The Crew on Blue

I am sort of breaking my own self-imposed rules, because I'm not posting in strict chronological order, but first of all I wanted to keep going with the 7 Seconds theme, secondly, I haven't been this stoked about picking up a record in a long, long time and lastly: reasons not rules make us strong. 

So, on a Saturday a couple of weeks ago I was having a lazy winter morning. The kiddo let us sleep until 8am, we had a long breakfast and I found some time to check for records early in the morning. I even had enough to take the full tour on Discogs, local listings and eBay. Rare occasion that actually paid off.

I found a record that I thought might interest Marcus, because he'd just picked up a bunch of records by this band. Then I shot him another message because I'd found this 7 Seconds record, but for an absurdly high price. The message consisted of the link and my comment "White whale for me, but that price is ridiculous.", to which he agreed. I left it at that because the price was way out of my league and I had an important date to go sledge riding with my son later that morning. While I was out with my son, all of a sudden I received a message from the seller offering an incredible discount on the record. My brain was spinning and I had to do some serious thinking on the way home. When I was back, I shot the seller a counter offer and miracle of miracles, he accepted it. I couldn't believe that turnaround. Oh yeah, and the seller was from Germany as well, so I didn't have to worry about customs either. 

A few days later I received the record and couldn't believe I’d managed to find a copy of this record, but there it was - The Crew on blue vinyl. It doesn't look like much in the first picture, even though it doesn't look exactly like black vinyl either as I had always thought. You can see that there is some color involved. However, when you hold up the record against the light, you can actually see this incredible shade of blue. It has somewhat of a green tint to it, but it's clearly blue and it just looks awesome. 

I love 7 Seconds and The Crew is easily their best output. Owning this record in this particular colorway is a collector's dream come true for me. Nobody knows exactly how many copies there are of this colorway, but the Flex! Book says there were 250 copies pressed. The book also states there's a red colored vinyl version, but I've never seen one of these. This is one of the top 5 records in my collection for sure. I'm sorry I'm gushing, but I'm just so stoked about owning this record. 

Whenever someone asks me why I buy records, I'm going to show them this record. Well, maybe I'll show them only the picture, but still. 

Repress on Blue Vinyl on BYO Records /250 (Source: Flex! Book)

Soulforce Revolution

From the same seller I bought New Wind, I also got Soulforce Revolution. 7 Seconds go even more pop, but I'm still onboard. I don't think the more pop influenced songs would work well with many other hardcore bands, but Kevin Seconds' vocals have always been very melodic and somehow they pull off these songs. Also, this record has my second favorite artwork of all 7 Seconds records. 

Standard Pressing on Black Vinyl on Restless Records (Printed in Canada)

New Wind

Whenever bands change their sound, this can be highly controversial. 7 Seconds noticeably changed their sound after Walk Together Rock Together was released. They went more pop and not everybody liked this. I wasn‘t witness to that first hand, but that‘s what I was told and read. Now, this is admittedly not one of their best records, but it‘s not as bad as people made it sound. I for one am happy to add this to the collection. 

Score - The Sequel

So, a few months ago I made a rather big record score. There were a bunch of records I had to leave behind at the time, because, well, you know, money and so on, so I was more than happy that some of the records I didn’t buy initially were still available a couple of weeks later. Not all of the, but I’m still very happy with the second haul as well. 

I managed to pick up the record release edition of Go It Alone’s Histories LP and I’m equally as happy that I managed to pick up a copy that was made for Sound And Fury Fest. Hard to fathom nowadays that a band, even a well established one, would make 100+ copies of a record just for one festival. 

Sound And Fury Edition #18/110

I picked up this 7” because it was a gap in my New Age collection, but it is anything but a gap filler. Good 90s hardcore that ended up on New Age for a reason. 

1st Press on Opaque Green w/ Blue Labels on New Age Records /150

I also picked up this limited variant of the s.t. Reserve 34 7”. When I first heard this record eight years ago, I immediately fell in love and all those years later, it still holds up. If anything, I like this 7” even more these days. 

Red Vinyl w/ Limited Sleeve on Moo Cow Records #25/101 

Soar

Another old band I got into last year was Samiam thanks to Marcus. He posted about this band, which piqued my interest, then I saw a bunch of pople posting about seeing Samiam live at the end of the year. So I decided to check them out and bought their third LP Soar. The reason why I chose this as a starting point for their LPs was simply that this one was readily available at a mail order I frequent regularly. This is a fun LP and I‘m definitely going to check out more of their catalogue. 

Also, as stated in my previous post, vinyl is just a beautiful thing. The blue in blue looks so awesome in person. I know that streaming is the more convenient way to listen to music in 2024, but listening to vinyl is a whole different experience. 

2023 Repress on Blue in Blue Swirl on New Red Archives

Karate

One of my favourite new discoveries of an old band last year was Karate. I picked up their s.t. LP after reading the description in the webstore of a mailorder I regularly order from. It sounded really interesting and I didn‘t get disappointed at all. There was a time, when all I listened to was this record. I just kept flipping it over and over and over again. Also, that green marble colour is awesome. It matches the artwork really well and if you hold the record up against the light, you can see that it‘s slightly transparent even though it looks solid when it lies flat on a surface. Just beautiful. 

The only drawback is that I haven‘t managed to get my hands on any more releases because they‘re sold out everywhere I looked. Oh well, I managed to spend decades without listening to this band. I guess, I‘ll manage for another few months. 

2022 Repress on Green Marble on Numero Group

Marathon

This is one of the records that could have easily made my best of 2023 list, but I didn‘t get to spend enough time with it last year as it was sort of hard to get copy. Best of list or not, this is a really good record. Mil-Spec just hit that sweet spot for me when it comes to melodic hardcore. Obviously I‘d have preferred a copy on purple vinyl, because coloured vinyl is so much more beautiful and purple is one of the best colours for vinyl, but for now this regular version on black vinyl will have to do. 

1st Press on Black Vinyl on Lockin‘ Out Records /550

Record Collector Blues

A few weeks ago I missed out on a Bane test press. 6131 Records / Wanna Hear It Records sold a bunch of second hand records and Marcus was kind enough to notify me of what was up for sale. But by the time I got to the web store, it had already sold. For some reason I hadn‘t checked my e-mails for a couple of hours, which would have told me about the test press being for sale right away. But that‘s how life goes.

So, what does any record collector do whenever they miss out on a rare record? Well, actually, I can‘t speak for all the collectors out there obviously, but what I do is go to Discogs, local listings and eBay to scour the Internet for rare records. Usually that means even more disappointment (I was thinking of a sports metaphor, but couldn‘t think of any), because 99/100 times I don‘t find anything. However, in this case I did get lucky and came across a Good Clean Fun test press for a really, really good price. Probably because only two people still care about collecting Good Clean Fun records in 2024 and I happened to stumble across this one at the right time. 

This is a test press for Phyte Records #16, the Let‘s Go Crazy 7“, which has Mr Issa dressed as Prince sitting on a motorcycle on the cover/artwork for the picture disc 7“. This is definitely not on the level of a Bane test press, but since I do collect Good Clean Fun records and I‘d never heard of a test press for this release, I‘m more than happy to add this to the collection. 

Test Press out of ??? on Phyte Records

I Against I

Sometime during fall last year I was sort of obsessed with Bad Brains and more particularly their third LP I Against I. Now, there are maybe individually better songs on their earlier recordings, but I Against I is the album that flows the best as a whole. I was listening to that LP over and over again, and at one point I decided to check out which different versions there are out there. There are a bunch of different pressings on coloured vinyl, so I thought it‘d be fun to start collecting those. Let‘s see how this will go. 

Repress on Gold on SST Records