TA 2010 7"s

Touche Amore a band that I love. I get so nerdy over this band it's almost intolerable. They are the only band I have tried/ am still trying to gather a full collection of everything. With recent news of the 2012/2013 7" box set soon coming out; now would be a nice time to start posting about various selections from my as yet incomplete Touche Amore collection. This was a present bought for me by my wife at Christmas, it truly is the most wonderful time of the year. I got fat and got some awesome records. There will be more on that one in future posts (not the being fat thing, records).

I really like the idea behind this box set, and I like that they are continuing it. Their first four 7" releases, on an exclusive colour in a screened mailer; hand numbered and exclusively for tour.

And here it is. I believe Nick Steinhardt (Touche Amore guitarist and design guy at 23in.) designed the cover, they were all hand screened and numbered. I really like the design here, the four respective labels that released 7"s for the band all get a place on the cover, and the font-type looks awesome here. So many innovative things you can do with a standard mailer!

From the look of things I got number 175/200. The box set was already opened when I got it (so it would be really rude not to take them out, take photos of them, play them once and then just gaze longingly at it forever). Shout out to whoever it was from though, the mailer and records were all in great condition. I have heard some horror stories of this one with people writing on the screened mailers for posting, instead of an outer mailer/ jiffy bag (silly bunch).

First up is the 2008 demo, and Touche Amore's first release; it came out on No Sleep records. By this point it is apparent that the mystery colour is clear for these four 7"s (as is with the new box set from what pressing information I have seen). I'm not too sure on other box sets, but my version of the demo has tiny dashes of black in it. The demo was actually already pressed on clear/100 for the first press; so this variant clears up confusion with new A/B labels (the first press has really nice T/A labels and every pressing after has these A/B ones, I'll post on this a little later). Also, the sleeves are leftovers from the first press, as by the second press the sleeves came on thicker card with slightly revised artwork (again, you'll see all of this in the next few posts).

Next up is the La Dispute split, officially named Searching For a Pulse/ The Worth of the World. This features some great artwork from Nick Steinhardt, and some flawless design work, with a die-cut fold out cover (again, more of this in later posts). The recording quality of the Touche side suffers a little on this release, but god damn if the songs aren't amazing. And the bands' respective vocalists contribute guest spots to each others tracks on this split, super cool idea. 

The split with Make Do and Mend came out as a split release with 6131 Records and Panic Records. Both bands offer two songs each (same as TA/LD) and comes with some really nice fold out artwork (probably the work of Nick, but I'm not 100% on that one). Touche Amore, La Dispute and Make Do and Mend are all part of a group of hardcore bands called The Wave (some inside joke apparently), along with Pianos Become the Teeth and Defeater. It's cool that up to this point these bands are all doing interlinked splits. All of them (the bands and the splits) are fantastic, well worth a listen if you haven't already.

 Finally is the live on WERS 7". I believe this was self-released by the band under the label name Condolences. It still is the only release on the label. This 7'' came in quite limited quantities; to this day only 500 exist. 300 on black, and 200 on clear (for this box set). The recording here is great, and a nice insight to the band's live sound. The centre labels with the Condolences logo on them are a nice touch too. This could easily be my favourite live release. 

This thing seems a real piece of history to me now, although I've only had it a short while. Since releasing this the band have offered up another 4 7"s, and are signed to fucking Deathwish inc. such a great progression. However, this early material is pure gold to me; and the whole hand numbered/ exclusive colour/ screened mailer/ tour only deal just gets me too. I seriously love this band too much. If you're into them at all, get looking forward to quite a few posts. And if anyone can help out on anything I'm missing, check my Deadformat link in the blog description and message me!

 Now I just have to cross my fingers, as the new box set is an email application/ lottery style deal where owners are picked at random instead of being thrown up on a webstore/ being available on tour. Crazy. As I said, fingers crossed!

The two halves of Our Better Halves

'Our Better Halves' by Latterman. As far as I'm concerned this is one of the coolest releases I have in my collection. Because it was so weird, and great.

Here's the story. Band breaks up, soon to follow should be a compilation of all early/ rare/ unreleased material right? I'm sure I wasn't the only one who wanted to see a vinyl re-issue of None of These Songs Are About Girls (which I think was previously available on cassette?) and a long awaited re-press of the Nakatomi Plaza split, which sold out before we ever heard of it and it never pops up, anywhere. I would have really liked this to happen, as an upside to this band disappearing. They took a different, and perhaps way better approach to this idea. Along comes 'Our Better Halves', a 1 song, single sided, self released 7" that contains the last track Latterman had to offer I suppose; an anthem from a compilation that never happened came to light.

So this was what we got. Only available at their reunion shows, this was such a sweet send off for fans. Any leftover copies were given to distro's, notably No Idea Records. This meant that I bugged the good chap at Different Kitchen Records (he's probably going to get a lot of mentions in this here blog) Alan Beningfield, and two weeks or so later this arrived.

It was just perfect. Printed on cheap, thin stock card sleeves, plain centre labels and a plain B-side (no etching or screening). It also comes with a small insert with the lyrics printed on (more on that a little later).

Fast forward a few months, Latterman comes to England on this reunion tour business. And again, thanks to DiffKitch (see what I did there?!) boss man, caught wind of a second press of this sucker, just for us European lot (I think I mentioned before that this is a rare occurrence, so when it happens I get giddy). Like the true gentleman Alan is, he also scored me this one no problem; which was especially nice as I couldn't get to a show due to work.

Same deal as before, plain B-side, plain centre labels. Too cool. Pressing numbers are as follows: 1000 (ish) of the black and 300 of the white as a Euro tour exclusive. Again, this release appealed to me because in it's second/ Euro press because things got changed up a little...

For anyone with sharp eyes or better pixel resolution, you can see the right (euro press) sleeve is much brighter and a clearer picture. The sleeves are thicker too, which is always nice I suppose. Word is that these got printed up by Jan at Yoyo records (I think I'm right on that one).

The Inserts were changed up a little too.

Again, first press on the left, Euro tour press on the right. I like how there is a clear difference in the inserts for the two versions. Even the handwriting is different; tons of quirky stuff to like about this release!

This shouldn't be overlooked at all, the fact that it contains only one song is awesome. It finally completes things. And the song is a good one, a really damn good one. If you like Latterman you're going to like this because it's great. Full of posi vibes and awesome bass lines. A belter of a chorus aswell. Last time I checked you can also head to the Different Kitchen big cartel and score the /300 variant for a little over £3 too. No point in arguing with that logic. Do yourself a favour.

End Of a Year / Fires

The End Of a Year (Self Defense Family) / Fires split is super cool. It has everything that appeals to the average record nerd (obi strips/different covers, you'll see in a bit). It was also the first record which I acquired a test press of, so it seems like a good place to start.

Long story short; I made little effort to get these variants. With great help from (and thanks to!) Patrick Compston who put it out, and Doug from Fires; I scored all four variants of this record. Great guys. Enough of my rambling, on to the records:

 

This is the most common variant of clear blue /400. Nothing much going on here.

 

 

This is where things get a little cooler. Clear /100, these two colours make up the first and only press of this record thus far. This variant came with a hand numbered obi strip...

 

 I ended up with number 19/100. Nice touch.

 

This is where things got difficult (ish). I heard there was a super limited record release version from Fires. Thankfully, Doug was happy to sell me his copy from the show.

 

 

The first thing I noticed is the sleeve. The text is placed on there for the record release apparently, as opposed to the text free sleeves used on the regular press, which is something different. The sleeve is folded over the top as opposed to the side folds.

 

 

For the record release some inserts were printed up too. I ended up with number 16 of 18. Not bad for a guy who doesn't live in the US/ anywhere near release show ever. I'm a sucker for release show/ tour exclusive stuff too so this really appealed to me.

 

 

Finally, the test press. The first test press I ever owned. I managed to get this from Troubled Monkey Records owner and the guy who put this out, Patrick Compston (super nice guy too). I ended up with number 6 of 13. The sleeve again has a different text, printed up exclusively for the test presses; with handmade obi strips that correlate with the numbers of the test too. Which was nice as all the tests I've had since come in regular sleeves/ no sleeves/ one in a carrier bag (?). Tons of effort made here. I'm a big fan.

 

 

All four copies together.

 

 

A closer look at the two font variations. The top sleeve (record release) is also much brighter in image in person.

Now i'm going to drag out more records to do this with. I really have to find other hobbies.