Rock For Gold

After completing the I Against I challenge I’d set for myself sometime earlier this year, I was looking for a new fun Bad Brains related collection. Rock For Light is the classic first full length by Bad Brains. Compared to I Against I, it probably has the better individual songs, but viewed as an album, it doesn’t flow as well in my opinion. Gun to my head, I’d pick I Against I 9/10 as the record I want to listen to. That’s not a knock at all to Rock For Light, it just speaks to the incredible level the Bad Brains reached as a hardcore band. 

This album was rereleased by Caroline Records in the early 90s. The color they chose was sort of obvious, but sometimes the easy solution is the best one. The thing that annoys me about the copy I picked up is that it doesn’t have neither of the stickers shown in the pictures of this variant on Discogs because it came without the shrink wrap and the stickers weren’t cut out and kept with the record. One is in Rastafari colors and says this record was remixed and remastered by Rick Ocasek and comes with three bonus songs compared to the original one. The other one is a hype sticker saying ‘Limited Edition Colored Vinyl’. I might need to upgrade this version at one point if I ever find a copy with one or even both stickers. 

1991 Repress on Caroline on Gold / Clear Yellow /???

I Against I(V)

A couple of weeks ago I got to spent a quiet Saturday evening lounging on the sofa, having some TV show I’ve seen a hundred times in the background and browsing for records. I happened to find a listing of the last colored version of Bad Brains‘ I Against I that I needed for a really good price. Since this clear variant  hadn‘t sold in four year on Discogs and I hadn‘t found any other copies on local listening or eBay in the past year, it took me only about a second or two to buy this record right away. 

Time for a family picture of the colored represses from the early 90s, most likely 1990/1991.

I also added the German pressing on white vinyl, just for the fun of it. The German pressing is the only solid color version and comes with different label art as well. 

After I’d taken the picture of the clear vinyl copy and applying the setting I usually use for the pictures on my blog, I noticed that the picture looked different from the ones I remembered posting on here. So, I compared the sleeves and the colors of the sleeves are slightly different. You can see it especially when you look at the band name, the album title and the hair underneath the band name. It‘s like someone played around with the contrast. If the albums were repressed at the same time, why not have thousands of  covers printed? That would be the cheaper option, wouldn‘t it? Or does that mean these colored represses weren‘t repressed at the same time?

Close-up of the covers. Check the band name and the hair color. Top cover = lightest version, bottom cover = darkest cover. The covers of the clear variant and the yellow variant look kinda similar, as do the covers of the green and blue versions, but they’re still noticeably different.

I also checked the back cover to see if there are any differences, but they look pretty much the same to me. They all have the same barcode as well, so you can‘t differentiate them that way either. It all remains sort of a mystery. 

April 19th, 1982

People seeing the Bad Brains in the late 70s and early 80s usually run out of superlatives when they talk about those shows. I sure wish I could have seen then in their prime, but since I‘m neither from the US, nor had I been alive yet, I‘ll have to make do with videos and live recordings. One of the more legendary Bad Brains shows took place at 9.30 Club in Washington on April 19, 1982, which was roughly one month before I was born. Great song selection (including Banned at DC, which is kinda funny) and pretty good quality for a live bootleg from 1982. 

Bad Greens

Not only was I Against I rereleased with those awesome Punk Note covers, the band also pressed the record on a ton of different colors. I wanted a colored copy to keep the collection of colored versions going, but I also wanted to stay clear of those awful splatter versions. Green marble sounded like a solid choice by comparison. This is not the 'plutonium' color, which I've seen advertised everywhere, but the Newbury exclusive on 'Green Bay'. I have no idea if that is an actual name for a color or just something someone came up with.  After ordering this record, I found out that there’s also an orange marble version and a solid red version, which in hindsight would have maybe been the better choices. Then again, what’s one or two more records in the collection, right?

2024 Repress on 'Green Bay' on Bad Brains Records (Newbury Comes Exclusive /300)

I Against I Against I

If you’ve been following this blog for the past months, you probably noticed that I’m really into Bad Brains’ I Against I LP. As with their other full lengths releases, the band re-released special versions that have been a nod to legendary label Blue Note. Those previously released Punk Note versions all came out so great, it took me about two seconds to decide to get a copy when it was announced I Against I was going to receive the same treatment. 

Since I started collecting colored versions of I Against I, getting the colored version of this repress was kind of a given. Plus, the color chose for this repress looks so damn cool, especially in combination with this artwork. 

2024 Repress ‘Punk Note’ Edition Coke Bottle Clear on Bad Brains Records /1000

It’s funny how record collectors come up with a thousand different reasons why they need to pick up a certain record or version of a record or why they need to pick up more than one copy of a record. With all the other Punk Note versions I only managed to get black copies, because the colored versions had already sold out. So to keep the collection of black Punk Note editions complete, obviously I need to buy a second copy. Makes total sense. 

I also got a copy of the Bad Brains fanzine and put it in the picture just for fun. 

2024 Repress ‘Punk Note’ Edition on Black on Bad Brains Records /1000

I Against III

The other record I‘d mentioned in my previous post was another colored version of Bad Brains‘ I Against I. It‘s been a lot of fun collecting different colors of this repress from the early 90s. I‘m missing only the clear one I think. This might be hardest one because no copy has shown up on Discogs in a couple of years. If you have one or know someone who has one, let me know.  

Repress on Clear Green on SST

I Against II

A couple of weeks ago I posted about a gold vinyl copy of I Against I that I’d picked up recently and now I managed to find a copy on blue vinyl from a seller in Germany for a fair price. 

The record is not in mint condition because one owner, I’m guessing the original owner, put his address on the A-side label and also wrote his name on the dust sleeve. What’s more interesting though is that he also wrote down a date: February 19, 1991. I’m guessing again that this is the date he got the record. I checked on Discogs and the colored versions are listed as represses. However, there’s no release date listed on Discogs for any of the represses on colored vinyl. The sleeve of the records says 1986, but I’m not sure if the colored records were pressed back then as well. If the original owner actually got this record early in 1991, the coloured represses, or at least the blue one, was probably released sometime in 1990. Obviously this is just guess work. The Flex Discography doesn’t provide any information on this either unfortunately. Does anyone have more info on this? 

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 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

Punk Note

A couple of years ago, the Bad Brains started re-releasing their own catalogue. Of course there are many different colored pressings, but the really cool thing - to me - was that they re-released their records with a special cover and label art work paying hommage to legendary jazz label Blue Note Records. The band and label have done an excellent job with these re-issues and I really dig the aesthetic. 

Another thing that the band has changed is that the song Don’t Blow Bubbles comes as an instrumental song. When Quickness was released originally, Bad Brains faced criticism for homophobic language. This sort of tracked because there had been a well-documented incident with The Big Boys in the early 80s. I read a bunch of statements by band members expressing their views on things back then and what might have changed in their way of thinking in more recent years, so changing the lyrics makes sense. 

1st Press Punk Note Edition on Bad Brains Records

I've Got That Attitude

Similar to deciding to collect different cover versions of Youth Of Today records I made the same decision for Bad Brains releases. Attitude was released by We Bite Records, so I might also add a dedicated We Bite section to the collection. The songs are the same as on the Roir tape but with different cover art, which I really like. It's kept nice and simple and a live picture of HR is always a good choice in my book. 

Obviously the labels and the the lyric sheet are different too. It's a nice change to get a lyric sheet with a Bad Brains record for once. Most of the Bad Brains records I own, including the recent represses, sadly came without one. I'm also a sucker for those old mailorder lists. They make for such an interesting time capsule.