Deathwish Dead Man's Hand 7" Series

Hey, whatever happened to Hearts?

I got into collecting the whole Deathwish split 7" series a few years ago. Of course, anything I could get locally was most assuredly the common color. The rest took some work. Slowly through ebay, B9 board trades, private sales and two different trips to the Deathwish table at Sound and Fury in 2007 and 2008, I was able to collect everything here.

The first split was The Suicide File and The Hope Conspiracy.
The Deathwish discography webpage lists a "mayo" color out of 15. I don't have it. I don't think I have ever seen it either. Probably not going to happen either.

The rest are:
100 Teal vinyl
485 Yellow vinyl
1200 Red vinyl
1200 Grey vinyl


The white vinyl with alternate labels is out of 200 and was pressed for the Suicide File's last show. Mine isn't numbered, but is stamped for Posifest. Cool I guess.


The second in the series was the split between Ringworm and Terror. The colors were a little easier to collect in the first press as the pressing numbers were higher across the board.
First press:
500 Orange vinyl
500 Clear Red vinyl
1500 Clear vinyl
1500 White vinyl


I picked up only one of the second press colors, blue with uncut covers. This was out of 350. I didn't pursue the white and clear from the second press because without seeing them firsthand, I wasn't sure how online I could tell between the white and clear from the first press. Time moved on and I pretty much dropped it.


The third in the series was the split between Blacklisted and First Blood. This one was tougher and kind of confusing.
The complete pressing was:
100 Lime Green vinyl
250 Brown/Purple vinyl (50 clear versions, 200 opaque versions)
500 Blue/Green vinyl (50 dark blue variations, 450 more teal than others)
1300 Purple vinyl
1800 Yellow/Orange vinyl

There were also different shades with just about every color, but thankfully those weren't pulled out and numbered out of 6 or 9 or something crazy like that.


My blue/green is definitely lighter with more teal. My yellow/orange is pretty orange, but I also have an all yellow variation.


I also picked up this cool purple that is pretty much clear.


I realize there are a few different purple variants, but hell if I start trying to collect different shades of grey/purple marble, I might as well start collecting No Idea records!

I am still pretty happy with this collection and the songs and bands are all top shelf. They still really hold up well.

Now I am just waiting on that Hearts set...

Bane - Boston 6:58 PM

I have to say, I am very impressed by the effort and coordination it must have taken a lot of people to pull this Bane 7" series off. The different cities, pictures and songs all tied together by the graphic layout is impressive.

Bane recorded six new songs (all with American soap opera titles) and had six different labels release them to different parts of the world. Three labels would release vinyl and three labels cds. The cds have all six of the songs on them and are released by labels out of Australia, South America and Japan. But I'm not here to talk about those evil cd's! Vinyl time!

As we all know, the Dublin 11:58 PM 7" was released first by Hurry Up! Records out the UK. Hurry Up! are also releasing the upcoming Rome 12:58 AM 7". 6131 Records are releasing Los Angeles 3:58 PM and Triple-B Records just released the Boston 6:58 PM you are looking at.

What I didn't know when I pre-ordered all of these was that the European versions (Dublin and Rome) have the same songs as the American Boston and Los Angeles ones. Basically Dublin and Boston are the same and Rome and L.A. are the same. That actually makes sense as people can order "locally" for the version close to them.
With the internet, I just ordered all of them. International postage rates suck, but I'm pretty used to it by this point in the game.

The Boston 6:58 PM features three amazing songs "The Bold and the Beautiful", "One Life To Live" and "The Young and the Restless". There were three colors available for pre-order, red, blue and black.


The pressing information I got off the BBB site is:
700 on red


700 on blue


800 on black


Those are some pretty good numbers so it shouldn't be too hard to track this sucker down. It is super cool that it comes with a download coupon as well. Who doesn't have an ipod these days?

I really dig this series and hope more bands pull this kind of thing off like Soul Control did earlier this year.

The Hope Conspiracy - True Nihilist 7"

I can pinpoint the exact moment Hope Con made the jump from a hardcore band I liked to being one of my absolute favorites.

It was when I heard their cover of Naked Raygun's "Treason" off the File:03 seven inch. Pulling off a killer cover of one of the best NR songs ever recorded makes you aces in my book.

My love for Naked Raygun is pretty crazy. They were the first band that I had all their albums on vinyl, cassette and cd, just in case I was somewhere where I needed to listen on a different format.
My NR obsession even led me to make a solo to a trip to Chicago back in 1994 to track down as much vinyl, merch and old gig posters as I could find. (This was pre-internet or ebay for me)
On my last day in Chicago before heading home, I was looking for somewhere to eat. I ended up wandering over to Popeye's Chicken on South Wabash Ave. It was busy with the noon rush and I ended up having to stand in a pretty long queue. I looked to my left and in the next line over was Naked Raygun bassist Pierre Kezdy.
I was starstruck, I couldn't say a thing. I just stared. It might as well have been freaking Robert Plant standing there. After 10 minutes, I finally got my three piece with biscuit and beans. I sat down and watched Pierre walk out across the parking lot back to his plumbing truck in his grey coveralls. Now that's a rock star...

Anyways, back to The Hope Conspiracy. Ever since File:03, I have been diligently collecting their records. It really isn't too hard as they traditionally haven't been a full time band and have a pretty small number of records out there. Every single record though, especially "Death Knows Your Name", is amazing. Perfect, straight forward, angry, driving hardcore.

Their latest record is the True Nihilist 7" released on Deathwish. Grabbing the first three colors from Deathwish was pretty easy and pain free. One pre-order, three colors available. A few weeks later, done.


The colors are Red/560, Cream/1000 and Clear Gold/1325.


Then a few months back, Shirts & Destroy came out with a "True Nihilist" package deal. The package included a print of the cover art by Thomas Hooper, a t-shirt and, of course, an exclusive limited edition color of the 7" on glorious black vinyl. Oh, and a sticker too. There were a total of 100 sets available.

Well of course I had to grumble about the price, the limited availability, the shipping costs, the delays, and even the extra shipping charge that I was required to send last week. Even with all that, there was no way I was going to let it pass me by.

After many delays and holdups, the package finally showed up yesterday.


I ended up with #40 of 100. The Deathwish discography shows that there are 115 total on black. By far the most limited of the colors.

The print is also numbered to correspond to the number on the 7" sleeve. Nice touch.

Converge - Axe To Fall (Epitaph exclusive color)

Well, I turned 40 today.
40.
I am a god damn old man.

As unreal as it feels, I have to say the day has started out pretty damn good.

• My brother took me to see Kiss last night,
• I got to sleep in,
  
• I am taking the day off work,
• My wife surprised me with a trip to New Orleans next month for my birthday present, and
  
• On the kitchen counter was my first of many Converge Axe to Fall records!

Like everyone else, I was anticipating the news of the Axe To Fall pre-order back in September. I was checking every day, etc. My friend Shaun was in town and we were out and about hitting up Starbucks before a grueling day of record store shopping. I got an email from my friend Al that the Converge pre-orders were up but that the Deathwish server was having troubles.

I, being a great friend and host, drag Shaun back to my place so he can watch me hit F5 on my computer keyboard for over an hour trying to get into the DW webstore site. (Sorry man, that was just plain rude of me.)
While getting frustrated with the crashing and refreshing problems, I ended up ordering from Epitaph the exclusive color from them. Their site was also was sluggish, but my order went through finally.
People be lovin' the Converge!


This cream color is out of 500, making it one of the "rarer" versions.


Beautiful gatefold artwork by Jacob Bannon of course. Just awesome!


There is even a full color inner sleeve to boot. Thankfully, Deathwish made it so no one has to put the vinyl in it by adding a plain white sleeve for the vinyl.


I always try to get every possible color or variation of every Converge release, but this one could be trouble.
I have three coming from Deathwish, as I finally got in to order the three colorways advertised. However, it appears there are 8 different variations!
I put an order in this week at Amazon.uk hoping for the exclusive "beer" European color. I guess I will hit up RevHq for one of the common blue colors as well. After that, I guess I am playing the ebay game.

The rarest color (and one of the most beautiful I have ever seen) is clear with color shards. It is out of 100. Someone has already posted one for sale for $500. Damn! I guess there is always a one in a million chance that I might get one in my pre-order, but I am not holding my breath!

Most importantly, this is one amazing album. I can safely say I like Jacob's vocals better on this album that any of their others, including Jane Doe. It's all good. I also just figured out this is my first Deathwish post. How the hell did that happen? I love everything about the label. Everything. Looks like I better get on the ball.

Mental - Get An Oxygen Tank (Mental Crew)

Tonight, I just put down the kids to bed, my wife is watching the gawd awful "Toddlers and Tiaras" downstairs, I cracked a Pepsi, pulled up in front of the computer and started listening to some Mental. For an old guy, that is about as good as it gets.

It never fails to amaze me the love out there for Mental, especially in the record collecting world.
No doubt they kicked ass, but also being a Bridge Nine band doesn't hurt either as most of the label's special presses and limited colors still go for some big bucks.

Dollar value wise, I guess this would be considered my prized Mental record. Get An Oxygen Tank 7" record release. The last ebay auction I saw for this ended at around $160. Wow. That is some big bucks for a 7" you can still find for $5.

For the record release, there were a total of 100 pressed on green vinyl with stamped labels.


I figure the big selling feature is the Mental Crew cover, a takeoff on the old Agnostic Front boots design, except with Nikes. Pretty clever actually.


The back fold of the cover shows the record release show date.


This is a really good record. "Growing Pains" is a hum-dinger of a tune. Personally, I think they hit their peak near the end with Planet Mental. That album kills.