Fluff Culture

It's the end of September and I'm still writing about records I picked up at Fluff Fest in late July. Way to go. The people behind Fluff Fest seem to have made it their task to have 90's bands headline the festival these last few years. This year it was Culture's turn. The set was a little underwhelming. Somehow the band's performance, which was okay I guess, never sparked anything among the audience. To be honest, there weren't that many people in front of the stage to begin with. So I decided to skip the rest of the set, head to their merch table, grab the records they had with them and head home early. I don't think I missed out on anything. Born Of You was repressed in 2015 for the 20 year anniversary, and again in 2016 for the European tour. I have no idea about the detailed pressing info. No stamp, no number, no special sleeve. A little disappointing. However, the LP is quite good and considering I didn't have a copy before, I was more than glad to finally pick up a copy for really cheap.

In 2015 Culture had also released a new 7" with two new songs. This is the 2nd press on orange vinyl out of 500. The sleeve is different to the first pressing, because the band name and the songs are now printed in orange instead of blue. I'm not particularly impressed by the new material. The vocals in particular could have been done much better.

When People Grow, People Go To Europe

I really liked the two previous Blacklisted LPs, but for some reason I never bothered to check out their latest LP. Or their first LP for that matter. Sometimes I do weird things for no apparent reason. But who doesn't? Blacklisted also played Fluff Fest this year and since they had a tour edition with them, I gladly picked up a copy. I have listened to the LP a few times so far and I like it, but as with the other LPs, this one will have to grow a little bit on me.

Cat Core

I saw the Smudjas together with my wife when a good friend made a show with them about a week before Fluff. They turned out to be a lot of fun live. Good punk rock with female vocals and really great guitar work. The band had a lot of fun on stage and had a very positive energy to it. Unexpectedly good live bands are always a nice treat. Then we saw them at Fluff again, or at least some songs and my wife wanted to pick up their LP. Not only because of the music, but also because of the cat(s) on the cover. Knowing my wife, this was probably even the main reason. Sadly the songs don't work for me on record.

Love Goes Through The Belly

One more Rvivr (related) record. Erica Freas released this LP with acoustic versions of Rvivr songs and some of her own singer-songwriter songs. What can I say? I'm a fan of her voice and this is a really good record for the quieter moments in life. I'm really glad my wife decided to pick this one up as well.

Bicker And Breathe

Last of the Rvivr records my wife and I picked up at Fluff Fest. If they had had any more, we would have picked up even more I'm sure. Bicker and Breathe is another 12" EP, released in 2014. Rvivr haven't released anything since then, which they will change soon hopefully. Pretty good release, but then which release by Rvivr isn't?

The Beauty Between

Rvivr's 2nd LP from 2013 has become a record I'd take with me to a remote island with the first couple of songs. As of now, if I could never listen to another record in my life, I'd be quite happy with it. The Beauty Between is one of the best records I've heard in years. Make that ever. I liked their previous releases, but this one is where it's at. Erica's voice sounds incredible on this record and Mattie's vocals work with hers perfectly. The songs are so goddamn catchy. It also has a certain late 90's / early 2000's Fat Wreck / Epitaph feel to me, so there's the added bonus of nostalgia for me. Just in case I haven't made myself clear: I love this record. I really do.

Beautiful Dirty Water

Second round of Rvivr. This 12" EP was released the same year as the debut LP. The songs on here are as good as anything the band has released so far. Of all their releases I've listened to so far, there's not one that I'd call bad or even just mediocre. All quality releases in their own way. Their songs are so catchy, it's hard to escape that. The Dirty Water EP is one-sided. On the b-side you get this beautiful etching, which I'd much rather show than the generic black vinyl a-side. This is a 2nd press copy out of 500, which is identical with the first press (also out of 500), except that the second press comes on 180g vinyl.

Rvivr

I didn't see a lot of bands at Fluff Fest to be honest, but the ones I did see I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm not the biggest fan of festivals, i.e. ones that are as a big as Fluff or bigger, which has mainly to do that there's usually a giant main stage somewhere (There are many more reasons, but this is pretty high on the list). No matter how much I like a band it's ten times harder for them to make me enjoy the show. Give me a small club with a low stage any day over one of those big rock stages.
Rvivr, whom I'd wanted to check out forever, were one of the few bands I watched completely - despite them playing on the main stage. The set they played was incredibly good and I don't think I've ever enjoyed a band playing such a huge stage as much as I did here. The music, the lyrics, the audience and the weather were a perfect match to make this one of the highlights of the festival for me. My wife was equally stoked by Rvivr's performance and she was the one who stormed off to the merch area to pick up everything vinyl the band had with them. So here's the first installment of a few records that I'm going to post about in the next few days. S.t. LP on generic black vinyl.

Me. You. Youth Crew 2016

Latest installment of this compilation series. Featured are - surprise, surprise - current bands that play Youth Crew hardcore. The cool thing about this series is that bands from all over the world are featured, not European or American bands only. It's also a collaboration by many different labels from all over the planet. My favourite bands so far are Spirits (of course), Tomar Control and Modern Problems. I'll have to give it a spin a couple of more times. Maybe some of the other bands will grow on me. I'm not sure which variant this is. Officially there are yellow (/95), green (/102) and dark green (/195) as far as colours go, but this copy is neither. It looks like solid green with some yellow marble going on. Could also be a 'dirty' green or a greenish yellow. So I'm chalking this one up as transition colour.

Spirits X Fluff IV

Last of the Spirits batch. Spirits released a flexi disc together with XClusivX fanzine from Berlin. You could buy it separately or you could get it together with the latest edition of the most DIY important zine right now in Germany. Up until now you could only listen to this song online but it hadn't been released on any physical form prior to this flexi.

Spirits also had a second flexi with them. This is a preview of the new LP they will be releasing shortly. The two songs didn't grip me immediately like the songs on the first LP did, but they're growing on me with every round. Can't wait for the new LP.

Spirits X Fluff III

2nd and officially final press of Spirits first 7". These had been available for quite some time, but I didn't want to put in an overseas order due to the high shipping costs. Luckily they had these up for sale on their tour, so I picked up the missing copies at Fluff. Pink vinyl is out of 302. I refer to this as the 'Bellhop' cover.

Black vinyl with blank black labels is out of 92 with the 'Food-O-Mat' cover. These were also available in a bundle with a Spirits skateboard deck, which I would have loved to get, but again, shipping one of these from the US would have cost a lot more than the deck itself.

Spirits X Fluff II

Spirits had another special edition for this year's Fluff Fest with them. A few weeks prior to the festival they had released a split with Die Faster and for this record they also came up with a special sleeve. I really like that they made a reference to the tour poster here with the anatomical heart. At least that's my interpretation.

Back Cover.

Spirits X Fluff

A few weeks ago I went to Fluff Fest and before going there I decided for myself that I didn't want to buy a whole lot of records there because dragging around records at a festival or heading back to the car every so often is not that much fun. Well, I managed to walk past most of the distros there, but who could know that so many bands had records with them, some of which were made particularly for the festival? Suffice to say there'll be more posts on records I got at Fluff Fest than I had expected.

I knew that Spirits were going to have special editions for some of their records, so the first stop on Friday after setting up the tent was to say hello at their merch table and see what they had. I'm really glad that I went there before their set because they sold out of the special covers and pretty much all the LPs after the show in a matter of minutes and didn't have that much vinyl left for the rest of the tour, which had started only two days before. Really happy for them. Humble people that they are they probably didn't expect selling 100+ LPs at one show. My guess is that the vinyl itself is part of the 2nd press and they made these special OBI strips for the festival and numbered them on the back.

Numbering on the back.

85/15

Last of my Dischord pick-ups. This time it's not a classic record, but a record by a classic band. I love Can I Say (who doesn't, right?), but I'm the biggest fan of Dag Nasty's later stuff. So I was a little skeptic when it was announced that the band was going to release a new 7". Cold Heart is an okay song, but I really like Wanting Nothing. Listening to this 7" reminded me that - as much as I love Can I Say and what Dave Smalley did on the record - Shawn Brown's vocals are so much better than Dave Smalley's. Which reminds me that I still need to pick up the Dag with Shawn LP.

Still Screaming

You can't go wrong with early Dischord releases, part II. I finally own a copy of Scream's debut LP Still Screaming. This is the 2014 repress on clear vinyl.

Rites Of Spring

You can't really go wrong with the early Dischord releases. Another classic crossed off my want list. I'm guessing this is the latest repress.

Steady Diet Of Nothing

Another gap in my ever so weak Fugazi/Dischord collection has been filled. Need I say anything about this band? The thing I'm always debating with myself is whether to buy originals or represses with Dischord stuff, because I'm generally attracted to the original release, but I also want to support such a great label by buying represses. File under first world record collector problems.

Confined

Coke Bust have managed to release only good material so far. I hadn't checked out their latest record up until recently though, which to my big surprise had already been released in 2013. Whoops. Confined is as good as anything they've done so far. I'm guessing this is a 3rd press, given how late I am to this party. Also, I'm more than bummed that I'm going to miss them during their upcoming tour in Europe.