Misfits - Legacy of Brutality

When I started writing this entry, I had a quick look at the release on Discogs and it looks like this second-hand, first pressing is worth about £50, which is considerably more than the £9 I paid for it one Saturday afternoon in Damaged. I can only imagine Welly didn't know it was of any real value - this was before Discogs was the resource it is now. There are coloured vinyl pressings that sell for much, much more, so I guess they're the ones people get really excited about. It was December, so the final instalment of my monthly-record-from-Damaged year and I'd covered a good selection of the punk that he stocked in there - older staples like Husker Du, Descendants, the Minutemen and Fugazi and newer bands like The Draft, Hot Water Music and The Loved Ones; I figured this was a worthy addition in the older staples category.

The first thing you notice about this record of how terrible it sounds. It's not a fault of the vinyl, it's just incredibly shittily recorded. But that's part of the charm - when you have songs like these, who needs production. I knew a bunch of these songs from covers I had, but that still doesn't really prepare for just how solid these songs are - Angelfuck, Where Eagles Dare, Hallowen, Hybrid Moments and Some Kind of Hate are all huge. Ridiculously huge songs. I think I have covers of all of them in my collection. Who wouldn't want to play those songs?

Despite all that, I've never bought another Misfits record. I just can't see myself getting any more enjoyment from their other albums than I get from this one.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 13
Cost: £9 second-hand
Bought: Damaged, Cardiff
When: 20/12/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Songs: Ohia - Songs: Ohia

As much as I love Jason Molina's music, I never really feel like I've cracked his early lo-fi days. There's a lot of hints of what Songs: Ohia would become, but it's not easy to hear it as the music of the same musician who wrote the albums towards the end of the Songs: Ohia monicker.

I picked up the debut Songs: Ohia record at the same time I got the Soujourner boxset. At that point, all I knew was Josephine and What Comes After the Blues - it wasn't the usual order of albums to hear (it'd be another year before I heard The Magnolia Electric Co record). I can't remember which I played first, but given the four discs of Soujouner, I suspect I played at least one of those first. I wasn't really expecting these songs to be quite so different to Magnolia, but I'd been brought in towards the end of his varied career and wasn't remotely familiar with the subtle twists and turns his vast recorded output went through. Part of me wishes I could have heard it all in a more sensible order, but most days I'm just glad I was introduced to his music by seeing him play live, and that I got to see him play live at all.

On Cabwaylingo Jason's voice is more nasal and high than it ever sounded again, which throws the listener off from the start (or, at least, this listener). It's not as warm as the version recorded as Vanquisher that appeared on the Journey On boxset; Crab Orchard afterwards sounds much more like the Molina I've spent many hours listening to. There are songs with a lot more bite to them though - Our Republic builds to something far bigger than most of the songs that preceded it, and Cotton Hill and Dogwood Gap are great examples of him dabbling in reaching beyond lo-fi. Tenskwatawa is a highlight, as is Little Beaver, although it shows just how little that I feel I've gotten into this album - if you'd mentioned those two song titles to me, I'm not sure I'd have known they were Molina song titles, let alone some of the songs on this album I like the most.

I bought this from the Secretly Canadian stall at the Independent Label Market in London. That was the first time I went when it was amazing; the second time was thoroughly disappointing in comparison and I've not been since. The Secretly Canadian stall had a bunch of Molina records and I regretted for a while not buying all of them (although it was wise to buy the Soujouner boxset then, because it sells for at least double what I paid for it now). I've probably since bought all the other ones they had, but I don't recall exactly which ones were there. This is the triple gatefold version of the reissue, unlike the single LP sleeve it's often found in now. The etching on the record says "edition of 500", but scrawled out, so I assume that was referring to an earlier pressing. It wasn't until a good number of months (possibly years) after I bought it that I found the download code inside.

Format: 12", triple gatefold
Tracks: 14
Cost: £15 new
Bought: Independent Label Market, London
When: 13/07/13
Colour: Black
Etching: Side A: "Edition of 500" (crossed out)
mp3s: Download code

The Verve - The Verve EP

Despite loving the first three Verve albums when I was a teenager - and again at various points throughout my adulthood - I've never really cracked their b-sides and early EPs. I suspect timing was an issue - I got the No Come Down compilation when I was 21, six long years after I'd got all their proper albums (a long time at that age), and it just wasn't what I was into at the time (the same day I bought cds by Thursday and the Murder City Devils). I'd seen it about for years and knew I should have bought it sooner, but just never did. In the end, I bought a copy on the other side of the world to where I'd been when I got into them.

I can see the parallels between these songs and those on A Storm in Heaven, but these are far more psychedelic and wandering, compared to the slightly more concise and hard-hitting songs on that album. She's a Superstar, their second single, has hints of those themes they'd lean into later, but it doesn't do loads for me. I'd known of the song Gravity Grave from early on, but I don't see the fuss. Endless Life is five minutes where nothing happens at all and Feel isn't much better (and twice as long).

Anyway, when this record was announced for Record Store Day in 2013, I knew I wanted it even if I wasn't familiar with the exact release, or what songs were on it. I remember opening the sleeve for Urban Hymns when I was 13 and seeing all the single, EP and album covers and just thinking it was really cool to see - I suspect that was an influence on me becoming a record collector - but it was also kinda daunting. It definitely instilled the idea that having a vast collection of Verve releases would be cool, even if it wasn't something I'd actively indulged in.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 5
Cost: £12 new
Bought: Banquet Records, Kingston
When: 20/04/13
Colour: Transparent red
Etching: none
mp3s: no

The Smith Street Band - More Scared of You Than You Are of Me

Don't Fuck With Our Dreams announced a new level of songwriting for The Smith Street Band, and one I was really impressed by. Sunshine & Technology was a fun record, but relatively simple; on Don't Fuck With Our Dreams they wrote their first song that had different parts and movements and things more complex than just verse-chorus-verse. Throw Me in the River was, for me, something of a let down, as it had none of this new-found greatness. I went into More Scared of You Than You Are of Me with some hesitation, only be blown away - this album has that next-level songwriting overflowing at every turn, so much so it was my album of the year in 2017.

I'm going to struggle to describe this album appropriately, because I'm just not that great with words, and I throw the words "excellent" and "brilliant" around on here so much that they lose meaning. But how about this: in the summer of 2017 I'd had a really shitty day at work (side note: I've not had a single one of those since I changed job - if only I'd realised that shitty days weren't compulsory sooner) and I was sat on the train coming back from London. The sun was still high in the sky and it was a really nice evening (or would have been without a long commute). I wanted to put the day behind me, and decided to put this album on my iPod and crank it up loud. Instantly I was in a happy place and smiling to myself. Within minutes I'd forgotten why I was angry. Any album that can change your mood for the better so quickly is truly remarkable.

There's barely a let up in the energy here, which is part of the charm, yet somehow they manage to still vary between "lots of energy" and "ridiculous huge sing-along moment energy" regularly and perfectly. Every song has at least one moment that I love and would be the highlight of any other album. Death to the Lads would have made the album incredible alone. Run Into the World starts off like the first dud on the album (the chorus is amazingly flat, but maybe that's just in relation to the soaring chorus (and verses) elsewhere), but then some female vocals take over before being layered against Will's building to a huge crescendo, proving that maybe it wasn't a terrible chorus. I even put that song on my end-of-year mixtape. Shine is another great example of a song a million times bigger than their first couple of albums (as are Forrest, Birthdays and Suffer). The strange end to Laughing (Or Pretending to Laugh) is literally the only bad moment on the whole record and, after the 45-minutes that came before, I'll let slide.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 12
Cost: £10 new
Bought: Specialist Subject Record subscription
When: 06/04/17
Colour: Pink with blue splatter
Etching: Side A: "More scared of you" Side B: "Than you are of me"
mp3s: Download code

Manic Street Preachers + The Laurens - UK Channel Boredom / I Don't Know What the Trouble Is

In March 1990 the Manic Street Preachers released their second 7", a split flexi-disc attached to a fanzine. In March 2020, almost exactly 30 years later, I acquired a copy. I never, ever thought I'd own a copy of this record, and it is now sat in my record collection and I'm very pleased to have it.

When I was a teenager falling in love with the Manics, I was given (and still have) a biography of the Manics by Mick Middles. It was an interesting read, even moreso when I re-read it a couple of years ago and understood the references a lot better. But the thing I found most interesting at the time was a comprehensive discography at the back of the book, detailing all the singles, the formats and b-sides. For a long time, I was using that as a checklist with little pencil ticks next to the ones I had. I bought a bootleg copy of Suicide Alley and put a very small tick mark next to that one. As much I as I never thought I'd own this one, I'm incredibly doubtful I'll ever own a legit copy of that 7". I hope to prove that sentence wrong one day though.

The other week I was browsing eBay and saw an auction for this record. In all my years of buying Manics records on there, I'd never seen a copy come up for sale before (I'm sure they have come up, but I've not checked every day and there were certainly large periods of time when I was free of my eBay addiction). I put in a little bid and thought nothing of it. I checked Discogs to get an idea of how high to go and was quite surprised to see that you can get a copy for £60. Near the end of the auction I got outbid a couple of times, so with a few minutes left I put in a bid of £46. I was fully expecting to get outbid, and in my usual, petty way I figured the best-case scenario was that the other person was going to pay a higher price for it, and I could at least take some comfort in knowing that (I am a terrible person). However, I won. I'd had a fairly cheap month, so figured I could justify spending nearly £50 on a 7", so felt pretty happy with my purchase. The more I thought about it, the more pleased I was to have this illusive record in my collection.

The most important thing to know about Uk Channel Boredom is that it is basically a very early recording of the song that became A Vision of Dead Desire, a b-side to You Love Us. We all know this, because the band kindly added it as a track on the Generation Terrorist boxset (albeit omitting the voicemail (or "answering machine", as it would have been known then) recording at the start). I remember being really excited to hear that song, then surprised that it was actually a song I already knew. Not only was it a b-side I knew, it was one of the very first I heard - my first three Manics singles were The Masses Against the Classes (cd), Motorcycle Emptiness (7") and You Love Us (re-release cd). I always preferred We Her Majesty's Prisoners on that cd (and never cared that much for the G'n'R cover), but it was a nice enough punk song. It sounded scrappy compared to production of the album version of You Love Us (but, at the same time, was probably the most appropriate song to be a b-side to), which makes this one sound even worse. Sure, being on a flexidisc doesn't help anything, but it's really not much more than a demo. That first line of "Primary prole MP judge general policeman" is a jumble on both recordings; their writing would come a long way in both the lyrics and the music. Aside from the chorus, most of the lyrics are the same.

It's worth mentioning the other song on this record - I Don't Know What the Trouble Is by The Laurens. Their song plays first, so if anything, the Manics are the double a-side to them, not the other way around as it is almost always listed; I doubt even the members of The Laurens have their sleeves folded such that their side is facing out. It's a fine song, but not remarkable in the slightest. I've played it a few times, but nothing really sticks with you.

Speaking of the sleeve, I sent a picture of it to a friend when I got my copy and he described it as the most punk-looking Manics record he'd ever seen. It's a more-than-fair comment - the cut-out letting of the band name, the bold, large font of the song title and that picture - they look so young and so punk. I've seen countless images of the band in their spray-painted white shirt era, but this one is great. Richey's cigarette is barely still in his mouth and neither James nor Sean can be bothered to look at the camera; so few fucks appear to be given. I love it.

Format: 7" flexidisc
Tracks: 2
Cost: £48.80 second hand
Bought: eBay
When: 11/03/20
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Manic Street Preachers - Rewind the Film

In the Lego community there is a large group of people who consider themselves "AFOLs" - Adult Fans Of Lego. Within that community there is the concept of "the dark ages" - the years in a person's life when they stopped playing with Lego before ultimately coming back to it as an adult; often they talk about a set that brought them back. Before Rewind the Film came out, I was going through something of a "dark age" with the Manics - it'd been a while since they'd released an album I really loved and I'd all but stopped buying the singles. Journal for Plague Lovers had raised my hopes only for them to be dashed again. Then I heard the song Rewind the Film and everything kicked right back in. That song brought me back from my dark ages.

I remember it vividly. I was working in a shitty temp job between my PhD and getting a permanent role somewhere (which ended up being in the building next door). I was sat at my desk and saw an email from the Manics about their new album featuring a link to a new song, the title-track. I clicked on it not expecting to get much from it. I knew the name of the guest vocalist, Richard Hawley, because my friend Rich had mentioned him, but that was the extent of my knowledge of him. I didn't expect the lead single of the new album to have such prominent guest vocals – after he started singing the second verse too I wondered if James was ever going to sing. Then it hit - "Let me hide un-der the sheets" - James' voice never sounded so clear, so loud and so Welsh. It was perfect. There's a picture of James singing in the booklet that came with Gold Against the Soul and he's really screaming into the microphone - it was always one of my favourite images of the band - this felt as close to that as they had been for many, many years. I think it was partly how great James' vocals sounded in general, but also the contrast between his voice and Richard's gravely singing that made it so amazing. I was hooked again.

(As a side note, I don't consider myself an AFOL, but I certainly am an adult that buys Lego for himself. I'd had a few sets bought for me as an adult, but I guess the set that brought me out of my "dark age" was a Millennium Falcon, alongside a Christmas bonus from work in the form of an Amazon giftcard that I wasn't sure how to spend otherwise. My formative years can be pretty much entirely broken down into two distinct eras - the Lego era, and the music era; the latter started when I heard Bittersweet Symphony on Top of the Pops, and the Manics swiftly followed, so it seems fitting that the parallel can be seen between the band and the toy.)

I listened to the song a couple more times and eagerly awaited the new album. For reasons I don't really remember, I didn't buy the vinyl when it came out - I ordered the double cd instead - perhaps I was still a bit apprehensive. Possibly more strangely, given the praise I've just heaped on the title-track, I also turned up the chance to buy this album on vinyl in 2017. That's a long-ish story that I'm going to tell even though this is already shaping up to be a long post. Skip the next paragraph if you're not interested in this particular anecdote.

In October 2017, just before my first daughter was born, I found out that the company I worked for was closing the Oxford office and we had a choice between continuing our jobs in the London office or being made redundant. I was extremely lucky in that I got a job offer within a week of this being announced (in an office across the road from old one - I'm clearly making a habit of local jobs moves) but I wasn't sure whether to take the new job or not, particularly with a new baby on the way - my old job had three months paid paternity leave which I'd lose if I left. On October 18th I was in London to see the Manics play a great, short set in the Roundhouse and had been in the London office that day (that way I could expense my train travel). I had a meeting with my manager about the redundancies and the more he tried to convince me to stay, the more I realised I should leave. I had time to kill before the gig, so went to Rough Trade to browse records, but my mind was elsewhere with all the big changes coming up. The only record I found that I was tempted to buy was this one. But I just really wasn't in the mood for record shopping (an alarming state indeed, and not one I was familiar with!) and I didn't want to drag an LP round the gig with me (there's safety in numbers when it comes to taking LPs to gigs - the more there are, the less likely they are to get damaged). So I left for the Roundhouse and phoned my wife on the way. Whilst on the phone to her, and talking about the conversation I'd had with my boss that I'd spent the last while thinking about, I came to the realisation that I should take the redundancy and the new job; it turned out to be the best thing I could have done and my life is definitely much better for having made that decision. I went into the gig with a weight lifted off my shoulders and had a brilliant time. It was one of my favourite Manics shows for how good I felt alone; there's nothing like singing along to the Manics in a room full of strangers to make you feel good.

After that, I didn't see a copy of Rewind the Film again until I found this one. I sometimes lamented not buying it that day in Rough Trade. As it happens, I found it after another fruitless trip into Rough Trade (I've now come out of that shop empty-handed more times than I've come out with records, which isn't something I can say about many record shops). I was in London for a conference and not far from Brick Lane, so headed over at lunchtime to see what I could find. On the way out of Rough Trade I noticed the large indoor flea-market and found a record stall in there. They had a strange mix of things, although mostly over-priced records from the 70's. But in one box I found two Manics records - an old copy of This is My Truth and this album. I excitedly bought it and headed back to the conference.

Rewind the Film was exactly the album I needed it to be. After being wowed by the title-track, I got caught up in the hope and light of Show Me the Wonder; it's an unusual thing to say, but the song is both very upbeat and very Manics. It would have worked quite well on Know Your Enemy, which isn't something I say very often. But the other real gem is the opener, This Sullen Welsh Heart, which works so perfectly to start the album. The demo on the second cd is particularly fascinating as it reveals the line "It's a mocking disease" was originally "It's a fucking disease", which makes for an even bolder opening. I can see why they changed it, but I kinda wish they hadn't. Although I like how hearing the demo makes you feel like you're in on a secret, that it should have been "fucking". 30-Year War is another highlight.

I read an article a while back where James ranked the Manics' album and this didn't do too well, which is a shame. Maybe I've always been a fan of the wrong albums - without a doubt the two I listen to most these days (and has been the case for a good number of years) are this one and Gold Against the Soul. Perhaps that says more about me as a Manics fan than any of the last seven paragraphs do.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £17 second-hand
Bought: Antiques Market, Brick Lane, London
When: 21/01/20
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: none

Elvis Costello - The Man - the Best of Elvis Costello

The final instalment of the "records I got from a hold-all that Gunnar found in his attic" series is this Elvis Costello compilation. I vaguely remember Hugh having an Elvis Costello record when we were living in Cardiff, but whether that was before or after I picked up this album I don't know. Whilst I'm certain I'd heard Costello's songs on the radio at many points throughout my life (my mum even has a few songs on 7" in the box of records my parents have from their teenage years), the first time I remember consciously listening to him was, strangely, on the Woodstock '99 double cd. The first cd was a who's-who of late 90's, American (and Bush) nu-metal and hard rock. My friend Johnny had a copy and I borrowed it from him, before picking up my own copy some years later on eBay. The second cd was a very strange mix of things, including Elvis Costello singing Alison from the infamous event. It didn't blow me away, but did stick with me.

I don't know what I was expecting from this best-of when I took it home, but I wasn't expecting the opening run of Watching the Detectives, Oliver's Army and Alison to be quite so huge. I've listened to a lot of music over the years that is very far from pop music, but sometimes there's no denying that some pop songs are just really, really great songs. That is true of the opening trilogy here. Oliver's Army was a really unexpected highlight for me, with its upbeat piano in spite of the lyrical matter. It's hard to look past the now-controversial dropping of the n-word though. Pump it Up and I Can't Stand Up (For Falling Down) are great too. There are moments that are unexpected in other ways too - Pill and Soap is quite bleak and Good Year for the Roses is calm and lovely. Generally though, the second half is much weaker than the first, but there are a lot of songs crammed onto these two sides of vinyl. I eventually bought a Costello best-of on cd so I could play these songs more easily. I definitely didn't expect to enjoy it quite so much when I picked it out of that gross hold-all of records.

Format: 12", gatefold
Tracks: 18
Cost: free second hand
Bought: Gunnar's attic
When: 25/03/09
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Small Brown Bike - Our Own Wars

Three years after getting Dead Reckoning, and just two months after getting Fell & Found, I finally started to delve further into Small Brown Bike's back-catalogue. This was mostly because I was going to be seeing them at Fest that October and wanted to know some more songs. I picked this up in a large online order from Specialist Subject Records (back then, they weren't a shop too, so it was all online). I remember enjoying it, but nowhere near as much as Dead Reckoning or Fell & Found. I don't know if there's a commonly accepted order of preference for their albums, but for me it happens to go in the order I bought them, with Dead Reckoning out in front by a good distance.

Our Own Wars is Small Brown Bike's debut, and it's definitely a bit rougher around the edges - the start of Zerosum sounds like a demo. The bass, however, sounds incredible throughout, particularly on Now & Never where it's really pounding and high in the mix - that song has levels of aggression they'd rarely show again. There are some favourites here - Atlanta has a great outro and Running, Swimming & Sinking has a huge chorus. The Cannons & Tanks is a brilliant opener and a great use of the two vocalists - it's always nice when the first song on a debut album so perfectly shows what a band is about.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 10
Cost: £9.50 new
Bought: Specialist Subject Records website
When: 31/08/11
Colour: Pink
Etching: Side A: "Umber midget tricycle" Side B: "I want the banana erectors"
mp3s: Download code