Burn - s/t 7" on pink vinyl

I think we can all agree there was some crazy shenanigans going on with the recent repress of the Burn 7" for Record Store Day. Message boards were on fire. Talk of a light yellow vinyl, dark yellow vinyl, off white, banana and whatever other yellow variation was out there.
Hundreds of people jockeying for multiple copies of different shades of the same color.
Some of these people were willing to pay more money than what they would have spent to get this - the original first press on pink vinyl.

I love this record, both from a musical point of view and as a collector. There are so many cool things about this version that make it awesome.

First of all pink vinyl. 1000 pressed in total.

Next, the awesome original insert with yellow ink. Way better than the boring b/w one that came with later pressings.

Finally, the overlooked spelling mistake on the back cover for the opening song, "...Shall Be Judged".
"...Shall Be Jugded". Oops.

Of course, the label was spelled wrong as well.

They must have pressed the vinyl all at once or had a lot of labels printed up, as the black vinyl label also has the spelling mistake.
Revelation did correct the spelling mistake on back cover though. They also kind of messed with the pictures, coloring, sizing and contrast too. Shame.

As always, my first rule of collecting still stands. First press is best!

Fucked Up - David's Town Compilation

Alright, let's see if I got this right.

Fucked Up are writing a rock opera/musical for their next album called "David Comes To Life". It is named after a song from their first album, "Hidden World".

In the process of writing and recording this enormously long and epic album, they came up with the concept of creating an entire separate companion fake compliation album, complete with fake bands all coming from the same town that the David character from the rock opera comes from. Oh yeah, and all the songs are supposed to be from 1976-1979.

Ok then.

In reality, it is a Fucked Up album with guest vocalists or band members other than Damian singing. Well he sings one song. To stay true to the concept, all the songs vary in style to cover a lot of the early punk sounds of the late 70's.

Hey, does anyone remember when Fucked Up was a punk band? Police? Baiting the Public? Anyone???

Ah, that's not fair. This record is actually really good. Plus, it was the only record from this year's Record Store Day that I bought that wasn't a reissue or repress.

As far as the record and layout goes, it has the look and feel of a 70's era record. To keep up with the appearance of a compilation record, if you didn't know what you were looking for, you would probably not even recognize it as a Fucked Up album at all.

According to the Fucked Up "Looking For Gold" blog, a total of 2000 were pressed; all on black vinyl.
I guess people didn't get the memo, or the whole Record Store Day thing is still fresh in people's minds, as the price of these things on ebay is out of control right now. 2000 pressed is a lot of records. I'm sure they will show up cheaper in a couple months.

Floorpunch - Division One Champs 7" on Gold Vinyl

Judge - Chung King Can Suck It

YOT - Break Down the Walls on red and blue vinyl
Chain of Strength - True Till Death on clear vinyl with silver sleeve
Chain of Strength - Chain Crew
and Floorpunch - Division One Champs on gold.

That's it. The pantheon.

The most desired straight edge hardcore records in the world. Hundreds of collectors want them. Very few have them. Hell a good chunk (10-20%) of these rare records still reside with the labels that pressed them! The silver Chain record - double or triple it.

Money alone won't let you get them all. Sometimes you just have to be lucky.

I stumbled on one of the giants on ebay last month maybe an hour after it went up. Immediately I knew I wasn't going to wait to see how the auction played out, hoping I would win.

Too many things can go wrong. Computer controlled sniping programs, out of control bidding wars with heavyweights like Marcus or Dobek (I wouldn't put it past him to want two!), or worse yet, the gods at Vinyl Noize get wind of it and the whole world finds out!

I contacted the seller immediately and asked if he would be willing to end the auction early and sell it to me directly. To my surprise, the seller was Seb D'hertoge. Those of us who have been around a while recognize Seb as one of the heavy hitters in hardcore record collecting with perhaps one of the best Revelation collections ever. He dropped out of the game a while back as his trade list has been pulled down from HYE? and he was obviously willing to sell this gem.

Seb was very agreeable to my price, and was happy to sell to another serious collector. Hell, he even said he enjoyed my blog - so I was in. Really, just a very nice person.

Like I said, it was luck I found it so fast and secured the deal. The next morning, Vinyl Noize had posted it but also reported the auction had been ended early. Seriously, that was a close call! The bids that could have poured in on this may not have allowed me to make an offer. You just never know.

Let's get to it! The legend of Div 1 Champs on gold.

Hand numbered inner sleeve out of 88. You know, 88 - 1988 - Youth Crew, Straight Edge Revival, yeah you got it.


Of course pressing plants don't press 88 total on a color, so the legend was that there were 12 copies from a press of 100 on gold that were destroyed by throwing them in the Atlantic Ocean to ensure that only 88 were out there.
As it turns out, the press run was in fact out of 90 with the two unnumbered copies residing with Floorpunch singer Mark Porter. That's too bad - the legend was so much better!

This is my 7th copy of this record. I have no intention of playing it, or even breathing on it. I will simply admire and cherish it as I try to track down the last couple versions I still need.
Yeah, I know, I'm crazy.

By A Thread - s/t lp

I am actually pretty surprised to be writing about this record for a few reasons.

1. Until the pre-order for this was listed on the Revelation e-mail I get every Friday, I didn't know By A Thread were still a band.
   
2. I had no idea Revelation were still interested in post-hardcore, emo tinged bands from the 90's.
3. If it isn't a book, comp or discography, I didn't know Revelation were still releasing new music. That Living Hell album isn't exactly "new" anymore.

As it turns out, I guess I like surprises.

By A Thread were a Vancouver band that fell in with the whole post-hardcore wave of the mid to late 90's. We liked them immediately because they had the whole "Former member of Strain" tagline that gave them instant legitimacy!

Their last lp, "The Last Of The Daydreams" was released back in 1999 and fit in along the whole Elliott, Farside, Texas Is The Reason sound that Revelation had going on back then. It was really good for the time.

I decided to hold off on the color pre-order this time as their last album still had the limited color vinyl around six years after it was released and there were only 226 of them! I figured I could get one without spending more on postage than the cost of the album. Patience.

As it turns out, my local store had a copy of the color vinyl in and I picked it up this weekend.

The limited color is a grey/silver mix. Goes nicely with the cover and artwork. I don't know the pressing numbers yet.

Two sided glossy insert/lyric sheet.

Musically, I was once again surprised. The opening track "Fashion" for the first 20 seconds sounds like a lost New Order track. Hmmm. You can check it out here on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugzpcw1Ya1I

Listening all the way through, the band were firmly in the post-hardcore sound but I would say even more indie as there isn't much heavy anything going on.

Maybe it is the improvement of the weather, but I am really digging this record. Hey it's Spring!

Supertouch - Lost My Way 7" Limited Editions

A while back I was on the Livewire board reading reviews of the Supertouch - Lost My Way 7". Besides the usual grumbling of the new sound or direction the band had taken with this comeback record, there were a few posts about special covers for Double Cross and Vinyl Noize and people wondering when they would be released.
Of course, I had no idea what anyone was talking about and figured it would be a friends press or special cover that would go to the guys who run the sites. I assumed it would be unattainable and I would just see one on ebay some day for $200.

Last month I got a label update email from Reaper Records about the same Supertouch records I read about earlier. I made sure I wouldn't miss out. Three and a half weeks later - voila.

First up, the limited edition of my personal favorite hardcore website, Vinyl Noize. I buy shit on ebay, what can I say?

As you can see, we have an all new front cover photo. The inner sleeve has a label stamp and is hand numbered out of 50.

The back cover adds the website logo to the bottom left corner and is also hand numbered.

I can't be sure without checking but I think this might be a new insert/lyric sheet as well.


Next up, the Double Cross Edition. I'm just going to go ahead and assume everyone reads this blog already. If you are old and still into hardcore, you read this daily. If you are young and into hardcore, you read it too.

Just like the Vinyl Noize edition, it has a brand new front cover photo, stamped and hand numbered inner sleeve and the website logo on back cover which is also numbered.

I thought it was a nice touch that I got #17 for both records.

Also included was the same insert/lyric sheet, as well as this write up from Tim McMahon from Double Cross. Of course he was also in Mouthpiece, Hands Tied, Triple Threat and owns a Chung King, Floorpunch Division One on gold, etc....

I guess I should also mention that the vinyl for both editions is black from the second press. Black is way easier to describe than "kind of blue" and "kind of green" from the first press!

The package also came with a couple of really nice t-shirts. I would have taken pictures of them, but my girls ran off with them. Hopefully I will find them in the house some day.

This really is a unique, brilliant and potential game changer for the hardcore record collecting world. We now have a label collaborating and working together with fan run blogs to create new collector product. It doesn't hurt that the websites are run by high profile individuals in the HC scene, but to me it feels like a tighter community.

Now I just need to wait for the We Will Bury You limited edition of the next React! Records release. I'm probably going to need a higher profile, and a few more thousand hits per day, but a guy can dream!