Dino Post

On the never ending search for Dinosaur Jr. records, I've come to the point where I am quite happy to have just one of everything; however if something is there for cheap I just can't help myself. Considering at this point I don't even own every DinoJr. LP on vinyl yet, it seems odd to be buying doubles of singles I already own. But the heart wants what the heart wants right? 

Dinosaur Jr. - Little Fury Things - SST Records - 1st Press - Black/? 

Quite possibly my favourite Dinosaur Jr. single and although I already had the repress 7'' from the 'Visitors' Box Set, I had to have this when I saw it show up on eBay for cheap. Oddly enough this was pressed at 33rpm as opposed to 45, but look at all that dead wax! 

Back Cover // B-Side 

The centre label on the A-Side is also this colour, but the light may have caught it a bit strange is my only explanation. This record is about as mint as you're going to find a copy, and still had the shrink on the sleeve. 

If anyone has a Little Fury Things colour copy or shirt, let me know! 

Dinosaur Jr. - The Wagon - Glitterhouse Records - 1st Press - Black/? 

Again, I already own a White Sub Pop press of this, but at 99p I couldn't turn it down. The seller was cool and adjusted the shipping for both of these to come together too. This was the German release of this single and contains the same tracks, but the Sub Pop labels still state just Dinosaur as opposed to Dinosaur Jr. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

I have no clue about the sticker on the sleeve, but I know there isn't one on the Sub Pop press. Maybe an import or promo thing? 

Both together. 

One thing I will say is that both of these records are older than I am. At least by a couple of years. However, the sound quality is great, not a crack or hiss on any of the four sides. I have records that are only months old that sound pretty mediocre in comparison to these; and again my hearing (or setup) isn't exactly the best in the world either. The older I get, the more of an appreciation I develop for this band, and I can't wait to spend more time delving into what they have to offer. 

Cheers!

Long Live Happy Birthday

Topshelf Records have been on a pretty good run this year. With a new record from The Saddest Landscape lurking just around the corner, I felt the need to pull out a recent gem from the Topshelf catalogue to talk about. 

The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - Death To New Years - Topshelf Records - 1st Press - Black /200 

The cover art is supposedly a friends of the band's Dad, but don't quote me on that. This band seem to talk a lot, but to me this is some of the best and most accessibly material. It has a feel that reminds me of some of their older material, and definitely gets me that feeling that I got when I first heard the Deer Leap split. 

All TWIABP releases (including splits) have the same centre label, and I hope this is a theme that continues on. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

Track-listing and a snap shot of the cover art. 

Insert 

I really have no clue what relevance this holds to anything on this record. However, my guess is that it's some kind of inside joke or simply means nothing at all. 

Lyrics, credits and personnel. 

Apparently Greg has left the band, which is a little strange as he's been in this band for as long as I can remember being a fan. However, with a constantly rotating lineup and such a huge membership anyway; I'm sure somebody cool will be along to take the spot. 

Weirdly, this record hasn't sold out. I always thought this band were well hyped, but you can score this copy from the UK Topshelf Store now if you so wish... 

Olive Green La Lune

Screamo is an important genre for me. I remember when I first got heavy into record collecting - and I'm talking in the sense of variants/ nice DIY packaging/ following a label's output kind of stuff - bands like The Saddest Landscape, Orchid, Beau Navire and a few others really excited me. The Saddest Landscape// Pianos Become the Teeth 9'' was such a cool and alien concept for me. Old 90's Witching Hour or Ebullition comps taught me the value of a good DIY release etc. 

One of the bands I remember from that time fondly is Suis La Lune, and when I got Riala I became obsessed for a while. Then they disappeared. Long story short, this band remind me of a nice turning point and they came back with a new release and it's cool as you like so I'm going to talk about it. 

Suis La Lune - Distance / Closure - Topshelf Records - 1st Press - Olive Green /150

At first, I was a little weirded out by a 4 track EP and kind of longed for a full length. But these 4 songs clock in at around 30 minutes and are so packed that you'd never think of this as an EP. Quite possibly the darkest and most desperate this band have sounded, and was definitely worth the wait. 

I can't speak for the other variants, but this record looks great. It's a really smooth looking piece of wax, and the green works well alongside the art. I grabbed this from pre-order as soon as I saw it come up, and I'm really glad I did. I don't pre-order in the hopes of scoring a particular variant too much these days but I couldn't resist this one. And a UK store from Topshelf that actually allows an option of all available variants is definitely a fine example of a label doing it right. Well done dudes! 

Back Cover // B-Sides 

The Distance and Closure centre labels are a pretty neat thing. The content here is super dark and that comes through in the themes the title suggest. Within is an absolutely blistering closer, clocking somewhere close to 12 minutes. 

The front and back cover comes with a nice silver foil stamped sleeve. Kind of difficult to photograph but it looks truly beautiful. 

Thanks and dedications. The other side of the insert is blank and no lyrics are provided. 

Thank you for reading!

Big Scary Horses

Pale Horses by Mewithoutyou is without doubt one of my favourite releases of 2015. Not only because the music is great (which it really is), but as a package this record is pretty special. It's strange to think that there is a deluxe version out there that looks cooler than this...

Mewithoutyou - Pale Horses - Run For Cover // Big Scary Monsters - 1st Press - Clear w/ Purple and Blue Splatter /300 (Banquet Records Exclusive) 

In order to get all of this in, it's easier to photograph it all almost section by section. BSM did a three colour press of numbers totalling 1000, broken down as 200/300/500. Run For Cover pressed a total of 6000 units over 4 variants. MwY also released a double LP deluxe edition with two variants /? I kind of forget how big this band is; and really is shouldn't surprise me because they're great. 

All of the Pale Horses art (all of Mewithoutyou's album art in fact) comes from Vasily Kafanov. I first became familiar with his work when he did the album art for Machina: The Machines Of God by Smashing Pumpkins. Much the same as that LP; there is the main cover art and then a set of illustrations that follow the record, providing visual accompaniment to each track. A similar concept appeared on MwY's previous LP, Ten Stories. 

Back Cover 

Kind of minimalist in comparison, but the working titles scratched out and replaced by the printed titles is a pretty neat thing to do. Also here you get to see that a bonus track (Chapelcross Towns) was added for the UK press. This appears on the deluxe but isn't present on the RFC version. That also means that there is a minimum of three tests made for this record, without thinking about rejected tests and such... I think for once I'm more than happy to settle on one variant! 

Stickered Sleeve 

This record arrived in shrink with a sticker affixed to the shrink. I managed to get the sticker free and stick it on a poly sleeve, and if I hadn't done that I may not have noticed that the sleeve for this record is a little taller than your average dimensions. Also, aside from the height issue; the sleeve is super thick. Probably the thickest sleeve I have seen; such a high quality production all around. 

Next up are a few photos from the inlay booklet. This may have also been used in the CD press, or it may have been made up in place of an insert to accommodate the extra art from Kafanov. It's incredible to think that this was all created with ink and paper; the art here is truly magical and captivating. There's subtle detail in each illustration and it's all perfect! 

More of the art. There is some rumour that this was created in 1978, and some sources state it was as recent as 2015. I'm thinking that it's pretty new, but I've been wrong before!

This is how it's all laid out: illustration, title and lyrics. 

List of thanks, including companies used by// endorsed by the band. Also, tour buds are given a thanks here which is cool right? 

The record is housed in a printed inner sleeve too. Kafanov art all over, with one side cut to see the centre label and one side solid. 

The bit about this side that really gets me is the working titles in the top left. Xmas Cards For The Mentally Ill would've been a winner for me, purely for The Smiths reference. 

I'm a total sucker for this record, and this variant looks beautiful next to the art. The packaging is incredibly well thought out, and it's another victory for a cool UK label, what's not to love? 

Cheers!

Give Pickups

Three gigs in a week. That's a pretty rare occurrence for me, so it's nice to make a run of posts to mark the occasion. Also, as posting about merch seems to be just as popular as any record is, I'll do it again if that's cool? 

12/08/2015 - Give - JT Soar - Nottingham 

My first time seeing Give and my first time at JT Soar, and both were absolutely incredible. The venue is a great little DIY Space not too far out of the city centre. Everyone was cool, easy to find parking, £5 on the door and you're sorted. I traveled alone, but starting up conversation was easy enough and hopefully next time there'll be a familiar face or two? 

Give brought the fun. That's all; it was an incredibly fun show to attend and when they're next close by I'll happily make the journey again. 

Anyway, on to the merch. There wasn't much on the record front. The dude who runs Adagio was doing merch so brought along a decent distro section from which I nearly bought the Moss Icon discography. The only Give album I saw on sale was the new EP through Rev (Sonic Bloom). 

First up I grabbed this Chiller Than Most fanzine. This is a Flowerhead special issue and is an entire zine dedicated to all things Give, Angela Owens is interviewed in here, and she's done some great photography for a lot of great bands so I reckon it'll be a fun little read! 

There's still plenty of room for Wayne's World and TMNT references though. If anyone has a thing for zines, this can be grabbed through the Chiller Than Most bigcartel along with some other cool Give stuff. 

Next up is the shirt I grabbed. This is the pocket print on the front. I love that Give seem to make up shirts exclusively for tour, and this one has dates on the back that I'll get to in a minute. This came in a few colours so I settled on Grey. 

Back Print

I love how it throws around the Sunflower Youth and Flowerheads tag as opposed to slapping the band name all over it. I was talking to a mate about this band, and he's catching them at Leper Fest along with Touche and Ceremony funnily enough! 

And finally, as I have picked up a pin at the other two gigs I've been to this week, it would've been weird not to grab one here as they had them for sale. I've been lurking at these for a little while now on the Give bigcartel so I couldn't resist it when it was right in front of me. 

There we go! I think the next gigs I'm going to are Brand New and Jim Adkins next month, so we'll see what happens? Between then and now, expect pretty much business as usual here. 

Cheers!

Black Mass

Sometime around a month ago, I posted about grabbing the Orange and Black /100 variant of Midnight Mass by Our Time Down Here - here's the post: http://23rotations.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/orange-and-black-mass.html

At the end of that post, I mentioned that I was after some merch, a zine that came with the CD Pre-order, acassette and a test press of this LP. Now it happens every so often that people will pay attention to these little pleas at the end of a post; and Leigh over at Palm Reader Records came through for me pretty big this time around. 

Our Time Down Here - Midnight Mass - Palm Reader Records - Test Press - Black - 6/6 

A few quick Facebook messages, a Paypal payment and this was on it's way. I honestly couldn't believe my luck. I tried my hand at getting one a couple years back, so it's great to finally own it. As far as Midnight Mass goes, that's the records taken care of. Just a tape and a zine to go and I think I'll have most if not all of their physical output which is pretty cool. 

The record came in a clear plastic dust sleeve, no fancy covers made up or anything like that. I got it as Leigh got it from the plant I guess? Handwritten labels with a small 'Side A' printed on this side. 

B-Side is completely blank. 

There we go. Not an awful amount to look at, but a record I feel very lucky to own and it kind of makes everything feel like it's coming together!

Ceremony//Touche pickups

From the beginning of this blog, I never wanted to stick solely to records. The main content would be records of course, but with paying some kind of attention to the design aspect of stuff; if I stumble over a cool zine, some nice merch etc. then I can always throw that in here too right? 

Over the course of this week, I am attempting to make it to 3 gigs, all of which are a decent drive away and two of which I'll be doing alone. So far I've hit 2 out of 3, and hopefully I'll be hitting up Give tomorrow. But on Sunday I saw Ceremony at the Bodega in Nottingham and here's what I managed to grab: 

09/08/2015

I think the newest Ceremony record is quite possibly their best work, and the artwork is perfect so I had to grab this shirt. 

After the gig I managed to grab a setlist too, and it's cool to see the mix of pre and post Zoo material. As much as I loved hearing the new songs live, screaming 'I Got Problems, I'm a Fucked Up Kid' is unlikely to be topped in a Ceremony Set. 

Having a quick chat with Ross from Ceremony after the gig, as I was about to leave he grabbed this from the merch table and shoved it in my hand. Super nice guy and great to talk to. I hadn't seen these anywhere before so I'm assuming they were made up for tour. 

I had bought the LP previously, but they had these tour exclusive hand drawn covers for sale. I wasn't really planning to spend £20 on an LP I already owned but the band bought blanks with them too to draw these up for anyone that bought the album which was a cool idea. I was worried about it getting creased to death in my bag, but it held up pretty well and now it's sitting with the record. 

Finally, I grabbed The L-Shaped Man on cassette. I saw a photo of these go up on Instagram and read somewhere that they were only for the record release show; so when a few floated overseas I jumped at the chance to grab one. I have no idea on pressing numbers for this one though... 

B-Side 

Fully printed J-Card, and the art contains a couple extra 'One Line Drawing' illustrations. Definitely a big fan of this artwork and the fact that hundreds of unique spins of this one album cover are floating around out there makes for something really special in my eyes. 

If you want to know how the gig was; it was great! There were a couple of dickheads spilling redstripe and trying to mosh to the slowest of songs but it can't be helped right? 

10/08/2015

Touche Amore - Nottingham Rescue Rooms 

Every time TA come to the UK, I manage to get to at least one gig and I never walk away without grabbing something so here we go: 

This shirt looked to be the most up to date design so I grabbed it. Their merch was a little sparse on this tour, and passing through Europe they managed to sell out of the To The Beat re-presses too! I still need to grab that and the purple repress of the TA/TF split to keep everything up to date. 

Finally I grabbed a pin badge of the To The Beat art, and had a nice chat with Jeremy Bolm afterwards. The venue was a little odd with a very tall stage and a barrier. Every other time I've seen them, they would jump straight off stage and on to the floor after every show to have a quick chat with fans, but it just wasn't that easy this time around. On the upside they were incredible as always, and next time they hit the UK I'll definitely be there. 

Cheers!

Early Bird?

So I was going to post more about what I got from Different Kitchen, but something arrived today that I have been after for around a year, so I had to break routine and post about it. 

I'm assuming that a few readers here will feel my pain. Do any of you have a mate who loves music, but doesn't really dig vinyl and so buys the occasional few and leaves it there? I do, and on this occasion he beat me to it by pre-ordering and snagging a far nicer variant. Before I knew anything about this thing, the record was out and this had colour sold out. So I went for the spoiled brat tact of not buying the record at all and snooping out this variant, and a solid year or so later here we have it. 

American Football - American Football - Polyvinyl Records - First Press - Green & Yellow /2000 (Early Bird Edition) 

Anyone who knows much about what I listen to is aware that I love this record, making it most likely my favourite emo record of all time. It's a testament to how much I wanted this variant that I waited out. I didn't even stream it, I've completely held out. And it's not a rarity thing either; I was offered by a mate a chance at the /300 Blue tour variant for cost as he was going to see them earlier this year and I refused. I didn't want this because for any other reason that it suits the artwork perfectly and the heart wants what the heart wants... 

Looking at these records a little closer, you'll see that the Green LP is marbled and the Yellow is solid. The centre labels contain their respective track-listing and 'side' letter with a Polyvinyl logo at the bottom. I seem to think the colour scheme has changed on the labels from previous pressings too, but I could be wrong.

This album has got some great packaging, and I'll do my best to get that point across. Although there's a gatefold sleeve, the records come in printed inner sleeves that look almost like Polaroids. 

Other side of the inner sleeves. 

Inside the gatefold. 

All of this art is expanded and does not appear in any previous pressings. It's kind of funny to think that these photos were taken not so long ago to accompany art and music that was celebrating it's 15th birthday at release. I'm assuming that these photos haven't been stashed away all these years pending a re-issue anyway! It's nice that it still fits together so well, and it reminds me of first discovering this record and walking around in autumn time to it. I got honestly obsessed with this record; for months on end I would listen to it 3 or 4 times a day, sometimes back to back. Honestly a masterpiece of an album. 

As well as the expanded artwork, there is a booklet included with this re-issue. 

For the most part, the booklet takes all the songs on the LP, providing lyrics and annotations from the band themselves. The same is done with the bonus material, although there is more of a focus on annotation rather than lyrics. I like the idea of a band looking at their work retrospectively after such a long time, especially when you consider the projects that came after American Football, and the influence this LP had in the years since the band parted. This record is presumably more popular now than it ever has been, so it's nice that something like this could happen. 

There's also some great photography from gigs and during the recording of the the album. It's strange to think that for the most part, there was very little bass in most of these recordings. It's cool to find out so many intricacies of a record that you spent a large part of your teenage years (and I say that like I'm super old!) analysing. 

There's a great charm to most of this bonus material. I came into it not knowing what to expect, but how some of this was never properly recorded is beyond me. This band had so much more to give; but in spite of all that I kind of love that this is what's left and you kind of have to listen through it and get the song in your head as it should sound. It's definitely a cool experience. 

Back Cover // Track-listing 

Finally, the Early Bird sticker on the sleeve. 

'Limited to 2000' right? The design is cool though. 

Thank you for reading!

Oh, and back to the dude who had this in the first place. This is not his copy, and despite him not caring about records // variants etc. he would not sell me this bloody record. Not for any other reason than he knew I wanted it. Funny bastard I tell you.