Thursday, March 21, 2024

Give Me The Cure

No doubt, last year I really branched out on what I was listening to for music. I was craving something different, and I discovered all kinds of stuff that hit that spot. Part of that shift was that I allowed myself to listen to single songs. I've always been a "full album or nothing" kind of guy, but realizing the freedom with Spotify to listen to a song with zero commitment to chase anything else changed my entire outlook. Plus, as my friend Doug and I were sharing with each other the oddball shit that we had listend to that year, he told me, "Spotify is totally for listening to shit you won't buy." Words of wisdom, and recognizing that I can love songs from the first Lorde album with no commitment to have it on my record shelf was freeing.

Of course this is good for me in theory, but apparently if the obsession is strong enough, I'll still find myself buying records.

Last year, my friend Sarah shared the song Open from The Cure with me. Like a lot of the songs that she shared with me at the time, it took me a while to fully appreciate it, but once it hit me I found myself really enjoying it and returning to the song often. I didn't venture too far away from Open, but earlier this year I wanted to check out more from the band and happened to check out the song Pictures Of You. Wow. This song hooked me immediately. It had all the sad vibes that I was craving and I listened to that song so many times. My obsession with it finally got to the point where I started looking at 12 inch singles for it. I found a UK colored vinyl pressing from a seller in Canada, and even though the price was higher than I expected, it didn't matter as I quickly added it to my cart and checked out.
After sitting with the song Pictures Of You for a bit, I took a chance with the entire Disintegration album, and to my surprise, I love it so fucking much. Goddamnit. All I wanted was one single from The Cure, and now it's got me thinking of buying more.

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Priest Revolution

When Sandwell was over from the UK, and I met him in Boston for the afternoon, he was kind enough to bring me a couple of gifts. The thing about me is that my personality is 50% records and 50% books, so Mark knows me well.
First up, Mark delivered me a book on the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. I've got a few books covering the NWOBHM, and the series of them from Martin Popoff, I've read a couple of times, so I'm happy to add one more to the shelf. It has been a few years since I've spent any time reading non-fiction books on music, but the next time the NWOBHM obsession kicks in, I'll be reaching for this one.
A few years ago, I was really thinking about starting to collect Judas Priest singles. I mean, I have an incomplete collection of Iron Maiden singles, so I might as well start to fuck around with Priest, right? I didn't get too far with that idea, and soon set the plan aside to focus on other things, but I was still excited that Mark brought me a copy of the Revolution single. The Angel Of Retribution album was released in 2005, and Revolution was the first single released from it. This was Halford's return to Priest, and to hear that scream at the beginning of the song at that time, it sent a chill down your spine. It was so good to have him back in the band. This was back in the days when vinyl was struggling to make a comeback, so of course the only option was a picture disc.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Atlanta Vacation

One last record before I checked out of Wanna Hear It. I said that I wasn't going to spend a lot, and while I did walk out of there with six records, they were all relatively cheap, so I'm saying that I did an okay job with self restraint.
When I bought the Abuse Of Power 7 inch back in 2017, I only grabbed the black vinyl pressing, and I was okay with that. Black vinyl was the more limited pressing, and while there was a small itch to grab a colored vinyl option, I kept my cool and didn't do it. Now that I have this edition with the Atlanta Vacation cover, and it puts my total collection for this record at 2, I'm really feeling a pull to chase more for this one. I listened to this 7 inch today for the first time in a while, and it is still a really good record.
There are a series of Atlanta Vacation tour sleeves. This one is for the Northeast tour for Baltimore, Boston and Wallingford CT... but there is also a different cover for their California tour, plus two others for each of their European tours... and I want them all. This copy was only $15 from Wanna Hear It, so I'm trying to stay chill and not chase the $30 to $50 ones available on Discogs right now for the other covers. Patience.

Monday, March 11, 2024

Test Press Of Fire

I'm not a big fan of live recordings. Sure I'll break out Kiss Alive or Black Sabbath Live Evil every now and then, and I'll grab the occasional live bootleg for the historical documentation of what songs some of the big metal bands were playing at that point in their career, but for hardcore bands... kind of pointless. Is there a single live hardcore record that people listen to on a regular basis? Fuck. I was at the last Have Heart show, and still, I have no interest in listening to the live album from it.
So when I was obsessing over the early 2000's in recent years, and picked up a couple of Fields Of Fire records, I noticed that they also had a live 7 inch. Hard pass. Zero interest. But then when I was at Wanna Hear It with Sandwell, and I saw a test press of the live record in the rack... well, now you have my attention... and for $3, get in my collection.
Nice special cover as a tribute to Sounds Of Nature from Christ On Parade, and number 4 out of 20.

Wednesday, March 06, 2024

Broken Distance

When I listen to music, I usually pick a year and then stick around listening to the records from that year over and over, until I feel the need to move on to something else. A couple of years ago, I found myself stuck in a 2008 playlist. For me, that seems to be a time period that I rarely reach back to, and I attribute that lack of attention is due to the fact that my brain insists that 2008 was just a couple of years ago. I either listen to stuff that is brand new to me, or stuff that is really old... anything in the middle kind of gets lost, and 2008 kind of falls in that weird in-between place. Because of this, it was really fun to stick around in that year and dust off and rediscover some records.
One of the records that I found myself really getting into when revisiting 2008 was the Hourglass 7 inch from Broken Distance. I wasn't really familiar with the band at that time, but years later became good friends with the singer, David, when he was running Salad Days Records, and it was a lot of fun to finally spend some time with one of his early straight edge bands. I started digging into the pressing info for Hourglass because I was tempted to pick up some colored vinyl if the price was right, and in the process I discovered that there was a second 7 inch from the band. Sundown was released 9 years after Hourglass, so I'm assuming that the band just got back together to record the final songs that they had written... but I immediately loved what I heard and wanted to buy the record.
I reached out to David immediately and asked if he had any spare Broken Distance records laying around because I wanted to buy one of anything he still had available. He told me that he probably had some stuff at his parents house, and that he would check the next time he was there. Over a year later and I still haven't heard back from him on it, so when I saw a cheap copy of the white vinyl in the racks at Wanna Hear It, I quickly added it to the handful of records that I needed to buy.

158 pressed on white vinyl.

Saturday, March 02, 2024

The Title Fight You Forget

This is the last record that I picked up last year that was influenced from sharing songs with my friend Sarah. There are a few other bands that she turned me on to that I'd still like to pick up the record for... namely Life Of Agony's River Runs Red, and maybe the In Love There Is No Law album from Twitching Tongues. This record, however, is from a band that I never expected to like, Title Fight.
I was obviously familiar with Title Fight when Sarah sent me the song Loud And Clear to check out. The band had a lot of hype when they were around, and it seemed like everyone liked them, but they just never seemed interesting to me. I tried to get into both their Shed and Floral Green albums at the time because it seemed like they were everywhere... but no matter how much I tried, each time I just felt like they were kind of bland. Ten years later, I gave Title Fight another chance with the song that Sarah sent me... and surprise, I fucking loved what I heard. Looking back at 2012/2013, I was heavily into stuff like Mindset and those first two Turnstile records... stuff that had more of a HARDCORE sound... so I can understand why Title Fight didn't interest me at the time. Listening to the band in 2023/2024, after loving stuff that is more melodic like the first Anxious 7 inch, and heavily getting into bands like Seaweed, Title Fight made more sense to my ears these days and I could finally appreciate what they were doing.
I ended up listening to those songs from the early Title Fight EPs quite a bit the last six months, and when I saw the 7 inch for The Last Thing You Forget in the racks at Wanna Hear It, I was excited to grab it. I was hoping for a colored vinyl version, but after quickly checking Discogs, it looked like those records carry a price tag that I wasn't really ready to tackle at the time, so this inexpensive black vinyl third press from 2015 was good enough for me.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Can't Get There From Here

I listened to a lot of R.E.M. last year. There was just something about that band that struck the sad and melancholic nerve in me, and I returned to their records again and again. When I was flipping through the 7 inch racks at Wanna Hear It and I saw the single for Can't Get There From Here, and it was obvious that I needed to buy it even though I've never given much thought to collecting R.E.M. singles.
Can't Get There From Here is from the 1985 album, Fables Of The Reconstruction. I still don't have the vinyl for that album, and it seems to be one that you can still pick up for a reasonable price, so maybe I'll have to add that one to the collection soon.
R.E.M. singles are cool because they come with an exclusive track on the b-side. The flip side for this single features the song Bandwagon... and since I've never bothered with R.E.M. singles, this is the first time that I've heard the song, almost 40 years after it was released. Apparently the 12 inch single has two exclusive songs, so obviously that was the way that I should have gone, and I'll have to remember that if I want to keep collecting R.E.M. singles.