Real Life Record Shopping

Whenever I get the chance to hit up the local record store, I go in there with a feeling of excitement and hopefulness. I always enjoy just flipping through the records, but more often than not I leave empty handed and disappointed. When I last went there a couple of weeks ago, I was pleasantly surprised to see that in the new arrivals section there were a bunch of very interesting records: Strife first and second LP, Texas Is The Reason, Farside and a bunch of others from that time - all original presses. The one that caught my eye was Reality Filter by Eleven Thirty-Four because that artwork always looked cool to me, albeit very of the time, and you can’t really go wrong with records on New Age released in the early to mid 90s. Reality Filter is a really good record and I’ve really enjoyed listening to it over the last few weeks. I also wish that bands did more cool poster inserts again. There was never a pressing on color for this release, so I’m just fine with black vinyl. 

Now I’m just left wondering who might have sold their collection, or a least part of it. 

1st Press on Black on New Age /???

Bonds Of Trade-Ship

Trading seems to be a lost art these days. I was never that big of a trader because I rarely had money to buy spare records just to trade and I often had a hard time letting go of  the ones I’d bought for myself. Still, I managed to make a couple of cool trades over the years and got to meet, virtually and in real life, some great people. 

When I ordered the represses of Bane’s Boston, 6.58pm, I asked a couple of friends if they wanted copies too, so we could order together and save on shipping. One of them who was onboard happened to be selling a bunch of records right around the time when the records arrived and instead of him sending me the money, we managed to work out a record for record deal. I’ve long given up on collecting every variant of Have Heart 7”s, but whenever I can get my hands on a special version, e.g. some different cover art, I’ll gladly jump at the opportunity. 

This Insted rip-off sleeve of the What Counts 7” had been on my want list for 10+ years but somehow it always slipped through my fingers whenever one popped up. But finally I managed to close that gap in my collection. I never knew that this variant comes with a regular cover and the rip-off is just an additional sleeve. I really like the rip-off itself, but “bro-ship” is pretty cringe, if it’s not some sort of irony. I mean they once had a shirt that said “Have Heart masturbates after the first date”, so they’re not beneath making fun of themselves. 

3rd Press on Black w/ Bonds of Bro-Ship Cover on Think Fast /150

Turning Point II

The last record I received from Marcus is the repress of the Turning Point 7” on green. Alright, there was also as Taylor Swift record in there, which had sold out too quickly on mainland Europe so I ordered a copy in the UK, but that was for my wife, so it doesn’t really count in regards to my blog. I was actually very surprised when I opened the parcel and saw this record. Marcus and I had talked about this record at one point, but I’d all forgotten about it, so this was a very nice surprise for me. When I picked up a copy of this repress originally, I said that I’d much rather have a copy on green than on orange, so this gives me some closure. I still prefer this color over orange as it has a more classic 80s record look in my opinion.

Thanks again, Marcus, for letting me ship those records to your place and you dragging them to that show so my friend could pick them up. 

Repress on Clear Green on Revelation /517

DIY Spirits Or Die Faster

There was a time about 10 years ago when Spirits was a very important band to me. They played a style of hardcore that I love but which wasn't all that popular in the after 2010 or so. So hearing them was a breath of fresh air for me. Collecting them turned out to be a collector's dream/nightmare, because the band put out a ton of releases in a very short period of time and all of them came out on what felt like a million versions. I managed to build a solid collection, but there are still certain records that I missed out on and haven't been able to track down so far. One of them is the record release version of the Spirit/Die Faster split, to be precise the Die Faster version of the record release, because each band had a different one of course. This was actually the record that kicked off me ordering a bunch of records in the UK and having them shippped to Marcus. 

After getting the record, I was disappointed though because the seller had listed the record incorrectly and this one turned out to be the regular version on red vinyl with the red cover. The record was not that expensive, so I’m not too mad, but it’s still annoying that people list records incorrectly. I’m even more annoyed with myself though for not asking the seller for more info or a picture of the numbering beforehand to make sure. 

1st Press on Red w/ Red Cover on Coin Toss /300

There are four versions of the stamped cover: purple, dark blue, orange and red. Each cover was stamped by hand with a wooden stamp on 7” format. I’m not 100% sure if the stamp was actually carved by hand, but knowing the band member, I’m pretty sure it was. I was lucky enough to be given one of the stamps by the band member who’d made them. Come to think of it, maybe it is the only stamp and this one was used for all of the colors, because there is also some dark color on the edges. Be that as it may, it’s a pretty cool artefact of the band to have and I felt like sharing this along with the record. 

Secret World

The last record I got from the UK distro I purchased the previous three records from is Guilt Is Good by Secret World, a band from Sydney, Australia. I’d never heard of them before but when I was browsing the distro’s webstore, the cover somehow caught my attention. I can’t say why, but it did for some reason. And I didn’t get disappointed. The songs on this 7” are really catchy and I’ve been listening to the record over and over. I’d say, if you like Militarie Gun or Fiddlehead or even Title Fight, this might be for you. As it happens the band just released a full length yesterday, lucky me. 

1st Press on Clear on Sunday Drive / Last Ride /150

Splitting Vinyl

7” records are a dying breed in 2025 and split 7”s are a marginalised group within 7”s. So when a band I like decides to put out a split 7” this day and age, I’m in. I played the Anklebiter demo a lot when it came out. I missed out on the LP they released in 2023 and by the time I learned about it, it had been sold out everywhere. When I was browsing the inventory of the UK distro I’d found the records I wrote about in the two previous post, I came across a split between Anklebiter and Prevention. As mentioned before, I was really into the band’s demo, so ordering the split was a no brainer. I’d never heard of Prevention before, but the fact that there were new Anklebiter songs was enough for me to add a copy to the shopping basket. The Anklebiter side is very good and it left me wanting for more (so I will have to pick up a copy of the LP soon I guess). The Prevention side is fine, but doesn’t grab me the way the Anklebiter side does. All in all, a fun listen 

1st Press on Clear Blue on Sunday Drive /150

Ascending

Another record I’d been really looking forward to was the latest Stand Still release, Steps Ascending. Actually, this came out already in 2024 but I didn’t get around to ordering a copy until I ordered the Anxious LP from a mailorder in the UK and as I detailed in the last post, it took a while until I got those records. 

Stand Still managed to write a really good and diverse record. It’s melodic, it’s heavy, it’s very entertaining. I also like the vinyl color in itself, even though a different color scheme would have made more sense with the cover. But I’m not mad at this combination. 

1st Press on Pink w/ White Splatter on Daze /150

Anxious

2025 seems to be a slow year as far as new releases are concerned, or a least new releases by bands I like. One of the few records I was actually looking forward to was the new Anxious LP. The previous one, Little Green House, was so good. Definitely one of my favorite records of the 2020s. So when I read that Anxious was going to release a new LP, I was very happy. Ordering a copy from the US was a no-go thought and the versions available through the European store weren’t that nice to look at. However, the version exclusively available through Devil Dog mailorder out of the UK looked very good. I shot a message to Marcus to ask him if I could have delivered this record (and a couple of others) to his place and then have one big parcel sent to me eventually. Gentleman that he is, he’d offered that service before, but I just wanted to make sure. Once that was sorted out, I could go on and order the record(s). 

I was in no hurry to get the record(s), even though it meant I wouldn’t be able to listen to the record for a while because certain records I want to listen to on vinyl for the first time. I’m old-fashioned that way. Anyway, an opportunity of saving on shipping arose when a very good friend of mine told me he was going to do merch for Bane again and one of the shows was going to be close to where Marcus lives. I checked with Marcus to see if he was going to be at that show and sure enough he was planning on going. So my friend took some records I had for Marcus and Marcus gave him the records he had for me, which my friend in turn gave me a couple of days later when I caught Bane on the same tour. Good old punk mail still works in 2025. 

So about three weeks ago I could finally listen to Bambi. As much as I liked the predecessor, this album hasn’t grabbed me at all as of now. It sounds too polished. Maybe it’ll grow on me, who knows. I actually hope it’ll grow on me because I really liked all the Anxious material so far. But for now this is a let down for me. I don’t know what to make of the art work either to be honest. The best thing about the record is the vinyl color. That looks amazing. 

1st Press on Clear w/ Glitter on Run For Cover /300 (Devil Dog Exclusive)

Close up of the record. Just beautiful. 

Got Bane?

My timing for deciding to pick up the Toyko CD couldn‘t have been worse, because a day or two later Bane and Equal Vision announced that there was going to be a repress of the city series 7“s compiling all songs on one 12“ record. At least there were only five variants announced, which by today‘s standards is almost moderate. I managed to get my hands on four of them pretty easily, so I decided to combine them into one post, considering I post about Bane records enough already. The two variants in the top row were available directly through Equal Vision and because I bend all of my self-imposed collecting rules for Bane, I ordered directly from the States. The variant on the bottom right is the Rev exclusive version and I was able to get that through a mailorder in Germany directly, probably because Rev does wholesale to Europe are well. The variant on the bottom left was the tour press and I knew there was a limited quantity available during Bane‘s summer tour. I was going to see them at a couple of shows, but only later during the tour, but luckily The Genie came to the rescue once again and sorted me out. Sidenote: the shows were all fun as hell and I got to hang out with old and new friends. At the Berlin show they even played Every Effort Made, which happens to be one of my absolute favourites but is a song that rarely gets played, so I was really stoked on that. 

So now I only need the so-called retail version on white vinyl limited to 500 copies, though I don‘t know what the difference between ‘retail‘ and ‘wholesale‘ would be. Bane always manages to come up with variants that no one seems to know about. I haven‘t seen any copies on white vinyl of the Boston, 6:58pm 12“ anywhere and no one in the band seems to know about this variant either. It‘ll show up at some point, I‘m sure, but until then, I‘m left with these four versions. Which is a shame, because regular white is definitely the best looking version. Oh yeah, and of course I wouldn‘t say no to a test press, but getting one of these is very unlikely, so I‘m not holding my breath.  

White w/ Red, Sky Blue, Yellow and Lime Green Splatter /250
Dark Edge Glow Pink, Red, Black Swirl w/ Pale Blue Splatter / 250
Canary Yellow w/ Black Splatter /500
Teal w/ ORangeSplit w/ Red Splatter /250 (60 sold during the European Tour 2025)
All on Equal Vision 

Your Choiche

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I got to spend a weekend in Berlin without the kiddo. The reason we travelled there was a festival. I really enjoyed the bands I already knew and I got to know a bunch of new bands that had been blanks to me before. One of the perks of the festival was a second hand band shirt and record market. There were a bunch of records that I usually would have bought, but since I’d spent quite a bit on test presses that month, I had to make some hard cuts. 

The one record I did end up buying was the second Uniform Choice LP, Staring Into The Sun, which I got for a really, really good price. The first Uniform Choice LP, Screaming For Change, is one of the all-time great (straight edge) hardcore records. I love that record. Over the years, I‘d hear people talk about the second Uniform Choice LP a bunch and usually it wasn‘t in a positive way. I never really checked it out, just because I didn‘t have a copy and didn‘t feel the urge to actively pursue buying a copy. But when this copy more or less fell into my lap, I thought that now would be a good time to finally give it a chance. After listening to the album a bunch of times, I will say that Staring Into The Sun is nowhere near Screaming For Change, but it‘s not nearly as bad as people always made it sound either. Will I end up listening to Staring Into The Sun as much as I listen to to Screaming For Change? Most definitely not, but I can thoroughly enjoy the songs on here and I‘m glad I picked up a copy. 

1st Press on Black on Giant

All Tests Go!

My friend who sold me the Bane test press I posted about recently also had another interesting test up for sale. And of course there‘s also relation to Bane. All System Go! was a compilation of cover songs released in 1999, which couldn‘t be more of an anachronism in 2025. Then again, this exact facts makes this record such an interesting time capsule. I‘ve owned a regular copy on black forever and I‘ve been thinking about picking up at least one copy on colored vinyl at one point, so I wasn‘t going to pass up the opportunity to acquire a test for this. 

The main reason why I wanted to get this record in the first place was that Bane has a song on this record as well. They cover Chain of Strength‘s Just How Much, so of course I want to get as many copies of this record as possible. 

When I got the record, I was surprised to see it says “All System Go! 2nd Test Press“ written on the label. The only other person I knew who also owns a test is Marcus. So I went to his blog to compare the two tests and lo and behold, his copy doesn‘t have the writing on the label. I messaged him about my observation, but since he was on holiday at the time he couldn‘t access his records. When he was home again, we compared the matrix numbers to see what was going on here.

Between his test, my test and the regular copies we own, there are three different matrix numbers: 

UER 05-A on Marcus‘ test

UER 05-A RE1 on my regular black copy 

UER 05A/OH-01 on my test press

We concluded that there must be at least two pressings of this record. Marcus‘ copy might be a rejected test press, but we won‘t know for sure unless we listened to all of our copies together, which would be a lot of fun for sure, but might be impossible because of logistics. 

2nd Test Press on Underestimated / Open Handed 

No Need To Hurry Up

A couple of weeks ago a good friend of mine offered up some rare records and I managed to get another piece of  the Bane puzzle. This was shortly before the band announced a 12“ repress of all of the songs released across the various city 7“s. So the quest continues.

This is the last record I needed to complete this particular micro collection. #2 out of 20 is also a cool number. I like it when bands or labels simply write on the blank label of the test press what it is. Putting a sticker with the numbering on the sleeve is a little odd though. 

Getting the test warranted breaking out the collection and getting a nice family picture. 

Bane - 11:58 PM Dublin - Test Press #2/20

Bane - 11:58 PM Dublin – orange/white specs (1st press /200)

Bane - 11:58 PM Dublin – orange (1st press /300)

Bane - 11:58 PM Dublin - black (1st press /380)

Bane - 11:58 PM Dublin – black/green (2nd press /250)

Bane - 11:58 PM Dublin – red (2nd press /250)

Bane - 11:58 PM Dublin European Tour Version - black (/120)

Bane - 11:58 PM Dublin European Tour Version - green (/480)

Bane - 11:58 PM Dublin - I‘m with Stu - red (#17/52)

Bane - 11:58 PM Dublin - I‘m with Stu - black/green (#21/57)

Purple Bane

I’m slowly but steadily chipping away at the flood of represses of Bane releases. This translucent purple looks pretty cool at least. 

I’m aware that my posts this year lack diversity as I mostly post about Bane, The Beatles and Bad Brains. But that‘s where my musical heart is currently and to be honest, 2025 has kind of been a slow year for me when it comes to current hardcore music. So far I couldn‘t come up with a top 10 of 2025 releases. But we still got a couple of months to go, so maybe that‘ll change in the second half of the year. 

For now I‘m content with filling gaps. 

Reigning Supremes

The other record I picked up at the record store the other day was a best of by Diana Ross & The Supremes. I need to get more into soul music. I’ve always loved it when songs from that genre were used in 80s and 90s movies, but I never listened to soul music much at home. Time to change that.

Diana Ross & The Supremes werd huge in the 1960s and rightfully though in my opinion. This is a German best of compilation from the late 1960s. Now, I could have picked up another best of album of theirs with more songs for less money, but I didn’t. This cover is much better than the other one and I really like the fact that the label gave the buyers biographical info on the artists. Now, if you look at this through a 2025 lense, this is very cringe - as the younger generation would say - but as a historic document it is certainly very interesting.

Red Album

When I picked up the Beatles box set, I wrote that I fell in love with them when I listened to the red and blue album as a teenager. Well, those weren‘t included in the aforementioned box set, so I knew I had to get them at one point. That point came when I made a quick stop at the local record store. Got it for a really good price too and it felt pretty good to buy a record from an actual store.