Cursive - Cursive's Domestica

I suspect there are many other people who feel this way, but I can never quite decide which is my favourite Cursive album. Some days it's The Ugly Organ and other days it's this LP, Domestica. Their back-catalogue is pretty solid and each record has its merits, but those two are, for me, the finest examples of Cursive's music (along with Burst and Bloom, but that's an EP so it's fine to ignore it for this discussion). The best thing is that neither sounds very much like the other; The Ugly Organ is pretty much defined by that cello and an overwhelming hatred of the music industry but Cursive's Domestica (to give it its full name) is a brutal break-up album that you could possibly call post-hardcore, but defies any obvious genre.

I first heard Domestica in 2006 when I bought a relatively cheap Japanese version on eBay (along with obi-strip and all those other fun things that come with Japanese cds). I'd been introduced to them by Hugh in the form of A Gentleman Caller on a mixtape in 2004 and earlier that summer bought the b-sides and EPs collection The Difference Between Houses and Homes (again, cheaply on eBay). Domestica was an instant hit and I knew I listening to an album that would become one of my favourites. At just nine songs, there's no filler and pretty much every song is worthy of a mention. I wouldn't be able to pick a favourite, but The Martyr, A Red so Deep and The Lament of Pretty Baby would all be contenders.

I'd long thought it would be nice to have Domestica on vinyl and, seven years after buying the cd, I found the vinyl in Hear Again Music in Gainesville. The Monday after Fest this year we were flying home, so decided to hit up the two record stores in Gainesville for as much vinyl as we could carry before leaving. This is probably a sweeping generalisation, but record stores in America tend to have so much more stock than the ones over here, especially older records. I guess it's easier to get records by American bands and I suspect rent is cheaper so they have more space to stock them all too. Either way, I love buying vinyl in the US. At £14 it was one of the more expensive records I bought that week but still a bargain compared to the average price of an LP in the UK. It's on a lovely, thick red vinyl and worth every penny. I'm very glad to have this one in my collection.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 9
Cost: £14 new
Bought: Hear Again Music, Gainesville
When: 04/11/13
Colour: Clear red
Etching: none
mp3s: Download

Shoes and Socks Off - Miles of Mad Water

I want to like this record more than I actually do. That probably comes across as a much more negative sentence than I was aiming for, but it does sum the album up quite neatly. The songs are pretty nice, but they fail to grab me the way I was hoping they would after seeing him live. Sometimes I find one of the songs in my head a few days after listening to it, which always strikes me as odd because I can't remember it being so memorable at the time.

I saw Shoes and Sock Off on one of his last-ever shows, which Banquet ended up merging with a Front Bottoms show they were putting on. I'd heard the name before and figured I might pop along, but in the end was definitely there for The Front Bottoms. The back end of the crowd were chatting pretty loud during Shoes and Socks Off, which is a shame because the front half really wanted to hear him. Knowing it would be my only chance, I was in the front half but slightly disgruntled by the back half (although I think this is a trend when the musician is sat down - it's harder to see what's going on, and the music doesn't project over the crowd so well). His songs were nice and the acoustic guitar seemed nicely raw in places. Afterwards he was selling off his albums for whatever people wanted to play, so I gave him all the change in my pocket (£6.60 in this case, a reasonable but not astounding amount).

The album however, is a very different affair to the live show. The songs sound so much like Radiohead it's almost impossible to not make the comparison. The whole way through, I'm just reminded of slow Radiohead songs from Kid A onwards (Tork Sport sounds like it's straight off Hail to the Thief). The only times I'm not reminded of Radiohead, I'm reminded of Martin Grech, who some of you may remember. But these aren't necessarily bad things, however I really wanted those edgy acoustic songs I heard live instead. The acoustic guitar is there, but it's under a sea of electronic instruments.

This comes across as a really negative write-up, but I do quite like the album and he was really incredible to watch. In fact I really hope that it's just that I've not given it enough time yet, and maybe in five or ten years I'll find that I actually love this record (this has happened in the past, so it might happen again). However, as of today, it's just a record I quite like but wish I liked more.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 10
Cost: £6.60 new
Bought: gig
When: 18/09/12
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Adem - Takes

The first time I heard of Adem was when I found my (very lovely) copy of Explosions in the Sky's All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone on my first ever trip to Spillers in Cardiff - he was one of the artists who remixed a song for the bonus disk. However, for the year and a half that followed, he remained just that because I never got round to checking out his own material. In 2008 I was living in Cardiff and was buying an LP every Tuesday from Spillers. One of those Tuesdays I stumbled across this record of Adem covering 12 songs from 90's. It seemed like a nice idea and I figured his music must be at least half decent to have ended up remixing EITS. On top of that, one of the covers was Starla by The Smashing Pumpkins and I decided that would be nice to hear, regardless of what sort of music he played.

So it turns out that Adam plays a very relaxed, soft indie-folk style, which works nicely. Despite not knowing most of the originals, the albums works well (or maybe that's because I don't know most of the originals) and they all work as acoustic-y folk songs. Even Aphex Twin, which you'd have thought would be a stretch, is pretty lovely. So much so, I'm pretty sure it ended up being used on a advert for nappies. The highlight of the album for me is the cover of dEUS's Hotellounge. The first few times I heard it I thought it was nice enough, but a few months later I'd listened to it just before going out, and the whole afternoon I had it in my head. I kept thinking what a great song it was and put it on as soon as I got back home. I eventually checked out the original, which I don't prefer (I even bought a dEUS album which turned out to be quite shit indeed). Also worthy of noting are Lisa Germano's Slide, the Pumpkins' Starla and The Breeders' Invisible Man. Incidentally, I've since picked up albums by Pinback and become a big fan of Low, although not directly through hearing them here.

I ended up buying both of Adem's other album and they're also pretty nice, but a little more rambling in places than any of the songs here. I also accidentally ended up seeing him play live just before I left Cardiff, which was a very pleasant surprise. Early on a Sunday morning I had a call from a friend saying he had a spare guest-list place for this all-day folk festival in Porthcawl. I think it had sold poorly, so they were pretty much giving tickets away to make the place a bit fuller. He had a friend driving down and the ticket was mine if I could get to his within the hour. I had nothing else planned, so figured it would be good. We ended up watching Adem, Aidan Moffat and Magnolia Electric Co., amongst others, and generally had a nice day by the sea. The venue was impressive and seeing Adem and Magnolia Electric Co. were really great treats (more on Magnolia Electric Co. another time, but I'm so pleased I got to see them before Jason Molina passed away). To add to my day of unexpected treats, Adem played Hotellounge which put a smile on my face.

I have no idea what Adem has been up to of late (he's also half of Fridge with Four Tet, but I've not heard much about them for a while either). I like knowing that I probably would have discovered Adem at that folk festival even if I hadn't ended up buying Takes that Tuesday in Cardiff, but you never know how these things will turn out. I'm very glad I chanced my £10 on an album just because it included a Pumpkins' cover.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £10 new
Bought: Spillers Records, Cardiff
When: 17/09/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Manic Street Preachers - Generation Terrorists - 20th Anniversary Boxset

Just over a year ago, I received an email from the Manics' webstore wishing me a happy birthday (I assume I filled out a form some time ago with my date of birth, and there's not some deeper level of web stalking going on). Anyway, that email entitled to 10% off anything in the store. I hadn't had a look in a while so figured I'd see if there was anything I fancied and, to my surprise, there was a 20th anniversary reissue of Generation Terrorists coming out in various formats. I had no idea about this beforehand, so it was all very well-timed. Best of all, the limited edition boxset hadn't sold out yet (it would shortly after I bought it) and the £4.50 off made it a perfectly reasonable £40.50.

As boxset/reissues go, this one is pretty lovely. Most pleasingly, there's a 10" of Radio One sessions included (meaning I get to write about it on here). Reissue boxsets tend to totally neglect vinyl with the cd version being the one with all the extra music, so I was very excited with this. On top of that, there's a cd featuring demos of all the album songs (something the Manics have been favouring on the deluxe versions of their recent albums) although no demo of Damn Dog was to be found, and Condemned to Rock 'n' Roll is missing. Even more interesting is cd3 collecting the b-sides and a bunch of early songs that I'm pretty sure have never heard the light of day before (more on them to come). There's also a dvd of old footage and new interviews, a 28 page book, a photograph and replica tour pass (which I didn't really need, but some people might enjoy that). Someone dropped the ball on the measurements because the inside of the box is marginally too small causing the photo and book to a bit curled up, but no damage and no harm. I'm still very happy with it all.

I've written about Generation Terrorists before (see here), so not much needs be said about cd1. For some reason they tacked on Theme from M.A.S.H. (Suicide is Painless) to the end of the album, when Motown Junk would have been the more obvious choice (I also have a copy of the Japanese cd which has A Vision of Dead Desire as track 19). I guess it was also a single from the era, so why not. The demos on disc 2 are much more exciting; the extra lyrics "We love you" at the start of Love's Sweet Exile follow on brilliantly from the end of the Heavenly Records version of You Love Us and it's fascinating hearing early versions of Little Baby Nothing (nearly acoustic) and Methadone Pretty. Also included are demos of the three early singles Suicide Alley, New Art Riot (more on both of those another time) and Motown Junk.

I barely even know where to start with disc 3, because there are so many treats crammed in. It starts with a demo of Motorcycle Emptiness that sounds so far from the original that you'd barely recognise it - the riff is there, and towards the end it turns into the song we all know and love but in the meantime we are treated to a strange chorus of "Go buzz baby" (or something to that extent). The title-track Generation Terrorists is what Stay Beautiful was originally called (along with the unedited chorus) and Faceless Sense of Void later became Love's Sweet Exile. More interestingly, the song UK Channel Boredom became A Vision of Dead Desire, one of the b-sides from that era. I think there are two holy grails for any Manics collector and they're those two early 7"s: Suicide Alley and UK Channel Boredom. I've heard about these records for countless years, but had no idea that the latter was a song I already knew. The main difference comes in the chorus (although both mainly consist of the title of the song). Colt 45 went on to become Spectators of Suicide but starts off further removed than some of the other songs here.

There are three songs that appear nowhere else in any form on disc 3: Poleaxed, Spent All Summer and Behave Yourself Baby. They're great to hear and pretty good songs too. I once read something that claimed Australia was the Manics' first love song, but Spent All Summer takes that place now surely. Behave Yourself Baby even contains some lyrics that would find their way into Motorcycle Emptiness. The way that all these songs contain elements of each other and show how the songs became what they ended up being is truly fascinating, especially when they're songs I've been listening to for nearly half my life. The b-sides aren't comprehensive, but I have the majority of them in some format somewhere (more on these another time too). I always thought I had a copy of all the early b-sides on at least one format, but it turns out that Starlover had passed me by - it was one of the b-sides on the 12" Heavenly version of You Love Us and I hadn't noticed that I was missing it. Made for a very pleasant surprise when working through the b-sides. Bored Out of My Mind always deserves a special mention, for reasons you can read about (at length) here. I watched the dvd once last Christmas, which also made for interesting viewing.

Finally, on to the vinyl! On the 10" record we're treated a 1992 Radio One session featuring You Love Us, Alice Cooper cover Under My Wheels, Slash 'n' Burn and Natwest-Barclays-Midlands-Lloyds. They make for good listening and sound excellent (especially after some of the dubious renditions on discs 2 and 3). I can't imagine the Manics covering Alice Cooper these days, but I'd love to see it!

All in all, I'm very pleased indeed with this boxset. Musically and historically there's so much in there and there's no denying that those first few years were some of the most fascinating the Manics have had. I still love them now, but those first three albums were so exciting and I have so much time for that era. I heard James pass comment about the possibility of a 20th anniversary boxset of The Holy Bible in the future (despite it already having a 10th anniversary version) which would be very cool, but does make me wonder if I'm the only person holding out for an equally impressive Gold Against the Soul reissue too?

Format: 10", 3cd, dvd, 28 page booklet, photograph, tour pass, boxset
Tracks: 66
Cost: £40.50 new
Bought: Website
When: 03/11/12
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

I started listening to Dirty Projectors in a very round-about way. I was reading about something on Wikipedia and ended up drifting through endless pages, clicking on links I thought might be interesting. Somehow I ended up reading about the Dirty Projectors album Rise Above, in which Dave Longstreth recorded a bunch of covers of songs from Black Flag's Damaged. He claimed that Damaged was one of his favourite records as a teen and recorded the album entirely from memory despite not having listened to Damaged for 15 years (I doubt I've gone more than six months at a time without hearing someone cover Black Flag at some point, but maybe Dave moves in different circles to me!). Either way, I was quite intrigued by the project, and thought it would be worth checking out. A short while later, I was on holiday in America and bought the cd of Rise Above in Albums on the Hill in Boulder (along with a copy of Young Machetes by The Blood Brothers - the guy at the counter commented that the two albums made for an odd pairing).

Anyway, I enjoyed Rise Above and figured I should check Dirty Projectors out further. A year later my friend Aled and I saw the band play the upstairs room of Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff; it wasn't anywhere near sold out and they didn't even headline (I think they a long journey to the next venue so wanted to leave early) but they were excellent. I'd not heard any other songs of theirs but in that set there were some incredible tunes. They finished on a medley of Black Flag covers and I was pretty pleased with my accidental discovery. I bought another album (The Glad Fact, not my favourite) and then their new album at the time, Bitte Orca, when it came out a few months later. When I played the album, I was amazed; even though I'd only heard one proper album, it felt like this band had been on verge of getting everything right and on Bitte Orca it finally struck and they'd made an incredible record. All the best songs they'd played live were there and it was great to hear them again. I was pleased both for them as a band, but also for me as a listener. It seemed the internet agreed because their name started to appear everywhere.

I was so excited when the first song of Swing Lo Magellan appeared on the internet because I had that exact same feeling again. Gun Has No Trigger blew me away; it sounded like all of the bands best moments squeezed into a song that almost sounds like it belongs on the opening credits of a Bond movie. It was great to hear them write a song so brilliant. I picked up the album on cd after it came out and it's excellent too. Gun Has No Trigger is hands-down the highlight, but the opener, Offspring Are Blank, is another of their best. The whole album works well, but I'd be torn if you told be I had to choose a favourite between Bitte Orca and Swing Lo Magellan. It even made it to #7 in my top-ten albums of 2012.

This summer I went to the Independent Label Market in London and splashed out on a whole load of records (I'd just finally got a job after finishing my PhD and was keen to make up for lost record-buying time). I think the Domino records stall did the best out of me (although the Secretly Canadian stall also took a lot of my cash) as I picked up this copy of Swing Lo Magellan along with two Bonnie 'Prince' Billy LPs. I decided that it was enough of a classic to require a vinyl copy as well as the cd, and the fact that it was a limited run of 3000 copies probably also helped (mine is #2469). It's a pretty lovely package: the sleeve is embossed and included is lyric sheet with all the lyrics embossed (kinda like braille, but words). You can just about see it in the pictures below.

I've been thoroughly recommending Dirty Projectors to everyone since the last two records came out. When I saw them, I knew Aled would be into but had my doubts anyone else would. Even Hugh has a copy of Bitte Orca now, and they sold out The Roundhouse last time they played London. It's nice to see them doing well.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve, 11"x22" lyric sheet, insert, numbered
Tracks: 12
Cost: £20 new
Bought: Independent Label Market, London
When: 13/07/13
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download card

The Shitty Limits - Beware the Limits

I saw The Shitty Limits at least once. They were one of those bands I was convinced I'd seen more times than just once, but the one time I do remember seeing them was really good, so I wonder why I'd not had that thought before. I think I'd seen their name on listings for gigs I was planning on going to, then didn't make it to. That might explain my confusion. Plus, I saw a lot of hardcore bands when I lived in Wales.

Sadly, my attempts to document all the gigs I've been to have been far less successful than my attempts to document my record collection and, with that in mind, I have no idea when it was that I saw The Shitty Limits. It was definitely in Le Pub, and after a bit of internet research, I reckon it was this gig with Death is Not Glamorous, Harbour and The Human Race. Hugh was playing in The Human Race and I quite enjoyed Harbour, so I'm pretty certain I would have been there. Anyway, the main reason I remembered seeing The Shitty Limits that night and why they stuck in my mind quite so much was the way the singer moved around the stage. Have you ever seen The Muppets when they get really excited and they just shake the puppet wildly and the head flaps around like crazy? Well, that's what the singer looked like. On top of that they were great fun. Imagine a hardcore version of The Hives (especially on Your Limits Are My Limits).

Anyway, fast forward four years and I finally bought their LP (which plays at 45 rpm, naturally). Bedford Falls had a new album coming out on Boss Tuneage Records and I decided to see what else was in the distro. In the end I got both Bedford Falls albums for a fiver each, a split by The Magnificent and Noise by Numbers and this LP. For £5 it would have been rude not to. It's a nice record. I always found hardcore records good for those times when you need to get a bunch of things done quickly and the pace here never drops.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 12
Cost: £5 new
Bought: Boss Tuneage distro
When: 03/08/12
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Lit - A Place in the Sun

A Place in the Sun was always one of those sunny-day pop-punk records. Of course, the sun has now gone into hibernation until March, but this record can make me forget that. My friends and I loved it when we were 16, and my emotional attachment this LP remains to this day. I imagine most people would write it off as a shitty, late 90's pop-punk record, and without my fond memories of it, I probably would too. I wonder what I'd think of Lit if I heard them for the first time now.

I remember the first time I heard A Place in the Sun, and it was sometime towards the end of secondary school. There was a period when we all borrowed the few cds we each owned from each other and one day after school I was my friend Chris' house seeing what cds he had that I could borrow. He had an album by Lit that he'd borrowed from Johnny, and a Limp Bizkit album he'd got from someone. I hadn't heard either, but went for Lit. Even in the weeks that followed I knew I'd made the right choice in dedicating half a cassette to Lit (even cassette space was limited back then). I heard the Limp Bizkit album at some point and didn't think much of it. Luckily, even in the nu-metal haze of 2000, I wasn't into Limp Bizkit.

Around the time we were sitting out GCSE's, my friend Paul's older brother was selling off his entire cd collection at £5 a pop (he'd recorded them all onto MiniDisc, a move I'm sure he came to regret). My job in Sainsburys' afforded me the option to buy a whole bunch of these albums and I picked up A Place in the Sun, along with a lot of RATM and Smashing Pumpkins. It was a pretty sweet deal. Four years later and I was in Oxford visiting some friends. We decided to head out and try to find some record stores. It wasn't a very fruitful trip, but we did find one second hand place and I picked up a copy of Soundgarden's BadMotorFinger for £9. The shop had an offer of any two records for a tenner, so I went back, had another dig around and found this slightly dog-eared copy of A Place in the Sun. For £1 it would have been rude not to. The vinyl was pretty filthy, but it now plays with only a few pops.

There's not too much to say about the music. It's catchy pop-punk that I've been playing for many years. There's no point listing the highlights, because they're all equally fun (although the lines "You make me come / You make me complete / You make me completely miserable" on Miserable still feel like they deserve a mention!) I had a read about Lit on Wikipedia whilst writing this, and discovered that the drummer died four years ago. I also discovered the band is still going. I never bothered to check out any of the other Lit albums, because I was perfectly happy with A Place in the Sun. Chances are, without those fond memories of listening to it at 15, it would've just sounded like shitty pop-punk.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £1 second hand
Bought: Oxford
When: 22/01/05
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Jane's Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual

There aren't many bands I can say this about, but I started listening to Jane's Addiction because of MTV. As it happens, one of the other bands MTV got me into was The Smashing Pumpkins, and between those two bands we're really covering some of the biggest alt-rock bands of the early 90's. The funny thing is that I imagine a lot of people can say that they also got into Jane's Addiction and Smashing Pumpkins because of MTV - there was a time (before my time) when alt-rock on MTV was all the rage and I reckon it had far more to do with their success than it would for any bands these days. Of course, when I say MTV, I mean music television in general, since MTV itself hasn't shown a music video in years.

My introduction to Jane's Addiction came in the form of the video for Jane Says, which was an awesome medley of exciting live footage and those steel drums. I was 16 and amazed. They just seemed so cool, even though in the year 2000 they definitely weren't. I'd read the name in magazines and heard things about them prior to this, and I was glad that I enjoyed their music so much. A few months later I picked up the cd of Ritual de lo Habitual for a fiver in HMV and Bournemouth and less than a year-and-a-half later I found this copy in FM Music (RIP) in Southampton.

The highlights on Ritual de lo Habitual were always Stop, Been Caught Stealing and Three Days. I always loved break in the middle of Stop (something I remember especially well from their show at Reading 2002 - I still have the Jane's Addiction t-shirt I bought that day, although it has faded badly over the years). It's an album that works particularly well on vinyl due to how different sides A and B are; the lengthy, more experiment songs appear after the break, but work well together. I remember reading something in Kerrang! about how not many bands would have the balls to put two 8+ minute songs on an album, let alone one right after the other, but I never really noticed it until then. Somehow Three Days and Then She Did... never seemed like long songs.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 9
Cost: £12 new
Bought: FM Music, Southampton
When: 17/01/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Lucero - The Attic Tapes

I can't recall the first time I heard Lucero, nor can I remember the first time I heard about them, but I can narrow it down to sometime between the start of September 2007 and 7th December 2007. The first date is when I moved to Cardiff, and the second is when I saw Lucero for the first time. It's probably slightly more narrow than that, because I don't really remember anyone mentioning Lucero the first month or so I was in Cardiff - I think I just started hearing their name more and more - and I bought the ticket in advance, so I definitely knew about them before I saw them.

One of the nice things I found when I lived in Cardiff was that when there was a buzz about a band, that buzz really travelled around everyone I knew. I remember when that buzz was about Chuck Ragan, and I have some memories of the buzz about Lucero. They played Le Pub in Newport that December with Kevin Devine and Tournaments supporting, and everybody I knew was going. I think there ended up being six or seven of us on the train down that night. Sadly, the first time I saw Lucero was a night I don't really remember that well; fittingly, I was quite drunk. The 7th of December 2007 was also my work Christmas party, and we'd had the afternoon off for a meal and drinks. I snuck off about 8 and met my friends at Cardiff Central, got changed on the train, and continued to drink at Le Pub. I'm pretty sure we missed Tournaments but saw Kevin Devine. I don't really remember his set at all, which is a shame because I went on to be quite a fan of his solo work and of Miracle of 86. I also remember very little of Lucero, except a general feeling of enjoyment.

Luckily, Lucero came back to south Wales the following year in May, and I saw them (much more sober) in Clwb Ifor Bach. They were excellent, and a few slight memories of the December show came back to me. As it happens, that evening was also double-booked, as Jonah Matranga was playing just around the corner in the Barfly. Luckily, the curfew on the Lucero show was really early, so we had time to head over and catch Jonah (Hugh knew the guy on the door who let us in for free - Hugh's band were playing there soon, so it was on the premise that we were going to hand out flyers for that show). I ended up bumping into a colleague there having not realised he was a fan beforehand, but that's drifting off topic.

Anyway, a month before that Welsh Clwb show I picked up this reissue of Lucero's first LP, The Attic Tapes, whilst on holiday in Boulder. I found it in Bart's CD Cellar on Record Store Day. I was keen to pick up any of their albums, but this was the only one I found. The promise of a limited edition bonus 7" convinced me further. It's a pretty lovely package too; on top of the original nine songs, there's three bonus tracks on the 12" and another two on the 7", and a booklet full of notes by Brian and Ben. Musically, it's a bit slower and stripped back than some of their later recordings (as they mention), but I guess that's the nice thing about it being some old home 4-track recordings.

My personal favourites are Into Your Eyes, In Lonesome Times, A Heart so True (a great break-up song) and the cover of Jawbreaker's Kiss the Bottle on the 7". The other song on the 7", My Best Girl, is a love song to a guitar, and would sound ridiculous if it wasn't sung so sincerely.

My Lucero LP collection still has many holes, but I hope to fill them before too long. They're a great band and I'm pretty excited to see them at Fest soon.

Format: 12", 7", booklet
Tracks: 14
Cost: £7.04 new
Bought: Bart's CD Cellar, Boulder
When: 18/04/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Skindred - Target / Brainkilla

When I started listening to Dub War, they'd long broken up. However, a short while later we heard news that the singer had started a new band called Skindred and were pretty keen to check them out. It was certainly the closest we'd get to new Dub War. These two songs appeared on the internet and we enjoyed them; Skindred were heavier than Dub War, but that worked for us. A bit later their debut album, Babylon, came out and I enjoyed it for a while.

A few months later, I was in Bristol for a university open day and found a very cool record shop in the alleyways of an underpass (I was in Bristol this Monday and I think found where it used to be - it was already closed the second time I visited Bristol). In there I found this copy of the first record Skindred put out, containing the two songs we'd listened to online. The 10" was limited to 300 copies, and they'd all gone by the time the news reached us, so I was pretty pleased to find it that day. Annoyingly, my fingerprints seem permanently smeared on the label. I must have had greasy hands that day.

Both Target and Brainkilla start with such a noise that I'm never sure I've got the record at the right speed. They're both catchy songs but, sadly, also the best Skindred songs I've heard (although they've released another three albums since Babylon, but I'm pretty sure I won't get much out of them now). If Dreams and Illusions was where Dub War was going, these two songs feel like a step back before Dub Warning.

I didn't know it when I started Dub War Week last week that on Saturday I'd end up going to see Skindred. My friend and I made a last-minute trip to Leeds Festival, and I thought it would be rude to not see Skindred. To my surprise, the set still contained a bunch of early songs I knew, and it was funny to see Benji on such a big stage - the times we saw Skindred back in the day he was confined to The Joiners and The Nexus in Southampton (a conversation the other day reminded me that after the Joiners show, we met Benji and he gave us all beers from the tour bus. Nice guy. None of us had a bottle opener though, and I remember prying mine open on a metal fence. I kept the bottle for years before deciding it was a silly thing to keep!). I can't say Skindred were the best band I saw on Saturday, and I wonder what I would have thought of them if I hadn't spent those years listening to Dub War, but it was nice to see them.

Format: 10", diecut sleeve
Tracks: 2
Cost: £3 second hand
Bought: Bristol
When: 05/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Various Artists - Earache:Nextgen98 Tour - The Singles

This is a funny one. I knew that one of the last records Dub War released was a 7" featuring a song I hadn't heard called Dreams and Illusions backed with a string version of Silencer. When I wrote about Wrong Side of Beautiful, I ranted and raved a lot about how much I loved Silencer. Anyone who's read this blog before will know that I'm also a sucker for classical instruments in rock music, so this 7" was something I very keenly wanted to hear. However, I never saw it come up on eBay, so after a while I did a bit more hunting. I went on the Earache website and noticed, to my great surprise, that they were still selling it seven years after it came out. Not only that, but they had the whole series of records it belonged to for less than a fiver (the text etched into the b-side of the Dub War 7" seeming very ironic - see below). I excitedly purchased.

A bit of history: in 1998 Earache put on a tour of five bands called the Nextgen98 Tour. Earache was more of a metal label, but I think they were trying to edge into the increasingly popular nu-metal scene. This wasn't only obvious from the music of the bands featured, but by the comical late-90's cover-art. Anyway, they put out a 7" by each band each week in December, with the tour starting the following January. The first record came with a box to keep them all in.

Despite the largely terrible music included, there are a lot of thing about this project that I like: the whole idea of releasing a series of 7"s is one that all record collectors love, but even more-so when you can collect them into a nice boxset. It's also a great way of encouraging people to actually buy the whole lot. One of the greatest things here is the way that the art on each sleeve makes up part of the final picture (check the pictures below). It's not quite as cool as Les Savy Fav's Inches project, but pre-dates it by a few years. It's a shame the picture isn't more interesting, but I love the idea. I only have one other 7" boxset, and I'm constantly disappointed by the plain white sleeves inside and the fact they didn't do something similar.

So on to the bands. Janus Stark have very little going for them, and Pulkas are mildly more interesting. Misery Loves Co were the only band other than Dub War who I'd heard before (possibly on a Kerrang! cd). They were slightly sludgier and heavier, and I enjoyed that. Even now the a-side is quite listenable. The b-side is a remix and really does little for me. Dub War's Dreams and Illusions sounds like where they would have gone had there been a third album; much like a lot of Wrong Side of Beautiful, it's a much smoother, softer affair - more raggae than ragga. The strings version of Silencer is suitably dramatic, but just strings and vocals. It's nice, not as good as the original. I like what it adds, but I think I'd have preferred a middle ground - strings with some guitars. Benji's vocals still soar towards the end and it just shows that his vocals can be backed by pretty much any genre. The final 7" is by Ultraviolence, who sound like a shit Prodigy. Their b-side is a cover of Sabbath's Paranoid, and it is dreadful. Truly terrible.

Despite the vast majority of the music on it, there are a lot of things I like about this boxset, and it was definitely worth the money for the Dub War record alone.

Format: five 7" boxset
Tracks: 10
Cost: £4.64 new
Bought: Earache Records website
When: 20/04/05
Colour: Black
Etching: see below
mp3s: no

Etchings:
Record 1, Side A: "Only four more to go"
Record 1, Side B: "Same channel next week is Pulkas"
Record 2, Side A: "Serious collector, eh?"
Record 2, Side B: "Don't miss Misery on Monday"
Record 3, Side A: "Over half way there now"
Record 3, Side B: "Next instalment ... Dub War"
Record 4, Side A: "Only one more to go"
Record 4, Side B: "It'll be worth stacks in years"
Record 5, Side A: "You've got the set"
Record 5, Side B: "Now see the show"

Dub War - Cry Dignity

Approaching the end of Dub War Week now. This is the 7" of Cry Dignity from Wrong Side of Beautiful. My friend Hugh had picked up a bunch of Dub War cd singles at a record fair at some point (CD1 and CD2 of Cry Dignity and one of the Million Dollar Love cds), but decided he'd prefer a little extra cash, so sold them to me. He'd also got this 7" at some time along the way too, and sold the four of them for a fiver. There were a scattering of interesting b-sides (including a very nice acoustic version of Cry Dignity and the jam-track, Glover's Weird, which appears here) and a bunch of remixes which all made it onto the remixes album.

Format: 7", two promotional postcards, numbered 1431/3000
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1.25 second hand
Bought: Hugh
When: 11/04/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Dub War - 4 Track

Here's another Dub War 12" EP, which came out some time before their debut Pain. This was the other record I bought at the same time as the split with Cowboy Killers. Again, it's probably far from essential - Respected and Over Now are the same as the album versions. The version of Nar-Say-a-Ting is different from the version that would end up on Pain, but not as excitingly different as Original Murder was to Mental. The dub version of Over Now is nice enough, but again nothing to write home about.

Being the mildly obsessive collector I was for a while, I also have the cd version, which has a fifth song (and is, fittingly, called 5 Track), a live version of Dub War. As with nearly all of my Dub War collection, that was an eBay find too.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 4
Cost: £7.50 second hand
Bought: eBay
When: 12/07/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Dub War - Gorrit

I picked up this 12" single for £2 on eBay (including postage!). It was a whim purchase and far from essential - Gorrit and the remix both appear on the albums and the other b-side is a live version of another album track, Mad Zone. I imagine I bought it because for £2 it would be rude not to, I liked getting post, and I'd missed the chance to see Dub War live, so figured it would be good to hear a live recording, which it was. Gorrit is a classic Dub War song, and the remix (with its Pulp Fiction sample - "and you will know my name...") is enjoyable.

The only mildly interesting thing about this record is that I had it with me the second time I saw Skindred. For some reason I was taking it home from university (despite my record player being at university) and we were seeing Skindred in The Nexus in Southampton the night I arrived back in town, so I left all my stuff in my friend's car. The annoying thing was that we saw Benji after the gig and I could have got it signed, had I not left it in Nick's car. I'm not sure how receptive he would have been to signing a record of his old band though. Plus, I'm kinda on the fence about signed records, swinging towards not being that much of a fan, so it's not a huge loss.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 3
Cost: £2 secod hand
Bought: eBay
When: 21/11/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Cowboy Killers - Sweet

As I mentioned just now, I did briefly own two copies of Dub War's split with Cowboy Killers. A year after I'd bought my copy, another appeared on eBay. For a record that must have had a very small print run indeed, I was very surprised to see it again so soon. The difference with this auction was that they were throwing in a copy of Sweet by Cowboy Killers on 7" too. So amazed to see the record again, I put a bid in and decided to give the other copy to my friend Hugh. He was a Dub War fan too, and had been amused when I played him Cowboy Killers' cover of Deeply Dippy, so figured he'd enjoy it. I decided I'd keep the 7" myself. I had no plans on seeking out any of their other records, but I figured it would complement my Dub War split nicely.

This one-sided 7" is a promo from their album that was due to come out in February 1998 on T.J.'s Records. I've spent many a night in T.J.'s and had no idea they ever put out any records until I came to write about this 7". The sleeve is a pain white 7" with a folded piece of a4 paper inside it, so that the logo shows through the hole. Also inside is a small Christmas card that looks like, and probably was, drawn by a child. The b-side is etched with what I think says "I no I tall person Elvis 77". I suspect this was actually done by hand because it's barely legible, goes across the entire record and is different to what this one on Discogs claims to have. The song is nice enough, and strangely catchy. Again, think Dead Kennedys.

So not a Dub War record, but too closely related to not be included in Dub War week.


Format: 7", folded a4 insert, Christmas card
Tracks: 1
Cost: £2.50 second hand
Bought: eBay
When: 08/07/04
Colour: Black
Etching: Side B: "I no I tall person Elvis 77"
mp3s: no