Alternate 1995

Misfits - RSD

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sun, 06 May 2012 17:15:00 +0000

I went out early on record store day to a pretty popular store on Long Island called Looney Tunes. I rarely get out there cause they're more than an hour away, but I thought it was worth the trip this time. I was looking for the Misfits repress of Walk Among Us. Unfortunately, they sold out before I got there. The dude even snickered a little when asked him if they still had copies. They said they had 10, but were gone within 5 minutes. One thing I didn't realize was that they opened an hour early for "VIP"s. To be a "VIP" you paid them $25 a year. To be honest, that's a little shady. I hate to speak ill of my fellow Long Islanders, especially when they've been around for so long, and so many people love them, but I don't know...paying to be important? Well anyway, when I got there the line was wrapped around the store. There were probably 50 people in line with vinyl in their hands. It was impressive. But as impressive as it was, I was still SOL on my Misfits endeavors. Luckily, a buddy of mine on twitter, Sean Powers, said he might have a line on a copy. He tweeted me a little while later and said he had a copy on hold for me. HEYO! Couldn't believe it. He grabbed it, shipped it out a few days later, and it arrived packaged beautifully in a nice sturdy box, with not just one stiffener, but two! Always nice to see a dude shipping things out with class and compassion. So let's take a look at it.

So I received 3 surprises concerning this record. One was the record size. I actually was confused about how this was being pressed until the time I opened the box that Sean shipped me. On the Record Store Day site, they said this thing was a 7". Obviously I thought that was a mistake, but then Susannah's boyfriend Ben mentioned that maybe it was a triple 7". That made sense to me cause it was being pressed on 3 colors, and I never saw the pressing info. Turns out it was a standard LP. The next surprise was that it came with a really cool poster.

I'm down with that. Strange that it came with a Samhain poster, when the release is Misfits. I wonder if this is just something Sean had, and just included cause he had no need for it. It's in great shape, so I assume it came with it. I didn't measure it but it looks like 18x24.

The final surprise was the pressing info. Turns out this clear version is stupid rare. I didn't realize that. This thing is out of 500 and goes for dumb money on eBay. I definitely got lucky on this one. I owe Sean big time.

UPDATE: Sean says those posters were there at the store and he just grabbed one figuring I'd like it. What a nice dude.

Card Included

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 23:16:00 +0000

Thought I'd do a quick post about a new company that I just started with my brother Tom. It's called Card Included, and it's a self-serve download card service.

There's a ton of places to get download cards these days, but none are self-serve. Card Included lets you build a text or logo card with a simple creator.

The other thing we do is let you build a custom landing page that your customers/fans will see when they go to redeem their code. On that page you can put a large background photo, as well as link to your homepage, twitter, facebook, or tumblr. Here's an example:

Then when you're done, you checkout and we immediately email you a link to download your cards. It's a really easy to use service that I'm pretty proud of. If you have any questions, you know where to get a hold me.

Movielife - 40 Hour Train

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 17:16:00 +0000

There's an interesting story to this record. A story that I think I should wait to tell till I have more information. Let's just call this part 1, I guess. Part 2 will hopefully be told soon. Let us begin about 3 weeks ago. I was sitting at my desk and my friend Brian sent me an email telling me about a whole bunch of test presses being auctioned on ebay. 2 of which were of Movielife releases. Movielife is one of my most favorite bands. There's not many bands out there that can release 2 demo tapes that I love, then proceed to release 3 full lengths and an a couple EPs that I love as well. The 2 tests were 40 Hour Train Ride Back to Penn and Has a Gambling Problem. Now here's some background info. 40 Hour was released on 2 colors. Green marble and white marble. Green marble goes for about 30 bucks or so. Sometimes as much as 45. But the white is extremely rare. I believe it's out of 100, and I've only seen one for sale in my lifetime and I bought it. It cost me $99 and it was a buy it now. As soon as it went up I bought it. Maybe within 6 hours. I think it was worth more than $99. I probably would have paid $150. So when I saw this test I thought for sure it would hit $250. Has a Gambling Problem on the other hand was released on numbered clear vinyl out of 1000. No cover, just an insert in a clear sleeve. This goes for a bit more than the green 40 Hour now a days because it's rarer. Maybe 40-60. But I didn't think the test was worth more than the 40 Hour test because I had paid 100 for the white marble. Logic dictates that the test is usually worth more than the rarest color.

So let me set the scene for you. Both these auctions had about 2 days in between them and 40 Hour was ending first. There was about 5 hours left and 40 Hour was at about 50 bucks with a couple of bids I think. Gambling Problem started at 59.99 and had 1 bid. I decided well before the ending of the 40 Hour test that I wasn't going to win this, but I would bid on it. Anyone who has followed my blog for a while knows that I always bid, even if I don't think I can win. I've won so many great records on the cheap because I didn't give up without bidding. Now for my max bid. I don't mind saying it because it actually matters to the full story. I bid $155. But let me remind you, I had thought this record would go for $250. The interesting thing? I won it for $100. This is why I always say bid, even if you believe you can't win. The reason is because no one does that. They think they can't win, and decide not to waste their time. Or they forget about the auction cause they're not excited enough to win it, because they don't think they can win. It's strange, I know, but it's true. I think that's what happened here. There were only 6 bidders, and only 8 bids! One of them being me. Think about that. Only 8 bids. Movielife vinyl is crazy collectable. People gave up on this one. There's just no doubt in my mind.

So I won that one, and I was damn happy about it. This was the one I was most excited about cause it's my favorite album. Plus I have the Green and white, so this completes the set. Now what about Has a Gambling Problem. Well once again I was not setting out to win this record. Even less so then I was for the 40 Hour test. But I had to bid. This time I put in a bid of 135 and lost by 2.50. So one bid beat me. There were 7 bidders and 10 bids, including mine. The story doesn't end there, but I think I'm going to stop. This is Part 1 and Part 2 is still developing. It will end with me looking like a jackass or a genius. I hope genius! But either way, I think it will end interesting.

Milhouse - Modern Solutions

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 23:30:00 +0000

It didn't take too long! Right after my last post my buddy Dan said he'd part with his copy if I traded him an Inside shirt I had. It was a good deal I think. I've never seen anyone else with that shirt, but I couldn't really wear it cause it was kinda small for me. I'm all about shirts I can wear. Plus Dan asked about that shirt a lot. 12 years of searching for that 7" and it took less than a day after the last blog post. The internet is beautiful. Even Marcus was contemplating trading me his. I wouldn't have taken it though. He's the second closest collector to getting the whole collection and this 7" is ridiculously rare. I only know 3 people who own it. Marcus, Justin Unrestrained, and now me.

So now the question is, do I have them all? I think I do. This week I'm going to go through everything I have and make sure. I'll take pictures and do a nice post on it. I'd like to thank Dan for quickly coming to my rescue. He just started using his blog My Ressurrection. He's a big Indecision collector like me and always finds great stuff. Still needs to spruce up his page though. Probably get a text message as soon as he reads that.

Irony of Lightfoot - Ibex on Blue

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 22:28:00 +0000

I'm soooooooooooooo close to having every single Wreck-age and Exit release on color. I'm only missing one now I think. Milhouse - Modern Problems on green. I need to look over my list but I'm pretty sure that's all I need. Here's one I've been searching forever for.

This came out in 97 and became one half of the CD release called the same name. Incredible band that had a completely different sound than anything I had heard up till that point. Even when I listen to them now, I have a hard time understanding where they got their influence from.

I doubt anyone will mind me posting a link to download their discography. Which you can do here. Thanks to New West Crew for the upload.

An Accumulation of Great Records

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:17:00 +0000

I've had a pile of stuff I've wanted to post about sitting on my desk for like ever. I think it's time we bundle this shit up into a nice quick post. Let's begin.

This is the record show pressing of Capital - Givers Takers on Underground Comminique. Not sure how many were pressed of this.

This is Spraynard, which is Ex Get Bent from Westchester NY I believe. Great record released last year on Runner Up.

Runner Up also sent me this Dave Hause record because there was some shipping confusion. Always appreciated.

This is a good record that I have yet to listen to on vinyl. Direct Hit! who I think is from Milwaukee. I also think they self released this one. You can listen to the album here.

Here's a great band from Ohio that I've been getting into lately called Mixtapes. Try googling that! I think this LP is a combination of 2 releases, one called Maps and the other called Companions, which was an EP. It was released by Animal Style Records, which if I remember correctly uses Limited Pressing for their store. Smart move :).

Finally this is the latest Daytrader 7". These guys self released this 7" and they're currently working on a full length with Rise Records.

I got more stuff I need to get up here. Bunch of Long Island test presses I was excited to pick up. Hopefully I can get to that soon. Later.

Unorthodox Repress

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 18:15:00 +0000

Here's the repress of indecision's Unorthodox. This one is mastered. I know the jacket says "Remastered", but for it to have been "Remastered" it would have to have been mastered in the first place. Which it was not. The story goes that when they recorded the album the guy who did the recording asked them if they wanted it mastered. It was a couple hundred bucks, so they decided not to. What's funny is the guy probably assumed that they were getting it mastered by someone else. But the dudes from Indecision probably thought he meant you could do it, but you don't have to. Pretty ridiculous if you think about it.

Not really sure of the pressing info on these. I could probably dig it up, but I'm too tired.

This is the 180gram pressing that came with a silk screened sleeve. The back is stamped and numbered. I got 22/150.

He used the old Merciless sleeve to silk screen them. Good idea I think. Cheap and it keeps it within the scope of the band. Overall the pressing was good. The quality was pretty nice. The jackets weren't glossy like the original which I kind of like cause it's different.

I didn't get the test press on this one. I guess I could have contacted the label and asked to buy one, but it didn't seem necessary. To be honest, since I have the only test press from the original pressing, it doesn't seem right to get one from the repress, when there's probably a million people out there who would love to have it. I have too many Indecision/MPB tests anyway. It's out of control.

Gulag - Greece not Soviet Union

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:09:00 +0000

This post is going to surprise a great many of people. Most have never heard of this band. For a long time I wasn't even sure what this record was. I've seen it around, and I've done a lot of research, but it's rare and the label release designation can be confusing unless you're a really dedicated collector of Wreck-age.

The name of this band is Gulag. They're an 80s Greek punk/hardcore band. You can't really find much information about them written in english, but from what I can gather they were one of only a handful of talented bands in the Greek music scene. They were also the first band ever released on Wreck-age records. That's correct. Even before Bad Trip's Positively Bad from 1990. Gulag's Big Talk was released in 1989 and has a release designation of WAR-001. The same designation as Bad Trip's 7". The question is why? Well I don't have the answer to that, but I can speculate. Let's take a look at the record first though.

It was only released on clear and Wreck-age put out 1000 copies. That's a lot for a greek punk band. The jacket is made of thin paper, that I'm surprised has lasted 20+ years. Here's where it gets interesting. I've seen this 7" before, and I've seen the insert pictured many times. But never in my life have I ever seen this promo sheet for the record.

In fact, I've never seen a promo sheet for any Wreck-age release. This one happened to be inside the 7" that I bought. I didn't even know it would be in there. Definitely a great surprise. The promo sheet gives a great english description of the band. It even points out that they released a full length in 1987, which I couldn't find information on anywhere. This is also where I got the pressing info. Originally I thought there was only 500 copies pressed.

It gets better though. When I turned the promo sheet over, I found this...

A 20 year old note written by Pavlos and Amber telling a zine the price of the record and that their new full length "Showyard" would be released soon. You can't get much cooler than that. What's really interesting is Gulag's full length from 1990 was not called "Showyard", it was called "In The Showyard". Small mistake, but not for the label set to release the record.

So back to it, why does this release have a 001 designation and Bad Trip's Positively Bad also have a 001 designation? Well here's my thought, I think Pavlos decided in 1990 to focus on NY releases, and I believe more specifically, english releases. The hand written note says their new full length would be out soon. But Wreck-Age didn't release that full length. It was released by Lazy Dog Records in Greece. I think Wreck-age intended to release that full length, but decided to start the label over and release only US bands. If you look at the releases from Wreck-age there's a pattern. The band releases an ep and then a full length. Yuppicide, Bad Trip, Mind Over Matter, SFA, Milhouse, etc, all did this. This is what Gulag was going to do, but either they said no, and Pavlos decided to reboot the label for US bands, or Pavlos said no because he wanted to reboot the label for US bands. Either way though, the Gulag 7" is the long lost Wreck-age release. One that's going to screw up a lot of collections.

Sorry Marcus :)

Britney's 18th Birthday

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:50:00 +0000

One of the few variations I didn't have from Indecision was the Britney Spears 18th birthday cover #ed out of, what else, 18. Luckily my friend Dan had an extra and traded me for a Quicksand Slip t-shirt. I had not even seen one of these before the other day.

All it is really is a standard jacket with an 11x17 color print out glued to it and numbered. Now I see why I've never seen one before. Jeff Jawk never sold these cause they're really just a gimmick variation he made from left over jackets. Still pretty funny. And since he numbered them, they're collectable. I got number 10. Never asked what Dan has. I assume he gave me the higher one, so he has a single digit. Not bad.

This locks up the To Live and Die in NYC collection. There's actually one more gimmick type variation Jeff made which is a punched metal cover. Yes metal. I think he made 2 of them. One for him, and one for the metal worker who actually did the bending and punching. I think I offered him 100 bucks or something for his copy. Nothing doing though.

Hope Came Through!

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 16:59:00 +0000

You might remember about 2 months I wrote about Marcus and how he rebooted his label to release Doug's (We Will Bury You) band Hope Defeated's demo on vinyl. Well Marcus and I traded some favors and next thing you know, I got copies!

I love the folded cover. Lot of people are doing these covers now a days. Not only do they save you some cash, but they look better. Plus I hate inserts, and this completes negates the need for an insert.

Here's the white version. Mine is more like a pink though. Marcus will probably explain this in the comments but I assume most whites are like this.

This is the reason for the pink version, the red /60 blog press variation. This one is pretty cool cause the label is stamped with both Doug's blog and Marcus's blog. And of course it has the custom cover.

Last but not least the big man hooked me up with a test. He also did a nice custom cover for it. Simple, straight forward, but custom and that's what counts. I really get annoyed when a label doesn't put any effort into a test and then gives them out. All Marcus did with this cover is take some black stock, reduce the standard cover down, print it out on some heavy stock, glue it to the black stock, then write with a silver paint marker on the back. But it's super clean and neat. I wonder if he wrote that himself. If he did Marcus has some skills. Either way, that little bit of work makes this a really desirable variation. I discussed this in Part 3 of my Vinyl Bailout series on my other blog. Just put the effort in and people will reward you with a desire to collect your releases.

If you haven't bought a copy of this record yet I suggest you hit up Marcus's store and buy a bunch.

You're Not Man Enough To Open This Cage

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 18:02:00 +0000

I thought I'd post the Kinghorse ST record I picked up a few weeks ago. It's not super rare or anything, but it does have something cool that you never really see. A little background on this record if you've never heard of it. Kinghorse is a thrash metal band from the late 80s early 90s. This is their first full length which was released in 1990 and was produced by Glenn Danzig. This record really has Glenn written all over it to be honest. It was released by Caroline, and the artwork is by Pushead. The artwork is actually the interesting part I wanted to talk about.

Take a look at the cover. You see how the horse and the spears are cut off on the left hand side? Kind of strange considering the name of the band is Kinghorse. Why in the world would Pushead do that? An artist like Pushead has integrity and I highly doubt he would have allowed Caroline to just chop his drawing up to suit a 12x12 format. Not only this, but Pushead does artwork for a specific purpose. He doesn't just do art and someone takes that art and uses it for something. Meaning, if someone wants an album cover, he will do an album cover. When I put that together I remembered that this record is stamped for promotional use only on the back. Vinyl was not the originally intended format for this record. And since 1990 was too early for CDs to be the #1 format, their left only one other way to listen to music. Cassette. So I dug around looking for a picture of the cassette artwork and found this...

The artwork was specifically designed to fit a cassette. Never in my life have I seen something like this done. There was probably only a small window in music history where this was possible. 1990 fits right into that window. It's right when vinyl was dying, cassette was at it's peak because of the portable player war of the very late 80s. This is when Sony released the WM-DD9, which is considered to be the best portable tape player ever. Used ones still sell for $100 to $500 because of the sound quality. A lot of people forget that cassettes were analog, just like vinyl. And this walkman could play the full 20-20,000 range. I assume Caroline thought cassette was the future, and CDs would probably never take off. Maybe their sales dictated a decision like that. Pretty crazy if you think about it. They basically said this album will probably never exist of any physical format that's square. They thought CDs would never take off, and vinyl would die completely. Unfortunately for them, the complete opposite happened. Cassettes died, vinyl never seems to die, and CDs took over the world. Now the great art of Pushead is chopped off like a shitty photoshop job.

P.S. I wonder if this decision by Caroline to go heavy on cassettes affected the sales and place in history of this record.

Yes...

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 01:29:00 +0000

I still collect records. I just stopped collecting spare time! Damn, ok this weekend I'll sift through these boxes and find something good to post.

Also I posted this from my phone using the new blogger iPhone App. Pretty easy but no preview. Hope it looks ok.

Digital vs Vinyl - It's Not a Competition

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 01:28:00 +0000

I just did a guest article for a site called I Live Sweat. It was originally supposed to be about comparing digital to vinyl, and as most of you that read this blog know, that's really impossible to do because they serve two different purposes. So I spun it around a little and decided to do an article explaining what the purpose of digital and vinyl is now in the 2000s, and, in the case of vinyl, the past when there was only one format to choose from.

You can read that over here on I Live Sweat. Thanks!!

p.s. yeah that's me looking all smart.

Yuppicide - Shinebox

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 22:15:00 +0000

This record has alluded me for so long. I had two opportunities to pick it up over the last few years, and failed each time. One time I just didn't bid enough. I think I might have bid 70 or so, and got crushed. Then the next time the record was in a pretty large lot on eBay Germany, and I was nervous cause I couldn't understand the auction enough to make an educated guess on the shipping. That was frustrating. But this time I used my secret weapon.

Look at these weirdos.

I should correct myself, the weapon is actually not a secret. It's the saved search alert feature on the eBay for iPhone app. Damn thing saved me a bunch of money. A less than savvy seller listed this record for a ridiculously cheap buy it now price, and 1 hour after it was up, the app alerted me to it. Then this happened.

Sucker.

Iron Chic - Yes Like This

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 22:01:00 +0000

I got the 3rd pressing of the not really that new anymore LP from Iron Chic called Not Like This. I can't really remember if I own the 2nd pressing though. I've been so damn busy lately the only way I can find out about records is if I have something to do with either the selling or the manufacturing of them. And I tell you if it weren't for the Saved Search feature on the eBay iPhone app, and the email alert feature on The Old LP, I wouldn't find any used stuff either.

Something strange, I thought I wrote about the first copy I got of this, but in looking over my posts, I guess I didn't. That was a lavender type color out of 100 maybe. Not completely sure. These guys are playing soon with RVIVR and Rations, which I'm pretty excited about cause I've never seen either of these bands live. Hmm and I think I've only seen IC like twice.

I assume everyone that follows this blog owns something by Iron Chic, or at least has heard their music. But if not you can check them out here.

The Stryder - It's Not That Easy Being Green

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 00:28:00 +0000

This is going to be a quick one. Some how, some way, that Stryder - Masquerade in the Key of Crime on green that I needed, suddenly popped up in the Equal Vision store. Mike Dead Broke sent me an email letting me know and I jumped on it. I didn't want to say anything till I got it, cause I wasn't sure if it was the real deal, but I guess it is cause here's some pics.

If you want to pick one up, they still have some here. Makes no sense. Goes for about 30 bucks on ebay. Haven't seen many of them available. If you remember I got the Test Press by some lucky chance....hmmmm now that I think about it, it's an interesting coincidence that a couple tests became available, and now there's this rare green version in the store. Off to check the Matrix...hold please...ok we're good. False alarm. It's the real deal. WHHHEEEWWWWW. Thought I got frogged...errrr..snaked.

P.s. I have a new blog I've been writing articles for called Alternative Medicine. Links are on the side. Thanks

No End in Sight

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 01:41:00 +0000

My buddy and fellow vinyl blogger Marcus, has rebooted his label Endless Quest Records and just released the Hope Defeated demo on 7". Hope Defeated, if you didn't know already is Doug We WIll Bury You's band. I feel like I'm involved in a blogspot circle jerk right now, but it feels real good, so I'm just gonna roll with it. The first time I listened to Hope Defeated, I immediately thought of Biohazard, but not like straight outta brooklyn lyrics, more like a post-hardcore biohazard. I probably just insulted Doug pretty bad, but in my defense, to me sounding like Biohazard is money. RULE NUMBA ONE!

If you want to pick this baby up, head over to the Endless Quest Store. I think he might have a few of the red /50 versions left. If you want to hear what Hope Defeated sounds like, check out this post from Marcus. While you do that, I'm going to email him and let him know he can embed the player in the product description.

Capital - Shippers Receivers

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 01:31:00 +0000

Got the new Capital album in the other day. It's been out for a while, but Underground Communique hadn't released it on vinyl till now. When this album first came out I was a little ehh about it. But after a few listens it started to grow on me. Now it's my favorite of the 3. I've posted their Bandcamp player below if you want to check it out. One thing though, BC has a weird issue with their embedded players. Sometimes they're extremely finicky. You might have to play with it a little to get it working correctly. If you can't get it working, just click download and you'll be able to get the album for free.

Givers Takers by Capital

Look at me embedding buggy bandcamp players and linking to storenvy. Let's check out the record….

Justin went with baby blue and clear blue. Obviously it goes well with the cover, but I'm surprised he didn't mix it up with a grey marble instead of the clear blue. Maybe he's thinking of a second press of clear grey and grey marble. Not sure on how many he pressed though, maybe a second pressing isn't possible. Capital is not a touring band, so it's tough for them to move a ton of units. Definitely too bad cause they're a great band for sure. I commend UC for putting this record out knowing they don't tour. Lot of labels would never do that.

If you want to read a review check out this one on Alternative Press by Brian Shultz.

One last thing, Justin also included a record from a band called Few and the Proud, which I appreciate of course. Seems like it's a decent record too. Vocals sound like clevo, but the music sounds more like dirty punk hardcore. You can listen to them here

Hectic Collecting

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 23:10:00 +0000

I didn't really start looking for this version till about 2000....yeah 11 damn years ago. There's only 250 on pink marble, but 2750 on black. I think I have like 3 on black. I only know 2 people with a copy of this on pink. Marcus and my Long Island buddy Dan. What a bitch this has been. The thing came out in 1993! I mean how could it be this difficult to find?

One interesting thing that's going to be very tough to understand is the different variations of that marble. Mine is more like white and red, not really pink.

Something else that I don't think I'll ever know for sure, but it's fun to wonder about is, I think the receiver on the cover of the 7" was the receiver my parents owned and I grew up listening to. It's been gone for more than 20 years though. Anyone know the model of this thing?

Got a lot of things going on right now. Not just LP and The Old LP. I'll be sure to do a post on here once everything is up and running. Thanks!

EDIT: in looking at these pictures I took, the record does seem pink. No idea why. In reality though, the record is mostly white and red. I guess my iPhone 4 doesn't really have the capability to capture the exact color of the record.

Indecision - Release the Cure

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 16:14:00 +0000

A few weeks back I got an email from Justin Brannan, and he said he wanted to get rid of a bunch of stuff and raise some cash for charity. Obviously I jumped at the chance to see what he was prepared to part with. He sent me a giant list of stuff that he said he'd be auctioning off soon and anything he sold from Indecision and MPB, would go to a charity. After looking over the list it really started to sink in how much stuff I have. Especially test presses. I had all the ones he was looking to sell, all except one. Well....sorta.

Release the Cure is Indecision's last full length album. One that they made with Artie on the mic, not Tom. The album title pertains to a conspiracy that the government has the cure to a couple deadly diseases namely AIDS and Cancer. And they don't release them because these diseases control the population and weed out the undesirables. Obviously I don't agree with this, but hey, conspiracy theories make us think. Even if some make no sense at all :). It's also the only full length Indecision album I don't have a test press of. Well not anymore!

This was released on M.I.A. records back in 99 on black and dark green. And as you can see by the little description on the jacket, there was only 2 test presses made. And this might be #1. That part I'm not sure about. When I see 1/5 or 1/10, I usually figure it's #1. But with 1/2 you just can't be sure.

It was definitely a great score seeing this on the list of records Justin sent me. I felt like I really picked up something special. Something I've been looking to get a hold of for a long time. And considering there was only 2 made, I now know why it was so difficult.

Another cool thing that happened when I talked to Justin about that test press was he mentioned that he also had the Overcome Records version. Meaning he had the test press for the seafoam green version made in france on Overcome Records. When I heard that I nearly jumped out of my skin. Justin not only had the MIA version, the dude had the Overcome version too!

Damn what luck. Both Release The Cure test presses. You know what this means now right? I now have every Indecision LP test press! Unorthodox, Most Precious Blood, To Live and Die in NYC, and Release The Cure on MIA and Overcome. I'm the dude with the most issues! HEYO!

I was suppose to put together everything I had for a photo, but I'm so sick right now I can't even gather up the energy to find all the records. Bronchitis is a total bitch.

Long Strange Trip - Part 2

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Tue, 31 May 2011 22:12:00 +0000

So how exactly did Chris Trip save my ass you ask? The Most Precious Blood demo of course! I didn't even realize he was doing both 7"s at the same time. UGGHH damn I screwed up. But Chris had my back and all is good. The man definitely took care of me. It's ridiculous how man different types of pressings he did. The Unrestrained/Incendiary split was like 10 versions alone I think. And this one on top of that, and at the same time. I'd be interested in knowing if United got all the colors right. Here's the pressing info for the demo, as noted in his store

150 OPAQUE RED VINYL (STAMPED AND HAND NUMBERED/MAILORDER ONLY)
300 CLEAR/BLACK HAZE VINYL
550 BLACK VINYL (35 WITH LIMITED EURO TOUR COVER)

Let's go bottom to top. First off we have the standard black release which looks like it's out of 515.

Then we have the clear with black haze, or as some weirdos like to call it now a days, black "smoke".

It looks real "smokey" when it's on top of the white paper sleeve, but if you hold it up to the natural light, it looks a lot different.

Looks like two separate pressings. And the last of the standard pressings is the numbered red version.

Now let's go back to the black version. Chris made 35 Euro Tour sleeves and if taking care of me with the 3 standard pressings wasn't enough, he included one of these too. Maybe a nod to Rev with this sleeve?

Don't let your eyes deceive you here. That's not #53 out of 500, that's 005/35. Liking that! So that's it. I hope you enjoyed that little....ohhhhhhhhhh wait I almost forgot.

HEYO!

HEYO!!

Looks like Chris nodded again here, this time to the Indecision - Campaign For Complete Musikal Destruction 7" that was put out for the Europe tour back in 98. A 7" that is so damn hard to track down. They made 500 of those, each with a different member on the sleeve. 5 members, 5 versions, 100 of each. Each one was pressed in red and had the "Test Press" label on it. Yes everyone had the test press label. Why you ask? Well Justin told me it was done to "piss everyone off." ahahah Ahh well. You know what else, the label looks the same too. It's not, but it's that same tan color. So back to the demo test press, he went with a redish cover this time, and I got 005 out of 14! A matching set.

I'm going to have to bring the collection back together at some point here. I've gotten so much stuff since my last picture. This is the one I took over a year ago

At least I think this is the last one. This pic was from my post back in March of 2010 But since then I got the Merciless release, the DNR release, and this release. Hmmm oddly enough, I got 2 absolutely huge Indecision items coming in soon, and they're related to that post I made back in march. That's interesting. I guess I really do need to get the gang back together. OK after my next Indecision/MPB post I'm going to pull everything out and we'll see what we have.

I want to thank Chris Trip for saving a busy dude's ass. I owe you big time. Let me know when you do you're next release and LP will pick up the digital. Thanks!

Long Strange Trip - Part 1

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:02:00 +0000

About a month or so ago I heard that Trip Machine launched the Unrestrained/Incendiary split and because of my brain being bogged down with so much stuff these days, I delayed in getting in there and picking up as many versions as he had. Luckily when I finally got in there I was able to grab 3 copies. Chris usually does some new school pressing with his records like Jeff Bottled Up. For instance with this split he pressed the following:

5 PEA SOUP VINYL
6 BLOOD ORANGE VINYL
9 RASPBERRY GRAY VINYL
12 CLEAR YELLOW VINYL (WITH LIMITED COVER)
15 CREAMSICLE VINYL
38 SLATE BLUE VINYL
98 ARMY GREEN VINYL
114 CLEAR ORANGE VINYL (STAMPED AND HAND NUMBERED/MAILORDER ONLY)
228 REFRIED BEAN VINYL (70 CAME WITH V.O.D. RIPOFF RECORD RELEASE COVER)

Wowzers! There's probably some dudes out there banging their heads against the wall. Kind of fun in a way though. Let's take a look at the 3 I was able to score.

Clear Orange #ed out of 114, I got 38.

Here's the Army Green version out of 98.

And the last one I managed to pick up was the Slate Blue version out of 38.

The colors are all great and Chris did a really impressive job on the packaging as well. I'm a huge fan of the folding wrapper on a 7". The reason is a normal jacket never gets used to it's full capacity. It makes so much more sense to me to forget the whole insert garbage, and make a folding sleeve with the insert printed on the inside. I hate inserts, and I especially hate insert sleeves. Wow I hate insert sleeves so damn much. Maybe Chris can chime in here and let me know if it's cheaper printing it this way. Which I think it is. Very rarely do I see something that's clearly a better way of doing things, that's also cheaper. I hope it is.

So if you count the version of this I wrote about a while back in Cross Country Connections, I have 4. I think I want one more, that yellow one with the limited cover. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled. With 12 pressed I assume he gave 5 to each band, gave 1 to a friend, and kept one. I think I might have to start emailing some people!

Also you might have noticed this post is just "Part 1". Well Chris really saved my ass on this one. I didn't even realize he was running another preorder at the same time as this split. I'm going to hold that story for Part 2. Hopefully in the next few days I'll be able to bang that out. Yeah 2 posts in 1 week! I'm like a machine...

that was a terrible joke

MPB - DNDNR

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Mon, 16 May 2011 23:07:00 +0000

A few weeks back I got the new Most Precious Blood album called Do Not Resuscitate in the mail. I ordered a couple of copies, one of which I gave to Tom. This was pressed by Morse Code Recordings which is Rachel MPBs and her boyfriend Derek's label. I think Derek's last name is Morse, and this is the reason for the label name, but don't quote me on that.

A lot of people were really clamoring for this release to come out. Every 6 months since 2005, a 30 reply thread would get posted on some board, wondering when the next album is coming out. Then after a couple years they teased everyone with a picture of a CDR that had the album name on it. They also made this picture the homepage to their website. I assume they did this to show everyone that they were still a band, and they had an album, but maybe there was another reason it couldn't come out. Maybe someone had the rights to the record, but didn't want to release it yet. You get the point. So once they finally announced they were going to release the album, I had this thought that this album probably wouldn't have that, "It's been 6 years since we released an album" feeling. Usually when a band tries to make a comeback after 6 years, their sound completely changes. But I figured that since this album was written pretty soon after Merciless, that the typical MPB sound would be there. And I was right about that, the album sounds great.

#ed on the sleeve 85/150. I think that's a good first pressing amount.

The sleeve on this record is not like a normal sleeve. It's like a thick gatefold poster almost. I almost wish there was something frame worthy on the inside.

Rachel also sent me a test press, which was extremely nice of her. You know I gotta keep this streak going.

That's a sewn up t-shirt used as a sleeve. It's sort of like Grant did on the Merciless album, only that was a silk screened bag of some sort.

All in all a real cool release. I'm glad the vinyl came out on Rachel and Derek's label and not some other label. If you want a copy of your very own, they still have a few green and black marble left in their store.

Morse Code Recordings

Also, this is Napoleon sleeping next to a Merauder record.

Cross Country Connections

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 16:54:00 +0000

This world of hardcore music and collecting feels so small now a days. But it's not. It's actually bigger than it's ever been. When people talk about collecting and hardcore they usually break it up into two specific time periods. Before the internet, and after the internet. But I think there's a 3rd time period. This 3rd period consists of social netwroks, blogs, ecommerce sites, etc. I only think this started happening about 5 or 6 years ago though. Right now, between Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Big Cartel, Limited Pressing, Bandcamp, etc Anyone can start a label, anyone can find music they like, and anyone can have some out of control weird connection to someone 3000 miles away.

Lets switch gears, a blog that I think anyone who's reading this knows about is Stuck In The Past. A bunch of great guys run that site. Including one Justin Sitner, singer of a band named Unrestrained. Now a while back Justin did a post about Sons of Abraham and included a lot of info about my blog. And ever since that post, Justin and I have been buddies. We talk often about records and the 90s, and when I launched Limited Pressing, Unrestrained was one of our first stores. Now here's where it starts to get interesting. Last year my brother Tom emailed me and said his friend from high School, Brendan, was in a band called Incendiary. And he also said they sounded really good. He sent me a link and 10 minutes later we were preordering their first full length. I'll get back to Incendiary again in a minute...

After LP started to take off a little bit, we helped out a few other people connected to Stuck In The Past. One person was Chris Weinblad, AKA Trip Machine Labs Which is a label located here in NY. They've put out a bunch of nice releases from bands like With Honor, All Out War, and a band with the coolest name ever Atlas Shrugged. Trip Machine is also releasing the Most Precious Blood demo on vinyl soon. He also recommended that MPB get a store with LP. That was a really cool day when I saw that sign up email come in.

As I was saying earlier, anyone can have some out of control weird connection to someone 3000 miles away. Well here's my connection. A few months back Justin informed via email about a split 7" Unrestrained was going to be doing with a Long Island band. That band's name? Incendiary! And you know what label it was coming out on? Trip Machine Labs. I couldn't believe it! What are the chances?

Well the record release for the 7" was last weekend and Trip Machine had a little surprise for Long Islanders. A special #ed version for the bands to sell at their release shows. Unfortunately LP has me so busy these days, I haven't been out of the house for anything social in who knows how long. And it's about to get worse cause Tom and I are starting a few more companies/sites this year. Well seeing as I had no time to go to Incendiary's show, which was only like 30 minutes from my damn house, I had to enlist the help of my friend Dan Sterling. Sick twitter username man. Dan and I had to meet up to make a deal for some shirts, so I asked him to grab a copy of the release version for me. And Dan came through!

That surprise I was talking about? Check that cover out!

VOD s/t, or as my 90s friends and I called it when it came out, The Green Spooge cover.

#ed out of 70. Great amount I think. Especially for a split. These will be spread out across the country. And it'll be an extremely desirable record, especially after Incendiary's next full length, which I suspect will be on a prominent hardcore label.

Got a couple of shirts I want to post about soon. Maybe I can do one this week.

Signs of Change

nmango@gmail.com (Nick Mango) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:30:00 +0000

It's rare that I get real excited about a vinyl pick up these days. But this one definitely did it. Shutdown - Signs of Change test, off Lost and Found in Germany. Old school Shutdown. That's where it's at. My first non bulldog Shutdown test press. Pretty happy about that. Also something else that's cool about this one. It came with a sleeve and an insert. Weird.

The insert is pretty cool too cause it has the full Lost and Found catalog on one side.

So 4 Shutdown test presses. Still not as many...hmmm actually wait a second. I have 3 Indecision and 2 MPB, so technically Shutdown is the band I have the most TPs of. I still consider Indecision and MPB one of the same in a way, but I guess now that they have Rob singing, it really is a different band. And the 2 MPB tests I have are with Rob singing. So I guess that's it then. I have more Shutdown tests than any other band. Sweet.