Youth Of Today - Break Down The Walls: Wishing Well 2nd Press

In my never ending quest to collect all the Youth Of Today vinyl I can find, I FINALLY got my hands on a copy of the second pressing of Break Down The Walls on Wishingwell.

For whatever reason, this was harder for me to obtain that the uber-rare, expensive and highly sought after red and blue vinyl versions of this record. True, I had a friend who sold me the red and blue copies in one shot privately so it didn't involve too much leg work. Still, I have seen a few reds and blues pop up on ebay before this sucker. Maybe I was just not looking at the right time.

I have no idea how many were pressed. They are all on black vinyl.

The new yellow and black color scheme is consistent through the cover, back, insert and labels as well. I really like it a lot.

Normally when I finally get something I was after for such a long time, I feel a bit of a let down that the chase is over. Not this time. Still charged up.
I'm going to keep this good feeling going and go watch Sons Of Anarchy. Opie shot Clay last week and I have to see how it turns out. I owe the wife dinner if he dies. The lesson as always is stay away from drugs. That Galindo cartel has been nothing but bad news for the club!

D.R.I. - Dirty Rotten LP

Last weekend a couple guys in my band and I were sharing old DRI stories after practice. I don't know how it came up, but everyone seemed to have one and some were downright hilarious. Mike and I had one to share.

True story.

I was playing in a band with Mike sometime in the mid 1990's and we had a show at the University of Calgary. It was just a small local show in one of the lounges at the student center.

We were getting ready to set up and we got word from the guy putting on the show that DRI were there. What the fuck?
I looked out the side window beside the stage and saw the biggest tour bus I had ever seen in my life. It was like the size of the one in the Journey "Faithfully" video.

A buzz went through the room that this "big", slightly irrelevant (Definition era), hardcore punk band would be playing a show everyone had only paid $4 for.

I thought for sure we were going to get bumped from the show as DRI would probably play a long set.
It turned out that they were passing through town and didn't actually want to play. They just wanted to set up a merch table during our show to sell their 5000 different t-shirts, cds, hats, and coffee mugs.

None of the guys from DRI came in to watch, they stayed in their cruise ship sized bus and had FOUR merch guys set up their stuff on three tables.

We didn't sell a god damn thing that night.

Shit like that never really bothered me, and never changed my perception of the band at the time either. As much as I had personally checked out of DRI by that time, I still had the early stuff to enjoy.

Like this record, the Dirty Rotten LP.

We all know the story on this one. DRI released the Dirty Rotten ep on 7" back in 1983. The sound was not so great due to the fact they tried to jam 22 songs on it. The next year they teamed up with MDC's R Radical Records and repressed it on a 12". It was supposed to improve the sound. Yeah, I'm not so sure about that.

First press on the band's own Dirty Rotten Records and R Radical Records. All on black vinyl.

As you can see, they didn't change the art from the 7" much for the new cover. You can faintly see the two lines they blacked out from the "E" in EP to change to LP. They were also pretty faithful to the original back cover of the 7" too, only adding R Radical Records to the back.

The album also comes with a one sided, black and white lyric sheet. If you have ever heard this album and wanted to sing along, you'll know why a lyric sheet is needed.

A few years later in 1988, Roadrunner Records, the European heavy metal label, re-released the Dirty Rotten LP and included the Violent Pacification ep.

DRI were close to the height of their popularity at the time. The original 7" and 12" were largely unknown to the new crop of metal fans the band had made. Even if these headbangers wanted the Dirty Rotten record, it wasn't like they were going to find it in the mall.

Plus, the new artwork was bad ass. As a teenager, I thought it was amazing. Big fan.

The Roadrunner version was also only released on black vinyl. I am going to say there were thousands pressed, along with cassettes, as I remember seeing them everywhere - including the mall.

As with most larger labels in the late 80's, they used a glossy two sided printed inner sleeve. I do like that they used the artwork from the Violent Pacification 7" on the one side.

I originally had a hard time getting into this record. The songs were just so spastically fast. The band was so young, sloppy and raw, and the recording so muddy that it took me years to finally appreciate it. Something just clicked.
I think it was around the time I was getting into Cryptic Slaughter. That would make sense. If you can get into "Convicted", you can get into anything.

Youth Of Today - We're Not In This Alone

"We're Back!"

Well, I'm back.
A couple days ago I realized I haven't posted in over a month. My bad. I haven't had much come in that was blog-worthy and I am running out of tricks to pull out of my bag.
I think the record collecting blog world is in pretty good shape. A lot of people are posting what they got in the mail, pressing info and a quick review. It is sharing information with a hardcore collecting community that have common likes and interests. That's pretty awesome.
I always tried to differentiate myself from that formula by pulling records out of my collection I thought people would want to see, either because they are rare or have been forgotten with time. I also wanted to share records that meant something to me as I was growing up and helped shape who I am today.
After two years of We Will Bury You, I might be running out of gas. I don't just want to be a consumer.

Ok. Enough reflective shit. Let's get to it.
One thing I have done over the last few months is obsess over Youth Of Today. Ever since seeing them at Chaos In Tejas, I can't get that band out of my head. I was so pleasantly surprised at how well they played and how the show made me feel. Youth Crew at 42!
Side note: I was convinced they would open with Flame Still Burns. Nope. It was the second song.
Between listening every day and studying Dobek's and Kyle's collections, I got it in my head that however much Youth Of Today vinyl I had, I could do so much better.
So, I hit up my new favorite web store, Discogs. I was able to pick up a ton of Youth of Today German pressings without having to go the ebay route with waiting, sniping, paypal fees, etc. I was able to get everything I ordered delivered to my door within a week. Must be a German efficiency thing.

Thanks to Discogs I was able to finish off my favorite Youth Of Today album, "We're Not In This Alone". I know I'm not alone in thinking it, but I believe top to bottom this album destroys Break Down The Walls.

It was a pretty awesome feeling to finally finish off all of the WNITA pressings and colors after chasing this record down for 22 years.

First Press. Caroline Records. Black vinyl. Millions pressed (not really). Hands down the best album cover ever made. Represents an aesthetic, look and ideal that I still hold today.

Comes with a large foldout black and white insert/lyric sheet.

Second Press. Caroline Records. Same cover and insert as the first press. The album had been remixed (and not for the better, IMO)

The only way to know if you had a second press was the large remix sticker on the shrink wrap and "Mix #2" on the B side matrix. I got super lucky and bought one with the sticker and shink wrap attached from Dobek.

Now on to the European pressings . First up is by We Bite Records. All on black vinyl. No idea how many pressed.

I personally love the color scheme with the blue and orange. The labels were awesome for the We Bite press as well.

I also think the back cover is better than the Caroline version!

Second European pressing. Funhouse Records. Terrible cover. What the hell?

Yellow vinyl. Unknown number pressed. Not a stretch to say less than the black vinyl.

Black vinyl.

Color printed dust sleeve with lyrics.

The printed lyrics inner sleeve also had an ad on the reverse side for current and future Funhouse releases. One of them was for Break Down the Walls. I wonder why it wasn't done? Then again I'm not sure why there was a second European pressing in the first place.

Revelation Records. 1997 reissue. Remixed (again), remastered, new cover, insert and label art.

First press Red Vinyl out of 100. All the Youth of Today reissues in 1997 has a rare color pressing and huge black vinyl pressing. This one was half of the BDTW and CCME color pressings.

First press black vinyl out of 1518. I think it has been repressed a lot. I can still find it here in town and can't find anything here in town.

Second press. Purple vinyl out of 112. They tried to match the red from the first pressing to make up for the shortfall of the first press. It definitely ended up different.


I know with my pictures they all look like black vinyl. You kind of have to see them in person or hold them to the light to see the difference. It is there.

The album came with a two sided black and white glossy insert/lyric sheet.

A lot of people hated the Revelation pressing, mainly for the changed cover art, but a whole generation of kids just don't know any different. I'm just cool with the fact that people get to hear what is one of the best hardcore albums of all time and a record that changed my life.
Rant over.