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