a wilhelm scream collection

I've been getting into these guys for a while now but only recently started trying to get a collection together. Managed to pick up 1 thing I never expected to find, and haven't managed to track down another thing which should be much easier!

Just how it goes I guess.

a selection of 7"s

Things have been awfully quiet on the vinyl front lately. I bought a few 7"s before Christmas and took pics with the intention of posting, but then the internet didn't happen and I lost interest. Sorry.

Anyway, here they are in no particular order.

against me collection

Thought I'd post the current state of my Against Me! collection, as I've not actually put it together before. I'm not one of those must-have-every-colour-of-every-press types, for the most part anyway. I mean, I would be, but there's just so many different pressings to collect - Axl Rose is up to 27! Reading the list on No Idea, that totals an amazing 78 different variations across all the pressings. You'd have to be insane to chase that many variations, and that's just 1 album!

Anyway, the 12s I do have are (top to bottom, left to right):

• Against Me! is Reinventing Axl Rose - 10th press, baby yellow /550
• Against Me! is Reinventing Axl Rose - 2006 test press, silkscreen fabric cover /18
• From Her Lips to God's Ears (Energize-O-Tron) - 1st press, black /3185
• Don't Lose Touch - 1st press, black /3050
• The Original Cowby - 1st press, baby blue /524
• New Wave - 1st press, clear yellow /6000
• Searching for a Former Clarity - 1st press, white + black /3105

Still missing a few key 12s, namely As the Eternal Cowboy, the 12 of White People for Peace, the double-12 live record Americans Abroad, and the much pursued self-titled (which will is the current white whale).

In the 7s department, we got (left to right, top to bottom - just to be difficult):

• The Acoustic EP - 1st press, clear gold /256
• The Acoustic EP - 1st press, clear /267
• Crime as Forgiven By Against Me! - 1st press, black (big hole) /5400
• The Disco Before the Breakdown - 1st press, clear red /336
• The Disco Before the Breakdown - 16th(?) press, purple/pink swirl /75
• Thrash Unreal - 1st press, black /6500
• Cavalier Eternal - 1st press, clear blue /327
• Cavalier Eternal - 5th(?) press, pinky/purple swirl /574
• Thrash Unreal - 1st press, black /6500
• Sink, Florida, Sink - 1st press, blue/white swirl /2000
• Sink, Florida, Sink - 4th press, pale blue swirl /150
• Thrash Unreal - 1st press, clear red /500
• White People for Peace - 1st press, white /1000 (signed by Tom!)
• White People for Peace - 1st press, black /6500
• Stop! - 1st press, black /4500

Still a few 7s to go before I'll consider the set is complete. Mostly that's the last colours of the singles from the New Wave recordings - the yellow press of Stop!, the single for New Wave, and I think there was 1 more colour for Thrash Unreal too.

Crazy shit. Hit me up if you fancy helping to fill those gaps

liquid seperation

Cobra Khan are a kickass local Auckland band and the Liquid Separation 7" has 2 great tracks from their 2008 album Helgorithms.

You can pick this 7" up for dirt-fucking-cheap at their bigcartel store, but there's only 150 of these suckers around all on black wax so you better get on it sharpish. I asked if there were any tests going but apparently someone fucked up the pressings on the tests and the audio was total shit. The pressings were approved off the plates, weirdness.

Anyway the real gem on the 7" is the b-side, Shutter, which was the first single off the album.

You can check out the music vids for both tracks after the cut via dirty-old-youtube.

a day of contrasts

So, yesterday was a bit of a weird one for music. During lunchtime I picked up Based on a True Story and Dr Boondigga and the Big BW by Fat Freddy's Drop.

FFD are just about the best example of New Zealand dub music, and they are fucking awesome. They have that lazy Sunday afternoon BBQ sound that just makes you feel home - the sound of Wellington summer in a record.

Boondigga is their latest album released this year and there's some pretty dense brass arrangements in there (when was the last time you heard a tuba?). True Story was quite dark lyrically, but Boondigga is a lot more uplifting and happy - very we-are-all-a-community-and-we-support-each-other in style. Both fantastic albums and really every kiwi should own them.

It's hard to explain how fantastic FFD are for people outside New Zealand, but really you've just got to sit down and give them a try. There's an audio sampler on their site so get over there and at least do yourself the service of listening.

In terms of the wax, both records are double-gatefold on black wax. No idea on the number of pressings of either, but I don't give a shit if there's a million. Both these records are a must, and the artwork on the sleeves is awesome.

The contrast comes in with this pair of 7"s from The Inoculators which were waiting when I got home. You might recall I scored a free copy of Dropped Their Brains not too long ago with an Against Me! 7" and was pretty stoked. I ordered their 7" split with Noise Attack right then and there, and it turned up today with a friend - their new 7" Home for the Holidays.

I emailed Murphy from the band to check it out, turns out there's 550 of their new single pressed, all on the stunning clear with red + green splatter. The other single was pressed 500 times on clear red with black splatter.

If I'm not mistaken, that completes my Inoculators collection!

o pioneers!!! + city and colour

Picked up these two 7"s off ebay a few weeks back and they were waiting for me when I got home tonight.

Sleeping Sickness is a great acoustic track by City and Colour, and also happens to be the track I'm trying to learn on the ukulele right now. It's a sad song but it's so beautiful, check it out if you get the chance. This 7" is the first pressing (I think there's only been 1 so far anyway) on black wax out of 1000.

Next up we have Under the Influence 10, the O Pioneers!!! split with New Bruises. I've not heard of New Bruises but I have just recently discovered O Pioneers and I'm pretty damn impressed. I really love the folky hardcore sound (oxymoron?), but you should check out their myspace (or their profile on Punknews) and listen to the tracks they have.

After you've done that, at the very least you should go and grab their latest 12", Neon Creeps - if not their entire catalogue.

heart burns

I picked up this record on the strength of Tom’s first single Anna was a Stool Pigeon and it’s not a disappointment. The record is a definite shift away from Against Me!'s previous work but not in an unpleasant way. I guess if I picked this up and it sounded exactly the same as Against Me! I wouldn’t be upset, but it wouldn’t be much of a progression of his sound.

There’s a lot more electronics in here - synths and drum machines - so it won’t appeal to a lot of people, but I appreciate he’s trying new things and going in a new direction.

I’m fairly sure this was only pressed on black wax, but it came with the CD and a decent lyric sheet as well so it’s not a bad package. If there are more colours then I’d definitely like to know - anyone got the inside word there?

coaster bonus 7"

Picked this 7" up off ebay a few weeks ago for a pretty penny. There were 1500 of these pressed with various ink colours on the labels, the purple on mine limited to 272.

The sleeve was made by a fan in the same style as the sleeve of Coaster which is a neat way to close it out. The back label on the disc is plain black however, which is kinda odd.

new wave singles

These 3 are single 7"s released from New Wave and they're fan-fucking-tastic. New Wave ranks pretty highly on my favourite album list so any tracks off that album are going to be pretty solid in my books. Stop! was pressed 4500 times on black, with another 500 on yellow. Thrash Unreal got 6500 black presses with another 500 on red. White People for Peace was pressed on 4500 blacks, 1000 whites and another 500 on red.

Even if you can only find the black presses of any of these, they are such great tracks (and all 3 have fantastic b-sides that aren't on New Wave) so you should grab them. I've got a spare black Thrash Unreal if you want to hit me up on Limited Pressing for a trade.

I've not managed to track down a yellow Stop! or a red White People for Peace so let me know if you've got either to trade. I have, however, scored a white press of White People for Peace which is signed by Tom Gabel - ace!

against me! remixes

Here are a couple of 12" Against Me! remixes from the Searching for a Former Clarity album. On the left is Don't Lose Touch  remixed by Mouse on Mars, and on the right is From Her Lips to God's Ears remixed by Adrock. Both were only pressed on black limited to 3050 and 3185 respectively, and truth be told I haven't heard either yet. They're essentials for my AM! collection, but I've not managed to track down digital versions so I haven't risked playing yet.

In both cases the record has the remix as the a-side track, and the album version on the b-side. Both tracks are really solid on the album so you can't go wrong with those. The remixes? Your mileage may vary.

7" of the month club

I guess you could call the 7" of the Month Club set released by NOFX as the first set of records I ever chased, my first white whale. The real hook for me on this was the cover art, specifically the back cover art. A 12 piece puzzle making one larger piece of artwork is a pretty cool idea, and I was totally onboard for the set.

Originally the club ran from 2005-2006, and the 3000 original pressings were all gone a few months before the club finished it's run of 12. So began the long and arduous task of tracking down each record individually on ebay.

I'd picked up 3 or 4 when a whole set in supposedly "perfect condition" came up, and I was foaming at the mouth. Ended up dropping a stupid sum on them, and it was all downhill from there.

The records eventually arrived - damaged - and I couldn't be sure the damage was caused by the poor packing job the seller did or because the seller had misrepresented the quality on the auction. A lot of back and forth happened and I eventually got both my money back and a valuable lesson not to deal with teenagers on important matters like collectable vinyl.

During the time I was fighting with this kid for a refund I'd managed to track down the remaining 7"s I was missing and had 2 complete sets for a short time. I guess the final joke is on that kid - I swapped out a couple of the best looking discs and sleeves with my slightly damaged copies and sent him the rest.

Merry christmas you little shit.

All in all, however, I'm really happy with finally polishing off this set. Some of the songs are a bit shitty but the package is well put together and it's cohesive. The little running joke scribed into the matrix of each disc is a clever idea too. The picture disc for number 12 is a bit tacky but I guess NOFX are a bit tacky too. Speaking of, I forgot to take pictures of it somehow, so the 12th is just the ebay pic. Sue me.

rise against

I was on a huge Rise Against bent for about 2 years which peaked when this self-titled 7" was released by Fat Wreck. I went trawling to find the most obscure tracks from radio broadcasts and Tim's old Baxter days. I picked up this record from Fat as soon as it was released and was lucky enough to score one of the 1010 red/white swirl copies. I later picked up one of the 4008 black copies from my favourite record store, Real Groovy in Wellington.

Rise Against is largely my gateway, as it was them and Story of the Year which got me kicked off into the melodic hardcore scene. Finally I'd found something light and fast, an obvious pop influence but still with a heavy socially responsible message. I managed to score Joe's pick after their last concert in Auckland too - stoked!

The two tracks on this 7" are the last remaining ones from the Appeal to Reason sessions and they're pretty solid. I don't think they come close to anything off The Sufferer and the Witness, but seeing as that's my favourite RA album, they'd be doing well to get close to that.

If you're into a relatively polished melodic hardcore sound I recommend you pick this up. I think Fat still has some black presses in stock, but the red/white swirl presses are floating around ebay every so often and won't break the bank.

3

The 3 box set by Ben Harper are the first records I ever owned so they'll always be special. I was given them as a gift and at the time it seemed like a pretty strange gift for someone who didn't collect records or even own a record player.

In hindsight, it's a pretty neat thing to have, and I'm really stoked I was given it. I've always enjoyed Ben's music and really this box personifies the search for something special. Whenever I hear a track off any of the enclosed albums, I'm immediately brought back to opening this box - the texture, the smell of the burlap covering, the way the light catches the simple black wax...ahh heaven.

There's not a great deal of information about this box out there on the web. I've seen various sites listing total pressings between 1500 and 2500, but the bog-standard appears to be 2000. I'd really love to know what the real count is if anyone out there could shed some light on the subject.

Prices for this box set have varied wildly over the years. Recently one went for $US80 on ebay, but just last year you were lucky to find one for less than $US300. Pick one up if you can, they really are amazing sets and will only increase in value as time goes on.