Moz 7'' Catch Up

Just a quick post to reassure myself I'm getting my shit down and actually doing what I set out to do, which obviously was to buy more Morrissey stuff. All fairly easy to come by, and I'm only posting A-Sides today, plus the pressing info isn't really out there. Just assume it's a few right? 

Morrissey - Everyday Is Like Sunday - 1st Press - HMV Records - Black/? 

I already own the 12'' version of this record, but all of these were from the same seller; with only asking a couple of quid a pop I couldn't say no right? 

Morrissey - Our Frank - 1st Press - HMV Records - Black/?

Whilst waiting to hear back from a Discogs seller about grabbing some 12'' singles (this one included) I thought I'd grab the 7'' too. At this point, it's just a mad dash to grab what I don't own. Eventually it'll come to a nasty head where I'll be left with £40+ promo singles and £70+ LP's to buy. Until those dark days I'll enjoy this. Plus the B-Side is a total rager, as expected. 

Morrissey - Let Me Kiss You - Attack Records - 1st Press - Black /? 

There are also Clear and Orange copies of this available. When I say available, I mean promo items that were for the most part recalled and now sell for a mint on the 'Bay. This again is a cheap item, but the back cover slides an advertisement of You Are The Quarry. A particular sore point for me, as about 6 or so years ago I was offered one for around a third of it's current selling price and turned it down in favour of chasing Smiths LP's I felt I needed more. You can pick up any decent condition early press of just about any Smiths album for around a tenner, and YATQ is pretty much a myth. Such is life. 

Morrissey - Redondo Beach // There Is A Light That Never Goes Out - Attack Records - 1st Press - Black /? 

Two cuts from the Live At Earl's Court LP. Considering there are far better Mozzer concerts out there (Beethoven Was Deaf, boots, a whole host of great live DVD's) and that Live At Earl's Court will cost upwards of £65 according to recent eBay wins; I'll probably hang with this teaser for now. 

Morrissey - You Have Killed Me - Attack Records - 1st Press - Black /? 

What more is there to say? There was a US promo of this single that's also fairly easy and cheap to come by; but as no 12'' existed, this will most likely be my first and last copy here. 

There's a few more bits coming in the post from Moz, but I'll try and space these posts out where possible. 

Cheers!

TA/CL

It's funny that I'll be talking about a repress of this 7'' as I'm fairly sure I never covered the first two presses here. If anyone is that fussed about seeing what came before, let me know and I'll kick together a backdate post? 

It seems this thing has been on pre-order for an age, so it's nice to finally have it. Not that I don't know how it sounds back to front, but I have never said no to a piece of Touche Amore vinyl yet. Plus, that promise of updated art and centre labels has to be a bonus right? 

Touche Amore // The Casket Lottery Split - No Sleep Records - 3rd Press - Pink // White Starburst /500 

The updated art and labels really mean that they switched from black and white to colour. I'm more than cool with that; this record is cool on the art front but it's way more about the packaging. As a fun side note, this wasn't supposed to be this colour and was not advertised as this variant when I pre-ordered. The original plan was a black//clear split, as I guess it would go with the art. For some reason, that variant never surfaced and we were treated to this instead. I guess that thematically it's a little off, but I love the burst of bright colour in a colourless sleeve. Works for me anyway! 

Touche Amore // The Casket Lottery Split - No Sleep Records - 3rd Press - Black // White Starburst /500

This variant was definitely planned, and it looks mental. I love the random aspect of starburst and this is no exception. Both play great, but this copy is a little heavier and certainly bounces around the turntable at times. Even if it was totally unplayable, it's not like I don't have another 7 or so copies I could spin? 

The back cover opens up, almost like a flower blooming. It looks incredible and my piss poor photography will do it no justice. Art was once again handled by Nick from Touche. Since the early years of this band, their packaging on 7''s has been mad good, but this has to be my favourite past the La Dispute split. The 7'' fits neatly underneath these initial folds too.

Further into the unfolding and you start to see the text underneath. The font colour changed to differentiate between the two contributing bands. Each band offers up an original and a cover, and not one second of this split is anything short of great. The Casket Lottery offered a few releases on No Sleep in quite short succession, and if you didn't check them out you possibly should. 

Finally, the cover art fully unfurled. 

Cheers!

Cassette Symmetry

Earlier this year, an album with the coolest title ever was released by Pet Symmetry and I didn't buy it. I don't know why I slacked off so hard, but for one reason or another I just never got around to it. Over time though, I heard good things and took a blind buy from the Polyvinyl store when they grabbed a bunch of distro stuff, I liked the first 7'' they put out, and with Evan Weiss and a dude from Dowsing on board, how bad could it be? 

Pet Symmetry - Pets Hounds - Pretty Lush Records - 1st Press - Green Tint /? 

I mean, Pet Sounds // Pets Hounds. Great! Even all the song titles have awkward puns. Awkward pop songs with awkward pun titles, it's way better than it should be and I'm sad I slept on it for so long. To make things even better, this is just about everything you want in a cassette release. 

Spine View 

So we have a printed up shell on both sides, and a neat looking variant. I'm a sucker for anything like this, and more so it sounds pretty okay when you play it too with very little in the way of pops and surface noise. 

However, my favourite aspect of this release is the printed up J-Card. There's a few cool illustrations, expanded cover art and a whole bunch of words. I photographed a small section to give you some idea of font size, and as you can tell there's a bunch of words in a small space. 

I'm down with any cassette release that puts in the effort like this one did. I recently turned down two Drug Church cassettes from a seller as I already had both on vinyl. As they were from Pretty Lush I'm starting to think I should've grabbed them when I had the chance... 

Cheers!

Blue on the inside

It's probably about time to admit to myself that I have a soft spot for the band Hole. All things aside, they released a few solid albums, Courtney Love co-wrote some of the greatest Nirvana songs and if it wasn't for the fact that she murdered a hero, I might like Hole a lot more. Whilst away shopping a few days ago, I saw this cheap and couldn't pass it up. 

Hole - Pretty On The Inside - City Slang - 1st Press - Blue /3000 

This is definitely a raw sounding record, compare it to Live Through This and in parts it almost sounds a different band. The art on this record is absolutely incredible, the cover will definitely pop out at you when flipping through the racks. The font, the stark colours, and the band just look so cool it's unreal. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

The B-Side label is cool, but the art on this side doesn't appeal to me much. On a cool little side note, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth co-produced this record. 

The insert acts as the inner sleeve. Both sides are printed up with a mix of photography, illustration and lyrics/ credits/ liner notes. This looks like an old cut and paste zine too, which I definitely dig. 

Stickered sleeve indicating the variant and pressing number. 

I had a quick look on Discogs, and for some reason people are asking for £85 for this variant. This record is honestly not worth that much, and I sincerely hope it never sells for that much. Much is the same way with Live Through This, a White copy (also /3000) costs around £120+ and even standard variants are £50 or more when you find it. I can almost guarantee you that I will settle for the bootleg of that LP that surfaced sometime late last year. 

Boxing For Moz

I'm sure I've stated in this blog that this year I wanted to fill a few Morrissey shaped gaps in my collection. I'm of the belief that records like Maladjusted and You Are The Quarry just won't come easily or cheap; and I also feel that sometimes stumbling on them is the best way to grab stuff like this. Whilst shopping in Sheffield a few days ago, I spotted this and couldn't say no... 

Morrissey - Boxers - Parlophone Records - 1st Press - Black /? 

Boxers came out in '95, and among the Moz 12'' singles, this one is a little more on the expensive side. I'm not talking crazy money at all, but this didn't cost a few quid either. This copy is fairly clean, the sleeve is pretty much mint and the record plays great. Considering it's only a couple years younger than me, it's not done bad. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

I was talking to a mate about Moz singles, and after grabbing this I feel that the 12'' copies opposed to the 7''s are the way to go. The art looks a little nicer, and the extra B-Sides are always inviting. Now it's just a case of grabbing more right?

Cheers!

TA Catch up

Obviously, there's going to be a TA catch up post every now and then. Nothing too exciting, both very new and very accessible. Pressed in pretty high numbers, and delivered with love from Dog Knights Productions. 

Touche Amore - ...To The Beat Of A Dead Horse - 6131/Collect Records - 8th Press - Clear Red - /1000 (180 Gram)

I'm not sure if I posted the few represses between the early days of this blog and now. Either way, there are a few nifty (well, to me) differences between then and now. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

In the mix of this record, there are a few chunks of solid black in there as well as a smoky kind of effect. I've not really seen that in a record too often before now but it looks cool so I'm all for it. 

You can see some of the smaller solid black chunks in here when it's in the light. 

The mix in this is pretty mental; it looks fairly well distributed on a flat surface, but up to the light you can see the swirls and the clear poking through it all. Either way I'm a big fan. 

Stickered Sleeve

This is something that disappeared after the second press and has been absent up until now. Maybe to mark the 180 gram transition? Either way, this now means that all 3 full lengths have had the 180 repress; but I hope a deluxe book version of this LP one day surfaces. Also, whilst this was stickered, it was stickered to shrink and there's no way of peeling it off without destroying it, so I cut around it and it's tucked away in the sleeve. I know I have a problem, let's move past it. 

Both labels on the back sleeve have had a makeover. The Collect one more so as it's a totally new logo, but I believe the 6131 looks a little different too. I could be wrong... 

Thankfully, inside the gatefold has remained pretty much the same from what I can tell. I've not compared thank you's or whatever, but I'm sure it's all pretty much as it always was? 

The one thing I forgot to mention earlier was the inclusion of the 6131 logo on both centre labels now. That's completely new to this pressing if memory serves. Also, I seem to believe that nowadays all 6131 releases have a house style centre label; but it's not the case for this record (and maybe some other earlier releases) just yet. 

Whilst we're here right? 

Touche Amore // Title Fight - Crescent-Shaped Depression // FaceGhost - Secret Voice - 3rd Press - Opaque Purple - /? 

Back Cover // B-Side 

I'm not sure if I ever posted about this record before; but I have some cool variants with this one. Basically, there are 3 pressings: one through Sssealegs and two out of Secret Voice (Jeremy Bolm's label). Sadly for the two Secret Voice presses, I can't find any pressing info. 

As a cool collaborative effort, John Slaby did some painting for this record (John Slaby has done all the Title Fight art so far) and Nick from Touche Amore handled the design and direction. Instead of an insert, there's a postcard that's come with all pressings of this so far. 

Credits and a neat little mixup of the TA/TF logos.

Finally, a little group shot. I love this band, and I just got a shipping notification of the TA/CL split so expect a new post on this band pretty soon!

Chicago Splits

So a couple weeks ago I posted about the American Football Early Bird reissue, and was really into the package that Polyvinyl put together. Turns out they're keeping the momentum going in keeping up the quality. A new split recently surfaced from the label and putting it simply, it's brilliant on all levels:

Owen // Into It. Over It. - Split - Polyvinyl Records - 1st Press - Clear/?

I was super tempted to grab the early bird version of this, but I'm happy with the clear. Everything just fits together really well here, even down to the black dust jackets. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

Close up of the back cover. 

This 7'' came with a gold foil stamped jacket, and to squeeze all this detail in couldn't been too easy right? Even the small Polyvinyl logo is on point. Under the gold foil, the sleeve art lays; it's a little hard to see as there's a lot going on but to me it looks great all the same. 

The insert is not a 7'' X 7'' deal, but a small rectangular affair. It carries on the theme started off in the artwork, and it just all works together. 

Long story short; two new songs and two covers. IIOI's cover of Poor Souls is pretty incredible, and incidentally is my favourite Owen song too. Both new offerings are great. Evan (Fucking) Weiss and Mike (Fucking) Kinsella are pretty well rooted in Chicago. From Into It. Over It. // The Progress // Stay Ahead Of The Weather to American Football // Schmap n Schmazz // Owls and Owen, and even a crossover in Their / They're / There means that this split was essentially meant to happen; like it had to come up at some point right? I'm super happy it finally happened. 

And finally, we get a stickered sleeve too! 

Back to Reality

I haven't posted for nearly a week I think. I know that I don't post daily or anything, but even for me that's a little on the slacking side of life. If it helps though, this one is cool. 

I know that most posts here cover a few genres, but I think today is the first time I'm delving into classic metal. And by classic I mean 1971, and by Metal I obviously mean Sabbath. 

There's a little bit of a back story here. Rewind to Wednesday of last week, and I was in Birmingham to watch Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World fame play a solo show at the Glee Club. To kill some time me and my mate ventured into The Bull Ring to do a little shopping before getting in line. I disappeared into the vinyl section of HMV with little expectation, but flipping through the Sabbath section, among the new represses I saw this sticker: 

Assuming it was a mistake, I went up to a guy who worked there and asked if he knew anything; he came out with the super shady 'errr yeah, we errr found a box' and walked off. I bolted to the counter, paid and smiled all the way to the gig. Y'see, I was at a store on HMV's Vinyl Day, but for some reason the Sabbath re-releases were snatched up. Sadly, Birmingham only had this to offer; but as this was the top priority for me of the 3, I have no complaints. 

If you haven't guessed by now: 

Black Sabbath - Master Of Reality - Sanctuary Records - ? Press - Purple /500 (HMV Love Vinyl Exclusive)

Only thing is, this record is not photographing well at all. This looks blue; neither the record or the cover is blue. They are both purple, they match well too. I don't get it. Either I'm super colour blind or this record just wants to remain a myth! Despite being a Sanctuary repress, the sleeve still has a Vertigo label top left, and the centre label is the trademark Vertigo swirl. Looks mad when it's spinning!

The cover is embossed and looks great. I'm kind of assuming this is a nod to the box style cover of the first press. However, on the box the album title remains black and this is all in purple (you can see it a little better here). 

Back Cover // B-Side 

Close up of the centre label with the 2015 Sanctuary trademarks and track-listing. 

As opposed to an insert, all of the lyrics and credits are here. This also follows the box set layout of the first press. Even the credits to the poster are left on here! Funny, as obviously there is no poster with this press. An original poster from the 1st press is probably worth more than what this variant is fetching on eBay right now too... 

Finally, one more effort to show you that this record and the sleeve is purple. As you can see, the colour changes in the light. More than anything, this looked pretty neat. 

Arguably the best record to come out of Birmingham, found in HMV in Birmingham, and no eBay involved. And although it's completely unrelated; Jim Adkins was great that night. I managed to meet him and mumble a few words about how Clarity changed my life. Cool day.

As chuffed as I am with this; nothing is as impressive as Doug's quest from a couple years ago. Read this and get jealous... 

 http://doug-wewillburyyou.blogspot.co.uk/2013_11_01_archive.html

Cheers!