Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible [US RSD picture disc]

The first time I heard The Holy Bible was on a cassette a friend had made from his brother's cd copy. I'd borrowed it and, for reasons I can't remember, his walkman too and played it for the first time on a bus for a school trip. I can't remember where we were going, but I distinctly remember pressing play as we sat on the bus just outside the school gates.

Cassettes are a horrible medium. I've always associated them with murky, inaccessible music. The two main reasons for that are this album, and Bleach by Nirvana - both albums I listened to on cassette and found initially impenetrable. One of the many problems with the format is that the only way to know what song you're listening to is keep counting and compare to the tracklisting. In this case, someone had messed up the recording of the cassette, so I had the full tracklisting but was missing two songs from the latter half of the album - Faster and This Is Yesterday. In a lot of ways, it's not a great way to hear an album for this first time, but appropriately difficult for such a difficult album.

I can't remember exactly when that school trip was, but I think The Holy Bible would have been the second Manics album I heard, after becoming a fan on This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. I say this, because I got Generation Terrorists a full year later, and my own copy of The Holy Bible two months after that. I have a strong memory of listening to that same taped copy in a tent in my friend's back garden, discussing the songs, and that can't have been between October and December as that would have been too cold. I had been wanting to dig into their back-catalogue for a while, and I suspect it was the classic "this album is their best, try this one". Interestingly, when I finally bought my copy of Generation Terrorists, the girl at the counter said that Gold Against the Soul was her favourite even though no one else agreed. I love that album now, and probably play it the most these days.

A few of my initial thoughts of the album have stuck with me: I was amazed that there was nothing I'd consider a "single" (which possibly helped with that murky, impenetrable feeling - had my cassette included Faster I suspect I'd still have thought this); 4st 7lbs was haunting; the bass on Archives of Pain was excellent; the opening duo of Yes and Ifwhiteamerica... said so much about the band and the fact that this wasn't a pop album; PCP felt much more accessible somehow, and was a strangely light and upbeat (musically) way to finish such a dark album. I remember feeling distinctly uneasy at the lines "Conservative say: there ain't enough black in the Union Jack / Democrat say: there ain't enough white in the Stars and Stripes" having not quite heard the start of each line. They let themselves off the hook a minute or so later when they reverse the sentiment and start them with "And we say", but for a short while I did panic that my new favourite band were openly racist. Of course now I know that thought to be ridiculous, but the fear of that stayed with me and I think of it nearly every time I hear the song.

23 years have now passed since The Holy Bible came out, and over the years it has been held up as a classic, which it is. For me, it still holds some of that early inaccessibility, probably by design. It is a classic, but for reasons entirely different to the ways in which I consider the others classic - Generation Terrorists has the bold arrogance and timeless songs, Gold Against the Soul is the forgotten gem, Everything Must Go is the huge comeback, and TIMTTMY was the pop breakthrough; The Holy Bible on the other hand, was a treat for the fans who wanted the band to exorcise their darkest corners, which they did (arguably far too well). It is so vastly different to the other albums, that it's hard to compare it in the same light. I enjoyed reading all the fanfare around the 20th anniversary, and it's impossible to not agree with it all.

For Record Store Day 2015, the US version of the album was pressed onto vinyl for the first time and available in record shops in the UK. The US, however, got the original version on a picture disc with the original artwork. The album was available as a picture disc when it was first released, but I'd never bothered to pick one up - they always seemed readily available on eBay. The US RSD version differs as it has "20" after the title, and "original mix" at the bottom. Last year I was in Boston and found this copy in the Harvard branch of Newbury Comics, a shop I'd fallen in love with in my early teens. The exchange rate is appalling these days, so I only bought this record, which had luckily been reduced to half-price - $14 from $28 - probably as it had been sat on their shelves for a year and a half. I was very pleased to add it to my collection.

Format: 12", picture disc
Tracks: 13
Cost: £12.20 new
Bought: Newbury Comics, Boston
When: 14/10/16
Colour: picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Tool - Undertow

Undertow recently turned 24 years old, which strangely meant there were a lot of articles reflecting on the album; they were interesting to read. I've been listening to Undertow for 16 of those years, having bought the cd for £5 at a record fair back in 2001. I'd bought Ænima a few months earlier on the back of a review in Kerrang! Magazine that made it sound like an incredibly appealing album, plus I knew their new album was imminent so wanted to be familiar with the last before I heard Lateralus. After those two, I bought the Salival boxset (an excellent find in a record shop in France - it was impossible to find in the UK, but this shop had two copies just sat on the shelf) and heard some of the band's earlier work for the first time on the dvd. Hearing Prison Sex and Sober for the first time, alongside their creepy music videos was quite something.

I always enjoyed Undertow, but very differently to how I enjoyed the other albums. I've always felt it's the hardest to get into, despite having fewer songs than a lot of their other albums (although some of those are filler-noise tracks). In reality, all of the nine songs on the first three sides are solid, great Tool songs. Perhaps that was what it was - they'd released an album of fairly equal songs, rather than an album with a few designed to really shine (which I'd certainly say is true of the others).

Side A is an excellent side of vinyl - Intolerance, Prison Sex and Sober are all huge songs. Sober is the only one I'd describe as "catchy", but makes for an incredible single from the album. Bottom is a great song too, and probably would have been a catchier single than Prison Sex, except I imagine the swearing in the chorus ("Shit ends up at the bottom") would have been too much for MTV. Plus, the Henry Rollins verse might have been even stranger on a single. As it is, I love that little break and how the vocals gradually change from Henry's spoken words to Maynard's huge voice (which really shines here for the first time on the album). Side C is pretty solid too, and Flood is where the album probably should have ended. Disgustipated is saved for track 69 on the cd, but here we get it nicely on one side of vinyl. The actual song part of Disgustipated (after the baa-ing and rant, but before the crickets) isn't bad, but feels a bit like a half-formed idea of a song, rather than a song itself. The crickets then sing for what feels like forever before a little spoken word monologue; it's a strange and rather unnecessary way to finish an otherwise great album. I pretty much always skip it out.

On the whole, the album feels like the logical step between Opiate and Ænima - the songs are all longer and fuller than those on the EP, but not quite as much so as they'd be on the subsequent albums. They're also that much more serious than on Opiate, a theme they'd maintain (excluding the fact that Disgustipated is track 69, of course). As much as I love the later albums, I'd love to hear Tool write more songs like they did in this era. They wait so long between albums that I think people would be pissed if the next album wasn't an epic like the last few, but I think it'd be great for them to revisit songs like these.

I bought this vinyl copy on the same day I got the Opiate 12", in Newbury Comics in Boston. I was pretty happy to find them - they weren't so readily available in the UK and I hoped it would be the beginning of a Tool record collection that never really got off the ground (the subsequent LPs were very hard to find and often bootlegged. In my local record shop in Canberra they had some very pricey copies of Lateralus that I could never quite bring myself to buy. I think I was going to reward myself with it after some exams, but by that time it'd gone). The "inappropriate artwork" from the cd sleeve is missing here, as there is no insert with the LP.  It was definitely a good purchase, and I'm pleased to have it amongst my collection. I've seen reissues knocking around record shops in recent months (maybe that was why there are so many articles about the album) but it's hard to say whether I'd have still picked it up, knowing that my Tool LP collection would never be complete in any decent way.

Format: Double 12"

Tracks: 10

Cost: £10.50 new

Bought: Newbury Comics, Boston

When: 05/08/02

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

The Music - You Might As Well Try to Fuck Me

I just wrote about The Music's The People EP, but before that 12" came out, they released an EP called You Might As Well Try to Fuck Me. I found this record for about £2 in Newbury Comics in Boston about nine months after it came out; it was a very long way from where the band were from.

I have no idea how well the band went down in the States (although the price tag on this, presumably, imported 12" suggested not very well) but I can see how a music exec might have seen their potential over the pond. Bands like Q And Not U and Les Savy Fav were doing very interesting things with indie music and they had the potential to fit in well with that arty New York crowd. On the other hand, they were incredibly British and I suspect the States were still trying to get over Britpop too.

The title track is a bit more traditionally rocky than how the first album turned out, which is possibly why it wasn't included. The other songs are a mixed bag - Karma is a slower, trippier affair (comparisons to The Verve are rife here), Treat Me Right On has an annoying bit of guitar in the verses but a surprisingly heavy chorus, and Too High sprawls (for even longer than on the album); as an epic closer, it actually benefits from being a bit longer.

Much like The People EP, I'm surprised at how well this 12" has aged.

Format: 12", picture sleeve

Tracks: 4

Cost: £2.10 new

Bought: Newbury Comics, Boston

When: 05/08/02

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Tool - Opiate

I'll get straight to the point here: this record has a double-grove and that is very fucking cool. Put the needle down on one groove of side B and you hear the live recording of Cold and Ugly, as you'd expect; move the needle over one groove (easier said than done) and you hear the bonus track The Gaping Lotus Experience. "Hidden" tracks on cds were pretty popular at the time, but the fact that someone went to such effort to include that song here, in a far more exciting way, never fails to please me. The first time I played it, I unexpectedly heard The Gaping Lotus Experience, but I had equal odds of hearing the song I was supposed to hear. Can you imagine the confusion you landed the needle on Cold and Ugly the first few times and then accidentally discovered the bonus track?

I'll save the usual chat about how I got into Tool for another time. Opiate is a great little EP - six short songs about society and religion from before Tool forgot how to write short songs. I'm a fan of their later albums too, but Opiate is perfect for those times when you don't have 70 minutes to spare but still want to listen to Tool. The lyrics are witty (see Hush and Jerk-Off) and the drums are hit hard. I'd had Opiate on cd for a few years when I found this copy in the excellent Massachusetts mini-chain Newbury Comics. They also had Undertow and the first Rage Against the Machine album on vinyl, so I picked up all three in a little, early-90's, major-label metal shopping spree. All three are records I'm pleased to have had in my collection for the past 11 and half years.

Format: 12", double groove on side B
Tracks: 7
Cost: £4.90 new
Bought: Newbury Comics, Boston
When: 05/08/02
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine

I was at a gig the other week and between bands they played Rage Against the Machine's self-titled debut. It was playing too loud for conversation, so all the non-smokers were just stood there enjoying it and remembering what a great album it is. I, for one, had long forgotten how great it is; I'd loved it back in the day and listened to it so often I didn't feel I had to anymore - I knew it backwards. However, in those years that passed with Rage only being played sporadically, my memory of what an excellent album this is faded. It's now 20 years old and it still blows me away.

I'd never heard of Rage Against the Machine until the 29th of December 1999, when some friends and I had gone record shopping in the many second-hand shops of Bournemouth. I'd filled out my Manics collection (on cd) and picked up Ignition by The Offspring. Hugh bought a couple of cds, one of them Rage's debut and their name first passed my ears as we stood outside the shop comparing our purchases. Back then we all taped each other's cds so I recorded Hugh's copy and eventually bought a copy a year later when a friend's brother was shifting all of his cds for a fiver each (I think he'd recorded them all onto mini-disc, a move he'd surely come to regret). A year or so later I was in Newbury Comics in Boston, found the LP and picked it up along with some Tool records, Gorilla Biscuits and a Rival Schools 7"). I knew it was a classic and was pretty pleased to have it on vinyl (the album has one of the most brutal covers out there - not many records have an actual picture of a man dying on the front, although that's probably a good thing).

Now, nearly 13 years after first hearing this album, it's still incredible. As soon as each song starts it's nearly impossible to not drum along or mime the bass or guitar or rap every single word that Zach spits. I could never listen to this album when I was revising for exams because it makes it so hard to focus on the task at hand. Years later it's still stealing my attention. Sure, lines like "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" sound a little cliché these days, but the songs are so good you just don't care. I couldn't possibly list my favourite songs as there's not a bad one on there, but Bombtrack, Take the Power Back and the outro to Bullet in the Head always stayed with me.

Rage were up there with the first bands I ever saw live - my 8th gig was the Sunday of Reading Festival in 2000 where we saw, what would be for a while at least, Rage's last UK show - and they were incredible. The pit down the front was ferocious and I cautiously stayed a bit further back. I remember taking comfort in the fact I wasn't the only one also "singing" the guitar bits. I would see them two more times, including the free Finsbury Park "Thank You" show for getting them the Christmas number one spot. A lot of people I knew were against the campaign to get RATM to number one citing such arguments as "when did you last care about who had the number one single?", etc (even arguing it was unfair to the X-Factor winner). However, I was all for the idea, to the extent I even downloaded a song I have the mp3 of. Yes, I've not given a shit about the singles chart in a very long time, but as a kid I certainly did, and I loved the idea that people could come together to affect something like that. I get the point of X-Factor, but I'm not it's target audience and hope I never am, so it pleases me to see people with fond memories of non-pop music taking the power back, as it were.

Musically it was excellent, but in other ways the Finsbury Park show was an odd one. I figured the audience would be much younger, but I'd say that on average the crowd were the same age as me and upwards. It made me a bit sad to think that in the years since Rage broke up kids just weren't getting into them. The idea of passing through your teenage years without Killing in the Name just seems wrong.

This album has just been re-issued in a variety of formats, and the 2cd+dvd package looks pretty nice. The deluxe boxset looks even nicer, but probably out of my price range for an album I already have two copies of. If I didn't own this LP I'd probably be more tempted (it also comes with the dvd of the Finsbury Park gig, which would be nice to re-live).


Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 10
Cost: £6.30 new
Bought: Newbury Comics, Boston
When: 05/08/02
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Rival Schools - Used for Glue

When I was at college, Rival Schools were huge. The first time I heard about them was in a promotional magazine MVC sent out. There was a bit about the album United by Fate and I remember reading it whilst having breakfast thinking that it sounded like good. On that recommendation, I bought the album and it was great. Shortly afterwards I started seeing the video for Used for Glue about the place and they became pretty big. I'm not sure any of us really understood the significance of the bands the members of Rival Schools had been in just yet. I ended up getting into most of them in a big way.

On holiday to visit my uncle in Boston, I went record shopping and picked this up in one of the Newbury Comics stores (the one by Havard Square, although I'd also visit the Newbury Street one on that trip). Newbury Comics is one of the coolest record shops I've been in, and if I lived in New England I'd spend an awful lot of money there. Foolishly, this is the UK import, which I then brought back, although I'd never seen it in the UK so I don't regret my purchase. The sticker in the picture was given to me when I saw Rival Schools in the Astoria in 2002 and has lived in with this record since I bought it. At Glastonbury Walter threw Rival Schools frisbees into the crowd, which remains to be one of the coolest pieces of band merch I've ever seen. I wish I'd caught one.

Needless to say, Used for Glue is a huge tune and one of my favourite Rival Schools songs. The Sweet is a good song too, and has a lot in common with some of the slower songs on the album. It's not often you get proper b-sides these days, so it's particularly nice. I also have the cd single somewhere, which has two more b-sides.

In the last ten years, I've twice seen copies in record shops of United by Fate on vinyl, but both times the sleeve was in terrible condition. I'd love to have that album on vinyl, but it seems I'm not the only one - discogs currently has two copies both for more than I've ever spent on a record.


Format: 7", numbered (#840)
Tracks: 2
Cost: £4.20 new
Bought: Newbury Comics, Havard, Boston
When: 05/08/02
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no