Goodbye

Oh man, this post is not an easy one to write. Bands come and bands go. That's what bands do. Some touch your life more than others, some leave a mark on you that changes you forever. The band that has touched my life the most and on more levels than any other is: Bane. Best friend, road trips, meeting cool people, sweat, singalongs, stagedives, girlfriend, anger, frustration, escapism, hope: Bane.
There have been rumors about Bane breaking up as long as I've known the band. But they just kept going and going and somehow I came to the conclusion, that they'd be around forever. At least I was hoping that. But of course that was not true. Bands are supposed to break up eventually. And sadly this point has come for Bane now.

I have to take a walk down memory lane here. Sorry about that. I got into hardcore kind of late and consequently found out about a lot of bands only when I was in my early 20s. No shame here, that's just the way it was for me. Anyway, when I started studying I met one of my two very best friends on my first day at university. My life wouldn't be the same without him and I couldn't imagine a life without him being a part of it. He was into hardcore/punk, just like me, but he'd been around a while longer, so he introduced me to a lot of bands and we took endless road trips to shows. He's a family man now, so we don't get to hang out or go to shows together that often anymore, but that doesn't really matter since we're still best friends.
When I went to Wales for my studies in 2005, I naturally started looking out for fliers and posters advertising shows when I was there. So one day I went to a record store in Cardiff and picked up a couple of fliers. One of them was for a show at TJ's in Newport. The bill read: two local bands (whose names I'm not 100% sure of), FC Five from Japan, Comeback Kid (USA) and Bane (USA). I mailed my friend to ask him if those bands were any good and if it was worth going there. His answer was "Dude, absolutely go there, all of these bands rule!". So that's what I did. I really liked the atmosphere at TJ's, small venue, small stage, small and friendly crowd. All signs of a promising evening. The local bands (maybe Captain Insano, Dignity Dies First???) were pretty good I thought and if it was them, it turned out that their members were pretty cool people, too. Next up were FC Five. Loved their show and I'm still bummed out that I didn't pick up any merch by them. But money was a little tight back then. Comeback Kid put on a great show, too. This was the time when only their first two LPs were out and they were still a good band imho. There was an overall good crowd reaction for all bands,  even for the opening bands. Something that is not usual. Then Bane came on and the place went nuts. I'd never heard Bane before, and I'm glad I hadn't cause I got to experience Bane for the very first time doing what they do best: play their hearts out on stage. What was more, I'd never heard a singer of a band say so many things in between songs that I could relate to that much. So many singers do their little thing between songs and it's boring or cliché, but Aaron Bedard has just a way with words that moves me every time I see them to this very day. That's one of the things I'm gonna miss the most when they're gone. I still get shivers down my spine thinking back to that night.

Some time ago last year, Aaron said at a show that Bane were recording a new album. However it would be their last one. I was really bummed. I always knew that day was coming but finally hearing it was something completely different. At least I had something to look forward to: new Bane songs. However, after their last 7"s I was very cautious of getting my hopes up since the last songs didn't really click with em. Still, new songs by Bane…
Fast forward to spring 2014. Bane came over to Germany and played two shows to promote their new songs. I went to both shows in Berlin and Leipzig and at each show they played some of the new songs. I was hooked right from the start and from that day I couldn't wait to hold the new LP, aptly called 'Don't Wait Up', in my hands.
As much as I'd been looking forward to this record, I have a couple of qualms with it regarding its release. I'm not opposed to pre-orders, quite on the contrary, but two different pre-order versions, available exclusively at two different online shops? Come on… Paying shipping twice where it's not necessary. Just to make matters worse, a couple of days after the pre-order had started, one of the shops put another version online. Really?
Anyway, once the records started to arrive, I couldn't wait to spin the new Bane album. I hadn't listened to the stream online because I wanted to really celebrate that moment of listening to the final Bane album for the first time (yeah, nerd talking here). And I was more than rewarded for my patience. Don't Wait Up is so much better than I'd ever hoped for. The words 'flawless' and 'awesome' come to mind. I love (pretty much) everything about this album. The cover art is so good and fitting, the lyrics are outstanding as always and the music combines everything that makes Bane Bane. 'Wrong Planet' may have the most touching line I've ever read and it may be the most touching song I've ever heard. 'Pretty much everything' because the collector in me is not really happy with the choice of colours here. I don't think the orange really fits all that well and marbled purple (something in the vein of Start Today) would have looked so much better in my opinion than the solid purple. I really like the turquoise though. Anyway, I just tell my inner collector to shut up and be happy with the fact that Bane managed to go out on a really high note. Can't wait for the other versions to arrive.


I've never been much good at saying goodbye either. Goodbye.

Bane - Don't Wait Up - End Hits - purple -/300
Bane - Don't Wait Up - End Hits - turquoise -/400
Bane - Don't Wait Up - End Hits - orange -/500

Birthday Bane

Time flies. You especially realize that when anniversaries or birthdays come up. Again. And then again. Just a blink of the eye really. Anyway, at least you get presents to help you feel better about time running faster and faster… 

My girlfriend, awesome as she is, dug deep and got me something I didn't expect at all. Now it would seem that it is pretty obvious for me to get records as presents, but since it is so obvious, I didn't really think that I'd get any. If that makes any sense. As I said, my girlfriend dug deep and came up with a test pressing of Bane's Rome, 12.58am 7" released on Hurry Up records. Obviously I'm a big Bane fan, but that city 7" series never got me really excited. I think the concept is great, but the music doesn't do much for me. There are some ok songs on the records, but overall these songs are probably my least favourite Bane material. Doesn't mean I don't collect the records though. I know, great logic here, but logic and record collecting seldom go together. But I'm digressing here. 

I love Bane, I love records and I love surprises, so this was pretty much the perfect gift for me. But I love my girlfriend even more for being the awesome person she is. 

As with every order with Hurry Up records, they threw something in for free, which is always great and I'm always thankful if a label does that. However, this is probably the third copy of the Locked In 7" I got. This time I got a red copy at least. Makes me wonder how many of these were pressed. It also makes me feel bad for the band a little bit since apparently no one buys the record and they're just thrown in as bonus. 

Summer jams

The weather has been on the sunny side these last couple of days, so it's time to spin some feel good summer jams. Rollergirls from Germany have put out one of these summer albums for me this year. Call it emo, call it indie rock, call it good music that'll make you feel good. Will be listening to a lot to this year. 1st press on clear vinyl /300.

Sport from France play music in the same vein as Rollergirls, so it should be perfect for the summer. Is there some sort of 90's emo/indie revival going on that I've been sleeping on? 1st press (?) on white vinyl /500.

Ok, this one is a lot different from the first two records and the term emo/indie couldn't be further from the music Dogchains make. Anyway, I'm really digging this SXE band from XSchweinfurtX. The demo was already pretty good, but the band has really cranked it up a notch on this 7" here. If you're into early 2000s Boston hardcore with a hint of NYHC, you should check out Dogchains. Good stuff. 1st press on black vinyl /500.

Record store pick ups

I totally forgot that I picked up a few other records when I went to Rekomando Records in Prague some time ago. I did some cleaning up today and found these again in a pile of records. I now recall that I wanted to make two different posts about my trip there, because the two other records I bought had nothing to do with RSD 2014. Plus I got some other exciting records in the meantime, so these two records somehow slipped my mind.

The first one does have something to do with Record Store Day, but a previous one. Back in 2011 Rev re-released one of the most classic records in their back catalogue: Burn's - Shall Be Judged 7", making this the 4th press. There were two different shades of yellow totaling up to 1090 copies, and there were also 300 copies on black. I managed to pick up a Burn 7" on light yellow back then, which was actually the very first copy of Shall Be Judged I ever got and which got me hooked as a listener and collector. As a result of my trip to Rekomando Records a few weeks ago I now also have a 4th press black copy. Apparently it's been sitting there for the last three years, which is kind of sad considering that this is such a good record, but since it worked out well for me, who am I to complain? I still haven't got a dark yellow copy, so if anyone has one and wants to sell or trade it, feel free to hit me up.

I also picked up the 2012 repress of the Texas Is The Reason 7" while I was there. This comes on opaque orange vinyl and is out of 500. Can't go wrong with this one.

...Shall Be Judged (Again)

I don't know why but I really have a soft spot for pink (and as a matter of fact also for purple) vinyl. I just think it looks almost always awesome. Just like this Burn 7", which is one of the best hardcore 7"s ever recorded. I know that I said this before, but some things need to be said just every so often. Great music, great lyrics, awesome pink vinyl. What could a record collector want more? First press /1000.

On a side note: this year shapes up to be pretty good music and collecting-wise. I've managed to pick up some classic records and some long-time items on my want list, plus there have been a lot of new releases that turned out to be really great. Let's see how it keeps going.

Free To Think, Free To Be

There are certain records on my want list that I think I'll never own for various reason. Be it that they are too expensive or simply so rare that the odds of me owning them are really, really small. This record here is a prime example for that. There are only 10 copies of the so-called 'Buffalo press' of Bane's Free To Think Free To Be 7". The funny thing is that no one of the people involved in making this record actually remembers making it. It seems that the 'Buffalo press' were the remaining ten copies of the 2nd press of the Free To Think Free To Be 7". Tre from Deathwish most likely marked them for a show in Buffalo, hence the name. The records of this 'pressing' don't have consecutive numbers. My copy is #169 (= Buffalo press #6), the other known one is #267 (= Buffalo press #7).
The only copy I knew of was Brian Murphy's. He had it listed on his HYE list and in the pressing info he provides on howsyouredge.com. That's how I came to know about this version in the first place. I've been collecting Bane for a couple of years now, but prior to this one I had never even seen one or heard of one for sale. Not even Marcus Andrews has one of these and that says a lot since he has the most complete Bane collection I know of, including insanely hard to come by test pressings of the early releases. So naturally I assumed I'd never get one of these…
In the end it took me less than 30 minutes to get it. I found this ebay listing of a lot consisting of three Bane 7"s. Nothing too fancy at first glance, but when I read the description I saw that the seller had written something about writing on the dust sleeve of the Free To Think Free To Be 7". Something about Buffalo and limited to 10. There hadn't been any bids made yet, most likely because I stumbled over the auction minutes after it had been put up. I didn't hesitate and contacted the seller to see if he was down for accepting offers. He was and after writing back and forth for roughly half an hour we had come to an agreement and a few minutes later I paid to seal the deal. I didn't even have time to try to verify if this was legit. When I received the record, I sent a picture to Brian Murphy and he told me this one looked exactly like his copy. Sometimes you get to be lucky that way. I was really happy that I managed to pick up the Give Blood test pressing a few weeks ago, but this record really makes my year.

RSD 2014

Everybody and their grandmother has already posted about their Record Store Day scores. Or so it seems. Well, with only two and a half weeks of delay, I'm finally chiming in here.
But first of all, let's talk about Record Store Day here for a minute. Introducing such a day was a really good idea and it still is a cause that is worthy of support if you can help out your local record store and bring in some extra cash. It's also cool if long out of print records are re-issued and you can save some money by buying reasonably priced re-issues rather than paying an arm and a leg for originals. Originals are way cooler of course, but sometimes I'm not interested in having an early edition, special colour or things like that and I just want to have the records for the music. There are also some records that are just waaaaay too expensive, so if RSD provides an opportunity to pick up some cheap re-issues, I'm all for that. That's the upside of RSD. On the downside, RSD could also be called Record Flipping Day nowadays since a myriad of people crawl out of the woodwork, who probably buy records once a year and that is - you might have guessed correctly - on RSD, just so they can run home and put them on eBay to flip them. If you're not interested in the records and buy them just so you can make money off of them, fuck off. End of rant.

One of the more bizarre developments surrounding RSD is that you can actually pre-order certain records from labels directly. Defies the whole purpose of RSD somehow, but that's the way it is in 2014. I shouldn't really complain about that thought, because without being able to pre-order, I probably would have never got my hands on these two records. I'm talking about the re-issues of the two The Fix 7"s released by Touch and Go. Well, actually only 300 were up for pre-order, the other 700 were sold on RSD in stores. I don't want to twist the truth here just for a dramatic effect. These records are classics, and rightly so, and I really dig them, but there's no way I'd have ever spent the kind of money that these two records usually go for. So I'm really happy that Touch and Go decided to re-issue them and I'm even happier that they didn't botch these re-issues like they did with the Negative Approach 7". If you've ever seen the new cover, you know what I'm talking about. What I don't like about this re-issue at all is the fact that they come with autographs. Really? Like, really? Autographs on hardcore 7"s? Why? Who cares about shit like that?

I didn't actually go out on RSD to hunt for records. Partly because I didn't really care about most of the records that were released, except for the two The Fix 7"s, which I had already pre-ordered. Partly because there are no record stores I could have gone to where I live.
However, I went to Prague the day after RSD and spent a couple of days there. On our last day, we had some time to kill and I checked if there were any good record stores close by. So we went to Rekomando, a record store with a rather large hardcore and punk section. They still had copies of the Battery and Up Front LPs, among others, and I finally caved in and bought both of them. I had wanted the Battery LP for a long time, and would have been pleased with a black copy, too, but since this orange version was sitting right in front of me, I decided to pick it up. I kind of regret it now since Rev has released a maroon version in the meantime, which looks so much better than the orange vinyl. Maybe I'll 'upgrade' it soon.

Catching Up 04/14

More keeping up-to-date with recent releases and re-reissues. Scratch The Surface was one of the first hardcore records I ever listened to and it's one of the few records I can (still) listen to in one go. So many good songs on that record including many live classics. I was very pleased to read that there would be a re-issue of this classic SOIA record to honour the 20 year anniversary of its original release. It rightly deserves it. Even if you already have one of the original records, you should still buy it since this re-issue comes with "Straight Ahead" as a bonus song. The whole package is pretty well done. 180g vinyl and a nice colour that matches the artwork really nicely. You probably don't have to hurry since there are 1,500 copies of this, but you shouldn't wait too long either.

I also picked up the latest release by one of my favourite bands from Germany right now: Jungbluth. They did a split with Callow, who I didn't know before. Okay band, but nothing that gets me overly excited. Jungbluth clearly wins this, although I have to admit that I might be a little biased here… I might be what you call a fanboy. Anyway, if you're into dark and heavy hardcore with a political attitude, you should definitely check out this band. So, so good.

Holy shit. This might be one of my favourite records this year already. Doesn't matter that the songs were originally recorded in 1980. Yes, I'm talking about the S.O.A. demo that was recently released on vinyl by Dischord. 80s hardcore at its best with Henry Rollins' trademark vocals. All killer, no filler. Makes me want to shave my head so badly, haha.