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

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!

buzzsaws and politics

It's been a little slow lately while I wait for a bunch of ebay treasures to arrive or for a magical find down at the bargain bin.

I thought I'd had the latter when I stumbled onto a red copy of the Acrid / Left for Dead split Hacked to Pieces on buzzsaw vinyl (picture mercilessly stolen from ihatepunkrock's flickr because I forgot to take any......again).

I was really stoked to find it, mostly because I tend to fall for tacky shit like discs with funny shapes or cool packaging, but what I didn't notice until I got home was that one of the teeth had previously snapped clean off.

Arg!

It must have happened ages ago because the missing piece wasn't in my bags or back in the store, so I took it back and washed my hands of the whole affair. There goes my interesting post for the week. Collectors: you can officially correct the number of presses for this record from 104 to 103, because damage like that makes the copy I owned for the weekend worth approximately three-fifths of bugger-all.

In lighter news, I did find a still-sealed copy of A Perfect Circle's eMOTIVe on lovely orange wax while I was dropping off the saw disc this morning. Nothing particularly special about that - god only knows how many copies of that there must be floating around out there - but the 2nd disc for this has a really beautiful white swirl in the middle of the clear orange and I can't take my eyes off it.

My phone is near-death for battery right now so I'll try and get some pics tonight.

EDIT: Pics added after the cut.

the alchemy index

The Alchemy Index was a pretty divisive record for fans of Thrice. So many bagged on the new sounds and styles the band were exploring, and more than a few fans left the fold.

I'm a huge fan of Thrice and for me The Alchemy Index is a real cornerstone of why I love them so much. I don't think it's sustainable for a band to continue making the same music for their entire career, and I have a lot of respect for anyone who ignores their critics and follows their own creativity to where it takes them. Far fewer bands have ventured into such relatively strange territory and produced something so cohesive as a result.

For me the record's strongest tracks are on Water, the 2nd disc. There's a really great mix of electronics and a denseness to the guitars. I've seen the word 'sleepy' thrown around a lot when describing this record and it definitely has a floaty and ethereal aspect to a lot of the songs. It's a very eclectic set, and definitely one of those love/hate arrangements.

Ranting aside, I was stoked to pick this up still sealed for something like $US40 on ebay. It's a numbered box (I got 16/3000) and the packing is just stunning. Each of the 4 10" EPs is coloured after the element it represents and it's all enclosed within a beautiful book, filled with lyrics and little drawings. There was a problem with the pressing of the Earth discs, so another copy was supplied extra with my copy (including a note from Vagrant explaining).

I can't understand why this thing is so cheap, but it is - you would be wise to grab a copy as soon as possible as it's surely only going to increase in value as it ages.

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.

a beginning with no end

I like buying records.

That's the guts of it, but it's a little more complicated than that. I like buying records because I'm trying to recapture something. There's a certain disposability with music these days, and it's getting harder and harder to really connect with music and the people who create it. The magic is slipping away slowly.

I remember the record player my parents owned. Being so young I didn't understand anything about records, so the played was this thing of beauty and reverence - a magic box that created music by some ethereal process.

Today, music is just another digital commodity and it's such a shame. CDs have become the next digital watch - you can't give them away on a street corner. Digital music is just so utterly impersonal too - download, listen, delete, repeat. I love being able to carry a thousand songs in my back pocket, but it doesn't make me appreciate the subtly and mystery of music, nor the man hours that so many people have put into creating it.

Listening to the music of a fantastic band should be an experience, something to be cherished and appreciated. I guess buying records is how I choose to reconnect with that magic. I've only been collecting vinyl for the last year so my collection is far from expansive or amazing, but it is very special to me. Sounds a little self-indulgent but most hobbies are.

So welcome to my waxlog, a place where I can document some of the records that have passed into (and sometimes through) my hands, and a place where I can strive to recapture some of the romance of an old record player.