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. 

Walk Together Rock Together

7 Seconds are an awesome band and incredibly important to me and my coming of age in hardcore. I often feel they don't get talked about enough when it comes to legendary 80s hardcore bands. Maybe because they didn't break up like most of their contemporaries. 

Be that as it may, Trust Records has re-released both The Crew and Walk Together Rock Together, which is definitely a good thing. I'm always in favor of keeping hardcore records in print, so hopefully younger hardcore kids have easy access to the classics and the bands can get the recognition they deserve. I usually don't play the repress game, but Trust Records has been doing such an incredible job with these re-releases, I just had to get a copy. The main selling point for me was the 20 page booklet that has a ton of flyers and pictures as well as interviews with the band and people from way back when. I was a little torn between picking up a copy with nice looking vinyl (this one) OR a copy on rather ugly splatter vinyl, which come with a bonus 7" though. I opted for A in this case, even though I really want one of those 7"s. Oh well...