4 Months, 4 Months Have Passed

So it's been four months since I've posted on this blog, I apologize for my lack of attention to this blog. Since you've last heard from me I've been working about 60 hours a week to save for a wedding, moved in to a house, got a puppy and plenty of other things, so things have been busy. Let's hope I can post on a more regular basis. I apologize for my abandonment of the internet.



 I'm not totally positive where I got this one from but I'm thinking eBay, the usual suspect. This is a copy of Far From Breaking's The Identity. This one was put out by the great Youngblood Records and is on black. The black vinyl is from the first press out of 450. Check out this band if you haven't yet.



So I think I picked this up from another D.C. guy but I'm not totally sure. This band has been blowing up the past few years. At first I was mildly in to it, but the more I listen to it I dig it even more. This is the Winter Tour version of Stick Together's No More Games.



These are numbered out of 200, seems like a lot for a tour cover. Either way these were fetching a decent price when I picked it up. Mine is #15, a pretty good number.




So I picked up a rare copy of the recent Jane Doe repress. This one is clearly on gold, but there is a slight white swirl in this one. The numbers come in at 550 for this one. According to Deathwish's website this is the exclusive band color, so I guess they sold this on tour? Either way I didn't get it from the band.



So I pre-ordered the latest Rotting Out LP I think on two colors but I got two of the same color. I got both on Red. Which I believe was the rarer of the two colors that you could get. The red is out of 300, while black is out of 600. The record is ok, still doesn't measure up to World Won't Listen.




So I pre-ordered the Striving Higher compilation that Six Feet Under put out a while ago. This thing came out great, very similar to Triple B's America's Hardcore Comp. The layout, insert and vinyl all look great. 273 on red, 417 on yellow splatter and 815 on black. Each one of these came with a Blacklisted flexi. Not sure how many there are of them but I'm assuming a lot.



So I also picked up a copy of 50 Lions Time is the Enemy with my Six Feet Under order. This red/orange version was out of 80. This is a great record. I believe it's their earlier record that Six Feet Under put out as a reissue on vinyl.



I think I also picked this up from Six Feet Under. This is the black version of the latest Cold World release, it is the collaboration 12" for the song "How the Gods Chill" featuring Sean Price. Black is the most common out of 700. This is an ok release for Cold World, defiantly not the favorite. The complete rap/rock package doesn't always work in my opinion. Samples, scratching, interludes and the lot mixed with hardcore however does, so I'll still keep paying attention. Ok that's all for now, I'm sure most of thought I had stopped this blog, you were wrong. I still have TONS of stuff to post. I have really been cutting back on my vinyl intake so I should be able to catch up to the few year backlog I've amassed.

Back to the Mailbox

Now that I finished what I got from the fest, it's time to get back to the normal mail stuff.

Here we have the second press of the reissue of Converge's Jane Doe from Deathwish. So I guess this would be the third press technically. This is another installment in what seems to be Deathwish's attempt to put out more presses on black of past releases. I have no idea what the numbers on this one is.

So I picked this up with one of my A389 orders I think. This is what I think is the second press of Backtrack's demo. I believe this is the mixed vinyl, but I'm not sure. More likely, it's probably a larger third press.

So I traded my extra copy of Stick Together's No More Games on white for a copy on orange. I received two copies on white with my pre order. At first I thought I got screwed out of the most rare color, but really the white is the most rare. Once I put up that I had two copies on white, I got an offer to trade for a copy on orange pretty quick. I knew at that point I could probably get a better deal for it, but I didn't feel like going through the hassle of finding a better trade or selling it. So I took the trade and here is the copy on orange.

So I don't remember where I got this from, maybe eBay? This is the self-released U.S. version on black out of 400 copies. I don't think this band is still active anymore.

I ordered this from A389. This is a live compilation from the A389 2010 Anniversary Show. These were originally sold at the 2011 show, but there were some left over. There are still some left in the A389 store. These 10"s are limited to 200.

I also picked up the second press of the recent Pulling Teeth LP, Funerary. I have no idea what these are limited to, but I'm guessing at least 1,000. This is a much more basic press, not as impressive as the first press gatefold and what not.

So I decided at some point that I wanted to get every copy of the first press of Mother of Mercy's III. So for pretty cheap I was able to pick up all four vinyls. This is a great record, I've got seven of them.

I won two React! rarities on eBay from Aram himself. Both were pretty reasonable too. Up top is the transition copy of Common Causes self titled. This one is pretty rare, only 28 stamped on the dust sleeve. Below that is in my opinion the better but just as awesome record, Praise's Growing.Changing.Healing transition. This one is also stamped on the dust sleeve in typical React! fashion and is out of 55. Two great scores.

I pre-ordered the Turnstile 7" from Reaper. Turnstile is a side project of Trapped Under Ice's drummer, on vocals. It's pretty similar in style to TUI but also cool in it's own right. Overall this is a pretty cool 7". Clear is Pre Order version out of 217 and the blue is out of 830.

So it was announced that there was going to be a repressing of Bad Brains' Pay to Cum for Record Store Day this year. I put that on my mental list to pick up. Before Record Store Day even happened it was posted that the Bad Brains would be selling them on their webstore, so I immediately took advantage of being able to be at Record Store Day from behind a computer, less lines and higher chance of getting what I want. I got all four versions of the re-release. Green and red are out of 250 and gold is out of 500. I have no idea what the black is out of, maybe 1,000?

I'd like to end this post with one of the most beautiful pictures on this blog. This was put on my mail slot of my apartment a while ago, we don't live here anymore, but this is a testament to how many packages I got. The mail guy had to give me my own scan point, so when people send me stuff with delivery confirmation I would be able to see that it was scanned at my front door and then left at the post office for me to pick up at my leisure. Talk about making it in the world, it's like your place or residence gets so much mail it needs it's own tracked location. I have no words.

This Is Hardcore, Part 2

Here we have the fest edition of Disengage's 7". Back to Back put together some special screen-printed sleeves for the fest. There are 100 of these, and they are not numbered, but stamped on the back.

Hoodrack, the frontman of Stick Together and War Hungry was selling some of his personal collection. I recently got in to Rhythm to the Madness before I went to the fest and Hoodrack had several of their releases, so I picked up all of them. Here we have the LP the 7" and a promo tape. I can't find any pressing information on the tape. Anyone know?

So Bridge 9 was there and they had copies of the new Carry On reissure, which I knew was coming in the near future. So I was happy to snag a copy of it on white, this was the only color they had. I couldn't be happier about having a copy of this one without having to spend $40 or more for a copy from the first press. I also pre-ordered the other color, so I'll be looking in the mail for that one.

So I picked up some records from the other label staple at the fest, Deathwish. They screen printed some special covers of some of their big releases specifically for the fest. I picked up a copy of Blacklisted and Cold World's first LPs. They also pressed copies of the We're Unstoppable release, which I believe was originally released as a CD. The grey color was the label color, clear was Blacklisted's color. I'll have to get that one. Anyone know the pressing on any of these?

I picked up a pair of Mindsweats. I've wanted to have these after rave reviews online. This is the third incarnation of the sweats, and I have to say I lucked out because these match perfectly with my Mindset hoodie.

For Sound and Fury and This is Hardcore, Reaper Records and Tee Till Death did a collaboration shirt. This thing came out great. Since it's a classic Uniform Choice boot, it's too hard to pass up on. Take a look at the original here.


So Face Reality had A Straight Ahead rip for the fest, which was pretty popular. How can you go wrong?

So I couldn't resist this shirt. Back to Back did a Simpsons shirt, I don't think specifically for the fest though. This thing is just awesome. I usually never buy label shirts, but these two were hard to pass up on.

This Is Hardcore, Part 1

So I was able to go to This Is Hardcore this year. It was great to get to go back this year after missing out last year. The line up was pretty solid. I do have to say that I can no longer do a three or four day fest. It's just too much. I could do two days but anymore just seems like overkill. So I went to Thursday, Friday and Saturday this year. I skipped out on Sunday and missed Down to Nothing, which was the only band on that day that I wanted to see. I was just too out of it to go.

So I missed most of Face Reality's set on Thursday night. They had a pre-cover version of their new s/t 7" from Youngblood. These sold out pretty fast, by Friday I think. This version is out of 75, numbered and stamped on the back.

Sean Youngblood also had a tape with songs from the new releases coming out soon on the label. It has No Tolerance, Face Reality, Give, Police & Thieves, Sacred Love and Mob Mentality. It's limited to 100 copies. I think there were some of these left over, maybe it will be put up on the webstore soon.

This is a special version of Strife's My Fire Burns On. It was made for the fest and is numbered out of 50. New Age did a great job on this thing. The silk screened cover, artwork, layout and details are superb. The record labels are numbered too. Great touch. Strife set was also awesome.

So Stick Together was one of those bands this year that you could consider was a hype band. The local kids like them, no surprise and their merch goes for a lot on eBay. All the things you need for hype. To be honest this band is good, defiantly worth listening too. I hope if the hype dies down these guys still keep going. I know it features members of Bad Seed and War Hungry. They had the new second press of the 7" on clear. The first press sold out pretty quick, especially for 1,000 copies and the bands first 7". They sold a lot of demoes too I think. I'm not sure the pressing of the clear copy. They also had a discography up til now tape. It has the song from the Six Feet Under compilation, the 7", the demo, the live in Toronto tape and I think a cover of a band called Magnus maybe? Cool thing to have either way. Not sure how many of these their are either.

So Robby Redcheeks had a table with some of his stuff in the warehouse across the street from the venue. He had some Dead by 23 releases he was selling for cheap. I picked up this copy of Frostbite's 7". This is the version I believe from the Floorpunch "last show". I'm not sure how many of them there are. I think it's the fourth or fifth press.

So Strength for a Reason played the fest, which they normally do. I decided to pick up the other version of the split they did with Cold World. I got it for Cold World, not for Strength for a Reason. This is on white and I'm not sure the pressing. Cold World killed it at the fest. So good. They get better and better each time I see them. One of the best reactions as usual.

So Pulling Teeth had a copy of their Demo pressed as a flexi disc. These seem to be the new thing to do. I don't really get it. It's just like a flimsy record. It's different, which is cool, but I'd prefer an actual vinyl. This copy is clear and out of only 50. So this was a great pick up. I'm not sure if this was made for the fest or not. Pulling Teeth were great as usual. I was not sure about the latest LP but after their performance I can say it's great. There are so many guest vocals on the thing. Some great tracks on it, and they played them live.

So I think this was a limited copy of Praise's new 7". I'm not sure, but I bought it either way. The pre order was on Black White and Grey, so that was my reasoning to get it. I was happy React was there, but I wish they had made some limited versions of the records for the fest, like limited merch or covers or something. With the showcase, Aram has plenty else to worry about with the limited stuff he has for that in the works.

So I picked up a couple of things from the Six Feet Under table. Up top is the limited fest version of the recent reissue of the Cold World and War Hungry split. I think this is limited to 75, but I'm not sure. I also picked up a copy of the reissue without realizing I made the pre order for it. So I probably already have the one on white coming to me. Below that in the distro I picked up a copy of Not Afraid's 7" put out by Control Records. I've been wanting to get a copy of this and I slept on the pre order for this hard. The copy on black is out of 400. This 7" rules, picks right back up where True Colors left off, with a little bit of a change. I need to find one on green. I wish I picked up the Alert 7" they had, I think it was a special press for Sound and Fury and This Is Hardcore, but it looked just like the record release version, just different colors on the font. Oh well.

I'm Three Months Behind on this

These are all things I got about three months ago, as the picture files on my computer tell me. I've forgotten how I even got some of them. This is sad.

Here we have a copy of Harms Way's first 7" I believe. This copy on black is out of 500 copies. I believe I picked this up at the Mother of Mercy record release show.

Here are two 7"s I got along with my Sacred Love 7" pre order from Youngblood. Since I guess it took a while for Sean to get the package to me he threw in some extras for my wait. First up is the first Youngblood release, TouchXDown. This was released with Malfunction Records together. It's not a bad 7" and they're from the D.C./Richmond area. So extra cool. The bottom one is Coptic Times' Temptation. Not really in to this one, but free stuff is cool, especially Youngblood releases.

This one I also picked up at the Mother of Mercy record release. There was a box of 7"s underneath Mother of Mercy's merch table, so I looked through them and found this one. When I asked I think it was Bob Wilson how much he wanted for it, he told me just to take it. I was like "What?". He said they were JoeHardcore's, the man behind everything Philly hardcore, and he was just trying to get rid of them. So I was happy to take it off of his hands. This is Time Flies' Cant Change the Past. Time Flies was a band from Virginia from not that long ago. Youth crew with some bite. The band was good and they were from VA so I have to like them.

So this is my Sacred Love pre-order, you know only three months after I got it and probably add another month or so from when they were actually released. Sean did a great job with these. The thing looks great from the artwork, layout, vinyl and labels. Everything looks great. I actually wish there was like a White/Grey mix for this one. That woulda looked cool.

This is Fired Up's When the Lights Go Out, the final press. I was equally and maybe mostly stoked about this when I made my order from Youngblood. This is a great record and band and for some stupid reason, against all logic, I liked collecting the versions of this record. This came out really cool, very simple but a good last press. These are numbered out of 110.

So I pre ordered the Stick Together 7" from Back to Back. This came out pretty cool looking, but what was silly and apparently happened to several people that ordered all three colors of vinyl, was that they got two copies on white. Which orignally meant that you didn't get the most rare on orange. So I was instantly bummed as this seems to happen to me way too much. I sent the label an e-mail and didn't hear anything. Slowly it became evident that the white was the rarest color and instead I was given a benefit of a mistake. Soon there after I got an offer to trade a white for an orange, and instead of thinking hey I'm losing on this trade, I didn't feel like trying to sell the white and then buy the orange. So this was an easy fix.

This is a special copy of The Effort's Wear Your Heart. This is a copy given out during their summer tour in 2007. I believe all of the copies given out during this tour were gold, out of 30 copies. This one was given apparently to the guy I bought it from off of eBay. This copy is on pink, which was used for the record release. This copy as the picture shows is pretty warped. This apparently was the only copy on pink that was warped, so The Effort gave this copy to this guy with it being a special 1 out of 1 copy. So though this isn't a playable record, according to the guy I bought it from, this is a very special version of the record. Pretty cool, they wrote on a ripped out page of the bible I think, pretty cool.

This is the European Tour Version of Common Cause's Statement of Purpose. I think I won this one on eBay as well. Nice addition to the collection. Numbered on the back out of 100.


I won this along with some other records I think from a guy on eBay. This Built to Last 7" was put out by Words of War Records. It's not a bad record and they go for pretty cheap.

Hardcore Does Live

I won this copy of Lights Out's LP on eBay. The copies of white were stamped with the Lights Out stamp on the labels and were out of 202. This was the second and last press of the record according to the Youngblood site. This band was great and this LP came out really awesome too, the artwork, the layout and everything are awesome.

I went over to Reaper's webstore to order the third press of the latest Down to Nothing release. I also wanted to pick up a copy of No Values debut 7", which I had delayed picking up. So the third press of DTN is nice. The cover has a different color font and the vinyl is no longer on black, which is nice. Not to mention we got new and arguably better labels, so that is all good. The third press is out of 500. The No Values 7" looks great and matches the music. No Values I believe have members of Bracewar and maybe some other Richmond bands as well. They play more of a traditional fast paced hardcore punk, very much in a Richmond punk style. The red is out of 389.

When I went to pre order the Stick Together 7" from Back to Back, I also thought it would be good to get the United Youth demo. United Youth, it's pretty obvious what they'd sound like. These kids are young, like 15-16 I think. So it's awesome that they are playing in a band and they respect the history of hardcore, and aren't just playing what is really popular right now. That being said this is a rough demo. They show a lot of potential and I hope they put out some more stuff or maybe down the road they join other bands. This could be something really cool to have years from now. The tape is out of 100. By the way I didn't post my Stick Together 7"s because I didn't get a copy on Orange, instead two on White. I'm starting to really get annoyed with labels sending me two copies of the same color. I think about 80% of the time it's because the label made a mistake. I sent Back to Back an email but I haven't heard anything back for over a month now. I might try again sometime soon.

Keeping with the tape and the pre-order trend, this is the Police & Thieves tape put out by Youngblood. I picked this up when I was ordering the Sacred Love 7" and Final Fired Up press. I think this was maybe originally release by the band because I remember seeing them at a show or two before Youngblood announced they would be putting it out. This is called the Blizzard Sessions, when last winter there was a ton of snow in D.C. P & T decided to record some songs. This is some good stuff and it's good representation of things to come hopefully. I'm looking forward to their split with Remission.

I picked up another copy of Wake the Dead from the 1st original press. This one on green is out of 887.

So there's a great story about this one. Back in November Laura put up a list of records on the D.C. board, she was trying to part with them and she'd be taking offers. So I sent her an offer for this, True Colors Focus on the Light record release cover out of 130. She wrote me back saying that unfortunately she was getting better offers from people in Belgium and in Europe. With the bad conversion rate to the USD and shipping, I would have to offer double what I was offering, at a normally fair price. So at one point I even offered more than I thought it was worth, but it wasn't good enough in comparison to others. A little later that night she said she had spoken to my friend Ryan and that he had convinced her that I needed to have this record. I was instantly surprised.

She offered to bring me the record when she was in America a few months later. I even explained that I would no longer be living near D.C. but she said we could still meet up and work it out. So I sent her the money and waited until February when she was in the U.S. She ended up being at the Mother of Mercy record release show here in Philly and she had the record with her. I was amazed that not only did she have it and she was there, but that she even wrapped it and had my name on it. Laura brought it on the plane with her as one of her carry-ons. That's dedication.

To me this is what is so cool about hardcore, someone would take the time out to personally deliver me a record that I want simply because of a friend of a friend. I feel like this wouldn't happen in almost any other community. A big thank you go out to Laura and Ryan.

So I also picked this up at that same show, this is Mother of Mercy's latest LP IV: Symptoms of Existence with the record release "shirt". I say shirt because that's literally what it is. Normally it would be a special sleeve or a whole different cover. Instead this is what seems like a shirt that was cut and re-sewn to fit the size of the record. Very cool touch.

On the back is the date of the release show. Cool touch. I'm not sure how many of these there were. Let me know if you know.