Ringleader

So this is likely to be my last post of the year, and so I thought I'd deviate away from the Christmas theme just for a second to show you something I managed to score off my wants list a week or so ago. 

Morrissey - Ringleader Of The Tormentors - Attack Records - 1st Press - Black /? 

Pretty much every Morrissey album I am after now is considered a big want, as they are all fairly unlikely to be seen for under the £75 mark. Thankfully I paid a lot less for this one and it's fairly mint. There's a small ding in the bottom left corner, and a small seam split on the inner sleeve but for an album that's nearly a decade old it has been incredibly well looked after to say the least. The material of those printed inners pretty much begs them to be fucked with too.

Back Cover // B-Side 

I would love to know the pressing numbers for certain Mozzer records, as there must be thousands of the things around and yet we will still pay an incredible amount for them if pushed to it. Listening to this all the way through on wax really brought back my appreciation for the post Maladjusted era. I have spent most of this year chasing down old singles, so it was nice to change the pace a little. 

Close up of the B-Side centre label.

The record is housed in a gatefold sleeve with super lush packaging. It's got a real high quality feel to it, and everything just looks nice. The left panel is this photo of Morrissey sat on a Vespa; when in Rome and all that. Next to the panel is the printed inner sleeve. I've had a CD copy of this for years, and the layout is much the same, down to the printed inner and gatefold packaging. 

The right hand panel contains all the lyrics, thanks and credits. Not the easiest thing to photograph, but you get the idea right? 

Finally, the printed inner sleeve also matches the print inside of the jacket. Although the other side is sealed, you can see it's the same all the way through. A small touch, but definitely a point in favour that this is some of the nicest packaging out there. 

Also, I bought this from a dude who runs a Smiths and Morrissey record collectors page on Facebook. It's a cool place to lurk as he's always getting in cool promo pressings and some really hard to find items. He regularly auctions things off (much the case here!), and ships a record better than most. Record and inner sleeve separate, the jacket in a polythene sleeve, all bubble wrapped and tracked, stiffened, mailered, the works. 

This was cool, and I'm beyond chuffed to have this among my slowly growing Morrissey collection.

Braid on Tape

So I am going to start my 'look at all the cool stuff I got for Christmas' posts about now, and I thought I'd start with a good one. It's my favourite time of year, and I am always astounded at the generosity of my family and friends. I got to spend time with loved ones and eat more than I should have, and on top of that I got an incredible haul. This particular gift came from my in-laws, and as usual they went over the top and got it spot on. 

Braid - 6 Cassettes Box Set - Polyvinyl Records - 1st Press - Multicoloured Shells /500 

Before we even get to the contents of this incredible package, let's have a look at this. All of the contents are held in a hand made wooden box. The lid is hinged as opposed to a lift-off type deal and the fact that these were made one by one just makes everything seem a complete labour of love. The design was made by Jay Ryan who played Bass for Braid. I've always had a lot of love for his design work, especially the Hum tour posters where he initially caught my eye. Anyway, enough of my rambling and on to the contents! 

6 cassettes, a booklet and a Polyvinyl sticker just in shot. 

Although these records were released on a bunch of different labels, it's nice to see that Polyvinyl were able to put this lovely package together. The way I see it, the label that released Frame & Canvas really should be allowed to carry the torch right? This Box Set truly couldn't have come out any better in my eyes, and to not jump straight to a vinyl collection is great. Offering these songs on a completely new format (on all counts I believe) was a cool move in my eyes for sure. 

The booklet presents all the lyrics. Due to it having to fit an odd size box, it's a little hard to photograph in any great detail. Individual thanks for all the records are in the respective J-Cards.

Finally, here it is in all it's glory! Each shell matches the art to some degree, and it looks truly beautiful. Definitely something to be seen in person for the full effect of what it has to offer. I'm still making my way through the albums, but so far it's turning out to be a true gem of my collection. 

I'm hoping to squeeze in as many Christmas related posts as possible, but I'm still catching up on stuff I got a few months ago. I won't post about everything I got for Christmas, but if anyone wants I can make a collective 'Christmas Collection' photo or something. 

Hope everyone had a great one. 

Cheers!

Marble Letter Day

So RSD Black Friday came and went and typically nobody really cared, myself included. It seemed a little rushed, the UK got barely any releases in and 99% of what came out sucked anyway. However, there was one or two cool things about, and Alan managed to get me my main want from the day (again, cheers dude!) 

The Get Up Kids - Red Letter Day - DogHouse Records - 2nd Press - Marble /? (RSD Black Friday '15) 

It was really only this and the NIN boxset for me, although I would've taken that repress of Barbed Wire Kisses too. However, more about this. I like 10'' records a fair amount and they seem to be the perfect format for an EP of any description. Although it's hard to photograph, the art looks super crisp here and the record is a really nice mix of colours. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

All of the lyrics and credits are printed on the back in favour of an insert. Sometimes (especially on an LP) this can look pretty messy but here it works quite well, and only having 5 tracks allows the lyrics to be printed in a semi-readable sized font which is always a bonus. 

Close up of the record so you can get a bit more of an idea of some of the marble going on here. It looks like a bit of a No Idea job, but I love that crazy colour mix thing they have going on in some of their records so I have no complaints whatsoever. Also, Anne Arbour sounds great whatever color this is pressed on so who cares right? 

Finally, stickered shrink. 

Would I have paid the £20 that Banquet were asking for this? Maybe not, but Alan was ordering a couple of things overseas and got me it for a bit less because he's a great dude. Maybe in future for RSD I'll fight off the spoiled brat instant gratification and save myself some money (to spend on more records obviously). 

Cheers!

Fight Off Your Demons

As soon as I got wind of this, I knew I had to order it. Have I had these songs for years and years under the guise of Fight Off Your Demons? Sure I have, in fact I've had them so long that my friend Mark sent me them over MSN nearly a decade ago. But I still couldn't contain my excitement, especially considering this band have been more active in the last few months than they have been in the last few years. Plus, these songs are great and it's wonderful to see them get some sort of official release from the band. 

Of course I was talking about this: 

Brand New - Leaked Demos 2006 - Procrastinate! Music Traitors - 1st Press - Red Shell /? 

Straight away the cover got me excited. I never knew any of the band had a love for horror films, so seeing Leatherface on the cover here was something neat. The shell is pretty swell too, nice and simple design. This is the first cassette release from this band, and for these songs it's the perfect format. 

From the sound of things, the songs also got a bit of a remastering job for this release too which is always nice. Considering these songs are from such a long time ago, nothing about this seems even remotely throwaway. Not that I was concerned about that in the first place, it's just comforting. This was also self - released on the band's label, and it's cool to know that this came out at the right time for them.

The full extent of the J-Card is pretty neat. I assume the shark is a bit of Jaws action, but the rest of the panels I have no clue about. Either way, the artwork is quite dark and a definite departure from their previous releases. 

A note from the band, explaining the nature of the release. Although knowing that more demos exist out there makes me really want to know the full extent of what they were working on at the time. Knowing that these demos have kept in circulation for nearly a decade is quite a testament to how good these songs are, and how much this band mean to a lot of people (myself included). 

I don't know what the 418 means, and Brand New still don't know who leaked their demos. 

Free stickers with an order is always a bonus right? 

Also as a parting note, this is my The Devil And God tattoo, taken from the insert of the P!MT press of the album. I believe it to be in Lacey's hand-writing. 

Nostalgia Buys?

Does anyone else have this real internal war going on when it comes to buying a record largely based on nostalgia purposes? I mean, a decade ago an album might have meant an awful lot to me, and sounded like the best thing in the world; but it is worth buying an album and shattering all of those lovely early teen illusions? Is it just enough to know the worn out CD copy that sits in your old bedroom at your Mother's house is there just in case? I have trouble keeping up with new releases, and so 99% of the time I bail on a reissue that may only get a couple of 'hey this record was cool as fuck when I was 13' kind of listens. 

When I heard this was coming out though, all of this common sense was thrown to the wind and replaced with 'this record was cool as fuck when I was 13', so I split an order with a buddy and this arrived. 

+44 - When Your Heart Stops Beating - 2nd Press - Clear W/ White and Blue Splatter /2000 (Hot Topic Exclusive) 

After kicking myself for missing out on the Blink reissues through Hot Topic, I had to take the dive and grab this before it went (which it did, really quickly from what I remember). The CD's were issued on a few different colours, I got the green sleeve way back when but as the 1st vinyl press was the blue sleeve with white w/ blue swirl vinyl (also a Hot Topic exclusive possibly) it kind of makes sense to tie in the theme with both the first press of this LP and the Blink theme with the splatter I guess. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

This record comes in a pretty chunky gatefold sleeve that looks lovely on a shelf. The little bit of overlay in the splatter around the back helps to fill some of the blank space too. 

Inside the gatefold looks pretty similar to the CD inlay, other than the inlay was cut into a '+' (neat right?) but the photos are almost definitely the same, and the majority of the text no doubt is too. 

It's kind of weird to think that nearly 10 years has gone since this record came out, and even weirder to think that it still holds up so well. I held off on this post for a few weeks, and found myself listening to it so much that it just made sense. There's definitely a few records that I've seen from around this era that no doubt I'll get sucked into grabbing soon enough.

HT sticker on the shrink. 

If Hot Topic would now do a fancy splatter job on the Box Car Racer LP, and finally do another repress of Take This To Your Grave by Fall Out Boy I'd be pretty chuffed. 

My next post will hopefully be a cool cassette by an even cooler band and I'm sure that at least a couple of readers will have it too. The one after that could well be a 10''. Crazy.

If God Made Anything Better...

It's not often that I stray too far out of the norm here, you kind of know at least a little about what a band may sound like on this blog. That's not to say that what you see here is all I listen to, and sometimes I am unashamedly dancing around to out and out pop music. 

The 1975 - Medicine - Dirty Hit Records - 1st Press - Amber // Yellow /1000 (Promo) 

I believe this was originally released as a promo and giveaway record through Dirty Hit Records, and the song Medicine was originally part of the Radio 1 Drive Re-Score. Since I first heard this song I fell in love with it. It suited the film perfectly and the cover art portrays the same idea from the section of film. It just works together. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

So here's a quick story about how I got this record. At it's highest point this record has sold for £180 on Discogs, but the good dudes at Dirty Hit Records have re-pressed it so hopefully that will put an end to anything near that selling price. Around the same time of announcing that a re-press would be happening, they also announced that the remaining 1st press copies would be going up for sale at their stall at the Spitalfields Indie Label Market for £5 each. 

Long story short I wasn't able to go, but I knew someone who also had a stall there who managed to grab it on my behalf and post it over to me. 

On the centre label you can see the 2014 // Promotional Purposes Only marker. Both the label and back cover of the repress say 2015. 

Obviously I would have settled for a repress if I didn't grab a copy from the label on that day, as I can't justify spending that much on any record really, but there's something really special about owning this one for me. I wish I had thought to photograph it too, but there is a spine on the record too that reads the band name and release. 

As a cool parting note for this 7'', the run off grooves are 'If God Made Anything Better....' // '...He Kept It For Himself' which is a quote from William Burroughs. It'd probably be a little more romantic if he wasn't talking about smack right?

The 1975 - Fallingforyou - Dirty Hit Records - 1st Press - Transparent /? 

I know this is technically a repress, but this is the first UK press. The original press was through Interscope Records as a promo. Dirty Hit repressed this one up for the Indie Label Market and then was later made available online. I have no idea on pressing numbers but I assume it's in the 1000-2000 range. Both tracks on this 7'' are available on the IV EP, and I really regret not picking that up on Record Store Day. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

Although I took a fairly shitty photo of this side, you get the idea, with the back cover layout following the same theme as the 'Medicine' 7''. 

Finally here's the two of them together

This was my first post not using my iPhone camera. I may go back to it yet, but if I carry on with this one please expect a few quirks, a few blurry photos just while I get accustomed to it. I don't deal well with technology.

Cheers!

Clear Your Throat

Vinyl delays are probably one of the biggest topics among record nerds this year. For the most part, I am a huge fan that a 'vinyl revival' of sorts is happening. But sometimes I get a little miffed about waiting months for a record, as it's generally the indie labels left at the back of a queue waiting on an album to drop. Another added downfall is being a little 'over' a record by the time it comes through the door. You get the digital copy on release day and weeks pass; you absorb the record through your headphones and you almost forget you ever ordered a physical copy. This actually arrived a few weeks ago, but I waited until it had a couple of spins to write about it. My enthusiasm in this LP is restored and in the grand scheme of things, waiting on a record is really a 1st world problem right? 

H2O - Use Your Voice - Bridge Nine Records - 1st Press - Clear /200 

This record has been pretty hyped, around 7 years have passed since their last full length. Toby Morse has really pushed the family front here with having his son Max on the cover. The dude clearly puts family first though, and to my eyes it looks pretty great. The centre label really grab my attention though, working well with the cover art and the variant. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

The back cover is taken outside the Dischord Records House, and obviously takes influence from the Demo // Salad Days art by Minor Threat. Sneaking a Coldplay shirt in there too... 

The B-Side centre label is the original banners of the sprayed cover art. I believe they were sold through Morse's Instagram. 

Printed inner with the lyrics and a promo poster that came with the LP. More often than not, B9 will shove a few little extras in an order. This time I got some Airheads and a sticker or five. 

Credits. Produced again by Chad Gilbert with another cool reading by Michael Rapaport. I think this is a really cool record, and definitely worth the wait. After 7 years, what's a few weeks right? 

Big Love Leadership

I'm always on the lookout for Cold Cave stuff I don't already own; and it's not very often that something just pops up on eBay from a UK seller without much in the way of interest. Somehow this one must have slipped through the cracks as I got it without much hassle for about a fiver plus shipping. 

Cold Cave - New Morale Leadership - 1st Press - Big Love Records - Clear Shell /100 

This tape originally came out through Hospital Productions in 2010, and the variants were distinguished by the colour of the cover and the colour of the text. This copy came out around a year later through Big Love Records in Japan featuring completely different artwork as a benefit for the Tsunami in Japan. The money generated by the 'Suns and Lovers' EP by Nothing was also donated to the same cause I believe. The label name does not appear on the shell or J-Card.

The J-Card contains a tracklisting and the Heartworm Press logo. The release is not numbered from what I can see. 

Spine View 

One side of the cassette shell has a pink glitter heart. I assume all copies came like this and mine hasn't been fucked with. There's a copy on the Discogs release page with a similar looking thing going on. The other side of the shell is blank. 

Made In Japan embossed on the outer shell. 

Lastly, this cassette came shipped in this weird polysleeve. I'm not sure if this came from the seller or it came from the label; but it's the first time I've seen something like this. I'd assume it was from the label, but either way it's a little bit quirky and I'm into it. I need to put up the shelving I bought for my cassettes really. Rapidly running out of room for stuff! 

Adobe Glows

Occasionally I like to dig back into my collection and see if I have anything worth writing about that possibly predates this blog, or something that's somehow slipped by the wayside. It doesn't happen often as I have enough new stuff coming in to keep me busy, but this is pretty cool so we'll break all the rules. 

Adobe Homes // Beau Navire - Split - Texas Toast DIY // Kyeo Speaks // Radical Friend // Black With Sap // Olhar De Vidro - 1st Press - Glow In The Dark / 300 (W/ Screened B-Side and Texas Toast limited cover /?) 

This record can still be picked up fairly cheap. Well, the standard cover can. Weirdly enough there is no note of this cover anywhere, and it certainly doesn't resemble the standard one. I bought this from Texas Toast DIY a few years back, and was surprised to find this cover in the mail. Funnily enough, the owner of the label (sadly now defunct I believe) sent me two to make up for a delay in getting this out and I traded the other away to Darren over at Dog Knights if memory serves. 

The screen print looks great on this record, and it has a real DIY look to it that I love.

Quarter fold cover, photocopied paper sleeve. 

The text is the Tracklisting, along with label names and the credit of the sleeve design to Jonathan Ruis. There's also a cool cloth cover of this 7'' /25. It's a shame that the information is so limited here. There could be 5 of these, there could be a couple hundred. Who knows right? 

Inside the sleeve you also get this little Handmade By note, which makes me assume the band assembled these alongside the label, possibly for a tour or record release. Back then I was dumb and never thought to shoot the dude an email. I think it's pretty neat that you can see some streaking from the screening in the dust cover too. 

So there's a lot in this record to love. Mysterious cover variant, screened B-Side and I almost forgot to mention that the record glows in the dark. It's definitely a cool release, and Beau Navire were always one of my favourite bands for this genre, and I grabbed at least one of every release. 

Hot Topic 'Hoods

So my last post was about a record I grabbed from Hot Topic, so it's only right I talk about the other record I got from Hot Topic next right? 

Blink 182 - Neighborhoods - 1st Press - Geffen // Interscope - Clear W/ Black & White Splatter / 2700 (Hot Topic Exclusive)

I've been a fan of Blink 182 since before I hit my teen years, and so it's fair to say this band have been a long standing staple in my musical tastes. So it seems odd that I hadn't even heard this record in full until a few days ago when I spun this for the first time. I guess I was worried, as with the exception of a few great bands, comeback records suck. And since this record, nothing about this band has made me want to stick around for the fallouts, cancelled shows etc. so I put it off. Also, I was so into whatever side projects were going on that I was kind of fulfilled.

Back Cover // B-Side 

What I will say is that these records look incredible, and they sound fine to my ears too. The LP's match the art and colour scheme of the record. Plus, the artwork is so busy that you're forever finding new stuff in there, I like it far more for grabbing a copy on wax I think. Plus, against my initial fears I am really warming to this record. 

The records are housed in a triple gatefold sleeve, so it made sense to photograph it in sections so you don't get too much of a blurry mess. I find it a little funny that I bought two double LP's from HT and neither came in a normal gatefold sleeve. Unimportant anomalies like that make me chuckle I guess? These are the first two panels of the inside gatefold. 

The third panel contains the lyrics and credits, alongside a greyscale Smiley logo. The amount of times in my life I nearly had this tattooed on my body. I'm still certain I'll end up with a Blink 182 tattoo at some point, even if it's something little and dumb. I've certainly got more embarrassing band tattoos on me with no regrets so it'll be fine I'm sure! 

The first two panels of the outside. You can see the third panel for the most part in the 2nd photo in this post; and for the detail in the artwork, you struggle to see much without having it in your hands anyway I guess. 

Overall, I'm really chuffed I finally made the dive with this record. The downside is this is my first piece of Blink vinyl, and now I want to try and collect all the HT splatter variants this late in the game. I'll never learn...

Yellow Harm

I've been slowing down on blogging a little. At this time of year I like to get the bulk of my Christmas shopping done, and sadly that leaves less time and money to devote to buying records, let alone waxing lyrical about them here. One good thing is that my shopping is nearly done, and I can carry on as I like to. 

Whilst lurking about on Hot Topic for a few presents a couple weeks back, I decided that since I was there and the international shipping was 50% off, that it would be rude not to buy a couple of things I was after. First one up is this: 

The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - Harmlessness - Epitaph Records // Broken World Media - 1st Press - Opaque Yellow /500 (Hot Topic Exclusive) 

Up until a couple weeks ago, most UK places weren't stocking this record, so when I saw it I jumped on it. This band delivered some of their best and most cohesive material earlier in the year, so I've been really excited about this LP dropping, and it definitely does not disappoint. 

Back Cover // B/D Side 

This is a double LP housed in a single sleeve jacket, much in a similar vein to the Sunbather LP, but without the fancy die-cut stuff. The records themselves also came in black dust jackets which look a little nicer than the standard paper sleeves. 

One cool thing I love about this band is how they always manage to keep the same centre labels on all their releases, regardless of label change and regardless of whether it is a contribution to a split 7'' they are always this trippy swirl. It's cool, and a nice common theme. 

Band personnel and credits here. 9 musicians contributed to this record, and most of them are kept in regular rotation in the lineup. 

Lyrics and praise to the salt this side. I don't have a clue what it means either. I like how some of the lyrics in this record work into lyrics from previous releases. I'm assuming that Formlessness plays a large part in the name of Harmlessness too. 

Stickered shrink wrap. 

Now if I could make an order with Hot Topic and not get royally badgered by customs charges that'd be swell. Thankfully, with an album this good I don't mind too much.