Mouthpiece - s/t 7" Middlesex Cover

Two years into doing this blog and I just realized I have never done a Mouthpiece post. That's just unacceptable!!! In hindsight, I guess that makes sense as my collection kind of sucked. For being one of my favorite 90's straight edge hardcore bands, I had very little when it came to rare Mouthpiece records. Of course I had all their releases, but only the most common, black vinyl versions. Over time I started to pick up some cool stuff, but nothing like this. Thanks to Kyle Whitlow selling off a large part of his amazing collection, I was able to pick up this gem.

1st press Mouthpiece self titled 7" on purple vinyl with the "Middlesex" cover.

The story goes that the 7" had been out for a while and the band had some leftover purple copies. Tim McMahon designed and xeroxed 50 covers on purple paper at school for a show coming up at Middlesex County College in Edison, New Jersey.
According to a post Tim made on the Livewire board, this version wasn't supposed to be a big deal. It wasn't a record release or anything like that. It was just something cool to do with some leftover vinyl. Of course, the record sold out instantly at the show and has in the process become the most rare and sought after Mouthpiece record. Nice.

The vinyl used was 50 of the 400 purple copies pressed. For years I had no idea how many purple were out there. Thanks to New Age updating their discography we finally have a number.

Each cover is numbered by what looks like a typewriter! That's old school.

The record also came with the 1st press large double sided insert. This one looks like it was used as a poster for a while. Still pretty sticky on the back where tape was used.

Now I just have to work on getting a couple more of those Reunion presses...

No Warning - s/t 7"

I figured since I have already done two posts on No Warning's Ill Blood album, it was time to hit up what I (in the vast minority) consider their best record. Their self titled 7".
As much as "Ill Blood" pretty much defined No Warning as a major player in the early 2000's, I think I like this record better. There is less of a NYHC, heavy, thug vibe and more straight up suburban hardcore sound. Hell, it might just come down to the thinner production, but these six songs are among my favorite of the era.

Collecting this record took me a long time to complete. After years of hunting down different colors and tour presses, in the end it was the most common versions on good old black vinyl that I was missing. Go figure. Thanks to Kyle Whitlow selling off a bulk of his collection last month, I was able to finish off the final pieces.

This record was released on Martyr Records out of New York State and saw two pressings. Luckily they are pretty easy to differentiate. Actual pressing numbers are a little sketchy. To me it seems like a few of the numbers have been deduced to come up with round even pressing numbers. Whatever. It's not that important.

First press. All center labels are blue.
Purple vinyl out of 100. The other accepted pressing number is actually 106 to include a few small variations like clear purple/1 or dark purple swirl/4.

2001 Summer tour press. Black vinyl.

Stamped and hand numbered out of 400 on the back sleeve fold.

This tour press also came with a lyric sheet as normally the lyrics and credits were printed on the inside of the regular sleeve.

Weekend tour cover. Black vinyl. Fantastic Underdog 7" rip off!

Stamped and hand numbered on the inside of the sleeve out of 150.

Finally, Black vinyl out of 348, or maybe 350. Kind of splitting hairs at this point but I guess it makes sense as when you add all the first pressings together it totals close to 1000.

Second press. This time they switched to red labels and went for two different colors.
White vinyl out of 200.

Finally, good old black vinyl. Generally accepted number is 800 pressed to make an even 1000.

Of course this 7" would be released again later the same year by Bridge Nine as a cd-only release that included three songs off their demo tape.
Remember back a decade ago when cds were cool? Yeah, me neither.

Slayer - Show No Mercy HELP!!!

Slayer. Everyone loves Slayer. Hardcore kids DEFINITELY love Slayer and a good 70% of all metalcore bands lifted riffs directly off King and Hanneman. No doubt.

That's why I am asking for your help. Yeah, you!

I picked up this copy of Slayer's first album, "Show No Mercy" about 12 years ago. As you will see, it isn't like your usual Metal Blade pressing. There are enough differences with this copy that I went online to see if I could find any information about it. I even emailed all the Slayer freaks in Europe who have their collections online if they knew anything about it. No reply.

So I am asking you, the hardcore community, as my last hope if anyone knows anything about this damn record.

Here's the deal.

The cover is normal. You wouldn't think anything about it.

The back cover however is this:

All the lyrics, thank you's and credits directly on the all white back cover.

The craziest thing is this, a reversed IRS Records label symbol. What the hell?

The spine only has this on it. No label or catalog number.

The labels on the record are different too as you now see the Metal Blade logo but on blue/green labels.

Also they list a side 1 and 2 where the regular issue has sides 6 and 66. Clever huh?

Also, the catalog number on the label is MT39 not the usual 71034-1. That leads me to believe it might be a Korean pressing, but I have no idea how that would correlate with the wacked out IRS logo.

If anyone knows what the deal is or has any information, please please, please leave me a message in the comments section.

Thanks and Hail Satan!

Touche Amore - Parting The Sea Between Brightness And Me

It seems these days you can tell the popularity or buzz of a band by how fast they can crash a server when pre-orders go up.

Without a doubt, Deathwish are the reigning kings of breaking the world wide interweb net. I have been able to count three times when the mad rush of pre-orders shut down their online store. This of course led to the migration of whining fanboys to the message boards complaining that they will simply DIE if they can't order RIGHT-FUCKING-NOW. From what I read, there was a whole lot of F5 button pushing, sleepless nights and venting.
It was a lot of fun to watch!

First it was Converge's Axe to Fall lp, then the Converge Jane Doe reissue, and most recently Touche Amore's newest album, "Parting The Sea Between Brightness And Me".

Unless you have been living under a rock, you already know all about the positive feedback this album has received. Many are calling it the album of the year and that would be hard to dispute.
But we're not here for an album review. Plus, I just suck at reviews.
Let's get to the vinyl shall we?

While I have no idea what the number breakdowns for each color is, There is a general consensus of which is the most rare color to the most common. Anyways, here goes.

Clear vinyl. Without a doubt the most rare version. Word is the band had copies on tour and the majority went at their record release show. I got it thrown in as a bonus in my order. I'm a lucky feller.

Green vinyl. Probably in the 300 pressed range. We will see when the Deathwish discography is updated. Really beautiful color. My camera doesn't do it justice.

Next is blue vinyl. 700-ish pressed? We will know soon enough.

White vinyl. The most common color of the first press. Tre posted that there were 2000 pressed? This is the one that most stores and distros will get. Correction - have gotten and have probably sold out of already.

The inner sleeve is two sided and printed on a pretty heavy card stock. No split seams at all. Nice.

The best part is that in getting the rare clear version, I wasn't shorted the most common white copy. I ordered three and got four. That's really cool.

I realize I should get a late pass on this post as some blogs have had it up for over a month now. What can I say, I'm just glad I got it at all thanks to the awesome Canada Post strike. The postmark showed June 2, I got it on July 12. It is what it is.

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the Deluxe version or the repress on red vinyl...

Hardcore Cassettes

Hmm.
Well the Canada Post strike has been over for over a week now. The federal government forced the carriers back to work last Monday and the union assured everyone that they would start delivering mail within two days.

That's all fine and good, but I have received exactly one bill in the last week they have been back to work. No letters, no junk mail, no flyers (not that I miss that crap), but mainly - no packages. That means no records.

Well screw it. If I can't do any posts about new vinyl, it's time to go old school and hit up my secret favorite music format of all time. Cassettes!

A few years ago my good friend Leo decided he was going to throw out his hi-fi Yamaha cassette deck and all his tapes. The man doesn't have a sentimental bone in his body and decided clutter is clutter and junk is junk. Well, I couldn't let that happen. I told him I would gladly take the deck off his hands. The only condition was that I had to take all of it, including all his new wave and alternative tapes. Jackpot! Nothing wrong with The Smiths, New Order and The Housemartins. I threw out the Alarm tapes though.

That got my obsessive/compulsive juices flowing and I started scouring the city/country/continent for tapes. I had a small but pretty cool collection of tapes from the 80's but it was time to step up. I also hit up all my friends to see if I could buy their entire collections. Yeah, buy. Crazy.

I even spent time on vacation trying to track down cassettes at places like Amoeba Records in L.A. The final step in my descent into madness was buying an old Sony Sports Walkman like I used to have in the 90's. You know, it's not as cool as I remember.

I know there is a big trend in hardcore collecting circles to track down demos and whatnot. But for me it's all about the high end glossy, slick "big" label stuff. I decided to just pull some of the tapes out that either look cool or stand the test of time.

Switch off the Dolby C Noise Reduction, turn on the auto reverse, and eject the head cleaner. Let's rock!

Revelation had cassettes locked down in the late 80's and early 90's!

Corrosion of Conformity. Hell yeah.

NYHC. Yes, I included the bad brains.

Youth of Today. One HUGE glaring tape missing. Unfortunately, We're Not In This Alone goes for huge bucks.

Old school.

Who Am I? DRI.

Six Pack of Black Flag.

Cro-Mags. As a metal kid transitioning to hardcore, I LOVED Best Wishes.

Suicidal and cassettes just seem to go together. I think it was skateboarding and boom boxes!

Changes in sound most people didn't want to hear. I still dig it.

Crucial!

Cave In - Until Your Heart Stops advance cassette made just for Crazy Fest 98. That's just damn cool.

Good times. As always, if anyone looked at this page and thought it was lame and want to unload their old dusty tapes - hit me up!