ONSIND - Dissatisfactions

This record was one of the musical highlights of 2011 for me. I hadn't heard ONSIND until a few days before K-Fest that year, and had barely even heard of them before that. I was mostly going because Above Them were playing, but also because there were some other decent bands on the bill and it looked like a good little weekender (although I only went on the Saturday). Anyway, a few days beforehand I decided it would be a good idea to actually listen to some of the new names and somehow the first band I picked was ONSIND. I found their bandcamp page, pressed play on their latest album Dissatisfactions and was instantly hooked.

The ten songs I heard were unbelievably catchy and I couldn't get enough of them. And on top of all this great acoustic punk-rock was some of the most thought-provoking lyrics I've heard in ages. Heterosexuality is a Construct is a scathing but upbeat attack on homophobia and You Should Probably Keep it All In is a song I'm sure almost everyone can relate to. I'd not long broken up with my ex-girlfriend when I heard Dissatisfactions and the line "You said you never wanted me to change, and to my detriment I'm still the fucking same" on Old Hazel Eyes is Back caught my ears every time. On top of all that, there are choruses that other bands can only dream of writing, like on Heterosexuality..., "Either He's Dead or My Watch Has Stopped", and "I Could Carve a Better Man Out of a Banana". I played the album a couple of times over that day and listened to everything else I could find. I was pleased that the first K-Fest band I did any research on turned out so well.

I arrived later at the Fighting Cocks on the Saturday than I'd planned, but perfectly in time to see ONSIND. They set up their two mic stands in the middle of the floor, the crowd gathered around them and they opened up with this album's closer "I Could Carve a Better Man Out of a Banana". The first time I heard that song I was fully drawn into the story that it tells and quite amazed. The rendition that afternoon in the Cocks then made it incredible with everyone in the room joining in singing the chorus at the top of their lungs. It was the highlight of the day and kept me smiling for ages (I was very pleased that I'd heard the album so I could join in). The sing-a-longs didn't stop there and the rest of the set was great. Afterwards my friend Sarah and I both bought copies of the cd and I eventually picked up a copy on vinyl in All Ages in Camden (although strangely there is a gap in the middle of Old Hazel Eyes is Back which I assume is some sort of pressing error that made its way past the test press).

I've had some bad luck seeing ONSIND since then - they've played London a few times but I've been away for all but one of them (most annoying was a house show just a short walk from my old flat in Surbiton which clashed with my grandad's 80th). I can forgive them because it's a long way from Durham, but I do hope they play again soon.


Format: 12", a4 insert
Tracks: 10
Cost: £10 new
Bought: All Ages, Camden
When: 17/10/12
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: download card

Manic Street Preachers - Motorcycle Emptiness

I often write on here about records that hugely significant to me, but arguably none more-so than this 7" by the Manic Street Preachers (although it'd be wrong to not acknowledge the importance of Bitter Sweet Symphony and California Burritos at this point too). In fact, I honestly feel that this record played such a huge part in making me who I am now, I'm not sure where to start. With that mind, I'll start at the beginning.

I was 14 when the Manics released If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next and shortly afterwards for my 15th birthday my parents bought me a copy of their new album This is My Truth Tell Me Yours. I was just getting into proper music and so I lapped the album up (it was the second album I owned myself, having saved up to buy Urban Hymns a year before). I knew nothing about the band at that point, but wanted to them to be my new favourite band and set about finding out as much as I could; I bought the other four albums they'd released and read books about them. They had everything you could want from a band when you're a teenager - a story of four friends starting a band, an image, a punk attitude and a very dramatic past. I loved all five albums and spent hours discussing the merits of each.

By the turn of the millennium, I'd listened to their albums countless times and needed to hear more of their songs. My goal was to pick up a copy of Suicide is Painless, probably because it was a single I hadn't heard yet but wasn't likely to be as expensive as Motown Junk. Somehow I ended up going to a record fair in Southampton Guildhall one Saturday morning (I think my friend's dad used to go and so we went with him, maybe). Whilst my search for Suicide is Painless wasn't successful (and wouldn't be for a few years), I did stumble across a slightly beaten copy of Motorcycle Emptiness for £3, which I bought along with a copy of Superunknown by Soundgarden on cd. I got home and immediately put the record my parents' turntable.

Of course I knew the a-side very well having heard it on their sprawling debut Generation Terrorists, and I knew it was a huge single. I'd probably also seen the video at that point. Already it felt pretty nice to have this little slice of history in my hands, a copy of one of their best songs on a 7" record that someone else had bought eight whole years beforehand. Already I felt like my £3 was spent well, but the few minutes of music on the b-side were to be the thing that really changed my life.

On the flip-side was Bored Out of My Mind, this beautiful acoustic song that sounded nothing like the other early songs. It was undeniably the Manics, but hidden away was a side of them I was entirely unaware of and it felt like a secret between the band and the people who'd bought the single (the subtitle of the b-sides album always struck me as very appropriate). And on top of that, it was a song I hadn't heard. After listening to their albums over and over again, it was incredible to hear a song that was new, or at least new to me. That was really the life-changing part - there were more songs by this band I adored and they were out there for me to hear if I wanted to find them, kept away in second hand record stores.

From that day I set about finding as many new Manics songs as I could, buying 7"s and 12"s and cds with all the money I could scramble together. There was definitely a point in time when I had every song on at least one format (except UK Channel Boredom - I'm very excited for the Generation Terrorist 20th anniversary boxset), although my Manics collection has grown some holes in recent years. I'm certain that hearing Bored Out of My Mind made me the record collector I am today. Maybe, if the song hadn't been quite so brilliant, or if it'd just been a live recording or a remix, I wouldn't have been so moved by it and I'd just be a guy in his twenties with a handful of cds and an unorganised iTunes full of downloaded music. Instead, I've spent more hours looking through boxes of records in shops around the world than I care to imagine, and I love it. It's a huge part of who I am, and this blog exists solely because of it, not to mention the friendships formed and places visited from a love of vinyl.

I know it might be a bit much to put all that significance into one twenty-year-old, 3-minute song, but I do and it makes me love the song even more.


Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £3 second hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton Guildhall
When: 24/06/00
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Hundred Reasons - How Soon is Now?

Given my feelings towards the original versions of both of these songs, it's a wonder I bought this record at all. I'd heard the How Soon is Now? compilation album and quite enjoyed it - it was a collection of bands of a certain style covering Smiths songs, and had some surprisingly good takes. I say surprising, because I fucking hate The Smiths. There's a Marmite-ness to The Smiths, and I'm fully on the hate-side. The songs themselves weren't all bad, and some of the lyrics are alright if you can get past Morrissey, but they were just so wet. Really unexciting 80's floppy indie-pop. Some people like that, and that's fine, but it's not for me. But the album worked well; the songs finally had some balls to them, and it was good (and not all Smiths covers work. I swear half the bands I have music by have tried a Smiths cover, and most of them are garbage. I think they have a very different reputation here in the UK than they do abroad).

Anyway, I never got round to buying the album, but did find this cheaply on eBay one day and picked it up. Nice blue vinyl and they all came signed by the band (well, three of the band. Whilst I can't read the signatures, two of them are the same as the ones in my EP Two sleeve). How Soon is Now? is a fairly good cover, as Smiths covers go, but wasn't one of my favourites on the album (it's been so long now that I can't even remember which ones I did like).

The b-side is Eternal Flame by The Bangles, a song which haunted my childhood. My friend when I was very young absolutely adored that song and I really feel like I had my fair share of hearing it (along with my friend singing along) between the ages 4 and 10. To have a copy in my record collection now just seems a bit cruel. Still, I bought the record knowing it was on the b-side, so I guess I hoped I would get past it. Sadly I can't, and I just picture my pudgy childhood friend singing it, rather than Colin.

Needless to say, I don't play this record all that often.


Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £2.50 second hand
Bought: eBay
When: 11/11/06
Colour: Light blue
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Hundred Reasons - What You Get

This single came out two weeks before Hundred Reason's second album, Shatterproof is Not a Challenge, and was far and away the biggest tune on there. I'd go so far as to say it's one of their best songs. The b-side What's Right is a strange one, to say the least. It jumps around all over the place, with Colin barking fairly incoherently. I wonder if I knew more about time-signatures I'd get more out of it. It's certainly worth a listen either way.


Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1 new
Bought: HMV Lancaster
When: 16/02/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Hundred Reasons - The Great Test

This was the first single from Hundred Reasons's second album, and I picked it up in my local HMV along with a Far cd. I'd been at university a few months and had originally not taken any records or my record player with me (although I have no idea why). I began to miss it all immediately, and I bought a handful of records in the first term. My friend was supposed to bring the player when he came to visit but forgot, so I was vinyl-less until Christmas, meaning that this certainly didn't get played for about two months after I bought it. Nonetheless, I was excited that HR had a new album in the works.

The songs are plenty nice enough, but fall a bit short of the kick of those first singles. The Great Test was a bit of a grower, and I didn't realise how much I liked it until seeing them play it live. The third song, Change of Season, is pretty good too. The two sides play at different speeds, which is a minor inconvenience on this turntable and a huge chore on my dream record player, a Rega Planar 3 (I used to own one but had to sell it when I moved to Cardiff. I've been meaning to buy one ever since, but I keep blowing my money on records and holidays). Still, better to have three songs and change the speed than just two I suppose.


Format: 7", numbered (#2104)
Tracks: 3
Cost: £1.35 new
Bought: HMV Lancaster
When: 03/11/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Hundred Reasons - Falter

Falter was almost a ballad by Hundred Reasons' standards. I vaguely remember a video for it at the time, possibly consisting of footage of them playing at a festival. It's a great song, and I had a brilliant time singing along to it at Banquet's Big Day Out this summer. Safe Distance is a very different b-side. Until Colin starts singing you'd be tempted to believe they'd written a little post-rock number, and there's something of their earlier, much-heavier material about it. I like it, and it makes the £3 I spent on it worthwhile, given that I had the a-side on the album.


Format: 7", numbered (#399)
Tracks: 2
Cost: £3 new
Bought: Record fair, Southampton Guildhall
When: 25/01/03
Colour: Orange
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Hundred Reasons - If I Could

The first proper single, although the difference between a two-track 7" EP and a two track 7" single is a hard one to spot! If I Could is a great HR song, but what's really special about this record for me is the b-side. No. 5 sounds nothing like anything else the band have ever written (to my best knowledge) and I love it. There's something almost Deftones-like in both the muted vocals and the ability to write a song so different to their normal style and make it sound incredible. It's a fuzzy, brutal, basically-emo song and has none of the upbeat, bouncy guitars of the other songs they'd released. I saw them play it live once and I was ecstatic. It was in the Southampton Guildhall (a full year after I'd first bought a record of theirs in the same room) and the first song of the encore was just three of them on stage playing No. 5, possibly with Larry singing. It was really dark and atmospheric and I loved it, although I remember the rest of the crowd being a little bemused.

I didn't buy this single when it first came out (although I can't remember why), but Hugh had the cd. He desperately wanted to swap it for a Pitchshifter single I had, and eventually I relented. He wasn't fussed on the b-sides (there was another called One Moment) but I instantly thought No. 5 was great. About six months later I was at a record fair (again) and found this and Falter and bought them both. I had both of the songs on the cd-single, but wanted to have No. 5 on vinyl. Sat here playing the record nearly ten years later, I'm very glad I bought it.


Format: 7", numbered (#2850)
Tracks: 2
Cost: £3 new
Bought: Record fair, Southampton Guildhall
When: 25/01/03
Colour: Green
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Hundred Reasons - EP Three

I've pretty much never been able to go Christmas present shopping without buying myself something. If anything, I need a trip to a record store first to get me into a spending mood. I bought this record 4 days before Christmas in 2001 in a little indie record shop in Southampton called FM Music. It was a very cool little shop that we used to go to way back in the day as often as we could. We didn't really appreciate the difference between indie record shops and chain stores, but we knew FM had some very cool stuff in that we couldn't find in HMV or Tower Records. They used to stock lots of vinyl too, which wasn't all that common back then. I've always been a sucker for coloured vinyl and limited editions, but I bought this mostly because of how much I'd been enjoying EP Two. Of course, FM closed some time after I moved away for University, and it was a shame to see it go.

I'll Find You was a classic Hundred Reasons song from the start, every bit as good as Remmus but with the added bonus that it would come to open their incredible debut album. Sunny on the b-side must have been the quietest song they'd written by that point (and coming in at a full 4 minutes, one of the longest), but still a great tune. Another 7" I've played a lot over the last 10 or so years.


Format: 7", numbered (#1780)
Tracks: 2
Cost: £2.50 new
Bought: FM Music, Southampton
When: 21/12/01
Colour: Red
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Hundred Reasons - EP Two

The first time I heard Hundred Reasons was a demo of Different on free cd that came with Rock Sound magazine that I played over and over again. Sometime later I found this 7" at a record fair in Southampton and bought it for £2. (They had these huge record fairs in the Guildhall once a month and between the ages of 15 and 19 I'd try to get there and back before my shift at Sainsburys' started at 1 as often as possible. I have no idea how we first heard about them, but they were brilliant for cheap cds, records and things we couldn't get in chain record stores.)

Anyway, Hundred Reasons' first EPs came to be pretty popular amongst my friends and I, and for good reasons too; both Remmus and Soapbox Rally were huge songs and very exciting. By the time I got this, EP One had long sold out and there was enough noise about the band that it was already selling for more than we could afford. My friend Hugh got a copy from his then-girlfriend for a birthday a few years later and I'm still quite jealous of it. I eventually found the cd, and the vinyl must be easy enough to find now if I really tried.

The signed bit of paper in the picture below has lived inside the sleeve of this record for a number of years now. In 2002 Hugh and I travelled to Bristol to go to one day of a complete clusterfuck of a festival called Essential. Somehow the financial side of the event became a huge mess and just days beforehand they had to cancel half of the bands we were looking forward to seeing (the full bill is still impressive now, although I can't remember exactly who played and who didn't. An older-me is pissed that a younger-me potentially missed out on seeing Rocket From the Crypt). On top of that it was in the middle of nowhere and there was not anywhere near enough transport to get us all there. By a series of very well-timed coincidences we did manage to make it home that night. However, the bands that we saw were still great. My memory is hazy (it was a long time ago), but after consulting a series of lists I've made over the years, kept in various shoeboxes around the house, it turns out that day was the first time I saw Hundred Reasons (that summer I'd see them twice more, and countlessly more times over the years). They were the last band we saw that day (following on from Pitchshifter and Sick of it All) but at some point during the day we spotted three of the guys standing around. Being young, we went over, had a chat and asked them to sign a bit of paper I happened to have with me, and that piece of paper has lived in this sleeve since then. Good times.


Format: 7", numbered (#610)
Tracks: 2
Cost: £2 new
Bought: Record fair, Southampton Guildhall
When: 27/10/01
Colour: Yellow
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Hell is For Heroes - Kamichi

Unlike the last single, I remember distinctly buying this record. I'd just finished for Christmas in my second year of University and had gone home via Bristol to visit my friend Nick. He still had a day of term left, so during the afternoon I went into town to see what I could find in Bristol's many (at the time) record shops. I'd applied to Bristol myself the year before and spent most of the open day browsing records. I always get lost in Bristol (even now with a smartphone) but had found Replay Records and bought a Minor Threat record and Screaming Life by Soundgarden. I also found my way into a Virgin Megastore and saw a couple of copies of this on the shelf. I was entirely unaware that Hell is For Heroes had a new album coming, so very excitedly bought a copy (even more-so as it was hand-numbered) . Of course, my record player was in Lancaster so I had to wait until January to play it.

The a-side would become the opener for their second album, Transmit Disrupt, and was a pretty good tune, although not as instantly memorable as the singles that had come before it. Road to Xanadu on the b-side was much more scatty than other other song I've ever heard by them, but still a good listen.


Format: 7", numbered (681/750)
Tracks: 2
Cost: £2 new
Bought: Virgin Bristol
When: 10/12/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Hell is For Heroes - Retreat

The last of The Neon Handshake singles, I can't remember much about buying this one at all. Looking at the date, I must have been knee-deep in A-Level revision. I guess buying records has been a favourite past-time of mine for quite a while. I was a huge fan of the band by this point, so £1.50 for a new b-side seemed like a good deal, and both songs are pretty good. I used to put a 7" on in the morning while I was getting ready for college, so I almost certainly played this record a lot (I'm much slower these days and require at least five songs in the morning).


Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1.50 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 07/05/03
Colour: Dark gray
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Hell is For Heroes - You Drove Me to It

You Drove Me to It was possibly my favourite of the singles from The Neon Handshake, although I'm having trouble even convincing myself of that statement. If Night Vision and I Can Climb Mountains weren't singles then it might definitely be, but I quite like Retreat too. You know what, I can't decide. They're all good. (I don't actually own a copy of I Can Climb Mountains, but I'm sure I could find one fairly easily these days).

This came out a month before the album did, cementing my plans to buy it as soon as it came out. Another that I picked up in the HMV in Winchester. I remember thinking that if I bought all the good 7"s they got in, they'd keep getting 7"s in stock. I've not been in that store in years, but it certainly seemed to work while I was living there. So yeah, two more great songs from Hell is For Heroes (Inside, the b-side, is another song that could easily have made the album) on a nice clear, smoky vinyl. My list says I paid £1.34 for this, so I'm guessing it was £1.50 but with a 10% student discount.


Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1.34 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 20/01/03
Colour: Clear/smoky
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Hell is For Heroes - Night Vision

I bought this 7" ten years and a day ago. Makes me feel very old. The HMV in Winchester had not long opened and would get in a small selection of new 7"s each week, which I'd go and browse through. I'm reasonably sure I'd seen the video to Night Vision on one of the music channels before the single came out (as was the way things worked back then); I definitely remember seeing the video in the early hours of a Sunday morning at a friends house, and that was the day after my birthday (it was her 18th but since she had the party on my birthday we kind of crashed it) so I must have seen it before I bought it. That's the train of thought anyway.

Night Vision is still a cracking song, but I still love the whole album. There's something about the singer's vocals that you don't hear too much these days. I imagine if this record came out now, someone would try to clean the vocals up a bit and over-produce it. The b-side Can't You Hear It is pretty good too, with chuggy guitar verses and a soaring chorus. Nice clear vinyl too.


Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1.50 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 23/10/02
Colour: Clear
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Willy Mason - Save Myself

My first exposure to Willy Mason was the video for Oxygen, and at some point afterwards I saw this in my local HMV. I was buying a couple of other 7 inches, but this turned out to be the pick of the bunch. Nicely packaged with a poster (and a story about a lion), the a-side is an acoustic live version with a choir and the b-side is a non-album track. Not bad for £1.

Willy plays very pleasant, crowd-pleasing folky, acoustic-y music. I can imagine his albums going down very well at the end of a long road-trip, when no one really has anything left to say to each other. I saw him once at a very wet and muddy Glastonbury on the new Park stage and he was great (I even controversially missed seeing the Manics to watch him, but that was mostly because we were camped near the Park and the Pyramid was a huge trek in the mud away). Save Myself is one of his best songs (based on the two albums I own, behind Oxygen) and this version is particularly lovely. The choir singing the choruses really makes it. Having heard this first, the album version was actually slightly disappointing. Mosquitoes is a perfectly fine song; not a song that'll ever change the world, but nice enough.


Format: 7", 14x21" poster sleeve
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1 new
Bought: HMV Lancaster
When: 19/02/07
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Tenement Kids - We've All Been Down

The Tenement Kids are from Holland and sound like Hot Water Music. They do it pretty well too - Quit Playing Them Strings is probably the best song HWM never wrote (the chorus is incredible), and Soul and Stampeding Cattle are huge tunes too.

The only reason I'd ever heard of the Tenement Kids before I saw them was because my friend Stubbs had a t-shirt of theirs. Shortly after they put this record out they toured and Stubbs put them on in Le Pub in Newport with Harbour and Blackbeard (Stubbs' band, which Hugh was briefly a member of) supporting. I couldn't remember who supported, but SWM reminded me. Anyway, it was a pretty fun night. There was a work "social" that night, so I had a couple of beers with them, got on a train to Newport and caught the show. All the bands were good and I picked up this LP and a t-shirt after the show (nice gatefold sleeve and coloured vinyl). We had a spare room at the time so the band ended up staying that night, an added bonus of which is that I got a lift home in the van. Anyway, on the way back to Cardiff I found out my work friends were still out in some shitty bar in town, but had latched onto a group of girls out for a hen weekend, so I got home, wiped off my gig-sweat, and headed out again. We all had a few more drinks until Jamie offended one of the girls and they all left. After that, we headed to chippy alley for some food and retied to our homes.

Most of that is totally off-topic, I know, but this album always reminds me of that night; a perfect mixture of punk-rock good times and good times drinking with my work buddies. Good times all round.


Format: 12", gatefold
Tracks: 11
Cost: £10 new
Bought: Gig
When: 22/05/09
Colour: Creamy/white
Etching: none
mp3s: download

Various Artists - I'm Not There OST

I've been putting off writing about this record for ages, mostly because it's about 12 hours long. The album is the soundtrack to a Bob Dylan biopic named after a song of his, I'm Not There, and features some fairly A-list names covering Dylan songs spread over four discs.

It should be said that I'm not a huge fan of Bob Dylan. That's not to say I don't like him, I think he has some great songs, but I'm not a massive fan. The problem I have with Dylan is just that he's written so much music I don't know where to begin. I have two compilations (a 5-LP boxset I got cheaply in New Zealand, and the recent 3-CD boxset that Fopp were shifting for £6) but both are so expansive I get a bit bored. I know I should just buy an album and enjoy him for just two sides of a record, but where to start? Also, I feel like I've really tried; I've bought his music and spent hours listening to it. I've even seen him live (at Roskilde a few years back), although I won't go into detail about how shit he was, because it seems rude given how influential he is, and how old he is. Basically, I feel I've put the effort in, and now I'm going to re-focus that energy elsewhere and hopefully be more rewarded.

Anyway, I bought this one because the names appearing on it interested me. It was during the Tuesday-record-from-Spillers year and they had reduced the price because the corner was slightly damaged (surely a factor of the record company stuffing four records into a single sleeve), although it's worth noting that it's way less damaged than some records I've seen in other less-lovely record shops for full price. I don't spin it very often, but it's not a bad record. There are certainly some great tunes, but also plenty that are a little beige. One success story was that it led me to discover Sufjan Stevens, an artist I was very excited to find out about. Other highlights are Stephen Malkmus' take on Ballad of a Thin Man, and Mark Lanegan's and Willie Nelson's songs. It was nice to hear another take on Moonshiner because I'm used to Chuck Ragan's Rumbleseat version, and Antony and The Johnsons' cover of Knockin' on Heaven's Door is worth a listen too.


Format: 4x12", picture sleeves
Tracks: 33
Cost: £16 new
Bought: Spillers
When: 09/07/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no