Why not be behind the times?

Here we have the two other copies of DTN's latest 7" of the Australian Press. Black and red are both out of 200. I originally complained about the price and shipping for these. I spoke to the guy who runs the label and I was mistaken. He had these pressed in the U.S. and shipped to Australia. So do the math, shipping to and from Australia is enough for a handful of records, imagine 500. He told me he did it as a favor to the band and is not making anything on it. Considering these factors, it came out pretty well.

I picked up the two other versions of the No Turning Back 7"s I have. Up top you've got the s/t one put out by Reflections Records. I think the Blue and Black split is out of 400. On the bottom we've got the Rise from the Ashes 7" put out by Not Just Words Records. The Orange version is out 270. I got both of these off eBay for pretty cheap, like three years after I had the others. Patience is a virtue.

Here we have the rarer version of Blue Monday's What's Done is Done on red. This was the press for Posi Numbers Fest 04. There's 100 of these out there, so a nice addition. I think I got this one from eBay.

I picked up my second copy of Alpha & Omega's 7". This one on clear is out of 400 from the second press.

I picked up four copies of Hatebreed's first LP Satisfaction is the Death of Desire put out by the once great Victory Records. So the one on the top and left side are obviously purple and yellow but the other two I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure one of them is green. and the other is maybe a dark purple. The pressing is a bit confusing and I have no idea what they are limited to other than the one on yellow out of 665 and supposedly the fifth press. Anyone know where I can get information on this? Like a Victory pressing list similar to the big Rev txt document online.

So I decided to pick up more copies of Blacklisted's first LP. I had a few copies of this in the past but I got rid of them. So this is me trying to pick them back up. The one in the middle on red was broken by my fiance, so forget that that one is there, no worries she compensated me for it. Anyway the purple marble on top was put out by Deathwish and is out of 200. The one on the bottom is clear purple put out by Reflections Records and out of 250.

I finally picked this one up. I love this record and I've been trying to get this one for a while. When Cruel Hand's Bridge 9 debut came out I didn't get on the pre order fast enough and missed out on the rarest copy on black. This thing is awesome from the music, layout, vinyl, everything. Black is out of 200.

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.

Victory's Non-Victorious Vinyl

So I read on Between the Buried and Me's myspace blog that Victory had released Alaska on vinyl. I thought to myself, finally. So I quickly went over to the Victory site to see what they had to offer, like any other record collector does. So I saw that Victory had the classic album in White with a limited pressing of 200. I knew that if I didn't get a copy while I had the chance, I'd kick myself, so I placed an order. While at the Victory webstore I also realized that maybe I should pick up another copy of the latest Comeback Kid record that I do not have. So I looked again for the rarest and found the Black and Copper almost swirl like vinyl, which is also limited with only 212 copies. So all in all not a bad pick-up. I wish Victory as a label didn't suck, that would make me feel better about purchasing vinyl from them. On top of all that the packaging for the records just leaves so much to be desired. I mean like the covers are just pathetic and there's nothing special about any of the packaging. I guess I should expect it however.