More Blood

One more record for the ever-growing Bane collection thanks to the myriad of represse. I‘ve posted about the regular white w/ red cross version of the latest Give Blood repress not too long ago. A little bit longer ago, well 2.5 years ago, I posted about the special version of the Give Blood repress with the special sleeve that was released through Tiger Records. Well, apparently there was some left over vinyl or some left over sleeves or both, and et voila, you’ve got a third version just like that. 

This record is a little annoying, because the spokes don’t align with the red cross on the label. On the flip side, it’s interesting what different variants of this might be out there: different alignment, maybe only three or even five spokes? Who knows. 

White w/ Red Cross on Equal Vision aka ‘Tiger Records‘ Version /70

This Is Boston

This is the final piece of the repress of Bane’s Boston, 6:58pm. Originally it had been released as a 7” on Triple B, but Equal Vision repressed it last year as a 12”. The other versions were fairly easy to obtain, but this one proved to be very difficult to track down. For the longest time my circle of Bane collectors wasn’t even sure whether or not this version actually existed. It had been announced but no copies popped up anywhere, which was very weird because this the ‘retail version’. But then a friend of mine in Australia picked up a copy, thus confirming it was actually real.

Repress on White (‘Retail Version’) on Equal Vision /500

Here’s a nice family picture, minus the test press, which will be damn-near impossible to track down. Let’s play a game of ‘spot the nice version’, shall we…? 

Blood

In 2023 Bane’s classic album Give Blood was repressed by Equal Vision. I’ve picked up a few copies since then, but I still have a long way to go to catch up with all the variants. Initially, I’d been weary to pick up all colors because there were just so many, but the one I’d wanted from the beginning was the white/red cross one because it looked pretty cool in the pictures. The only problem, this particular variant never really popped up in Europe. Luckily, it was Marcus to the rescue and I was finally able to get one. Actually, Marcus helped me out big time with getting a bunch of records I’m going to post about soon and also the DTN record I talked about in my last post. A big thank you!

This variant is even sicker in person. The colors are chosen well, and not only is the pattern itself cool, but I also love how the red cross pattern of the vinyl aligns pretty much perfectly with the axes of the red cross on the label. 

2023 Repress on White/Red Cross on Equal Vision /500

Bane & Bane

Just when I thought I was making some good progress with all those Bane represses, a new round of represses of It All Comes Down To This was announced, four variants in total. The two I got so far look pretty good, although I feel like the Candy Cane variant might have been a better choice for Give Blood. But it also works with this record I guess. 

2026 Repress on Red & White Candy Cane on Equal Vision /500

The glitter variant looks pretty awesome truth be told. I’m just confused about the ‘natural’ part in the label’s description. I don’t know what makes this glitter acutally ‘natural’, but I don’t know what ‘unnatural’ glitter would be either. 

2026 Repress on Natural Glitter on Equal Vision /300

Got Bane?

My timing for deciding to pick up the Toyko CD couldn‘t have been worse, because a day or two later Bane and Equal Vision announced that there was going to be a repress of the city series 7“s compiling all songs on one 12“ record. At least there were only five variants announced, which by today‘s standards is almost moderate. I managed to get my hands on four of them pretty easily, so I decided to combine them into one post, considering I post about Bane records enough already. The two variants in the top row were available directly through Equal Vision and because I bend all of my self-imposed collecting rules for Bane, I ordered directly from the States. The variant on the bottom right is the Rev exclusive version and I was able to get that through a mailorder in Germany directly, probably because Rev does wholesale to Europe are well. The variant on the bottom left was the tour press and I knew there was a limited quantity available during Bane‘s summer tour. I was going to see them at a couple of shows, but only later during the tour, but luckily The Genie came to the rescue once again and sorted me out. Sidenote: the shows were all fun as hell and I got to hang out with old and new friends. At the Berlin show they even played Every Effort Made, which happens to be one of my absolute favourites but is a song that rarely gets played, so I was really stoked on that. 

So now I only need the so-called retail version on white vinyl limited to 500 copies, though I don‘t know what the difference between ‘retail‘ and ‘wholesale‘ would be. Bane always manages to come up with variants that no one seems to know about. I haven‘t seen any copies on white vinyl of the Boston, 6:58pm 12“ anywhere and no one in the band seems to know about this variant either. It‘ll show up at some point, I‘m sure, but until then, I‘m left with these four versions. Which is a shame, because regular white is definitely the best looking version. Oh yeah, and of course I wouldn‘t say no to a test press, but getting one of these is very unlikely, so I‘m not holding my breath.  

White w/ Red, Sky Blue, Yellow and Lime Green Splatter /250
Dark Edge Glow Pink, Red, Black Swirl w/ Pale Blue Splatter / 250
Canary Yellow w/ Black Splatter /500
Teal w/ ORangeSplit w/ Red Splatter /250 (60 sold during the European Tour 2025)
All on Equal Vision 

Purple Bane

I’m slowly but steadily chipping away at the flood of represses of Bane releases. This translucent purple looks pretty cool at least. 

I’m aware that my posts this year lack diversity as I mostly post about Bane, The Beatles and Bad Brains. But that‘s where my musical heart is currently and to be honest, 2025 has kind of been a slow year for me when it comes to current hardcore music. So far I couldn‘t come up with a top 10 of 2025 releases. But we still got a couple of months to go, so maybe that‘ll change in the second half of the year. 

For now I‘m content with filling gaps. 

It All Comes Down

Getting the repress of It All Comes Down To This hasn’t been this hard. Pricey, yes, but not really hard. The only variant that was hard to get was the band variant, which was to be sold in increments of 100 each at shows on the east coast and west coast respectively. Since I wasn’t going to attend any of these shows, chances of getting a copy were slim. 

A couple of weeks ago, the band posted on Instagram that not all of the copies had sold at those shows and that the remaining records would be made available through the Equal Vision web store. Now, while I am happy that this made it much easier and cheaper to get this variant, it’s kind of sad that a band like Bane didn’t manage to sell 200 copies of a record on two legs of a US tour. Bands made tour or even festival pressings in similar or higher quantities and sold through them easily. Not anymore apparently. I get it, money's an issue for many people and especially records have become really expensive, but bands of the calibre of Bane not being able to sell through tour presses is not a great sign. Now enough of another old guy ranting about the good old times. 

The mock up on Instagram of the aforementioned band variant looked pretty great and it was easily the variant I was most excited about. So when I received my actual copy, I was really bummed out. I included a picture of the mock up for reference, so you can judge for yourself, but I mean, come on. The difference is easily a thousand miles wide, right?

Anyway, that's one more Bane record taken care of. 

2024 Repress on Green and Violet Eclipse (Band Variant) on Equal Vision /200
 

Source: @banecentral on Instagram

Bane Bane Bane

As glowing as my post about the reissue of Bane‘s debut LP It All Comes Down To This was, this post couldn‘t be any more matter of fact. This is also 100% proof that record collectors are sometimes just stupid because I don‘t like a single color variant posted here to be honest. Ok, the maroon with pink splatter is alright, but it‘s not a beauty. However, to keep the collection as complete as possible, I bought them anyway. I had to. Right? Right???

Speaking of complete collections, until the repress I did have a complete collection, including a test press. I‘m now missing two regular versions of the repress plus a test press for the repress. Now, I don‘t know for sure if Equal Vision made new test presses for this repress, but I‘m fairly certain they had to make new tests after 25 years. So I went from having a complete collection back to probably never having a complete collection ever again because the label is known to be very stingy when it comes to making test presses available. Such are the woes of record collecting. 

1st Press on Maroon w/Pink Splatter on Equal Vision /500

1st Press on Clear w/ Green and Red Splatter on Equal Vision /500

1st Press on Yellow w/ Black Splatter on Equal Vision /300 (Rev Exclusive)

It All Comes Down To Represses

After not jumping on the repress wagon right away with the Give Blood represses, I decided not to repeat the same mistake when I saw that It All Comes Down To This was about to repressed. I‘ve known for a long time that the band was really unhappy with the way their debut album sounded. I never got that because I don‘t have an ear for that to be honest (ask any of my bandmates) and I don’t care if songs were recorded on a second-hand four-track in a basement in an abandoned building in New York in 1983 as long as they‘re good songs. As a matter of fact, if a record doesn‘t sound all that great that can actually add to the charm of a record for me. 

Anyway, I listened to an episode of  podcast with Aaron Dalbec of Bane and Brian McTernan of Battery/Be Well/Salad Day Studios, who did all the recordings for Bane except for It All Comes Down To This. However, he was in charge of remixing and remastering this LP and both of them were really excited when talking about the finished product, which in turn made me really excited.

Like I said before, I really don‘t have an ear for what‘s a good or bad production, but goddamn, Brian McTernan did an excellent job with this remix. It‘s like a completely different record! This version does sound so much better compared to the original, it‘s hard to fathom. If you want to get all the details about the process of remixing the record, you should really listen to the Where It Went episode, it‘s a really interesting listen. 

I picked up this version first because it‘s the best looking one by a mile. Can‘t go wrong with (clear) pink vinyl. The cover was also tweaked a little bit and it looks as fantastic as the record sounds. The gold and red foil or whatever that is in combination with the metallic colors used for the sleeve are great details. The only thing I‘m not a fan of is that the labels were redone as well. I actually like the ones on the OG pressing better. Still, I‘m really, really stoked on this repress. 

2024 Repress on Clear Pink on Equal Vision (Newbury Exclusive /300)

I have a framed promo poster for the original release of It All Comes Down To This hanging in my office, so this felt like a good time to take it off the wall for a picture. As you can see the picture on the promo poster is the same as the one used on the inner sleeve of the record. 

Give More

So after caving on the Don’t Wait Up represses, I decided to go full in and started looking for copies of the Give Blood represses Equal Vision did last year. Now I’ll be slowly chipping away at those missing copies, probably just in time for the newly announced repress of It All Comes Down To This. I think Poison Idea got it wrong. Record collectors aren’t pretentious assholes, they are gigantic idiots. 

2023 Repress on Opaque Cream (“Newbury Exclusive”) on Equal Vision /300

Don’t (Wait Up)

For quite a while, I told myself that I wasn’t going to get sucked into buying even more represses of records I already have a lot of copies of. But after seeing Bane a bunch of times and seeing the repress copies of our gracious host Daniel, I said “Fuck it. It’s Bane.” Luckily, this happened around Labor Day in the US and Equal Vision offered a discount over that weekend. Since the records weren’t that expensive to begin with, I actually got Bane records in 2024 for less than $20. Well, at least before shipping, but still. 

Musically, there’s not much to say. The last Bane LP is now considered a classic in itself, which makes me feel old as hell. This repress came out last year and was a Revelation Records exclusive color. Kinda weird this comes on baby blue instead of yellow, because the latter has been the go-to color for Rev exclusives these last few years. I’m not really complaining though because baby blue works much better than yellow. 

2023 Repress (= 3rd Press) on Baby Blue on Revelation Records /???

The most current represses are not that pretty, but a collector’s gotta do what a collector’s gotta do. 

2023 Repress (= 4th Press) on Custard w/ Blue on Equal Vision (/500)

This version looks much better than the other one, because at least the colors go with the artwork, at least to some degree. But it’s still not a good looking version. 

2024 Repress (= 4th Press) on Purple and Black/White Splatter on Equal Vision /500

How Much Is Enough?

 

A few months ago, Bane announced on their social media accounts that they were getting the band back together. I know some people still make a fuss about reunions, especially if the final tour/show was announced with a big ado, but I don't really care. Bands come, bands go, people change their opinion for whatever reason. If the members of a band decide to get back together because they miss what meant so much to them at one point in their life and it makes them happy, who are others to judge them? No one's force to attend reunions, so why bother if you claim you don't care? 

Around the same time, Bane announced that was going to be a repress of Give Blood. Kind of like a 20 year anniversary reissue, only two years late, but kind of keeping in tune with how the band handles anniversaries, haha. As it goes nowadays, a record release or a re-release means at least half dozen variants, and in this case, nine different variants were announced all at once. The hardcore kid in me applauds band and label for keeping the record in print, and I get why they do so many variants from an economical point of view. However, the record collector in me was not thrilled at all. Nine variants, each $40+, means a large financial commitment. And that is before shipping (from different sources of course) and customs fees. I didn't pull the trigger back then and so far I have not been able to talk myself into buying all of the variants successfully. 

I decided to pick up the variant that one that looked the best and the one that was the most special and skip the rest for now. Obviously, that means a huge hole in my Bane collection, which up until this reissue looked pretty good - and yes, this kind of gnaws at me. Collectors, right?

First of all, the reissue is done really, really well and you definitely get a high quality product. Die cut gatefold sleeve, big booklet within the gatefold sleeve and good quality vinyl. Neither label nor band skimped on this reissue. So you definitely get your money's worth. 

I'm really glad label and band didn't go full 2023 when it came to choosing the vinyl colors. Keeping it classy with this colorway in particular, which is why I chose this one. 

Coke Bottle Clear on Equal Vision /300 (Brooklyn Vegan / Revolver Exclusive)

I also got the Tiger Records exclusive variant. Tiger Records is a record store run by James Siboni, who played bass in Bane when the band dissolved. This is really a beauty. Four way gatefold which folds out into a giant red cross on the one side and shows an incredible live picture of Bane when you flip the whole thing over. You also get the reproduction of a set list circa 2001, a full lyric sheet, a promo shot from the Give Blood era and three cool band pictures. Just beautiful and a real labor of love. 

Fold out red cross with all the extra goodies. I can see those pictures framed on a wall in the future. 

White/Orange /1000 (Tiger Records Exclusive)

Flip side with an incredible live shot by Matt Miller. I wasn't that much excited about reunion shows, but by now I'm really looking forward to seeing Bane live again.

Overall, I'm very happy with the two reissues that I got, but there's still that tiny man inside my head telling me that I definitely need the other variants as well. 

Don't Wait Up, What?

I really like doing trades, but at the same time I'm also pretty terrible at it, because I usually have a hard time giving up records from my collection and I don't really have doubles of cool shit that might be considered trade bait. In this case however, it was pretty easy even though I had to give up another Bane test press. But getting a shot at this particular test press was simply too tempting. I agreed with the other party to not disclose any real details on the trade or which number I got (I blacked out the number as you can see in the picture) for personal reasons. I'm fine with that.

My collection of Don't Wait Up is now complete and it would have been a good opportunity to take a nice updated family picture, but I have to admit that I was just too lazy to lay out the whole collection.

Collector's Choice 2017

So many good records made it into my collection this year again. I'm more than happy with what I managed to pick up in 2017. I didn't make a whole lot of progress with my want list, but I was able to cross off some items at least. Plus I picked up a few records that weren't on that list and some that I didn't even know of one year ago. That's what makes collecting fun though. The other element that makes collecting really fun is the people you get in touch with. Quite a few people have helped me in my efforts by pointing me to records, selling, trading or straight up giving me records for free. All of which I'm very grateful for. My favorite pick up is the test press for Bane's It All Comes Down To This LP, because it embodies everything I like about collecting: great music, incredibly rare, release by one of my favorite bands, and I was tipped of by fellow collector.

Here's to 2018, which will hopefully add more new good music and some old records to my collection and get me in touch with more people. Let's keep collecting fun.

XXX

Ralf

It All Comes Down To This

This is one of those 'Wow, I can't believe that record is mine now.' posts. And it's all thanks to Marcus over at Endless Quest. A few weeks ago he wrote me a message asking me if I'd seen the It All Comes Down To This test on eBay. I told him I hadn't, but that changed within seconds. The next six days were excruciating and I checked the eBay listing at least once an hour to see if it's still there and how high the price was already. Now I definitely know what people mean when they talk about the thrill of the hunt, haha.

For once I even told my wife that I was going after a real heavy hitter, because I knew that the price was going to be rather high. After all, test pressings of early Bane records almost never pop up and are thus almost impossible to find. So having a shot at this one was really exciting. Luckily, my wife is very understanding about my record collecting and even more so when it's about Bane records.

The final minutes of the auction were really gut wrenching and I was still hoping for a steal, because the price was still pretty moderate shortly before the end of the auction. It rose quite drastically in the last seconds, but the final price was still below my personal limit. And anyway, sometimes you just have to pull the trigger. It's only money after all. After I won the auction I contacted a few friends who also happen to collect Bane to see if I'd effectively ruined any friendships. Luckily, a bunch of them weren't even aware that this test had been up on eBay. Less competition and no friendships ruined, I'll take that.

Nobody really knows how many copies there are. However, I recall Marcus telling me once that Equal Vision Records used to make 8 test for the early releases and given the fact that there are also 8 tests for Bane's Give Blood LP, which was also released on Equal Vision, it's probably a good guess to say that there are 8 copies of this test as well.

I've only ever seen one copy up for sale and that went from Kyle Whitlow to Marcus. Comparing the picture of that copy with my copy, I noticed that the labels on my copy are still blank as in not filled out. Check out Marcus' copy to compare. I guess it's enough to fill out just one set of labels and then just go by the label's name and the catalogue number. Does that mean Marcus has #1/8? Knowing his luck with (Bane) records, probably yes. I also asked the seller where he had the test from in the first place. All he told me was that he'd bought a collection from someone and that test was part of the collection. Makes you wonder whose collection that was, but the seller wouldn't tell me more.

This is really one of the absolute gems of my collection and I can't thank Marcus enough for tipping me off.

EURO 53. 'Blank' A side label.

For an occasion like this I had to pull out the other copies as well and go for the group shot.

Give Blood (again) & A Pan

Record collectors are especially fond of rip-off covers, so today I'm doing a rip-off post... Maybe you can figure out who I ripped off. Shouldn't be too hard.

Collecting records, or for that matter anything, is a weird hobby, because as soon as you have a (near) complete collection, the fun part is kind of over. Luckily, that doesn't happen too often, because there are usually records that are hard to come by. It will always bug you that the collection is not complete, but you also know you don't want the collection to be complete because looking for records and finding stuff is so much fun. I have a pretty solid Bane collection I'd say. Right now it's basically only tests that I'm missing. And I know that most of them I'll never obtain because there are so few around for the older releases and the ones that are out there are locked in serious collections. But as I said before, the search is the fun part anyway.
Sometimes you get lucky even when you're not actively searching. A few days ago I saw a copy of Give Blood up for sale in Facebook group. I was intrigued by the part of the record that you could see in the picture, because it looked unusually dark. I asked for a picture of the whole record and to my surprise it was a variant I hadn't seen before. The LP comes on brown marble, which I call molten kinder chocolate, that must have been created when the brown and clear for the brown/clear swirl hadn't mixed properly yet or it was towards the end of the pressing. I'm not an expert on record pressing, but that's my best guess. I'm really stoked on finding this variant. I wonder what other unique records are out there.

Here's a picture to compare the brown marble one and the regular brown/clear swirl one.

One more picture showing the brown marble, clear and brown/clear records.

If you've made it this far, you may wonder where the rip-off part comes in. Well, the same day I received the Bane LP in the mail, I also received a new pan (forget the greenish tint, that's just from lighting/the contrast paper I use). I remembered a post on another blog from years ago combining a Bane record with cookware, so I decided to take a rip-off photo.

The Killing Flame

My buddy who helped me out with the Trial LP also send me two more records that he had doubles of. The first one is The Killing Flame's Another Breath LP. It took me a few spins, but this record is growing on me. The singing voice needs a little getting used to, at least for me, but it's clicking more and more. Sounds like a mix between 7 Seconds and Ignite as far as the vocals go. If only the singer hit all the correct notes, I guess then I'd really like it. Because the music is pretty good.

Through Being Cool

I really love the 2nd Saves The Day LP. As far as ego records from the 90s go, this is one of my favourites. So many good songs. I fell a little bit ashamed to admit that I've never owned a physical copy on vinyl so far. So I was really happy to learn that Equal Vision was going to do a reissue a few months back, because the nice looking colour copies of the first press go for a pretty penny these days. I finally decided to pick up a cream coloured record, because I thought it would match the cover really nicely. When I got the record though I was really disappointed because the colour doesn't really look like cream to me. It's more an ugly white mixed with an even uglier yellow. Sort of a scrambled egg colour. I'm glad I finally have a copy of this awesome LP, but I might have to upgrade it at some point.

Anniversaries

So Bane has been a band for 20 years as of 2015. Such a crazy long time for a hardcore band. There are only very few bands who have been continuously active for that long. 10 years ago the band and Equal Vision, the label they have been affiliated with for a long time, commemorated the 10 year anniversary with a special release. The '10 Year Anniversary' 7" - as I know the story - came originally as the CD you can see in the middle in a 7" sleeve because the vinyl wasn't ready for the show. You could later send a code to Equal Vision and get the actual vinyl. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on that. There are only two songs on this 7", Reckoning Day (which had originally come out on the demo tape) and a cover of the Bjork song 'Enjoy'.
I've had the blueish/yellow were for a few years now. It came as full package, meaning with cover and the CD. The white/yellow variant was a completely different story. Despite the fact that there are 450 copies of this 7" in total, they rarely pop up. I often struck out when I contacted people who had a copy and on one occasion where I found someone who was willing to sell me the record, it got lost in the mail. Or he never send it to me. I don't really know. Either way I still didn't have a copy. I also found two copies on Discogs but due to the time difference the copies that were advertised in the automated mail I get daily had already been sold by the time I woke up. Finally I managed to get a copy on Discogs that hadn't been sold yet. It doesn't come with the CD or a cover, but I got for under $10 plus I was just glad to get any copy at that point. I might upgrade this version at some point, but for now I'm happy as it is.

Hardcore Pride

I've been listening a lot to Edgeland podcast these last few months. For anyone who hasn't checked it out, do it. Lots of very interesting and entertaining interviews. Listening to various episodes I also got reminded that I still needed to get (back) some (semi-)classic records. I did have Ten Yard Fight records a few years back, but I traded them away and never got around to picking them up again. Big mistake. I almost forgot how good this 7" was. Black vinyl on Equal Vision. This 7" was also released on colour by Equal Vision and on another colour by Big Wheel Recreation.