Red Screaming LIfe

I've been pretty obsessed by Soundgarden lately, due to both my nostaligic interest in older Sub Pop releases, as well as finally getting into their 'Superunknown' album, which I found boring when it came out and never went back to. So I have been hitting up disogs and eBay hoping to find records that I don't have at a good price... which seems increasingly unlikely these days.

Well, I got lucky a couple of weeks ago when I saw a record listed badly on eBay. The title of the auction and the picture of the record did not match. I watched the item and, with two days to go on the auction, I messaged the seller to ask which record was for sale - was it the one described by the text, or the one shown in the photo? He replied to say thatthe picture was wrong, and let me know that he had changed the picture for the correct one. However, when I checked the auction, there was only one photo, and it did not show the record itself. It showed only the cover. And there was a little less than two days to go. So I watched it and did a last second bid, and it turned out that I was the only bidder and got this for around half of what it usually sells for.

This is a red vinyl pressing of the 'Screaming Life EP'. The record was originally released October 1987 as Sub Pop SP12. This clear red copy is a slightly later pressing, probably pressed around 1991/2 ish.

There were 5 different colours from this pressing, and I now have three of them. Realistically I can't expect to get all 5 as one of them seems uber rare.

There is still an orange vinyl first pressing that I can hope to find one day, but only if I can get it for a fair price, which is unlikely. But not impossible, based on this score. Fingers crossed.

Making Things With Light

A couple of years ago I went through a three month pop punk phase, and during that time I listened to a bunch of bands that I hadn't really thought too much about in a long, long time. And whilst I moved on from my pop punk phase and started listening to hardcore again, I have still listened to a lot of those bands over these past two years. So when a colour vinyl Mr. T Experience record popped up for sale in the UK a couple of weeks ago, I figured I would grab it before someone else did.

Aside from the early 7"s, I haven't seen many colour vinyl LPs on Lookout! Records over the years. So this feels like a pretty cool one to have picked up. Titled 'Making Things With Light', this record is the band's third LP and came out as Lookout! number 37 in 1990. I get very nostalgic for early Lookout! releases, and I especially love the size of the label's logo on the back cover. It looks both cool and also ridiculous.

I really enjoyed the two Mr T Experience LPs that I got into a couple of years back, and this one is every bit as catchy. I'm already thinking that I need more, although there are a lot to go at. They made 12 LPs, which is a lot for any band. I imagine it could take a while to pick them off, one by one. But that's how I roll. And eventually I am sure I will get there.

Eyeteeth / Burial Rot

Last year I picked up a 7" by a UK band called Eyeteeth. It had Godzilla on the cover and was titled 'Straight Edge Violence', so I was practically forced to buy it based on these factors alone. And here we are in 2024 and they've just dropped a split 12" with a band called Burial Rot.

This went up for sale pretty recently. I saw a post announcing that it was available and clicked the link within about half an hour or it being posted, and the site told me that there were only 12 of the coloured copies left, so I had to grab one immediately. I checked back later in the day and they were gone. So I'm glad I didn't waste time for once. There were only 100 copies on this colour, plus there were 200 on black.

This version is referred to as the 'Diehard splatter' and it comes with a whole host of other stuff... canvas patches, stickers, badges/pins, art prints. It's quite an impressive package.

This comes with a sticker on the plastic sleeve which I think sums it up pretty well:

This record is indeed both punishing and violent, but thankfully it's relatively short so I can take it. It's about 23 minutes long, with the 4 Burial Rot songs take about 12 minutes, and the 10 Eyeteeth songs are over in a little over 10 minutes.

I'm not a metal guy, and both of these bands are clearly influenced in some way by death & black metal, but all I hear here is some heavy, hardcore punk with a dark side to it, and I'm all in. My only real complaint is that there isn't enough. I need more.

Loud And Proud

Back in 2020 I picked up the debut LP by Heavy Discipline, a Pittsburgh band who sound a lot like a Boston band from the 1980s. I enjoyed that record back then in the Covid era, but I can't say I have gone back to it much since. But recently Painkiller Records put out a follow up record, and when it showed up for sale in a UK distro I figured I'd grab a copy.

As with the first record, the black vinyl is the rarest version, but I'm happy to have a colour copy even if it is more common.

This 12" contains 7 songs and is done and dusted in around 13 minutes. It sounds somehow harder than the last record, and realy strongly reminds me of Violent Reaction. I even went back over the blog to read my entries on the first Violent Reaction LP, which came out back in 2013. Nearly elevent years ago. But yeah, if you miss that kinda sound then this record will be way up your street.

Hunted Down

It's funny, but this record has annoyed me so much over the last few years. Every time I would seach on eBay for Down To Nothing records, I would find lots of copies of this Soundgarden 'Hunted Down' 7". And at no point did I ever feel like I wanted one.

The original version of this 7" was Sub Pop's first 7" release and first foray into the world of coloured vinyl. It came out in 1987 as a blue vinyl record in a blue paper sleeve. It didn't look overly exciting, but regardless, it was Soundgarden's first release and these days it sells for a lot of money if you can find one. So it was a bit of surprise when Sub Pop repressed this one for Record Store Day in 2010 with a full picture sleeve.

There were apparently over 5,000 copies of this pressed in 2010, and at the time I remember thinking that it seemed like a cash grab. It was easy to find and sold for pretty much nothing. So of course, when I recently decided that I did want one after all, it suddenly seems harder to find and more expensive, but thankfully still nowhere near the price of an original.

Misery Maker

Released back in August 1990, Sub Pop 70 was this 7" by a band called The Derelicts. It's a relatively early record in the label's catalogue, although I had never actually heard of this one until a few weeks ago. It was an easy and cheap buy from within the UK.

Apparently the band was a Seattle punk outfit active 1987-1991. I'm assuming that they influenced a fair few bands of the era. The two songs on here are over in about 4 minutes, and they remind me of both The Dwarves and Supersuckers. It's pretty good but it's also very short, and in some ways a good reminder of how 7"s were so cheap and useful as a way of checking out new bands back in the day.

Beat Your Heart Out

Another Sub Pop 7" that I picked up, and without doubt this is a record that I would not have bothered with had it not been for my 2024 quest to pick up most of the label's early catalogue.

This 7" by The Muffs came out as Sub Pop 157 in July 1992. It came on two colours of vinyl (pink and green), and I plumped for the green solely because I found one for sale in the UK.

The Muffs were a band from Southern California who started in the early 90s and kept going (with a few years gap) until 2019, when lead singer and only consistent member, Kim Shattuck, sadly passed away. Aside from The Muffs, she was also best known for replacing Kim Deal as bass player in The Pixies, until she was fired after her first tour. Apparently she stage dived whilst playing and the band didn't like it.

This sounds like an alternative rock/punk band. The first sound reminds me a lot of L7. I read that this band had a song featured in the movie 'Clueless' and no doubtthis helped to jetison them to a semi popular level. I would say that I am half tempted to check out more of their output. I mean, these songs are ok, but they haven't hit me quite like some of the other 7"s have so far.

Big Damn Crazyweight

The next installment in my Sub Pop 7" journey is catclogue number Sub Pop 173, which came out back in October 1992. I paid all of £3 for this. The cover doesn't really give much away as to what this may sound like.

Again, this one has been a really cool surprise. It sounds kinda like early Helmet. Very loud and grooving riffs.

I can find next to no information on this band. All I could find is that they were from New Mexico. I have no idea how long they were active, but it feels like it wasn't too long. They released four 7" records, 3 of which came out in 1992, apparently played over 1000 shows, and that was it. Done.

Dickless

I have bought so many Sub Pop 7"s in the last few weeks that it's crazy. And without a doubt today's is in the top 3 so far...

This 7" is by a band called Dickless. They were made up of 4 girls, hence the name. This 7" was released as Sub Pop 59 in May of 1990. In terms of 7" releases, this one came right after the L7 7" and right before the Mudhoney 'You're Gone' 7", and it sounds vaguely like a blend of the two bands. The distorted, fuzzed out guitars of Mudhoney but with a female vocal... although the vocal is way more growled than L7 ever were.

All you get on this record is two songs. The first is titled 'I'm A Man' and is a Bo Diddly cover, not that you would know it from the way it sounds. The second is their own. Both are over in 5 minutes.

Another thing that is interesting about this 7" is that it comes with an insert and a sticker. It's extremely rare for Sub Pop 7"s to have been issued with any kind of insert. I'm not sure why this one had one when most others do not, but I'm happy that this copy I bought still had both the insert and sticker present.

Seriously, this band is so good. Without doubt one of the best female vocals I have ever heard on a hardcore/punk record. OK, so I'm 34 years late, but I need more of this. Reading up on this band all these years later, it seems that they only recorded 6 or 7 songs in total, spread across two 7"s and a couple of compilations. There was apparently going to be an anthology record put out at some point but it never happened. Such a shame.

No Pain

Another recently acquired Sub Pop release, and this is one that I have seen many times over the years, often in the used section of record stores, and usually priced at around $3 or so. I have never previously had any inclination to so much as look at this record, mainly because it has a dog on the front cover, and I have never really been a fan of dogs. But in my recent quest to pick up a bunch of Sub Pop 7"s, I figured I would grab it and give it a go.

This 7" was released as Sub Pop 169 in September 1992. It was pressed on both blue and pick vinyl. Neither copy is overly rare, and neither are any of them sought after by anyone. I bought both from other sellers that I was buying more cheap Sub Pop 7"s from.

I bought the blue one first and liked it so then grabbed the pink from another seller a week or so later.

I wasn't expecting too much of this 7", mainly just because I know that nobody cares about it, and I assumed that this was because it was not good. But I gave it a chance, and within seconds I was really into it. It's a slightly weird one, as the first song is very different to the second, so I'm not overly sure which is the more typical of this band. The first song is super slow and downbeat, whereas the second is a more poppy number, which reminds me of early 90s British indie bands. But each song is really interesting and I keep going back to it. Cheap 7"s are the best.

Rein Sanction

As per my last couple of posts, I've been buying up early Sub Pop 7"s the last few weeks. Most of the ones I have bought have been stupidly cheap, as a lot are from bands that didn't make a big impact or, if they did, the impact doesnt seem to have stood the test of time. Overall this has been a fun ride so far.

Today's post is for a couple of 7"s by a band that really made me sit up and take notice when I was working my through a pile of coloured 7"s. Rein Sanction was a band that came from Florida and formed in the 80s. Somehow I had never heard of them until a month ago or so, despite them having released two 7"s and two LPs on Sub Pop in 1991 and 1992. In 1993 they broke up. Sometimes these short lived bands make little impact and end up being forgotten, which kinda makes sense if they weren't active for too long, but in this case I am genuinely puzzled as to how they didn't end up being bigger. I played their 7" and within about one minute realised that this was something really good, and I would have thought that they would have been big against the landscape of where things sat at the start of the 90s.

At the moment I'm collecting only Sub Pop 7"s, and I grabbed both that Rein Sanction released. The first 7" is titled 'Creel' and was released as Sub Pop 91 in February 1991. The band features two brothers and another dude who looks like Dave Grohl. I like to think that if someone showed me this photo and asked me to guess what year it was from that I would instinctively know it was from the early 90s.

The yellow vinyl copies of this are very common and very cheap. There were apparently 3500 copies and these days you can grab one for $4 or $5. There are also some rarer copies on pale blue vinyl which are a little more sought after and cost more, but you'd still only be paying the same price as a new release 7" these days.

The second 7" is titled 'Deeper Road' and was released as Sub Pop 160 in July 1992. What's interesting is that this was released 17 months after the above record, but the catalogue number is 69 higher. That means that the label put out an average of 4 releases a month back then, which is basically one a week. For an independent recod label, that's a pretty astonishing level of output.

Both of these 7"s have only two songs, and they aren't overly long, but they have totally sucked me in. Reading whatever I can find online, the band is compared to Dinosaur Jr and Hüsker Dü, but I don't think that's overly accurate. Maybe it's ballpark correct, but there's something a little more slow, brooding and downbeat about this band. I can't describe it particularly well, but I also discovered that Southern Lord reissued the band's first 12" a few years ago. Bearing in mind that Southern Lord have also reissued records by Uniform Choice, Brotherhood, Neon Christ and Bl'ast!, it feels like they have picked records that they think need to be remembered and celebrated. So it's interesting that they also wanted to remind the world about Rein Sanction.

Ok, so I'm over 30 years late to the party here, but this band could potentially be my find of the year I think.

Conjure Me

Another addition to my Sub Pop 7" collection, and this is one that I used to own and then sold probably in the mid 90s.

'Conjure Me' was the 3rd Afghan Whigs 7" released by Sub Pop, and came out in 1992. I remember buying a copy of this probably in 1992 or 1993, and at the time I liked the songs but not the glossy, cover. Something about it felt mass produced compared to the older Sub Pop releases, which were folded paper sleeves. I know that none of these things should really matter, but I always noticed details and thought a lot about them. Anyway, I can't actually remember what colour I used to have, but I know that it wasn't either of the two that I just picked up.

This dirty green marble colour looks great. It reminds me of the green vinyl Gorilla Biscuits 7", although it costs about 2% of the price.

I also picked up a clear vinyl copy too, because clear is the best colour.

I always loved the first Afghan Whigs LP, but for some reason I sold the second LP years ago. Probably because it had a bad cover and was black vinyl only. This 7" has one song from that LP and one exclusive song. But vinyl colours and glossy sleeves aside, the songs here are great. It also prompted me to download the second LP again and it's so good. Man, this trip back to the early 90s is such a fun ride.

Smells Like Smoked Sausages

It's been a weird year so far. Two months in and it's been all work, work, work and listening to the same few records. But recently I was chatting to a friend online and it inspired me to pick up some more of the older Sub Pop releases. Fortunately I have a lot of the bigger releases that everyone wants and that are worth a lot of money, but there are a lot of other releases that are super cheap nowadays. So it feels that it's not a bad time to go decide to collect these things.

This double 7" compilation is titled 'Smalls Like Smoked Sausages' and was released in early 1992. hot on the heels of the worldwide Nirvana explosion. All copies were on pink vinyl, with one record being clear pink and the other a solid pink.

A lot of the Sub Pop singes club releases were not Sub Pop artists, and that's certainly the case here. All of the 8 bands on this release were signed to the Amphetamine Reptile record label, which is probably still most famous for putting out early records by The Melvins and Helmet. Seems like a really cool idea to me, having one record label put out a record showcasing bands from another label.

I've listened to this one quite a bit the last couple of weeks, and the Helmet song on here is absolutely one of their best. It's only a minute and a half long, but it's an incredible song. TUrns out it's also a cover of a Melvins song that was originally released on a 7" on Leopard Gecko records, which was run by some dude from Seaweed. There's also a great song on here by a band called Surgery, which made me want to explore more of their catalog too.

All in all, I'm having fun listening to something a bit different at the moment. More to come...

We Got The Beat

So here's a thing - I have never been remotely interested in Poison Idea. I'm not exactly sure why. I mean, there are probably a number of reasons. The fact that they just looked like a bunch of fat old dudes didn't help, neither did the fact that they have a recrd titled 'Record Collectors Are Pretentious Assholes'. Other than that, there was never really anything that drew me in. However, when I made a conscious decision to start picking up more old Sub Pop 7"s recently, the Poison Idea 7" was pretty high up on my want list, as I wanted to pick up the releases that were by bigger, more established bands who were not really Sub Pop acts as such.

Sub Pop 7"s were pressed in relatively high numbers in the late 80s and early 90s, and there are a lot of copies that made it out of the States, so I was able to snag a copy of this from within the UK. This 7" was released in 1990 and there were 4,500 copies pressed, with 3,000 of those beng on this mint green vinyl. The rarer version is on black vinyl, but I'd rather have the colour version because that's just how I roll.

I mainly wanted this one for the Sub Pop collection, but I was actually pleasantly surprised as to how good this is. Two really good songs on here, the second of which keeps getting stuck in my head. Hell, maybe I'll even check out more of their songs at some point.

King Face

I often go back to the past to try to find new stuff to listen to, and last year at some point I was listening to the Dischord compilation LP 'State Of The Union' and it reminded me of the band King Face. I have a King Face record in my collection that I've had since the early 90s, but I never listened to anything else. So I checked out their first record and immediately loved it, and then the hunt was on to find a vinyl copy. Fortunately it seems that King Face have been forgotten about and their records and pretty cheap these days, but given that the record came out in 1987, the challenge was to find one in good condition.

This 12" contains 6 songs and was released by the band themseleves. I love the simple design of the dront cover which is just plain black with a small sticker in the top left corner. There are actually two versions - the colour sticker (which almost looks like a tattoo design to me) and a black and whhite version. You'll have to take my word for it that the colour version looks much better.

King Face was a DC band and with hindsight it seems crazy that they weren't on Dischord. The singer, Mark Sullivan, was in a band called The Slinkees (which also featured Ian Mackaye and Jeff Nelson, and whose 7" came out as part of the Dischord 200 box set a couple of years ago). Mark is also the borther of Soulside vocalist Bobby Sullivan. This 12" was also produced by Ian Mackaye. So quite why Dischord didn't releases this I have no idea. I'm sure if they had done then this record would be much better known than it seems to be. But for me this was a great find at a great price, and I'mreally happy to have it in my collection.

Light Up Ahead

A couple of weeks ago I was in a record shop over here in the UK, which is a pretty rare event. Rarer still for a UK shop, this place also had a used section. I've bought from them online a couple of times, but there wasn't much there on the day that I was in the shop. I did however find a great record for a great price that I've had on my discogs wantlist for a few years.

Restless Youth were a Dutch band active around 2004-06 ish. This was in an era when a few mainland european bands attracted the attention of US labels (others being Justice and Dead Stop). Restless Youth had a 7" released by Painkiller Records in the States, and the same record was also put out as a CD by Dead And Gone Records over here in the UK. I have that 7" but I never got around to picking up this LP, probably partly because it was black vinyl only, so was never a priority.

Interestingly, this LP has a gatefols sleeve. This was a period when pretty much every record came in a gatefold sleeve, which it turns out is because back then, the european plant could make gatefold sleeves for super cheap (someone told me this a couple of years ago).

This is such a great record. Like a lot of records from the early 00s, it holds up really well, and sadly seems to have been completely forgotten about. But if you see this for sale you should definitely grab it.

Sliver III

Last year I finally got around to picking up a copy of the Nirvana 'Sliver' 7" after wanting one for years... and then it became an obsession and I ended up with 4 different copies. But that's just about scratching the surface of all of the different verions that are out there, so I knew that this one was going to roll on for a whike longer.

Anyway, I reached out to a friend to ask some questions about the record, and he replied with a link to a copy for sale at a good price that was for sale in Italy. I imagine that some people are still wary of ordering from Italy, but I decided to take the chance. Fortunately it paid off and this rad aqua blue version of the record turned up in the post.

This is a later pressing because (just like the other copies I have) it comes in a glossy, glued sleeve. The colour of the vinyl is super nice, being a clearish blue with some whisps of white and purple. It definitely goes well with the cover art.

There are way more colours of this 7" out there that I don't have, so this collection is likely to run on for quite some time. But what this has done is ignited a renewed interest in Sub Pop 7"s generally. I have a few Sub Pop releases in my collection, but have decided this year to try to pick up a bunch of the earlier 7"s that I was never interested in previously. Stay tuned for more small records with big holes in 2024.

The Two

Back in 1997 Revelation released a 12" by a band called Bluebird. When it came out I had no clue who they were, and unlike most Rev bands of the time, it felt that there was no real promotion or information about them either. The record came out and I think that it's fair to say that it was pretty much ignored, and quickly forgotten about. To this day their 12" remains one of the weirdest choices for a Rev release, and even at the time when the label was clearly branching out into different sounds, it made little sense to anyone. I always thought that the record was ok, although I struggled with the opening song which meanders along for over ten minutes. But if you just push past the first song, the other 5 are actually pretty good, and reminiscent of the kind of stuff that Dischord was putting out at the time.

Well, some 25 years or so after Rev released that weird 12", I became aware that the band released other stuff (who knew?) and I decided to check it out one day when I was feeling particularly bored and adventurous. I started out with their first full length, 'The Two', and instantly thought it was a good listen. It then worked its way onto my daily playlist, and was a perfect record to listen to whilst working. So i decided to buy a vinyl copy.

This record was released in the year 2000 by Dim Mak Records (a label owned by superstar DJ Steve Aoki before he was a famous cake thrower), and I have no idea how many copies were made on green vinyl, but it's the only colour that exists (other than black which we all know doesn't count).

Kinda funny how long it has taken me to get around to giving this band a chance, but it's nice to get into a band whose records I can pick up for next to nothing. There will be more no doubt...

Recipe For Hate

I recently saw a pic on instagram of a couple of coloured vinyl copies of Bad Religion's seventh album, 'Recipe For Hate'. Turns out that it was a 30th anniversary pressing. I originally bought the record back when it first came out in the Summer of 1993. At the time I was excited for a new Bad Religion LP, but it was an instant let down, so much so that I sold it at some point thinking I never needed to listen to it again. However, in my pop punk phase two years ago I gave it another chance, and I found myself enjoying it. So when I clapped eyes on this red with black smoke colour pressing, I figured it would be a good time to add this record back into my collection.

This 'red with black smoke' version is apparently an exclusive for european indie stores. It does seem like an appropriate colour to me, as it is a good match to the artwork... when held up to the light.

It's funny, because I really did think this was a half arsed effort back when it came out. But these days I like it a lot. It's a good singalong record, and although it's not quite as 'punk' as their earlier records, it does have some great moments. I'm glad to have it back in the collection 30 years after I sold it, but goddamn it makes me feel old as hell.

Failed States

This is the third and final pick up from the Newburu Comics exclusives section, where I bought three records that were on sale for great prices.

This final record is the 6th album by Propagandhi, 'Failed States', which was first released in 2012. This was in some ways a straneg buy for me, because my relationship with Propagandhi is in itself a bit weird. I bought their first album, 'How To Clean Everything' back when it first came out in 1993. I quite liked it at the time, but for whatever reason I never listened to anything else... so when I saw this record on pink vinyl for $15 or so, I figured it was a good opportunity to check them out again for the first time in 30 years.

My first observation was that the front and back covers are at opposite ends of the spectrum. The front cover looks like an interesting piece of art, whereas the back cover is one of the worst that I have ever seen. It looks more like something that would be on the front cover of the latest Triple B release.

When you've been out of touch with a band for years it is not easy to figure out which are their best or most popular records, but I get a feeling that this one is not regarded as one of Proagandhi's best. But I have found it an interesting listen. This definitely sounds like a hardcore record and band, and not the political pop punk band that they sounded like in 1993. Definitely an interesting record and makes me want to listen to more of their output... although I feel I should probably check them out in chronological order from this point.