ONSIND + Ghost Mice - Split

 

I have a huge amount of time for ONSIND. As soon as I got into them I started listening to all their songs on Bandcamp - that was around 2011 so this 7" would have been on there (although isn't there any more). I started buying any of their records I could find, and this was a very pleasant surprise on my first trip to All Ages. As a side note, I should have visited All Ages much sooner into my time living in London, but I was rarely that far north except in the evenings for gigs; I later realised that it was worthy of dedicated trips on its own. I've also not been there anywhere near enough - not only do they stock all the punk records you could possibly want, but they also have a good selection of metal and obscure heavy stuff (two genres I'm leaning more into these days).

The second ONSIND song, That Takes Ovaries, also ended up on their superb second album, Dissatisfactions. They've stopped playing it after taking some criticism for the blunt lyrics, but certain lines aside the point they're trying to make remains as valid as ever and is often one that comes to mind when watching some bands. The first song, Call Me If You Ever Feel Too Old to Drive, is a perfect ONSIND song and worth the price of the record alone.

Ghost Mice are on the second side of the record and that's really about the most I know about them, other than that they're from the USA. To sum them up very briefly, they're too nasal and high pitched for me to really find them enjoyable. I do love their energy though. They sound a bit like a Chuck Ragan song played 50% too fast, which you can either choose to take as a compliment or not, depending on how that summary lands with you. Their third song, Exit #2, paints a nice picture.

Format: 7", insert

Tracks: 4

Cost: £4 new

Bought: All Ages, Camden

When: 03/10/12

Colour: Black

Etching: no

mp3s: no

The Draft - The Fest 12 Edition

 

I don't have mp3s of these songs, so they've had a fraction of the number of plays as The Draft's excellent, only album has had. Devil in the Shade is worth digging the 7"s out for alone, and Hard to Be Around It is pretty strong too. I really should play this much more often.

I wasn't aware of what this record was when I bought it - I'd been buying the "Fest Edition" version of any records I was into that weekend and they're all pretty cool. At the end of the weekend I found this in Arrow's Aim, the No Idea record shop in Gainesville and added it to the stack of records I was buying (before we jumped in the car, realised we mis-calculated our timings a bit and had to drive very fast back to Tampa to catch our flight home). I'd seen The Draft for the first (and only) time at Pre-Fest a few days earlier, but not seen the record there. If they'd played the main event too they must have clashed with someone else, otherwise I'd have watched them again.

The strangest thing about this record is that it's a double-7" version of a triple 7" they'd released for a separate tour (which Discogs refers to as "Tour Edition"). That record comprises all three 7"s they released in 2007, the year after In a Million Pieces came out, but this one is only two of those records; I've not heard the other two songs. I should probably check them out one day.

Format: Double 7", Fest edition

Tracks: 4
Cost: £7 new
Bought: Arrow's Aim, Gainesville
When: 04/11/13
Colour: Purple
Etching: Side A: "Mini soccer? Are you kidding me?" Side B: "I like grown up JB even better" Side C: "Draft beer, not me" Side D: "Draft is a fine cleaning product"
mp3s: no

Radiator Hospital + Martha - Split

 

I should really like Martha more than I actually do. I love ONSIND and have done for years, but this is the only Martha record I own (and that's only really because I got it as part of the Specialist Subject subscription I had for a couple of years). I've listened to all their albums and each time thought "yeah, it's nice, but I don't love it". I'm clearly missing something because everyone I know loves them way more than ONSIND and they've had what appears to be far more success as a foursome too.

I can see the appeal for sure. Chekhov's Hangnail has a huge chorus and a big full sound. Mendable is actually much closer to ONSIND territory and I like it more. I guess what I always quite liked about ONSIND was that weren’t a rock band, but wrote songs that definitely worked as rock songs. The last time I saw them was effectively the Martha line-up (I think) playing an ONSIND set and it was incredible. Maybe I just need to see Martha for it to all fall into place.

I don't really remember having any opinions on Radiator Hospital before, but I'm quite enjoying them now. I can’t put my finger on what it reminds me of (frustratingly) - the singer's very nasal voice is very reminiscent of something, but for the life of me I can't think who. The final song, Dark Sand, has some extra vocals which do break things up quite nicely and adds a lot to the song. Good effort squeezing three songs onto one side of a 7" playing at 45rpm - I don't think I've ever put this record on at the right speed the first time - I always think "three songs must mean 33rpm".

Format: 7", insert
Tracks: 5
Cost: £5 new
Bought: Specialist Subject Records
When: 08/10/15
Colour: Mint green
Etching: Side A: "Put the kettle on" Side B: "Sexy willy riff"
mp3s: Download code

Muncie Girls - Picture of Health

 

I only own this 7" because it was included in my Specialist Subject subscription. I like Muncie Girls, but not enough to bother buying 7" singles of theirs. That said, it turns out I have nearly everything they've released, so maybe I am a collector? The a-side is from their last album, Fixed Ideals. It's a strong song with a huge, catchy chorus. But it'd be more than sufficient for me to enjoy it on the LP  alone (which was also part of the subscription, although I would have bought that regardless). The b-side, Rain, is a perfectly nice song, but less memorable. Nice poster sleeve.

Format: 7", poster sleeve

Tracks: 2

Cost: £5 new

Bought: Specialist Subject Records

When: 14/06/18

Colour: Black

Etching: None

mp3s: Download code

Pale Angels - Strange Powers

 

I genuinely wasn’t sure what speed to play this record at just now - it didn’t sound right at either. Turns out it was 45. I guess this record came out after the Four Live Songs 7", although both were in 2014 at some point. I think this is a live EP recorded at a studio in Amsterdam - none of the songs are on the albums. It's far faster and more punk-rock than anything else they've recorded - the grunge vibes are barely apparent at all.

The final song, Romantic Depression, is the best by far and worthy the cost of the 7" alone. La Esquina is so short that it’s nearly taken me longer to write this sentence than to listen to the song. It's a nice enough record, but probably not essential

Format: 7"

Tracks: 4

Cost: £5 new

Bought: Specialist Subject Records

When: 05/12/14

Colour: Black

Etching: None

mp3s: Download code

Pale Angels - Four Live Songs

 

When I bought the first Pale Angels album, I figured I'd pick up the two 7"s that Specialist Subject had as well. It'd been nine months since I'd seen them and been really pleasantly surprised at how good they were, and the fact they were basically a grunge band and not a punk band. I'm not sure why it took me so long. I've got a feeling I had a discount to use with Specialist Subject so put in an order for a bunch of things. Either that, or I was just in the mood to spend some money.

The four songs here make up nearly half of the songs on their debut, but these were recorded live on a UK tour in December 2013. The quality, as you'd expect (for a number of reasons) varies from charmingly shit to just shit - Mama sounds like it was recorded on a dictaphone cassette, and it sounds like Reza was playing drums on a table; the "woo-oohs" near the end sound amazing though. I get the desire to get some songs out there, but I can't believe these were the best four live recordings from that tour unless they were the only four live recordings from that tour. Slow Dance is great though - pure Nirvana, but brilliant for it. Slow Jangle has a nice build up to a satisfying beat.

Anyway, it's a nice little package - white vinyl and the sleeve is printed on black card and numbered (mine is 124/143). It also comes with a zine of tour photos, which is nice. I hadn't realised that the cover of the Strange Powers 7” was shot in the Exchange until looking through there. 

Format: 7", zine, numbered (124/143)

Tracks: 4

Cost: £5 new

Bought: Specialist Subject Records

When: 05/12/14

Colour: White

Etching: None

mp3s: None

Run, Forever - A Few Good Things

 

For a short while, Run, Forever felt like a really important band. Then they just sort of vanished. It happens a lot I guess, and there's probably not always a dramatic end; a lot of bands just fizzle out. I assume that's what happened here, but I have no idea really. 

Between 2011 and 2015 I bought a bunch of their records. Not quite everything they put out, but most. I even bought all four colours of their second album Settling, although I think that was more because the option was presented to me by the record label than a real desire to actually go deep on collecting them. Even the bands I love the most I don't go down to colour-variant-level of collecting. Those for records are something of an anomaly in my collection with their identical spines all next to each other, but a nice reminder of that brief period when Run, Forever seemed like a really important band.

This 7" came out between their first and second albums. I've not played either in a while now, but this feels like a good mixture of the two, possibly more in common with the first, but I'm only saying that because two of the songs here are huge, and in my memory the first album had more stand-out songs like that. Those two songs are the first on each side - Letters and Get Better. The former probably ranks among their best songs, and both are earnest, eager punk-rock songs, full of energy and hard-hitting. Growing Pains is a nice reflective closer, which is a perfectly normal sort of song to write, but an unusual one to put on an EP when you have fewer songs to play with. Fall Hard is a nice acoustic song, but feels unfinished.

I bought this 7" when I saw them play at Fest in 2013, although I don't particularly remember the set - I couldn't tell you which venue it was in, unlike the first time I saw them at Fest 2011, which is firmly etched into my mind. It was the fifth day of the festival and they were the ninth band I saw that day, sandwiched between 1994! (who I do remember seeing) and Restorations (who I think I remember seeing, like 80% sure which venue they were in). I had the other albums they were selling, but picked up this and a t-shirt. Two years later they released another album and then sort of disappeared. More on that when I get round to writing about the final, self-titled LP.

Format: 7", folded sleeve, insert

Tracks: 4

Cost: £3.15 new

Bought: Fest

When: 02/11/13

Colour: Purple

Etching: Side A: "Better step aside home school, there's a new sheriff in town! Side B: "They’re break dance fighting!"
mp3s: download

Jena Berlin - This is Yours as Much as it is Mine

I bought this record having never actually listened to Jena Berlin. I was, and still am, a huge Restorations fan and they added a bunch of old releases to their website a while back, so I took the opportunity to stock up on a few bits. Most excitingly, they had the Little Elephant session 12", but they also had this 7" and the album by the band that a few of them were in before Restorations by the of name Jena Berlin. I figured it was worth a punt, so I bought both.

It's impossible to listen to without comparing it to Restorations, which is probably unfair - everything about it sounds so much more naive and scrappy; Restorations always sounded so sure of their sound and somehow older because of it. I don't want to use the words "mature" and it's loaded negative "immature" because it'd be doing Jena Berlin a disservice, but it's hard for those words to not pop into your mind. Restorations always felt (to me, at least) as an older-person's punk band. Jena Berlin sounds like the music they made as teenagers in comparison - there's so much energy and a slightly metal-tinged edge in places (Motion Sickness on the album jumps through a bunch of different styles, but kinda works; Oh God on this 7" is even more unexpectedly metal). For reasons I can't quite put my finger on, it reminds me of a lot of the bands we used to see in South Wales - not even in musical style, maybe it's the cheaper production or youthful energy. But there are hints of Restorations in there, along with about a hundred other influences.

As a result, I always think "I'd rather be listening to Restorations" when I play it, so I can't say I've ever listened to it purely on it's own merits. If you've thought "I wish Restorations played faster punk with a hint of metal" then you should probably check out Jena Berlin.

Format: 7", folded screen-printed sleeve
Tracks: 2
Cost: £7.70 new
Bought: Band's website
When: 03/08/17
Colour: Red
Etching: none
mp3s: download code

Restorations - Call + Response IV

I distinctly remember ordering this record, which is not something that can often be said for the fairly soulless experience of ordering something online; there's none of the usual enjoyment that comes from buying something in person in a shop, but this one stuck with me.

It was the day after I'd turned 30 and we'd just returned to Bergen having been out in the fyords the night before. We'd checked into our hotel for that night and were getting ready before going out for a meal (in a bar that sold metal-themed burgers). I was catching up on Twitter and saw that Restorations had tweeted about this record being available and there only being 300 copies of it available. I immediately clicked through to wherever it was on sale and added it to my basket. All in, it came to £12, which under any other circumstance is a horrific price for a 7" record. But I was in Norway, where every beer I'd drunk had cost about £9. I knew £12 was a lot, but if I could justify £9 for a beer that gave me less than half-an-hour's enjoyment, I could justify £12 on a record I'd have for many years to come.

On top of that, the song on this 7" is 12-minutes long, so not far off the amount of time it takes to drink a beer anyway (depending on the night out and the beer). I think I knew some of the context around this release when I pressed "buy", but was willing to chance it regardless. The premise here is that Restorations wrote a 12-minute long instrumental song (with the cracking title Alright Boys, When We Get to the Airport, There Will be Absolutely No Place to Land) and then 16 local writers wrote short stories in response to it (call and response). The record comes with a huge book of all the responses. Because I'm a horrendous person, I've not read all of them. In fact, I'm not even sure I've read most of them. Not gonna apologise, that's just the sort of person I am it turns out.

I have, however, listened to the song a lot. Given how far from usual Restorations territory it lies, it's a great song; they're not the first band you'd think of to write either an instrumental song, or a 12-minute long song, let alone both at the same time. It doesn't get boring and does a lot of things in its runtime. As an added quirk, there's a locked groove at the end of the a-side, so the song essentially goes on for as long as you like. It's the only record I have where the locked groove appears halfway through a song.

Format: 7", book, numbered (233/300)

Tracks: 1

Cost: £12 new

Bought: Online

When: 29/10/14

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

The Enablers + Bedford Falls - Split

 

I bought this record because Hugh was gushing about how the Bedford Falls songs were two of their very best and I needed a copy. I had the two albums they’d released at the time and seen them a good handful of times, both in my Cardiff days and beyond. It was the only time I visited Ghost Town Records in Cardiff, what I assume was a fairly short-lived venture between Damaged Records and whatever Welly is doing now. It was a good haul - this 7” for £2, the first Onsind album on cd for £1 and an Underground Railroad to Candyland record for £7.50; I was very pleased with my haul. If I remember correctly, it pissed it down in the afternoon, so we had a token drink in the Christmas market and went to the cinema, mostly to keep dry. 

Anyway, Hugh was right (but don’t let him know I said that), these are two of the best Bedford Falls songs - both great, standalone songs, which is what you want from a 7” - two songs that are deserving of being on a bit of vinyl all to themselves. The Sweetest Science is particularly good. I know people love The Enablers, but I’ve never really gotten on with them. They’re fine, but don’t do much for me.

Format: 7"

Tracks: 4

Cost: £2 second hand

Bought: Ghost Town Records, Cardiff

When: 24/11/12

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Fugazi - 3 Songs

A little while ago I realised I was within striking distance of completing my Fugazi collection - I had all the albums on some format and was just missing Margin Walker. When I picked that up from Specialist Subject, I also picked up The Argument and Instrument on vinyl, meaning the only outstanding release was the 3 Songs 7". Of course, I'd had the three songs themselves since 2005, tacked onto the end of the Repeater cd, an album I loved so much I got the cd two years after buying the vinyl just so I could listen to it on my mp3 player. So I know these three songs very well.

Still, in October 2019, just after the package arrived from Specialist Subject I went on eBay and bought the first reasonably priced copy of this I saw (at £4.50, it's not far off the £6 I spent on my vinyl copy of Repeater). The internet has made record collecting far less exciting for sure, but it's still nice to put that final piece of the puzzle in. These three songs are deserving of their own 7" (something that isn't universally true) - Song Number One is huge, and would easily fit on a best-of Fugazi, if such a thing existed (which it does in my car, and indeed is on there). The bass at the start of Joe Number One sounds amazing, as does the piano. I've never really had much time for it on the end of Repeater, but when you sit down and properly listen to it, it’s great. And finally Break In is just frantic. In just seven-and-a-half minutes, you have a perfect slice of Fugazi.

Format: 7", picture sleeve, insert
Tracks: 3
Cost: £4.50 second hand
Bought: eBay
When: 16/10/19
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Nine Inch Nails - Broken

In a lot of ways, Broken represents exactly what I want (and wanted) from Nine Inch Nails. Despite that, I don't think any fan could say it was the band's "best" release – on paper, it's only six songs, and two of those don't really count, although the bonus tracks put it back up to six songs – but more importantly, how could it ever be fairly compared to the two giant albums that followed it? In any discography that contains The Downward Spiral and The Fragile, the odds are really stacked against every other recording.

But Broken is, for me, what Nine Inch Nails were always about – punishingly heavy industrial metal but with Trent Reznor's unique ability to somehow mix that with pop and give it a groove that you'd never normally hear alongside guitars. Happiness in Slavery is a perfect example of this, although also one of the sloppier combinations – the verses are brutal and the instrument break is pure noise, but the chorus could be a pop song in the way it's sung (if not in lyrical content). The back story to Broken was that Trent's anger at the label's handling of Pretty Hate Machine caused him to write these blistering songs, and if that's the case I'm kinda glad it all played out as it did; I like the songs on Pretty Hate Machine, but to me that album is the odd-one-out in the NIN back-catalogue – there are hints of industrial, but really there's a lot more 80’s goth and synth-rock going on. Who knows how Nine Inch Nails would sound now if they'd followed that trajectory! (The fact that this EP contains a secret Adam Ant cover is probably a clue.)

Of course, the order in which I got heard the NIN albums is probably why I'm not a PHM fan, and why I think Broken is such perfect NIN material – I got the albums in this order: Downward Spiral, The Fragile, Broken, All That Could Have Been and then Pretty Hate Machine – I'd heard epic-NIN, industrial-NIN and the industrial live versions of PHM songs on the live album before I'd heard that record; I love hearing those pop-moments soundtracked to savage guitar work and drums that are being beaten more than they’re being played (and a lot more than to a drum machine). Despite that, I never really got into industrial as a genre – I think the pop was part of the enjoyment, as much as it surprises me to say it. I know lots of people wouldn’t call NIN an industrial band, and that's fine, but to me they are and they're at their best when they commit fully to their version of it.

And that's exactly what they did on Broken. All four of the actual songs are brilliant (Gave Up and Wish particularly) and every time they're played live they go down amazingly well. It's impressive how many of their best songs came from a bitterly recorded EP. When With Teeth came out I remember describing it to a friend as being the closest thing they've done to a full length version of Broken, a comment based around the fact it was heavy but didn't have a narrative or concept - I'm not sure I agree with 20-year-old-me entirely, but I still love the relative simplicity of that album.

I first heard Broken in December 2001, just over a year after getting The Downward Spiral and a few months after getting The Fragile. I'd been to a record fair but found disappointingly few records I wanted, so picked Broken up in MVC for £6. They would have had that cd in stock every single time I'd ever been in there, but I guess I decided that was the day to finally get it. I was already a fan of the band, but those songs hit hard and made me a bigger fan. A few months later I rushed out to get the And All That Could Have Been double cd for an at-the-time expensive £17. When the band started reissuing their albums I figured it'd be nice to pick them, and gradually did so. After I'd seen the care and attention that'd gone into The Downward Spiral and The Fragile reissues (bought with my World Cup sweepstake winnings), I picked up Broken the very next time I went into the record shop. The package is lovely, in particular the scratched-out lyrics etched into the b-side, the 7" and the booklet. It' worth the money for the songs alone, but the details makes it even more enjoyable.

Format: One sided 12", 7", booklet

Tracks: 8

Cost: £22 new

Bought: Truck Store, Oxford

When: 31/08/18

Colour: Black

Etching: Lyrics etched into b-side

mp3s: Download code

Far - Water & Solutions

Whilst I've always been a Tin Cans man, I still have a lot of time for Water & Solutions and I get why people rate it so highly. It took me a long time to get there though - I got Water & Solutions only five months after getting Tin Cans With Strings To You, but I'd been sold on Tin Cans' slightly rougher edges and doomier moments. On top of that, I knew that Water & Solutions was the one that was meant to be the better one, so maybe I went in with higher expectations - I'd read (and still have somewhere) a Kerrang! article that listed Water & Solutions as the third best post-hardcore/emo album of all time, which is a pretty big claim (and a solid list to be in at all - I remember Fugazi's Repeater and At the Drive-In's Relationship of Command also being in the top ten, but not necessarily above Far).

People absolutely adore Mother Mary and I suspect it's the Far song that Jonah plays the most. It is an incredible song, there's no doubt about it. Do I love it more than Job's Eyes or Joining the Circus? No, but I'll agree that it probably is the better song in a traditional sense. The title-track is pretty great too - the whispers of "Soon, a light on" before the chorus is brilliant - you can imagine the comparisons to the Deftones that drew, despite musically being pretty far removed. Nestle and Wear It So Well are highlights too. Man Overboard is the only one that that has those same hints of doom and sludge that my favourite songs on Tin Cans have; it's the only one that would have comfortably fit on that album (it feels bad to constantly compare the album to its predecessor, but I'm not sure I've ever listened to it without thinking about how much I never got it as much as I did Tin Cans).

I saw Jonah play Water & Solutions in full in 2018 to celebrate its 20th anniversary. To play the shows, he toured the UK (and possibly Europe) with the band Witching Waves, which was unusual, but made for an interesting twist on the usual anniversary tour. I was lucky enough to see Far in 2008, so I didn't mind it not being a full-band thing. Given the history of the band, I'm not surprised they couldn't get back on the road together and I'd much rather watch one quarter of the band play these songs than not at all. Strangely, Jonah changed the tracklist entirely, playing the gentler songs first, before exploding into the heavier ones. I guess people don't write album tracklists and setlists in the same way at all - so few albums save the best song for last; it's a fundamental flaw in the whole "playing an album in full" tour idea. Ironically, Waiting for Sunday is a huge song (but not Mother Mary-huge).

Around the time that Tin Cans got reissued, they reissued Water & Solutions too. I had the chance to buy both at Fest, but opted for just Tin Cans because it was a few days before payday and I had to hold back a bit. I'd never really minded having just one in my collection, and I had the one I cared about the most. But over the years I did occasionally think it'd be nice to have both albums on vinyl. Last year at some point I read an email from Jonah that mentioned a new German reissue of Water & Solutions, so I immediately headed over to their site to pick up a copy. In the email Jonah said the last reissue sounded shitty, but this one he was on board with, so I figured it was worth picking up. It also came with a bonus flexi-7" which was a nice added bonus. Annoyingly, the coloured vinyl had sold out by this point, so I snapped up this black vinyl copy (more annoyingly, they did a second run on a different colour of vinyl, which is a pet-peeve of mine - first pressings on coloured and black vinyl then subsequent on coloured - means if you're a bit slow off the mark you get stuck with a boring colour of vinyl, but then you'd have been rewarded with a nicer colour for waiting. It happens far too often. I guess it helps sell records). It is a nice pressing, although the faded colour of the sleeve makes it look cheaper somehow - like a shitty photocopy, even though it's not. The 7" has a home demo of Mother Mary, which is nice, even if hearing Jonah play Far songs on his own is the norm rather than the exception these days. 

Format: 12", square 7" flexi disc, insert

Tracks: 13

Cost: £25.60 new

Bought: Thirty Something Records bandcamp

When: 11/12/19

Colour: Black, transparent blue

Etching: none

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

Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas?

I got this 7" for a free in the same dirty hold-all of old records that yielded Burn to Run, Legend and Marvin Gaye's Anthology. I decided to take this one because it's just a really, really great pop song. I don't think anyone can argue otherwise. It's perfect pop, and sometimes that is something to be enjoyed. I suspect this 7" exists in a huge percentage of record collections from the 80's, since everyone bought this single. The b-side, Feed the World, is just a lot of the stars leaving voicemails saying Merry Christmas, which is a bit strange, but ok I guess.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: free second hand
Bought: Gunnar's attic
When: 25/03/09
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no