Manic Perfection

I love anniversary presses, well, I love anniversary presses that give you something besides the actual record. And Quicksand and Iodine went above and beyond. I’d be hard pressed to say what you can do actually better with an anniversary presses. 

Manic Compression is a great record - Landmine Spring is a phenomenal song and one of the best songs in Walter Schreifels’ extensive catalogue - and the artwork is just so awesome. One of my favorite album covers of all time. Despite the fact that I love the original art work, I really like how they made this bascially a black and white cover, gives it a totally different vibe.

The red/orange swirl looks pretty sick and works really well with the adapted cover art. For once I’m glad I had access only to the most common variant.

30th Anniversary Press on Red/Orange Swirl on Iodine /1500

The book is done so incredibly well. Lots of information, quotes, flyers and pictures. It was so hard to choose a page, but I went for Walter Schreifels in a Minor Threat shirt. 

Now I’m really bummed that I didn’t get a copy of the 30th anniversary presses of Slip, because those reissues are pieces of art in themselves. 

Hurricane

The last record I bought in store is a copy of Bob Dylan’s album Desire. I mainly bought because it contains one of my favorite songs of his, Hurricane, which I didn’t have on vinyl before. It’s such a great song musically and since Mr Dylan is also a formidable story teller, so are the lyrics. I enjoy the other songs as well, but the opening track is the one. 

It’z Ze Tschörmen Press, Yes?

I‘m pretty sure everyone is familiar with the old saying ‘Never just buy one record, when you can buy two (or more)’. Yeah, ok, I made that up, but I’d bet money that the people reading this blog on a regular basis have all acted according to this principle. 

I’m not sure I needed this record after picking up the Paul McCartney and Wings triple live LP recently, but this record has the studio version of Maybe I’m Amazed, which is maybe the best song by an Ex-Beatle. There are some other good songs on here, but it’s all about this one song for me. It helped that this record cost much less than buying one new 7” these days.

Now, I know that sometimes the song titles on albums have been changed from English to German, most notably in our small hardcore world on Minor Threat’s Out Of Step, which is already pretty weird, but changing the language of the name of the band? That’s just straight up wrong. 

GDR Pressing on Black on Amiga

Still Magical

About six months ago I filled a very big gap in my collection when I picked up a 12” copy of The Beatle’s Magical Mystery Tour. In that post I stated that the record was originally released as a double 7” and to me it was clear that I was going to pick up one of these at one point. Well, the point came when I hit up the local record store a couple of weeks ago. They’d just got this record and were actually cleaning it when I eyed it behind the counter. The price was more than fair, so it was an easy decision. 

There are only two German variants of this, which is kind of astonishing to me. This one comes without the ad for the Beatles fan club. I’m not sure I need one of those as well, but I’m not ruling out getting one either. 

The booklet is actually part of the record sleeve and is done incredibly well. So much work went into that, pretty damn cool. 

The lyrics to one of my favorite songs, both by The Beatles and in general. Sorry for the shadows. 

Volume 2?

A few weeks ago, I was in the mood for some CCR. I don’t have many of their records, even though I really, really like the band and I consider Fortuane Son one of the best songs ever written - and call me crazy, but to me it’s also a proto-punk song. But that’s a different conversation. My go-to CCR record to listen to is a best of LP and after two decades of owning that record I notice that it says Volume 1. Well, if there’s a volume 1, there must be a volume 2 as well, and lo and behold, Discogs proved me right. What’s weird though is that some songs appear on both volumes. I guess they must be the best of the best… The record was cheap and I hadn’t had some of the songs on vinyl so far, so I’m still happy that I picked up this record. 

Structures

If there‘s one thing I love more about hardcore than the actual music, it‘s the friends I‘ve made along the way. And I’m always down to support my friends in their creative endeavours. It helps obviously if I like their creative output as well. I’ve said before that if someone showed me a description of Cranial as a band, I’d probably not be into them. “Doom”, “post-metal” and “four songs in 40 minutes” are usually not buzz words and phrases that trigger my interest. But since I’m very good friends with two of the band members, I went to a bunch of their shows over the years and was never disappointed. So when they told me they were planning a release show for their latest release, I was down for it, of course. My wife and I made a day trip out of it and after dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in the city Cranial has its home base in, we got to see them perform their new songs off of Strucutes, which turned out to be really, really good.

Unfortunately, the records weren’t ready for the actual record release, but hey, that’s how it goes sometimes. Then again, one of my friends hand-delivered the record to me when we hung out, so I’m definitely not complaining. Love your friends. 

1st Press on Coke Bottle Clear on Moment of Collapse /300

Bane & Bane

Just when I thought I was making some good progress with all those Bane represses, a new round of represses of It All Comes Down To This was announced, four variants in total. The two I got so far look pretty good, although I feel like the Candy Cane variant might have been a better choice for Give Blood. But it also works with this record I guess. 

2026 Repress on Red & White Candy Cane on Equal Vision /500

The glitter variant looks pretty awesome truth be told. I’m just confused about the ‘natural’ part in the label’s description. I don’t know what makes this glitter acutally ‘natural’, but I don’t know what ‘unnatural’ glitter would be either. 

2026 Repress on Natural Glitter on Equal Vision /300

Feels Like Heaven

This might be an early contender for Record of the Year. Feels Like Heaven / Scheme Records cleverly released Within Dreams on January 1, 2026. Of course, the way things go with current releases, it took me a while until I actually got a copy, but hey, it was well worth the wait. If you like current bands like Drug Church or Fiddlehead and/or late 80s Dichord stuff, you won‘t get disappointed. This is really, really good. 

Unknowingly, the Band Scores major bonus points with the cover. When I was a kid, I had a few records with fairy tales and modern classic children stories that I listened to a bunch. The one outlier record I had was a radio play based on true events, detailing the first ascent of Nanga Parbat, one of the highest mountains in the world. The radio play was much more dramatic than any other records I had, but I loved it. The cover featured a similar image to the one on the cover of Within Dreams, and now I sort of want to listen to that radio play again. 

1st Press on Black on Scheme /328

The Last Shall Be First

The advantage of finding out late about a band’s release is that you don’t have to wait as long for the next one, so I was pretty happy to learn that Chopping Block have a new record. Nowhere To Run hasn’t grabbed me quite the same way from the get go Seattle’s Hardcore did, but it’s still a really good record.  

1st Press on Black on Indecision /300

The Gift

Another classic crossed off my want list. The Gift was the final album by the Jam and unbeknownst to me until today peaked at number 1 in the UK, which is quite remarkable. The first single off the album and my favorite song on this LP, Town Called Malice, also reached number one of the single charts. Again, quite remarkable. The whole album flows really nicely and I’ve been enjoying spinning this record quite a bit these last few weeks. 

I don’t really know what pressing this as the pressing info on Discogs is rather confusing. 

Candy Apple Black

There‘s not that much new music that is appealing to me at the moment and the current records I‘ve pre-ordered still haven‘t arrived, so this feels like a good time to fill some gaps in the classics department. Candy Apple Grey by Hüsker Dü might be a far cry from the band’s early hardcore days, and yes, it was released on a major label, but it also gave birth to Don’t Want To Know If You Are Lonely, which is a song for the ages. 

2009 Repress on Black on Warner/Rhino(180g) /???

Down To The Most

Lately, I’ve been rediscovering Down To Nothing and their records have seen a lot of time on my record player. The Splitting Headache 7” is still my favorite release of theirs, but I enjoy most of their catalogue, especially their earlier stuff.

I’ve had a rather ugly press of The Most on orange/purple split since the late 2000s and I’ve always wanted to get a nicer looking copy. There’s a particular version of the first pressing I’ve had my eyes on in forever and finally a copy came for sale for a fair price. Unfortunately, the seller had listed the record incorrectly and I didn’t receive the version I’d wanted. Still, this fifth press actually looks pretty good and definitely looks a lot better than the version I already owned, so I’m ok with getting the wrong record for once. 

5th Press on Turquoise on Revelation /700

Trigger

Last record from my recent haul at the local record store. One of the rules I’ve come up for myself is that whenever there’s a record on Dischord from the 80s available at a reasonable price, just buy it. Is every Dischord release from the 80s great? No. Is every 80s Dischord release necessary? Probably not. Can you really go wrong? No. Are all of them enjoyable on some level? You bet. In short, you’re better off buying Dischord releases from the 80s. 

1st Press on Black on Dischord

Keep 'Em Coming

There's just something about browsing the racks in a record store and buying records right there compared to ordering records online. I'd meant to check out The Ruts for a long time, but never got around to it and by pure coincidence I'd put their first LP, The Crack, on the want list section in my Excel spreadsheet documenting my collection just a couple of days before I actually found a copy. Record and sleeve are in very good condition considering their age. Sadly, the lyric sheet is missing, but the price was too good to pass up on it. 

I really like this record. Gives me a lot of The Clash vibes because there are so many different music styles combined on this record. The cover art is also pretty cool. 

Despite my best efforts and even checking the matrix numbers, I didn't manage to find out which pressing this is exactly, because the Discogs entry is a little confusing. But it must be some early pressing, see below.

Early Press from 1979 (?)

I know that people frown upon scribblings on the cover, labels or lyric sheet, but sometimes, that makes a record also more interesting. Someone wrote "Nov '79" on the front cover, which could be a reference to the release date or date of purchase. 

Wonderfully Weird World

While browsing the soul section in the record store, I came across this Best of Sam Cooke record. Usually I’m not the biggest fan of best of compilations, but since most of those song had originally been released only as 7”s because this was before the album era, I’m perfectly alright with getting this record. This is the kind of music I like listening to while working in my home office, so albums are definitely a much more preferable listening experience than having to stand up after every song. 

I would have bought this record regardless, but what it made even more appealing was the fact that it is a South Korean pressing. Actually it’s a repress from 1981, done 19 years after the original release of this best of compilation in 1962. How it ended up in record store in a small town in Germany, I have no idea. There’s so much weirdness going on here, and I like it. 

What I love about these old records are the short infos you get on the back cover. Such a nice time capsule and throw back to a time when people didn’t have all the information in the world at their finger tips. I also really like the fact you get a signature of the two producers underneath. Thanks, Hugo and Luigi, I think you did a fine job.