The New What Next

Hot Water Music used to be one of those bands I'd really look down on when I was in my formative hardcore years, simply because I thought they didn't sound hard enough. Definitely not one of my proudest moments in retrospect. The words close-minded and stupid come to mind. I'm not saying I'm the most open-minded person out there nowadays when it comes to music, but let's say I've broadened my horizons a little bit as I grew older. I mainly bought this because my wife was nagging me to pick up some Hot Water Music for her. After listening to The New What Next a bunch of times, I'm kind of hooked. Which is good, because I found some new good music, on the other hand I kind of dread having to go through the massive Hot Water Music back catalogue. I'm not even going into the pressing info here, because every Hot Water Music release has seen a myriad of pressings and colours. I wonder if there are people dedicated enough to go through with a collection. Knowing record collectors, I'd probably say the answer is 'Yes'.

Joy Is The Only Treat

Client is a band from Germany that has been hyped a little bit as of late. A lot of good friends have been going on and on about this band and record, so I finally caved in and bought a copy. Sadly, I don't see what the hype is all about. It's good enough indie/emo-punk, but it hasn't made click yet, although I've been giving this record a lot of spins these last few days. Maybe it's one of those summer records for which the weather has to get a little bit better first, if you know what I mean. On the upside, the  cover art and the whole packaging are excellent. Band and label have put in great effort to make this truly look beautiful.

Sonic Bloom

Latest release by everybody's favourite band right now. Sonic Bloom picks right up where Give left off with their previous records, so you get what you expect. This time they teamed up with Revelation Records. I really like the cover artwork for this release. 1087 copies on gold vinyl, which goes really well with the cover. There's also a more limited version on red vinyl and a tour version on black vinyl.

Texas Is The Reason

Texas Is The Reason were a great indie/emo-core band in the mid-90s. They released one 7", two split 7"s and one LP, two of which came out on Revelation Records. In 2013, Rev decided to release this a band retrospective in form of a double LP. It contains the songs that were originally released on the band's only LP Do You Know Who You Are?, two songs that had never been released before, plus two alternative versions of Something To Forget.
The pressing info for this particular release is a little bit confusing to me. The first press was on blood orange, the second press on orange, the third press on orange and the fourth press on opaque orange, according to the Rev pressing info site. Might have mixed it up a little bit there, Rev… I'm not really sure what press I have here, what with all the orange(s). What's more, the record on the left looks like it could be a first press since it's rather dark (aka blood orange?) and shows some black streaks. The record on the right on the other hand looks like a clear orange to me. Anyone?

Title Fight

Another band I knew about for a very long time and never really bothered to check them out. Also had the chance to see them live at a pretty great venue a few years back, but didn't go of course. This is Title Fight's first LP Shed. Great music in the vein of Lifetime, Kid Dynamite or Shook Ones. Looking out the window and seeing that spring is just around the corner, the timing couldn't have been better to find this band/LP.

Strain

Strain were a pretty active band in the mid '90s. This here is their s.t. 7", released in 1994. One of three Strain 7"s that came out that year. Nice solid yellow that goes great with the cover. The only bummer are all the price stickers on the front cover. I guess in the '90s people just didn't care about the condition of records that much. I got it for pretty cheap thought, so that's okay.

Shark Attack

Another really good release from the early Bridge 9 catalogue. Actually it's a repress, since Blood In The Water originally came out on My War Records, which was some band member's label. This is the least common variant of the Bridge 9 versions, seeing that this is a 1st press on black vinyl out of 1500. As far as colours go, this was pressed on grey (150) and red vinyl (350). There was also a second press on black (out of 1000). The second press has black and white labels though, which is how you can distinguish between the two pressings.

Turning Point

Some time ago I made a post about the Turning Point LP and the lack of Turning Point records in my life. I also promised (myself) to rectify that as soon as possible, so here we are. While my main interest was in the Turning Point side, which is really good, the No Escape side turned out to be pretty good, too. Sadly there's only one more vinyl release of that band, No Escape that is. They also released a CD, but who really needs CDs? The other vinyl release is a split with Bonesaw on everybody's favourite German label Lost And Found. Now, the entry on Discogs claims that the No Escape songs were officially licensed by Temperance Records, but with L&F you never know. Be that as it may, this is a really good split by two really good bands. There's also a variant on clear gold vinyl.

Hardcore Pride

I've been listening a lot to Edgeland podcast these last few months. For anyone who hasn't checked it out, do it. Lots of very interesting and entertaining interviews. Listening to various episodes I also got reminded that I still needed to get (back) some (semi-)classic records. I did have Ten Yard Fight records a few years back, but I traded them away and never got around to picking them up again. Big mistake. I almost forgot how good this 7" was. Black vinyl on Equal Vision. This 7" was also released on colour by Equal Vision and on another colour by Big Wheel Recreation.

Say It

Dan O'Mahoney, take 2. Yesterday's post featured a Dan O'Mahoney band, so I thought let's keep going with that. This is the debut 7" for 411, also featuring Dan O'Mahoney on vocals. The music is kind of catchy (I'm thinking Dag Nasty and Embrace here) and the lyrics are well written. Not too many bands from the late '80s/early '90s come to mind that were that outspoken against homophobia. Good one. Nice marbled grey vinyl, too. There are three more colours for this release, i.e. if you count black.

Carry Nation

Some more crossing off of Workshed releases. This is a pretty good 7" and I'm really bummed out about the fact that Carry Nation didn't release any other material. I really like the music on this record, plus the lyrics are pretty good too. Grave Mistake is probably my favourite song. There's a version on clear vinyl out there too, but I'm fine with black.

Voicebox

A few weeks back I made a post saying I wanted to get more Workshed records because I'd been intrigued by a thread about that label on the Revcollectors board. I didn't know all the bands on the label, but after seeing some nice collection pictures I thought I'd check out some new old bands. The Voicebox 7" looks awesome. There are so many cool looking colours and transition colours, definitely a nice collectible item. After I'd listened to the 7" for the first time I wasn't quite sure what was supposed to be so special about this band. The singing in particular didn't strike a chord with me initially. But after giving it a couple more spins, I'm kind of digging the record. The overall groove of the two songs is pretty cool. There are still some parts I really don't like (why do hardcore bands want to sound like metal bands?), but all in all this is an okay record. Nothing I'm going to collect though.

Final Backward Glance

Almost a year after its release, I finally have a complete collection of Bane's final LP. That is for the moment. I've already heard rumors that there's going to be a tour pressing for the upcoming Euro tour. And who knows how many represses there are going to be. But I'm really happy for now. One year for a complete set is not too bad, considering how long it took me to complete a few other releases, on the other hand this year felt kind of very long and frustrating because more and more variants popped up. But with the help of a few fellow Bane heads I finally got the last missing pieces of this puzzle. Thanks again, Justin and Mike!

The last vinyl variant I was missing was the white-blue swirl tour pressing. 200 of these exist. This was actually the hardest variant to track down. I first heard about this colour last August or so. Someone on vinylcollective.com posted a picture of this variant and nobody really knew where this was coming from since there was no mention of this in the official pressing info. What's more, it seemed to be a mistake since it came in a sleeve that had a sticker on it saying "yellow". Since there was a blue and a white version available at that time, it could have been that this was some sort of transition colour. After writing an e-mail to the label I learned that this colour was not mistake but the tour pressing. But again, it wasn't really that clear which tour this pressing was for. So the guessing and blind chasing continued. Fast forward to last December. Someone posted on Instagram that finally the tour variant would be available for the upcoming Bane shows. I really didn't want to wait until some flipper asshole was to sell this record on eBay or Discogs for way too much money, so I decided to contact another Bane enthusiast. I knew that he'd be going to a few shows, so I asked him if he could pick up a copy for me. He was nice enough to do that and that's how I finally got my hands on this record. I'm very thankful, Justin.

Crew shot (starting top left):

Bane - Don't Wait Up - Equal Vision - white/blue swirl - tour pressing /200
Bane - Don't Wait Up - Equal Vision - white - 2nd press /700
Bane - Don't Wait Up - Equal Vision - solid dark blue - 1st press /500
Bane - Don't Wait Up - Equal Vision - solid yellow - 1st press /500
Bane - Don't Wait Up - Equal Vision - clear dark blue - 2nd press /500
Bane - Don't Wait Up - Equal Vision - clear yellow - 2nd press /500

Bane - Don't Wait Up - End Hits - black - 2nd press /???
Bane - Don't Wait Up - End Hits - turquoise - 1st press /400
Bane - Don't Wait Up - End Hits - clear - 2nd press /500
Bane - Don't Wait Up - End Hits - orange - 1st press /500
Bane - Don't Wait Up - End Hits - purple - 1st press /300 (Green Hell exclusive colour)
Bane - Don't Wait Up - End Hits - test pressing /20

Cherry on top: There's also a tape version of the album available. This was made for the final Southeast Asian tour, available through Brnwrck Records. Someone put in a lot of effort into this tape. The lyric sheet looks so awesome. Thanks again, Mike, for getting one for me and the missus.

Up Front

I really liked the two Up Front records I bought in the last couple of months, so I decided to get the rest of Up Front's discography. If I decide to get all the records by a band, I like to do it in chronological order. That way I can see how a band progresses (or not). It doesn't always work out like that, e.g. if I come across a really nice bargain, but I try to stick to that ideal. So I decided the next Up Front record I ought to get should be the 1st 7", which was released in 1990. This is actually the 2nd press, which can be recognized by the grey and white cover. I really like the A-side, but the songs on the B-Side are rather on the weak side, so to speak.

Shall Be Cleansed

Burn wrote one of the best hardcore 7"s of all time. I guess that's a pretty well established fact. That's why I always thought it a little bit surprising that there was only little talk, if at all, about their other releases, especially about the 12" EP Cleanse, which came out in 2001. After listening to it a couple of times I think I know why that is… The record is not that good to be perfectly honest. Maybe the bar has been set too high by the first 7", but the six songs on this EP don't even come close to the songs on Shall Be Judged. To me it sounds like Burn tried to sound like someone else (Rage Against The Machine?), which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn't work too well in my opinion. The songs also lack the power and urgency that made the original 7" so great. I've listened to the EP a few times so far and after the original shock the songs sort of grew on me a little bit, but it won't become a favourite of mine.

You're Only Champion Once...

A while back I posted that I'd like to get more alternative sleeves of records I really like. I wrote that when I got the Youth Of Today rip-off Champion made for the record release show of Count Our Numbers, so the logical consequence was that I wanted to get the other rip-off sleeve that Champion had: the Side By Side rip-off for Come Out Swinging on Platinum Records. There are 143 copies of this particular record, all on milky clear vinyl. This one comes with some black swirls, as you can see at the top. There's also a variant with the regular sleeve on clear vinyl, but these have actual labels and not just the blank white ones. Also included is a little note explaining that the inserts weren't ready for the tour this pressing was made for. However, if you sent a stamp to the address mentioned at the bottom, the band promised to send it to you. I'd really like to have an insert, but I doubt that the offer is still valid.

From the same seller I also got a copy of the repress of Come Out Swinging on Bridge 9. There are 300 on green vinyl in total. However, the green vinyl comes in a lot of shades of green. There's a dark green variant, which seems to be more common than the rather minty green one you can see here. I had one of these a few years ago, but traded it away. Really glad I got one of the mint green ones back. They do look pretty nice.




I actually do know that I picked up a first press on clear a few months ago, but the green one above and this clear one came as a package deal on eBay, and for the price I paid I was okay with getting another copy on clear. Never hurts to have a couple of records to trade.
 

002

I've been reading The Endless Quest blog for a long time. Btw congrats on going strong for seven years, mcs. One band that has popped up a lot is Coalesce. They're a band from the '90s, a period in hardcore I really like, so I thought I'd give them a shot. Well, there's '90s hardcore and then there's '90s hardcore I guess. Or to make it short,  this is not really my cup of tea. Should have read The Endless Quest more carefully I guess. Looking at some entries again, they were often compared and associated with Converge. Now I know that Converge is beloved by many, many people in the hardcore scene. I tried to get into them several times and even went to shows they played, but this kind of hardcore just doesn't do anything for me. The same sadly goes for Coalesce.

Outspoken

Final release by this vegan straight edge band from California. This is what the (early) '90s will always sound like to me. I really love that style. Pretty good lyrics too. I wasn't around that time, but I guess not too many bands were that outspoken (get it?) about homophobia back then, just to name one example. Has there been any sort of early '90s revival lately? Would love for one to happen. I think I even still have some baggy pants some where in the closet...