Who Am I Kidding…

Who ever commented on my last Fugazi post that I definitely need three copies of each Fugazi release, you were absolutely right. Well, at least two-thirds right, because the colored represses and first presses make for a pretty cool collection, but I don’t necessarily need the black represses I bought over the last few years. I feel like whenever I write “Oh, well, I don‘t know if I should buy this record or start that micro collection“, or something along these lines, I pretty much just want someone to confirm the decision I’ve already made subconsciously. It took me about two or three days to give in to my idea of starting to buy the colored represses of Fugazi records and so far, there are no regrets on my part because Dischord knocked it out of the park with the colors they chose. Simple, but very beautiful. 

Most Recent Repress on Solid Red on Dischord

Most Recent Repress on Clear Blue on Dischord

Life On The Moon

Modern Life Is War is one of my all-time favorite bands, as you may or may not know from reading this blog. However, this is mainly based on the first 7” and the first two LPs to be honest. Nothing can ever touch those records. With each release afterwards, the band lost me a little more. Still, I always checked out whatever the band did. Life On The Moon is the latest release and I was very weary of listening to it, even though I didn’t think twice about ordering a copy when I read that the band was about to release a new LP. I even ordered a copy directly from Lifeline Records because I think it’s incredibly awesome that band and label have kept that bond for more than two decades by now. So, in my mind the only sensible thing to do was to order a copy directly from Lifeline instead of another version. After getting the record though, it was sitting in my “new records to listen to pile” for a good month or so. 

I did finally listen to the album and to me this has only little to do with the band I originally fell in love with. There’s a wide range of musical influences to be found on here, more so than on any other of their previous releases, but I’m not sure if the mix works for me. There’s some dub, but you’ll also find post-hardcore on here. I do believe it’s any artists prerogative to grow and do other things than what’s expected of them, but I also believe not everyone has to be on board with said growth. There are some ok songs on the record, but as a whole the record hasn’t clicked with me. The artwork is pretty cool though, although I don’t get the connection between title and art. The 12” booklet with the lyrics and a ton of pictures, all in full colour, is done exceptionally well, too. Great job by band and label. 

This is one of those records I really want to like, but I’m not sure if I will. 

1st Press on Glitter Orange on Lifeline Records /100

Triplets

Dan was also kind enough to hook me up with some demo tapes by Australian bands, something I always look forward to. 

Peace Ritual play a little emo, a little indie, a little shoe gaze, and add a lot of dreamy sounds. There are also plenty of melodies and great hooks. Music for the quieter moments. The band has released a bunch of things since that first release, so I've got plenty of music to listen to while working at my desk at home. 

Flowermouth play what nowadays is called hardcore adjacent music, I'd say. If you like that kind of music and / or 90s music bands like Farside, you should maybe check out their music. Sadly, there's only one original song of theirs. But since this tape came out in 2017, there's luckily other released to listen to as well. The other song on the tape is a cover of The Cure's Just Like Heaven, which is a big challenge. The cover is done well enough, but the audio is not as good as on the original song for some reason. Maybe it was done during a different recording session?

Last, but not least, there's the demo tape by Combat Rock. No Clash inspired songs as one might have guessed by the title, but the cover speaks for itself. Combat Rock play no frills hardcore in the vein of early 80s Boston straight edge hardcore. The rough production makes it sound very authentic. I definitely want to listen to the follow-up release. 

Resist Records

My man Down Under, Dan, is keeping busy hooking me up with music from Australia, mostly bands I probably wouldn’t have discovered on my own. This is a bunch of throwback records all the way to the mid 2000s. 

The first record is the debut LP by Blkout, Total Depravity, originally released in 2009. If I’d seen the cover somewhere in a store or online, I’d have never checked out the band to honest. I know, I know, don’t judge a record by its cover, but I’m just being honest. The music is actually pretty good though. Good, stompy hardcore that would have been fun to watch live I guess. 

1st Press on Black on Resist 

Next up is the s.t. 10” by God So Loved The World, apparently a Christian hardcore band from Adelaide. I dig the music, hardcore with some slower rock elements here and there, but I don’t really need to hear about people being born again.

In the 90s and early 2000s Christian hardcore was an actual thing, but I’m wondering if there are any bands that openly identify that way out there nowadays. I’m pretty sure there must be some, because hardcore is more diverse and open-minded than ever, but I can‘t think of any. 

1st Press on Black on Resist 

When I opened the parcel from Dan and saw this record, I thought for sure that he’d sent me a record - unbeknownst of course - that I already had in my collection. I definitely knew the cover and the name and it just looks like a record I would have picked up in 2007 when it was released. After checking my list and double checking my 7”s, I had to face the fact that my memory had simply played a trick on me. It must have been one of those records I always meant to pick up, but never did. Well, thanks to Dan I finally own a copy. The music is exactly what I want from hardcore from the mid 2000s and even though the vocals are very much of the time as well, the high pitch is a little too much for me these days. 

1st Press on Black on Resist 

Paid In Full

Another classic from the golden age of hip-hop crossed off my want list. I can't stress enough how much my taste in music has been influenced by skateboarding. Videos used to be a great source to find new music, at least as long the music was shown in the credits. In the early 2000s, another skateboard related source entered my world: video games. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was the shiny, cool game and it was admittedly a ton of fun and the soundtrack of each game was great. Thrasher's Skate and Destroy video game was always in the shadow of the THPS franchise, but I enjoyed it a lot as well and it had a fantastic soundtrack. 

Traditionally, Thrasher Magazine has been more associated with a no-frills, grimy approach to skateboarding and was closely aligned with punk rock, so when I got the video game and saw that it had an all hip-hop soundtrack and the booklet even gave a short history of hip-hop and the acts on the soundtrack, I was very surprised. Playing that game was when I first heard Eric B & Rakim and their song, I Know You Got Soul, was a favorite of mine. It only took me some 20 odd years to finally get a vinyl copy of their debut LP Paid in Full. 

Italian Press on Black on Island /???

There's a weird stamp on the A-side label. I can't really make out what it says, except for the word 'Italian'. I doubt it was done by the label, but I have absolutely no idea what it could be. 

Long Way From Lawrence

The Get Up Kids is one of my favorite 90s emo bands and Something To Write Home About is one of my all-time favorite records. I know I often post how I don’t really order directly in the US anymore because of shipping and customs, but every once in a while, there’s just no way around it. When Nico posted about a live record of Something To Write Home About, I knew I needed a copy. Originally, the record was only available at shows, but the band made the leftovers available on their website. It took me a minute to pull the trigger because I’d hoped a copy from a seller in Europe might pop up on Discogs, but when that didn’t happen, my fear of the record selling out kicked in and I ordered a copy straight from the band. It helped that they had some cool merch available as well. 

This record is so good. I love the adaptation of the original artwork and it’s cool to hear the songs of Something To Write Home About played live in the order of the album. The only thing I can criticise is the fact that there are no liner notes or a special booklet. I feel like this could have elevated the record a lot and not going the extra mile feels like a wasted opportunity. 

1st Press on Black on Quality Hill

True Fraud

A couple of weeks ago, my band got to play a cool show with a bunch of awesome German hardcore bands. One of them was True Fraud, one of the myriad of bands coming out of the Cologne/Munster connection. It’s basically one of my favorite German bands of the last 10 years, Tides Denied, only with a different bass player. True Fraud is rougher around the edges though. Good, fast hardcore that’s a lot of fun live. I’m looking forward to a 7” or an LP. 

1st Run on Clear w/ Orange Cover on Collective Memroy

Magical

The last record I picked up at the local store was Magical Mystery Tour by The Beatles. I’d been eyeing this record sitting in the store for some time, because it was priced a littler higher than on Discogs, but in the end I decided that a couple of bucks aren’t as important as helping to keep the store afloat. Magical Mystery Tour is actually not a proper album, as I thought for a very long time, it was an EP released originally as a double 7”. This version contains said EP on the A-side and a couple of songs originally released as singles only on the B-side. It’s quite astonishing that it took me so long to buy a copy because four of my top 10 Beatles songs are on this record and since I don’t own any Beatles singles , this is the first time that I own most of these songs on vinyl. Needless to say I’ve been playing this record A LOT since I got it. The cover is so bizarre and so much of the time, but I actually like it. 

Collector’s Conundrum

A little more than 10 years ago, I started buying Fugazi records. My original resolution to buy one Fugazi record a month didn’t really work out at the time, but I did manage to buy all of their releases. I bought the current represses back then, because I wanted to support a label that truly holds a special place in my heart, not to mention the band itself of course. I bought the now classic s.t. Record round about 10 years ago and I bought all of the Fugazi records more or less in chronological order. I messed up my system though, when I bought a first press of In On The Killtaker, but there’s just something about first presses and I usually can’t help myself but to get them. Which brings me to today’s post. While flipping through the bins at my local record store, I found a first press copy of Fugazi’s s.t. debut. It showed the $5 price on the back cover and after checking the matrix, I knew this was an actual first press.  I tried to talk myself out of buying the record, but after about 10 seconds I stopped fooling myself and put it on my pile. 

Buying this record puts me in a conundrum. I now have two first presses of Fugazi records and the collector in me screams that this doesn’t feel right and I now need first press copies of all of the Fugazi records, which is something that hadn’t really been on my mind at all until I got this record. I’ve been thinking about replacing my current copies with those really nice looking colored represses Dischord has done these last few years - and I still want to do that, sort of, because Dischord has been doing such a great job with the colors. But do I really need three copies of Fugazi records? Probably not. So buying this record has possibly kicked of a chain of events in the foreseeable future. Luckily this might end up being one of the cheaper micro collections because Dischord is still selling records at Dischord prices (by 2025 standards). 

1st Press (According to the Matrix) on Black on Dischord

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 in the area I live in might have sold their collection, or a least part of it, because there scene is rather small here and even fewer people from that scene listen to that kind of hardcore. 

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