Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Days Gone And Reconnected

Not only has Facebook helped me reconnect with some old friends in far off places, but it has also provided the opportunity to increase my record collection. Back in the mid-90's, when I was travelling to Boston a couple times a month for shows, I met a kid named Robb Woods. Hell of a nice guy that was always quick with a smile, and some small talk. One of the rare individuals that didn't fall in with any "crew", and seemed genuinely nice to everyone he met. I remember taking a trip to catch a Slapshot show in 1997...it was an insane line up that included Ten Yard Fight, Floorpunch and Bane...as I was hanging out between bands, Robb came over and gave me a demo from his new band Daysgone. Great stuff. The only time I got to see Robb's band play live was their record release show for the Gold 7 inch. It was the first show of their tour with Trial, at some club that I can't remember the name of in New Hampshire. I bought a copy of their 7 inch, but ended up with a black copy. Robb caught me later on that night, and immediately swapped it out for the gold colored vinyl copy, which was hand numbered and limited to 100. The funny thing is that to this day, I am missing the black vinyl pressing from my collection.
At some point Robb moved out to Colorado, and it had been many years since I had heard from him. I was listening to Daysgone and recommending them to some friends on last.fm, when I figured, "what the hell", and I looked him up on Facebook, found him, and reconnected. During one of our conversations, he mentioned that he should sell me all of his old vinyl. I told him to make up a list and I'd gladly take some stuff off his hands. Months passed with no list. I kept bugging him, and he mentioned that he had lots of stuff that I would probably be interested in, and dropped the name of Boston greats like Eye For An Eye and Kingpin. Another month passed and still no list. I couldn't take it anymore and just made him an offer for a few of the records that I knew he had.


I asked Robb if he had any copies of the Daysgone 7 inch laying around. I wanted to pick up a gold copy for a friend, and I was hopeful to get a copy on black vinyl for myself. Robb didn't have a black vinyl copy, but he did offer me the one and only test pressing made for the Gold 7 inch. No special cover or anything for it, but I can't explain how excited I was to have this in my possession. In addition to the test pressing, Robb threw in three Daysgone t-shirts as well. Very cool. Only two are pictured above because it seems that my wife confiscated the one shirt that was too small for me, and she wears it as a night shirt.

I had no idea that Suburban Voice had pressed the Kingpin 7 inch on colored vinyl. I was looking at a larger version of the colored vinyl photo that Marcus has at the top of his blog, and there it was...the Kingpin 7 inch on gold vinyl. How could this be? I was there when Al Quint pulled into the parking lot at the Kingpin show and started assembling the records for sale for the first time, and they were all on black vinyl. Right after I saw the picture from Marcus, Robb mentioned that he would sell me his copy. Sweet, I'll take it.

The other piece of colored vinyl that Robb mentioned he had was the Omega Drone 7 inch from Eye For An Eye. I had forgotten how great this band was until I was recently listening to the 100% Unnatural discography on TAANG!. I had been unsuccessful searching eBay, looking for this record on colored vinyl. When Robb mentioned that he had their first 7 inch on red vinyl, yeah, I took it. I recently saw a blue vinyl pressing of this on eBay, but lost the auction at the last minute. If anyone has a copy of this on blue vinyl that they want to let go, let me know, and I'll make you a solid offer.

Robb also tossed in a copy of the Tone 7 inch from Flagman. Apparently his dog had taken a bite of the record cover, so he threw it my way. I'd never heard this record before, and you know, I kind of like it. Very much in the same vein of melodic hardcore of the time.

4 comments:

mcs said...

Cool story! I now have three things to say:

1. The Daysgone test looks cool. The only other records I have seen with those same labels are the Minor Threat and Teen Idols 7" (currently on ebay!)

2. You mention the Daysgone gold 7" being numbered out of 100. Neither of my two copies are. Did you make this up, or have I just been extremely unlucky?

3. I also have the Kingpin 7" on dark red vinyl. Seriously. Sorry.

Mike said...

My copy of the Daysgone record has an additional insert that is a thank you list. On the bottom of the insert it is numbered 32/100.

Kingpin on red vinyl! Sweet! Another quest.

kylec123 said...

Ahh. Very nice. Id love to have a daysgone shirt. I do have what your missing though, the black "gold" 7". I need to find a copy on gold.

Anonymous said...

Marcus,
Yeah I noticed years later that the test press labels were like the old Minor Threat ones...(note we only printed up 2 test presses..one for Drawn and Quartered records and one for us) and I am not even sure the other test press actually ever got to them.
the whole hand numbered this goes like this...
there were 500 records pressed total. thats it.
of the 500 only 100 were on gold.
Of the 100, the first 50 were hand numbered by me. the other 50 went to Drawn and Quartered records.
Soo the hand numbering did exists but it is only the 50 that we the band had in possession...we sold them all that first night i believe.

Anyhow...Mike and crew...thanks for the kind words and the enjoyment of something I put alot of heart and soul into back then...I appreciate that you appreciate it.
Im glad we reconnected buddy.

tell the gal in Europe that I am sorry we never made it to foreign soil...i regret it to this day.

Oh well.


XXX
Robb