DIY Spirits Or Die Faster

There was a time about 10 years ago when Spirits was a very important band to me. They played a style of hardcore that I love but which wasn't all that popular in the after 2010 or so. So hearing them was a breath of fresh air for me. Collecting them turned out to be a collector's dream/nightmare, because the band put out a ton of releases in a very short period of time and all of them came out on what felt like a million versions. I managed to build a solid collection, but there are still certain records that I missed out on and haven't been able to track down so far. One of them is the record release version of the Spirit/Die Faster split, to be precise the Die Faster version of the record release, because each band had a different one of course. This was actually the record that kicked off me ordering a bunch of records in the UK and having them shippped to Marcus. 

After getting the record, I was disappointed though because the seller had listed the record incorrectly and this one turned out to be the regular version on red vinyl with the red cover. The record was not that expensive, so I’m not too mad, but it’s still annoying that people list records incorrectly. I’m even more annoyed with myself though for not asking the seller for more info or a picture of the numbering beforehand to make sure. 

1st Press on Red w/ Red Cover on Coin Toss /300

There are four versions of the stamped cover: purple, dark blue, orange and red. Each cover was stamped by hand with a wooden stamp on 7” format. I’m not 100% sure if the stamp was actually carved by hand, but knowing the band member, I’m pretty sure it was. I was lucky enough to be given one of the stamps by the band member who’d made them. Come to think of it, maybe it is the only stamp and this one was used for all of the colors, because there is also some dark color on the edges. Be that as it may, it’s a pretty cool artefact of the band to have and I felt like sharing this along with the record. 

There's Always Room For One More...

When I went to see Battery, there was yet another reason why I was looking forward to the evening. A few weeks prior to the show I'd received a message by a fellow collector on Instagram. He contacted me because he has a strong Spirits collection and knew that I also collect Spirits. While exchanging messages, we found out that we had traded before back in the days of messageboards. Funny, how things go sometimes. Back to the trade. The other party had posted a picture of this version of the Spirits/Die Faster split 7" I'd never seen before. I commented on the picture and it paid off some time later, because he had picked up a another copy for a buddy of his, who didn't need it, so it was made available to me. There are only 17 copies as you can see in the second picture. Technically, this is not really a Spirits variant, because as far as I know they never played at United Blood festival. But whatever. Really glad I managed to pick up this one and to meet my trading partner in person after so many years of knowing him.

Close up of the backcover.

Loosing It

I think I'm loosing it here. This is a limited cover for a promo (!) flexi (!). Not even a proper record, but a flexi. However, since it's by my new favourite band, I caved in quicker than you could say "That's stupid." Apparently the label ran out of covers, so they came up with a new one for the remaining 28 copies. This is #14.

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 - Die Faster

I apologize in advance because this is going to be another lengthy post about Spirits. At this point it might be justified to call me a fanboy, but I don't really care.

This split is supposed to be a one time press of 500 copies. All copies come on orange vinyl. The differences lie in the covers/prints. Spirits' guitarist Charles is positively crazy, because he hand-folded all 500 sleeves by himself. I included a close-up of the back of the sleeve a little further down. It must have taken forever to do this. The band then had three different wood stamps made and stamped all 500 covers individually. Talk about a DIY work ethic... They really came out great though. The songs are the same as on the split with Tomar Control, so this is basically the US pressing of these songs.

First up is the most common version. Red print out of 300 copies.



The purple print is out of 100.



The dark blue cover is the State Of Mind Records pre-order cover. 50 of these exist.

The orange cover was used by Coin Toss Records for their pre-order sleeve. There are also 50 copies. 

24 copies with the purple sleeve shown above were used for the record release edition, as you can see by the stamp on the back cover. This picture is also a good close-up of Charles' origami skills. 1550 feet of paper were used for the sleeves. Goddamn.

I was also lucky enough to receive a test press with the order I'd put in. I really dig the special sleeve and the message written on the front cover. The sleeve might not look that impressive, but it's a special sleeve nonetheless, which always scores bonus points with me. I like the haptic aspect of the paper that was chosen for this sleeve.

On the back you get a red hand print. I don't know if this is a Turning Point reference, but I sort of want it to be. You can see the texture of the paper a little bit better in this picture.

Drug Control

This one slipped my mind somehow. While checking out the Coin Toss online store, the description of the Drug Control 7" triggered my interest, so I ordered a copy along with the Spirits 7"s. It's good sxe hardcore in the vein of SSD or early Youth Of Today. Limited version out of 100 copies.

Spirits, Spirits, Spirits

I'm really a fan of Instagram. You get to show off your cute pets, the magnificent places you traveled to, the awesome (vegan) good you made, and of course that really, really cool record collection of yours - and then you get the sweet, redeeming feeling of getting likes for it. You also get to see other people's cute pets, the magnificent places they traveled to, the awesome (vegan) food they made, and of course that really, really cool record collection of someone else - and you get to pass out likes, which is basically the good deed a day 2.0. What's not to like? What's more, I have been able to score some really cool records. In this case, the guy running Coin Toss Records hit me up after I had posted a picture of my Spirits collection. He asked me what I still needed, so here we are. Thanks again for helping me out here. I really appreciate that. The best thing is that I could also help out a buddy of mine with his Spirits collection too. So, thanks again Coin Toss Records for helping me out, and thanks Instagram for making all of this possible.


The first 7" I got is a copy on black vinyl with the tour sleeve the band had made for their European tour last year. I already had the green vinyl copy with the tour sleeve, but this makes a nice addition.



The guy running Coin Toss also had a spare copy of the 'wheat field cover', which was used for the pre-order. This also comes with a black vinyl record. Since there are about a million variants out there, there's a chance this cover also comes with a different vinyl colour, but who knows?

Off To A Good Start

My wife and I were in Boston over New Year's to visit a city neither of us had been to before, to meet up with a friend and to see our favourite band celebrate their 20 year anniversary. A buddy of mine had asked me to take some records he had talked about with our common friend with me back to Germany. Said friend is a member of Spirits and he had the records sitting in the rehearsal room. So during one of our sightseeing tours we went there in order to pick them up when my wife kind of jokingly said "Hey, there's a test press on that shelf over there." To which our friend replied "You want it?"I figured it would have been rude to say no, so here we are. Thanks, man. I really appreciate the generosity you showed us on so many different levels. Can't wait to hang out with you again soon. 2016 is definitely off to a good start.

More Spirit(s)

After constantly listening to the Spirits LP and 7" I bought a few weeks back at one of their shows, I decided to get a couple of more variants.
First is the clear version out of 54. This is the second rarest variant there is. I missed out on the pre-order, which comes on green with black splatter (/49), but hopefully I'll manage to pick up this one as well at one point in the future.

Coin Toss also pressed 199 7"s on this smokey clear vinyl. The 'smokey' vinyl apparently allows for a looooot of different shades. I feel absolutely no need to go after transition colours.

Last, but not least, there are also 200 copies on plain black vinyl.

There's plenty more variants out there, according to the pressing info on the Coin Toss Records website: 33 copies come with the record release cover, 19 7"s have the pre-order cover,  then there are 2 clear ones with black splatter and 1 copy on teal with black splatter…

Spirits

Last week my wife wrote me a message saying she found this new band that is pretty good and should be right up my alley and we had to go to the show that they were going to play close by. Since my wife has pretty good taste in music and knows what I like, there wasn't much to argue about. The show was in an old textile factory, which is really hard to find if you don't know what you're looking for. I'd been there before when the promoter put on a show for some friends' band, so I knew where I had to go: drive along the old dirt road with no signs, park in the front of this old building and climb up a few flights of stairs - et voilà: a diy hardcore venue. Some young kids are trying to get some shows going in that small town in the middle of nowhere, which is always cool to see and worthy of support.
There were maybe 40 people there, which is not bad for that town on a Thursday night. Spirits were the only band to play that show, which I've never seen at a hardcore show before, but there's always a first time I guess. I hadn't listened to them before, but my wife had told me that they sound like Count Me Out, Carry On and Go It Alone. Well, if you've been following my blog, you'll have noticed that I really, really like these bands.
Long set short, Spirits fucking killed it. Great music that really reminded me of the early 2000s. They also played a Minor Threat and a Battery (!!!) cover. Actually they played three covers, but I didn't recognize the third song… Anyways, if you like any of the aforementioned bands, you should definitely check out Spirits. Another great SXE band from Boston. My wife and I are definitely going to at least one more show on this tour, because Spirits are just that good. They're also probably the most fun band to watch in the sense that they're really having fun on stage and enjoy what they're doing. Plus they're like the nicest people out there, especially their guitarist Charles.
This is the tour variant of the LP that came out like three (?) weeks ago. I'm not sured if the people who pre-ordered this record have already got their copies, but that didn't stop Spirits to have a tour version with them. There are two hundred copies of these. Neither cover nor lyric sheet, which is a big minus, especially the no lyric sheet part, but you get some nice 3D glasses so you can check out the 3D labels, which is kind of cool. The glasses are stamped (Spirits European Tour)  and numbered (my copy is #61/200). You can also use them to look at the 7" (see below).

For a band that has existed only for a few months, Spirits have been quite productive. This is their first release, the s.t. 7"., which came out earlier this year on Coin Toss Records. This is the tour variant on this weird swirly clear/dark grey/haze colour. It looks cool, but is hard to photograph. The cover comes in 3D optic as well. They're also about to release a split 7" on Speedowax Records. Yeah, pretty productive indeed. After listening to these two records at home, I caved in and ordered a few other versions of the 7". And I'll most likely get the other variants of the LP as well in the nearby future. Oh, and the pre-order for the split is supposed to go online in the next couple of days.