Orange Wheels

Going for another Hot Water Music Post today, I hope no one has a huge problem with that. If you do, I'm sure you just haven't heard Hit and Miss at the right volume. We're not talking about No Division today though...

Hot Water Music - Till The Wheels Fall Off - No Idea Records - Advance Reunion Show Edition - Orange /825 (2XLP) 

There are a few things going on with this record that I am not 100% sure on, I'm sure Alan will jump on and make right any inaccuracies on my part. 

The story goes that these came about a few weeks before the official release date as a reunion show kind of deal. This variant is exclusive to that pre-release, and some special covers were screen-printed up just for the occasion. Any pressing past this is in the standard double LP gatefold jacket with the 'official' artwork. I would've included my standard copy; but as I didn't do the same for Fuel, it would feel a little wrong right? 

Back Cover // B/D-Side 

A couple cool things about the record to note. For one, the A/B LP is on clear orange, whereas the C/D LP is on a strange orange marble kind of colour. To make things a little more interesting, the labels are all blank. Again, future pressings of this had a centre label that correlated with the art. 

690/525 

I let that slip past me the first time. My educated guess is that 525 were available at the show, and maybe a few shows after? They had more records to accommodate overstock, and so made some more covers up and numbered them past the original designation? I really like having one past the original number, if I had a number below 525, I probably would never have known more existed in this kind of cover? On the upside, having one would probably have resulted in being at the reunion show...Actually, it probably would've come up in conversation at some point anyway! 

Tour poster and sticker. 

The only downside of this record is the lack of insert. I had / still have a copy of this on CD and a standard press on vinyl before I grabbed this one, so I was already familiar with the track-listing and where the tracks originally surfaced. Even an A4 sheet with the track-listing would've been something right? Saying that, it is nice to not have to rely on anything like that to know what's coming up with this record. Sounds way more holier than thou than I really wanted it to.

Glow In The Dark! 

On the definite upside, the covers were hand screened with glow in the dark ink. This was held up to the light for a few seconds and photographed in total darkness, it looks pretty cool right? As I said, I already had a couple copies of this, but your boy can't say no to pretty things that glow in the dark. 

Fest For The Hate Game

My next few posts may very well be No Idea Records themed. I went a long time not posting anything from this great label, and it's high time that I changed things up a little bit. So to start things off let's talk about a record that No Idea have just changed up a little bit... 

Hot Water Music - Fuel For The Hate Game - No Idea Records - 20th Press - Black 180gm (2XLP -  Fest Press - Celebrating 20 years of HWM!) 

This (to my knowledge) is the first time that Fuel has been pressed on black vinyl since the 2nd press all the way back in '97. However, that was on single LP as were all previous pressings before this one. This record was given the re-press treatment for The Fest '13 from a few months back. This is cool for a few reasons: 

I never get Fest exclusive stuff, as normally that stuff never comes over to the UK save a few copies for close friends of the label. Last year there was a 3x7'' set of The Draft 7''s that I never got my hands on. Somehow a few of these drifted over to the Different Kitchen store, and that's where I got mine from. 

Secondly, this record has been re-cut at 45rpm and split over two LP's. The result is incredible and it gives the record a whole new light. It sounds bigger, the songs have a little more space to breathe and the art is great. We'll get on to that in a quick minute though. 

Back Cover // B/D Side 

Let's talk a little about the cover. These were made up to house these records and definitely look like a tour or festival exclusive cover. 24''x12'' card folded along the bottom, hand numbered and hand screened. Fun trivia, there is a ridiculously small (maybe 3?) number where the red ink in the cover was screened the wrong way round. It looks super weird and makes the art all disjointed, but I definitely wouldn't have said no to a rarity like that. No complaints with this one though! 

The illustration on the back cover here is the original cover art, which is the unmistakable work of Scott Sinclair. This is my favourite art that he has done for HWM, and seeing it in this stark black and red just makes me appreciate it more!

Hand numbering 

478/500 

Who doesn't love a few Stress Face stamps on their record? One of the best logos from a label, and aside from a variation now and then, this dude has stayed largely the same over the years. 

Stamped sleeves and dust covers are definitely a bonus with this kind of record.

Insert

Black ink on white paper, A4 sheet. I imagine it came straight from the printer in the No Idea offices. Lyrics, thanks and credits is about all you get here, and about all you need. 

One cool thing to note though is how the pressing info updates on the insert to correlate with the new pressings. It looks like they are soon running out of room though!

So here's what we have: 

• New pressing cut on 2LP's and mastered at 45rpm and opposed to the 33rpm single LP masters of previous pressings 
• New hand screened and numbered art
• Stamped sleeves 
• New life breathed into one of the highest points in a fairly incredible back catalogue from Hot Water Music 
• A nifty little reminder that you missed out on one of the coolest music festivals out there

What more do you need right?

Another Dinosaur Jr. post

There's little explanation to this one, I bought a few Dinosaur Jr. 7''s and thought you all should see them. Nothing crazy rare or expensive, but definitely worth having. I kind of got into this band way later than I should have, and so my DinoJr collection is massively lacking. Most of the LP's I own are represses and until recently, the only singles I owned were from the 'Visitors' box set I did a post on some time back. It seems a day now doesn't go by nowadays when I'm not sticking on something by this great band; so I thought I'd start hitting on some of the singles that weren't already in the box set. There's a few to go through, so we'll get to it.

Dinosaur Jr - The Wagon - Sub Pop - 1st Press - White /9800 

I believe this is the last record that Maura jasper designed for the band, and is a world away from the standard caliber of her work for Dinosaur Jr. I still dig it though! Green Mind is a way better album than most people give it credit for.

I want to grab some of the Sub Pop 7''s, and this seemed like a good place to start. I don't really know why, but there's a real sense of history in a Sub Pop release from this kind of time frame. 

B-Side // Back Cover 

Notice that although the cover states the name change of Dinosaur Jr. both the A and B Side labels have only Dinosaur printed on them. Large Hole 7''s too, and I believe all came this way. It's easier to see on this side that the artwork is based from a photograph that has then been over-painted to create all these weird effects. It looks super strange, and the red text over the top really throws things too. Sub Pop logo in the bottom left. 

Close up of the back text. 

Dinosaur Jr. - Get Me - Blanco Y Negro - 1st Press - Black /?

This record is one big colour clash. Purple text on a messy green cover, I guess it is what it is. I believe this release only ever saw a Euro pressing with no American counterpart. Barcodes on centre labels are a weird idea. I don't like them at the best of times, and the upside of not interrupting the art is a bonus I guess? It just makes the centre label seem really jammed with information this way though. This single was from the Where You Been LP. I bought their albums in a super strange order, but I like the poppier edge on this record quite a bit. It kind of was all Mascis at this point though. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

Promo sticker on the back sleeve. This is probably going to get ripped off as it makes it no more or less special; and I kind of like this back cover art. Which brings me on to the point of why have the barcode on the centre label if you're just sticking it on the sleeve anyway? It's strange to think that this 7'' is nearly as old as I am, there's honestly a couple months in it. The mushy green text in the centre of the sleeve sets out the track-listing and backing vocal credits. 

Dinosaur Jr. - Almost Ready - PIAS - 1st Press - Black /? 

Next up, things take a little bit of a left turn. We jump forward 15 years or so, get back to the classic  lineup, release a single sided one track promo and house it in a dust sleeve. 

The information on the centre label is mostly licensing credits, and next to it is a PIAS (Play it Again Sam) logo. Being a promo I'm not sure if that would affect the pressing numbers, or even a guess at what they are. This band are pretty big, surely a couple thousand at least are kicking about? 

Back Cover 

About as plain as you can get, black labels and no grooves. Not even some art or text to talk about! 

What more needs to be said? This band are brilliant, and I know it's going to take a good long while before I even have one of everything. Three 7''s from vastly different points in Dinosaur Jr.'s lifespan; and once I grab a few more singles, you can bet I'll be doing another similar post!

Rest of Serenity

A couple weeks back I posted about the One With Serenity Test Press from favourite UK dudes Fade (you can read all about that one here: http://23rotations.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/test-with-serenity.html). 

Fast forward to today and all the standard variants arrived safe and sound so I'm going to talk about those. Again, it'll be a bit more showing you the record, a little less talking about it. This is because I know I'll end up turning the conversation towards the musical content over the actual product. Just so you know though, it's great. The amount of times I've already talked about this band through this blog though you should really have got it by now. On to what matters! 

Fade - One With Serenity - Neutral Words Records - 1st Press - Clear /75

The first thing I noticed with this record when it arrived was how thick the sleeve is. I saw through the NWR Instagram that Max Harper (he runs NWR, so I'm assuming?) printed up all the sleeves, cutting and folding them too. Pretty mad effort considering that's 300 sleeves to make and assemble. Another thing to note is the card dust covers as opposed to paper ones. Paper ones don't bug me as such, but these certainly feel a little sturdier. 

As Clear was the rarest variant and quite low in numbers, it's long sold out but you can still grab the other two online. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

Track-listing sits in a circle in the centre of the back cover which looks kind of cool. It's a real shame that one track is a digital bonus, Persona is a great song! It's funny that both records have been pressed on 7'' and both releases have tracks omitted due to time constraints (this band write mad long songs). I'm secretly hoping for a tape press or something to accommodate the full release in one place; plus I can't say no to buying stuff from this band. 

B-Side label has a cool group shot, but we'll see a little more of that later on. 

Fade - One With Serenity - Neutral Words Records - 1st Press - Black /100

Next up we have Black. I was assuming this to be the most common variant, but it sits in the middle between the two colour presses. There's still something super charming to black vinyl; maybe the way it can work alongside any artwork? Maybe the audiophile nerd in me that tells me that black wax should always sound better than colour. Not that my ears can really tell a difference, but it helps me to play close attention. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

I forgot to photograph it, but it's really cool that these sleeves open up along the spine and the artwork can carry through. it looks neat all laid out like that too. Balls. The text on the bottom right is recording and mastering credits (also noted on the insert, it's a little easier to see there too). Bottom right is the Neutral Words logo. 

Fade - One With Serenity - Neutral Words Records - 1st Press - Green /125

There's a little blue mix in the green, it's not particularly easy to see on a photo but it's definitely in there. I like the use of two logos on this 7'' too. The cover uses the new logo (which looks a little like half a Black Flag logo, never a bad thing) and the older logo on the A-Side centre label. 

B-Side // Back Cover 

No 'A' on the A-Side, but there's enough going on with the label logo, designation, band logo and track-listing on this side to kind of state the obvious right? The B-Side 'B' looks a little like the Triple B record logo cut into 1/3. Fade's sister band Shrapnel are on the Triple B roster, so maybe there's some vague connection as to why? Maybe it's pure coincidence? 

Insert 

Full sized photograph from the B-Side label. All copies came with this photocopied insert, and I assume these were all done in house too. 

Insert 

Let's have a quick run down of what's going on here. I said I'd leave this one to a little less talk, a little more see for yourself kind of deal. I lied, sorry. 

Band personnel 

Live photo from the Brudenell in Leeds at a guess. 

Under the photo is a couple lines of thanks. 

Left side: One With Serenity lyrics 

Right side: Reverie Swimmer lyrics 

Centre: Fade Logo

Bottom Centre: Recording credits, band personnel (also explaining the lineup change with regards to the new bass player). Photography and layout credits. Finally, email contact. 

It's easier to step by step this one as there is a fair deal of text to cover. I really like folded up photocopied inserts in 7''s. It always reminds me of old Rev or Malfunction 7''s. I know the newest Title Fight 7'' through Rev had photocopied inserts on different coloured paper and people got all crybaby about it. Plain black and white saves confusion on this one I guess, as I would've been a total crybaby if I was missing something as dumb as a colour insert. 

With the pre-order there was also this screened 'Roster' poster. This label have a tight logo, and are putting out some great stuff from a whole range of cool bands. Forsaken are definitely a highlight in the whole hardcore/ thrash crossover thing for me. I'm not good with genres... 

Finally, money shot! 

I've fallen really lucky with grabbing variants and tests from this band. As it stands I am 100% completely up to date as far as I know; and that is solely down to guys who run record labels being super nice and understanding when it comes to how enthusiastic I am with this band. 

Space Rock. It's a thing. Listen to Hum. Nebula and Cosmos and stuff. If I was on my phone I'd gab that little rocket and alien emoji. 

Cheers!

Ceremony Sunday

I ordered this pair of Ceremony items absolutely ages ago, and a big part of me thought that they would never turn up. But after a few emails back and forth, and a little patience here we have it. I've said a few times that this blog is not just for records or cassettes, but for anything musical or creative that I feel had an impact. Please bear this in mind as we go through this one! 

Ross Farrar - Society Verse - Bridge 9 Records - 2nd Edition /?

Ceremony - 6 Cover Songs - Bridge 9 Records - 1st Press - White Shell /500 

As I bought these together, it just kind of makes sense to talk about them as a package. I'll keep anything on the book short and sweet as it should be. Although to be fair there isn't an awful lot to say about the tape either. Both have some fun little quirks though! 

This is the first page of the book, and acts as an introduction to why the book itself exists. Farrar goes through his (then) recent introduction to creative writing and poetry, and this goes some way to explain the lyrical layout of some of the songs presented in this book. 

For those that don't know, Society Verse is a neat little place in which all of the lyrics (up to and including the Rohnert Park LP) are housed, often with little anecdotes and stories to further develop the content. Alongside the lyrics there is a short essay on Rohnert Park, a small collection of poems and some fairly insightful photography. Although there is no way I can convey all of that in a few photographs and paragraphs, I can guarantee you it's a great read if you're into Ceremony or any factor of their lyrical content. 

Poetry

Although the poetry section of the book is fairly short lived, it allows a little look in at how Farrar's lyrics developed over the course of writing 'Still Nothing Moves You' onwards. As the sound of Ceremony massively differs on each LP, the lyrical content also seems to be more refined. Court Day is definitely the poem I've re-read the most from the bunch.

Photography 

Vanzig. Doesn't get more real than that. I like the idea of a van that's so purpose built for tour. You could not re-integrate back into normal society driving that to and from work right? The photographs were mostly taken on tour at a guess, but it doesn't feel like a tour diary as such. More just a social commentary I guess? 

On to the musical portion of things next. 

Although I would've liked the vinyl option for this record, it seemed far easier to grab this. It was reasonably priced and from the same seller in a package with the book, and for the amount of time I normally listen to 'covers' albums this will almost definitely do. The vinyl came with a screened B-Side though... 

Anyway, all the cassettes for this pressing were on white and this is a one time pressing for cassette so I'm quite happy with this for now. My Ceremony collection is a bit weird, some stuff I own is on vinyl, some on tape and some on CD. I like to keep things as uniform as possible for the most part, so what happened there I don't know. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

As the whole EP plays on both sides of the tape, the printing on the shell is absolutely identical. It's a pretty neat little feature, and always preferred over blank shells. Sometimes I feel it's a waste of a good B-Side to do this as there is always live audio/ interviews/ demos/ B-Sides etc. but at least it's not changing over a tape 3 songs in? 

Spine View 

This really is what it says on the tin. It sounds like Ceremony, just covering other bands. They make each song stand out and make no effort to imitate anyone which is quite refreshing. Even Nimrod's Son could easily pass for a Ceremony track if you didn't know the original. 

J-Card Layout

Ceremony Covers: why Charles Mingus gets two mentions I don't know. Maybe others do too. Looking at their influences, there are a bunch of cool bands these guys are into. Imagine a cover of Seeing Other People by Belle and Sebastian? I Don't Mind If You Forget Me by Moz? Ross Farrar and Cody Sullivan tackled art direction and layout between them here, and I'm into it!

J Card Layout (Layin?) 

Not much to say about what's going on here as the stark Black and White layout makes things pretty clear. This was a fun project to pay homage to some cool bands, and nothing more. These were recorded on the same sessions as Rohnert Park. I bought a copy of that after having a CD copy for long enough, but do you really need to see a new press of an album that tons of other blogs already jumped on years ago when I should've? Probably not. This was definitely cool to write about though so cheers! 

Ruin Yr Mynd

This is a record that I've been eager to hear for the longest time. It's sometimes a little difficult to really get an idea of a record you've hyped up in your head for so long, so after a week or four of letting it sink in, here it is... 

Cloakroom - Further Out - 1st Press - Run For Cover Records - Yellow /700 (2XLP) 

It's probably a little easier to get photo heavy on this post rather than try to explain all the stuff going on here; for once it'll be a little less War And Peace right?

Cover 

This record is pretty heavy going (in the best way!) on the design front; so lets just start here. Rather than a gate-fold sleeve, both records are slipped inside a single jacket with a large porthole cut in the cover to accommodate the art from the printed inner sleeve. 

This is kind of how that works? A fairly small deal to most people at a guess, but it really needs to be held and fumbled about to be honest. At first I was a little worried how it would hold up, but the sleeve is super durable. Think about The Devil And God style design, in terms of the sleeves and jacket texture and quality (not the MOV re-press, you don't need that).

 Back Cover 

Tracklisting // Constellations // Space. 

These kids love space. 

On to the wax. 

Casey Donley handled the layout and design; but Alison Scarpulla's photography is what really sells this for me, so I'll go through the record side by side. I know the photo is the wrong way up, but all inserts should be stored opening up right? 

B- Side 

Lyrics on this side of the insert. Fairly standard stuff. Illustrations of planets, and you know. Space. Matt Talbot recorded this LP on reel to reel at Earth Analog, and there's definitely a huge Hum influence in this record. Being a big fan on Hum this came as great news, and it's definitely helped Cloakroom to get to a more focused sound. Talbot even added voice and guitar here and there. I've heard a lot of positive words over Further Out. People have already been throwing the tag 'Album of the Year' around. 

C-Side 

The design on this side of the dust cover is cool. It must be difficult to fit in a theme for so many different aspects of the design on this LP. Good job dudes. 

D-Side 

It's hard to think that this album has been recorded a year already and it's still such a fresh release. A year seems like a damn long time to be sitting on such a great bunch of songs. However, worth the wait is a total understatement and this record has been getting way too much attention from me and I'm slightly worried about overplaying this one. Speaking of playing this record, and specifically this side; there is a locked groove. I only have a few records in my collection with locked grooves, but it's always fun seeing kids get weird on the internet about it! There was a hint about it on the RFC store.

Run For Cover have been on a roll with great releases over the last few years. There are a few of the bigger US labels that have dwindled in interest for me, but RFC hold it down; often favouring cool production and presentation. I'd love to know more about these illustrations too!

This is solid yellow though, not even a little gold. 

Cheers!

If You Could Hear The Dreams I've had My Dear...

Today I'm going to chat about a cassette. I guess there are mixed feelings on these posts, but this one is kind of cool as I bought it when there was no sign of the vinyl equivalent. It also turned out quite nifty and different from the wax release, so it all turned out well. 

Nightmares For A Week - Don't Die - Housebreaker Records - 1st press - Red Shell - 47/50 

The first thing that attracted me to this release was the change up in the artwork. The original release had a similar theme, but this is a cool artist interpretation. The art definitely suits the format. This would probably look a bit weak as 12'' art, and the original art would look too squeezed in on a cassette. I also like the incorporation of the title into the design. This was the first time I heard of Housebreaker Records, and it was definitely a cool introduction to the label. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

The shells are not labelled with A/B sides, but it's all good. I believe this release was all on red.

Track-listing was supposed to alternate in colour I guess, but both 8 and 9 are printed in black. Whoops right? 

Spine View 

I honestly love this record. It's got such an honest sound, and I could honestly listen to the opening track all day long. It doesn't get too much play time in winter, but this always makes it onto my iPod for the summer months. Also, any band that take a Jawbreaker reference as a name are probably going to be fairly solid right? 

Finally 

47/50 

This is one of a few numbered items in my collection that have been done so using gold pen. All have come smudged. I get the colour co-ordination folks, but gold just isn't working for you!

https://nightmaresforaweek.bandcamp.com/album/dont-die

Although the cassette sold out a little while back, the vinyl and CD are still available here, and the record is only $2 to download. Way too few people have heard this band, and are you honestly going to miss £1.30? 

Cheers!

Euro Tour Voices

Although I have a few really cool records from the No Idea back catalogue, I am very reluctant to talk about them. Not for any other reason than I feel I really am not the authority on No Idea stuff (three guesses for who is right?). Although my knowledge on this stuff is not so thorough, I guess it has a story to tell if nothing else? 

Bridge And Tunnel - Indoor Voices - No Idea Records - Euro Tour Press - /250 

I also have the 10'' of this, but there was a huge time difference in acquiring the two, so today we'll be talking about this. Long story short, these were made for a European Tour prior to the official release of the 'Indoor Voices' 10''. 

The sleeve is different to the 10'' release, with colourless art screened onto a 12'' card sleeve. This version seems a little easier to follow with the upscaled artwork too. 

Although the pressing numbers from the Euro Press (according to the No Idea Discography Page) are simply /250, there are a couple slight differences from what I have seem with these. 

1. The card sleeves seem to differ in colour. Now I cannot remember whether there was a lighter or darker colour to the other variant, but there definitely was a split in the colour of the card. Whether the sleeves were both /125 as a split run I do not know. 
2. The centre labels across the pressing are different too. I believe that there were purple labels also on this pressing. I believe yellow and purple were the only colour of centre labels available. Again, the split of the two is unclear to me. 

All of the records were on varying degrees of Purple Mix too.

B-Side // Back Cover 

As you can (possibly) see from the photo, this is still a 10'' record. The records are cut from 12'' plates and then the deadwax is cut away. In this case there is a 2'' run-on groove before any noise hits. It's a little bit of a quirky fun thing to do (and probably saves the labour cost of cutting 2''s of dead wax from 250 records). As these were for tour too I guess there was a bit of a time limit to go by as well? Not 100% on why they were done this way, but I'm really glad they are! 

Insert. 

This seems to be the same as the insert inside the 10'' copies of this EP. Pretty much all you need (lyrics and credits) and I don't know why, but all Bridge And Tunnel releases always seem to have a little more of a DIY aesthetic to them than others. It's been a minute or two since this band showed their faces. In fact they've been very bloody quiet lately! 

Anyway, the big reason on writing about this one today was that I grabbed this on my first trek to Alan's house. This record wasn't in the Different Kitchen store, but was just sitting on the shelf in the office space that he operates out of. It's definitely a cooler way to shop than going online, you get real good coffee in real good mugs too. And real people conversation. And Royal Mail don't lose your shit that way either. I'll be seeing you soon buddy, lock up your Jets to Brazil records!

Cheers