I knew I needed. What came after that got a little out of control. I figured since I had the guy on the line, I might as well go for it. I checked my list, cross referenced against the Youngblood discography (in serious need of an update!), Kyle Whitlow's blog and the How's Your Edge swap page to come up with a comprehensive want list.
I proceeded to freak Sean out with a list of 76 different variations of Youngblood releases. Pre-presses, tour covers, final presses, stamped showcase sleeves and every color variant I didn't already have. Well, after some back and forth we settled on 58 records. I wanted all 76, but he just didn't have spares of all of them.
It will do for now.

I have to say, for shipping 39 7"s in one box, postage wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Sean is the master of safe and secure packing.

First up with the 7"s, there were three large 7" mailers packed tight inside a box with cds and bubble wrap!

A few days later the 19 lps came in a large box with three deep album mailers and triple protection on the corners. In the end, there was not one single dinged corner. Not one.

As far as the records go, I ended up scoring a bit of everything from YB01 Rancor Flip the Switch to YB38 Give Flower Head. I am super charged up to have gotten so many rare and cool records. Bladecrasher, Life's Halt, Desperate Measures, Far From Breaking, Lights Out, Striking Distance, Iron Age... The list goes on and on.
There was no way I could take pictures of all of it, so here are some of the alternate covers of both 7"s and lps.

The really amusing part of this deal is that Sean had spares of all the limited stuff but almost none of the common. My remaining want list is almost nothing but black vinyl or the most common version. Hell, a quick visit to Discogs and I could be done this sucker!
As it stands right now, I have 134 different Youngblood pieces from 37 total releases. I am only missing five variants from YB13 on. I always regretted waiting so long to collect the label as complete as I did from the Iron Age lp on, but it seemed a daunting task looking backwards at the catalog. I had at least one of everything, but not enough from the early stuff. Now it feels like I got the balance right.
I am truly insane.