Chain of Strength - True Till Death 7" on clear vinyl

A couple of weeks ago I completed a private deal through the Livewire board for another piece of my Chain Of Strength collection. A Chain of Strength - True Till Death on clear with the regular green sleeve.
I'm not sure if it is the economy or collectors are getting older and starting to unload, but there seems to be a lot more opportunity to finally get records I have been after forever.

I just missed out on a crazy bidding war for a TTD on clear with silver sleeve, but the price was WAYYYY out of control. Not two days later I was able to take the money I saved from not getting it; and in two separate deals I was able to grab this one on clear, a What Holds Us Apart on Mindpower with the rare blue sleeve and another WHUA on First Strike on blue. and have enough left over to buy a Blu-Ray player for Christmas.
Still, I wish I could have scored it.

So back to the record I actually got.

You know the deal, 500 pressed on clear, 300 with regular green sleeves that were given to the band for tour. The remaining 200 have the silver sleeve and a few got out through mail order, but the majority are still at Revelation.


Damn, that clear vinyl is awesome.

Fucked Up - Looking For Gold 12"

I figured since the subtitle of this blog says Punk and Hardcore, I might as well dip my toe in on the punk side. Now lots of people would say Fucked Up is a hardcore band, I just don't see it.

As a Canadian, I am obliged to like the band, no questions asked.
There are so many people here in Calgary who like them outside of the punk scene, I'm pretty sure the government hands out copies of the "Police" 7" to every registered voter.


Out of all their recordings, "Looking For Gold" is the strangest. Side 1 is a 16 minute long song with a 3 1/2 minute drum solo and an extended whistling section to end the song with church bells.

And you wonder why I don't think of Fucked Up as a hardcore band.

On the collector side of things, it is pretty damn hard record to get a hold of. Be prepared to throw down at least $50-$150 to get on ebay, that is if you don't get sniped.

There are two separate presses out there. One with the labels and dust sleeve stamped out of 300 and one without stamps out of 400. Word is that these were pressed for two separate short tours back in 2004. Of course, it was never repressed.

It also comes with a large folded poster/insert. pretty cool.

Being a Fucked Up collector is a whole new level of self torture. 35 releases and counting and that does not include variants or represses.

It's not easy being Canadian.

Verse - Aggression (Record Release)

Looking back, 2005 to 2008 were the Rivalry Records years for me. I pretty much went nuts for every band, every record the label put out and of course, every variation and color I could hunt down.

It all started with a cd sampler called "Locked and Loaded 3". I'm pretty sure I received it in a order from Revelation. The Rivalry bands on the sampler were Go It Alone, Allegiance, More to Pride, Another Breath and Verse. From the moment I heard "Tear Down These Walls", I was hooked.

I did my best to get most or all of the variations of all the Verse records including their last album, Aggression. To me, this lp sounded like they took a page out of the Modern Life Is War playbook and slowed down a bit to create a more moody hardcore sound. The three part "Story of a Free Man" is epic. This was a really good way to go out. I love this record.

Well, word was there was a record release version on black vinyl. 100 pressed. Of course this is after I had hunted down the first pre-order color, the second pre-order color, the summer tour press, the regular 1st press on red and the almost immediate repress on grey.
There was no way I was going to stop now.


When I heard about this record release version, I went right to the source. I had met Kyle Whitlow at the Go It Alone final show in Vancouver and had been buying records off him directly for a while. One e-mail and I was able to score one of these off him and had it within two weeks.


Sometimes you just can't mess around.

P.E.A.C.E. Compilation 2 x lp

You know, I always plan on writing something about new records that come in, but lately it seems that I have to visit the collection for older stuff or I would never get around to posting.
I have 23 pre-orders I am waiting on. 23 going back to July. Unreal.
A good chunk of them will never see the blog treatment because I get the feeling you guys don't want to hear about Sunn O))), Boris or Jesu. What can I say, man can't live on hardcore alone.

Speaking of hardcore, you can't do much better than the P.E.A.C.E. compilation.
While everyone focuses on "This Is Boston, Not L.A.", "The Way It Is", "Someone Got Their Head Kicked In" or even "Let Them Eat Jellybeans" as definite statements on the early hardcore scene, I have to go with this beauty.


The PEACE comp was released by Dave Dictor's R Radical Records back in 1984. In addition to MDC, this double album featured bands from across the world. All of it VERY political. It's cool to see what the political climate in the early 80's was. Non stop nuclear war and Reagan songs. One thing you can say is that these bands gave a shit about something.


The lineup of bands is very impressive and a literal who's who of the early punk/hardcore scene. M.D.C., D.O.A., D.R.I., Articles of Faith, Cause for Alarm, Septic Death, Dead Kennedys, Subhumans and even the Butthole Surfers are on this comp in addition to dozens of other lesser known but really very good bands.


You can find this record pretty easily as there were at least 10,000 pressed, all on black vinyl. The jewel for collectors is to find an intact booklet that came with the record. This thing is massive, but pretty fragile. Every band gets a page for lyrics and/or political commentary.
It must be pretty rare to find one in good shape because I have traded/received records from people just for a photocopy of the booklet. Dig it.

Blacklisted - The Beat Goes On (Record Release)

For the second time I am double dipping. A second post on the same record. But hey, it's a good one. The first post I did on "The Beat Goes On" was for the premature Final Shows version. This time we go back to April 9, 2006 for the record release.

Blacklisted went all out for their record release cover for "The Beat Goes On". Keeping with their Philadelphia/Rocky theme that they had with their 7" demo release of the "Greatest Challenge" cover, we get some more Italian Stallion pride.

The only down side was that the covers were screened and they were definitely still wet when handled. There are quite a few smudge marks and fingerprints! I think mine was still tacky when I got it years ago.

They used the red vinyl from the first press and printed up a total of 50 for the show.

These are still a pretty hot commodity on ebay and trade lists, but I think it is totally worth the price just to have a piece of Sly Stallone in my record collection.

Black Flag - Thirsty and Miserable (The Licorice Pizza 7")

In honor of Henry Rollins' latest acting turn as white power rapist A.J. Weston on Sons of Anarchy, I decided to post my rarest Black Flag record, "The Licorice Pizza" single.

I'm not sure what is more shocking, the fact Henry decided to play a Nazi who rapes Peg Bundy from Married With Children, or the fact that he wears short sleeve dress shirts with a skinny tie. Wow.


Anyway, just a quick post on this awesome rare record that was released as a give away record at a show through the LA record store chain, Licorice Pizza. It features live versions of "Thirsty and Miserable" and "Life of Pain" recorded as a five piece (my personal favorite era). It is also the first recorded and released material with Henry singing.

It came out just before the Damaged album in 1981. Like the original press of Damaged, it was a SST/Unicorn release. Most did not come with any kind of cover sleeve. Just a plain white one.


This record was bootlegged and released as "Licorice Pizza and More". There are plenty of those out there, so keep your eyes open if you are looking for the original. The bootleg adds a demo version Dez singing "Spray Paint the Walls" and has a cover.

I found this record very difficult to track down as some ebay sellers had no idea there was a bootleg, let alone the difference between them and were kind of useless in giving me any details.
I ended finding it on of all places, GEMM. The world is a weird place.

108 - A New Beat From A Dead Heart (Cal Robbins benefit cover)

You know, I wish I had some awesome story about attending this show, buying the record right from Rob Fish and holding on to it for dear life while bodies flew everywhere.
Nope, that story was for the Sound and Fury 2007 version of the same album I got a couple of years ago.

This one is a straight up ebay purchase.

I thought I had all the versions of this amazing record. The three colors of the first print, the S&F cover and even the second press on red. Then this gem pops up on the Deathwish board and I am mesmerized. I have to get it.

This was a special cover the band made for a benefit show for the son of bassist, guitarist and producer J. Robbins (GI, Jawbox, Burning Airlines). It took place in November 2007 somewhere in greater New York City. Brooklyn maybe?
Anyway, the show also featured a reunited Snapcase and the release of The Anti Matter book out on Revelation.


They used the second press red vinyl, but only printed 108 of the covers to sell at the show. I got number 007. Always cool to have the Bond, James Bond number.


I'm not sure what Jesus, The USA and a tank have to do with spinal muscular atrophy, but I'm down with it.

Comeback Kid - Turn It Around

This has to go down as one of the crazier things I have ever done. Seriously.

One record I have been fascinated with for a long time is Comeback Kid's first record, "Turn It Around". Besides being their best record and being out of print for years, they seemed to have a tour pressing or fest cover for every show they played back in 2004.

For years, I have only owned the most common pressing of the album, the grey marble version out of 1100. This is the record with the largest amount of variants that I always wanted to collect. I only had one. Just a very large glaring hole in my collection if I say so myself.

So when the opportunity arose to buy some records off a B9 board collection sale, I go and instantly (and expensively) take all the fun out of collecting. I bought 16 different copies of "Turn It Around".


16. What an idiot.

The collection is made up of three different color copies of the Hellfest press. All three colors are out of 33.


Five different 2004 Tour presses. Most are on red. One on bloodsplatter.


The rest is four different colors of the regular press (gold/100, white/200, red/300, bloodsplatter with labels/218, a Euro picture disc/500, a label variant on the red vinyl/146, no label on the bloodsplatter/218, and finally a second copy of the good old grey marble.


Funny thing is, I still need two more.