Hot Water Music - Live in Chicago

It’s now been so long since I went to a concert that live albums are starting to take on new meanings. I bought this Hot Water Music triple live LP because at the time there was no best-of compilation and I quite liked the idea of having all their best songs in one place. And this record ticks that box and then some; just look at those first four songs – A Flight and a Crash into Remedy into Wayfarer (one of their greatest songs full stop) into Trusty Chords. What a way to start a show. That is a truly amazing run of songs, the sort you end a show with not start with. It'd be fair to say that the rest of the album doesn't hit such heights again, but how could it?

And pre-pandemic, this album was just a good way to hear all my favourite HWM songs in one place (although three discs is stretching the definition of "one place" – I could equally play Fuel for the Hate Game, A Flight and A Crash and Caution in their entireties, hear 90% of my favourite HWM songs and have got out of my seat the same number of times). But it's now been 16 months since I last went to a concert, an otherwise unfathomable gap between shows, and it's only going to get longer. So when I put the needle on this record, my mind is thrown back to the first time I saw HWM play, in a sweaty dodgy venue in Newport, South Wales surrounded by every punk I'd made acquaintances in the two years I'd lived in Cardiff - it was 9 months after I'd left for London but there was no doubt in my mind that if I was going to see HWM it'd be in South Wales. It was horrifically hot, beer-soaked and chaotic. We'd been drinking in beer gardens in the afternoon and the show was perfect. More than 10 years have passed since, but this record puts me right back there, struggling to sing along to any of the choruses (partly because I still know less than a third of the words being sung at any given point). I saw HWM twice more after that show - to a disappointingly small crowd at Reading Festival and to a raucous hometown crowd on the first night of my first Fest, but that Newport show will always be my favourite memory. And it's nice that I can take myself right back there with this record.

I've only mentioned the first four songs here so far, but there are some other great moments - "God Deciding" and Kill the Night are two of my favourite non-album songs and both get played, which is great (they'd both be missing from the alternative choice of three records I mentioned above). Moonpies for Misfits is a great slower one that I often forget about. Side 5 has the opening duo from Fuel (in reverse order) which is another huge moment on the album, and The Sense from Caution sounds amazing - it's not a song I'd ever have listed as being amongst my favourites but it's definitely up there.

This copy, as with most variants, is from the second run which featured different colour sleeves to match the records and Discogs tells me that there were 550 of each colour. I bought it one day in Banquet - I don't remember them having any other colours, but I was perfectly happy with blue. I was aware of the record before seeing it there that day, and without the tracklisting printed anywhere on the sleeve I had to trust that it'd be huge, but it was just after Christmas and I guess I just fancied spending some money. Of course £17 for a triple LP is now a bargain regardless what's actually on it.

Two years later an actual best-of compilation did come out, but I've not bought it - mostly because I have this record, which is more interesting owing to it being a live recording, but also because it doesn't have "God Deciding" and Kill the Night on (however does have Poison and Drag My Body, two of the best songs they wrote in their more recent eras). To be honest, if I saw it in a shop, I probably would buy it, but that says more about my compulsive record buying than it does the relative merits of these two albums.

Format: Triple 12", insert
Tracks: 30
Cost: £17 new
Bought: Banquet Record, Kingston
When: 04/01/13
Colour: Blue
Etching: Side A: "I love these chords" Side B: "From voice to ear" Side C: "Scarred but here" Side D: "You are not alone" Side E: "I must always remember" Side F: "This makes me whole"
mp3s: Download code

Hot Water Music - Never Ender

I consider myself a fairly big Hot Water Music fan, but my ability to remember which order their albums came out in, or which one is which (other than Fuel, Flight and Caution) is shockingly bad. Never Ender was, apparently, the third HWM album I got, after the three I just mentioned (in reverse order). I had no idea I'd started so strong, nor did I know that my fourth album would be a collection of songs from 7"s and not a traditional album; you'd definitely not know by just looking at the sleeve, which was all I had to go on that Saturday in Damaged.

I like Never Ender, but it doesn't get a huge amount of play. As is my usual excuse, I don't have mp3s for the album, but on top of that I couldn't tell you which HWM albums I do and don't have digital copies of, so it doesn't immediately jump out at me when I'm browsing my records as one I should give more time. Still, it's a nice album - I doubt I'll ever reach a point where I'm seeking out all the HWM 7"s and splits, so I'd probably not have heard these songs otherwise.

The first two songs are from the Alachua 7" from 1997, but aren't quite as heavy as their sound on Fuel for the Hate Game, despite being from around the same time (the two songs from the You Can Take the Boy Out of Bradenton 7" have a lot more in common with that album). Both of the title tracks from those 7"s are great and have that perfect mix of huge HWM choruses and both Chuck and Chris singing completely unintelligible lyrics at the same time. Sandwiched between those 7"s are the songs from two splits - The Bitter End is a particularly great song, and sounds like The Loved Ones tried to steal it entirely for the title track of Build & Burn.

Apparently Elektra and Things on a Dashboard are on an 8" record, which I'm quite tempted to try to pick up just for the unusual size (I wonder if there are many 11" records around?). The final four songs are from the Push for Coin cassette from 1995, which are excellent given that they must be some of the first songs they recorded.

I, of course, have no idea what colour this record is. Based on the variants they pressed of it in 2008 (when I bought it), and a rough idea of colours, I'm going to say this is the "pink mix", which is apparently one of 131 in that colour from that pressing. It's pointless getting excited about any particular colour of any particular pressing because there are so many variations it all basically becomes the same. (Update: I asked my wife and she reckons it's the "dark purple with pink", but there were only 9 pressed in that colour, so it seems too unlikely. But I guess someone has to own them.)

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £9 new
Bought: Damaged Records, Cardiff
When: 25/10/08
Colour: Pink mix
Etching: none
mp3s: none

Hot Water Music - Exister

Hot Water Music have released a lot of albums, and I have a copy of most of them. In fact, they've released so many and I have so many I struggle to think which ones I'm missing. As much as I like the band, I'd say that you could live quite happily only owning Fuel For the Hate Game, Caution and A Flight And a Crash, but such a statement is bound to piss some people off. The first time I saw the band was in 2010 (with Leatherface and Solutions in Newport, a gig I travelled back to Wales for) and a friend commented afterwards that he didn't think they should have played songs from The New What Next (their most recent album at the time) as it wasn't worth "trying to get them to work"; he wasn't a fan of that record, I can't begin to imagine what he made of the two that have since followed.

For what it's worth, I thought The New What Next had one really great song (Poison, the opening song. That said, I have the cd, which doesn't include Kill the Night, another song I really like). Similarly, this long-awaited comeback album from 2012 also has one truly great song - Drag My Body. Anyone who read my last post on Chuck Ragan's Live at Skaters' Palace will know I have a lot of time for that song. I strongly suspect that it's actually a song he wrote himself and ended up on a HWM album rather than a solo one - that's no criticism of the rest of the band, it just works incredibly well solo whereas a lot of others don't.

Exister isn't a bad record by any stretch - Mainline, State of Grace and Paid In Full are all solid songs. Is it a vital album for anyone getting into the band? No. Is it an enjoyable listen? Yes. You can't really complain about that. I picked my copy up in Banquet Records along with a handful of other new releases I was catching up on. The vinyl is lovely - the brown and blue swirl, although looks better on side 1 than side 2.


Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 13
Cost: £15 new
Bought: Banquet Records, Kingston
When: 09/07/12
Colour: Blue and brown swirl
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Hot Water Music - Till the Wheels Fall Off

I listen to Till the Wheel Fall Off a lot more than I do regular HWM music albums. The album collects what Wikipedia is calling "b-sides and rarities", but I think calling these songs b-sides would be doing most of these songs a disservice - some bands produce some incredible songs when working to create an EP or a one-off track, and that definitely seems true of HWM.

One of the reasons I listen to this so much is that there are some incredible songs on it - Kill the Night is amongst my favourite HWM songs and a great way to start the album. Beyond that you've also got "God Deciding", their excellent cover of Alkaline Trio's Bleeder (both, as it happens, songs that Chuck has often played solo), Home (unreleased before this record) and an early version of Wayfarer which is also up there amongst their best songs. Some brilliant songs for a collection album.

The latter half is dominated by a variety of covers, including their Turbonegro cover that I also have on the Alpha Motherfuckers tribute album. It feels much less coherent towards the end but that adds some charm (and it says a lot that it was so coherent at the start). The Springsteen cover came at a very bad time for my friend's band when we lived in Cardiff, as they'd just finished working on their own cover of No Surrender when this album came out; given how heavily influenced by HWM they already were, I think they felt that doing the same cover was a step too far (although that cover had been knocking around since 2000, so perhaps it was just bad research). Their's was about as scrappy as HWM's version here is.

I found this copy in an excellent record shop in Toronto called Criminal Records, where I also stocked up on a lot of Attack in Black records. I hadn't seen it around before so I figured it'd be a good addition. I knew it was a collection album as I recognised Prince of the Rodeo on the tracklist, but thought I'd enjoy it either way. I didn't realise quite to what extent I'd like it mind you. This is the double transparent green vinyl from the first pressing (/625). Or at least I think it is - I don't know what the "green mix /32" from the second pressing looks like, but odds are this is the first. The second record is a much darker green than the first. It's a nice package too with the lyrics on the picture sleeves and a very nice way to capture the band.


Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeves
Tracks: 23
Cost: £12 new
Bought: Criminal Records, Toronto
When: 13/05/09
Colour: Transparent green
Etching: Side A: "We.re all put to the test... to drown like all the rest" Side B: "We fend and fight what we know best" Side C: "Alone or siding with the chosen few" Side D: "Breaking up is hard to do"
mp3s: no

Hot Water Music - Fuel For the Hate Game

Fuel For the Hate Game is occasionally my favourite Hot Water Music album. It varies between A Flight and a Crash, Caution and this one, and I don't think I could ever choose one favourite. In a Desert Island Discs situation, I might end up choosing Fuel... out of those three - it's the heaviest and I think I'd appreciate that if I was stuck on a desert island; I'd probably be pretty pissed off.

I first heard Fuel For the Hate Game about 2 years after I first heard Hot Water Music. A friend's band was playing in The Barfly in Cardiff and one of the bands had brought along a distro. In amongst the cds were Fuel... and Dead Reckoning by Small Brown Bike for a fiver each, so I bought both in what is still an excellent way to spend £10. I didn't know each album was such a classic (both overall, but also for the bands in question) so it worked out pretty well.

I knew Caution and A Flight and a Crash by this point, so Fuel... was a bit of a shock, but in a very good way. There are fewer of the huge choruses (but still plenty - see Turnstile or Rock Singer) and the dual vocals are taken to a level I hadn't heard yet. To this day, I have no idea what's being sung on The Sleeping Fan despite having the lyrics in front of me. Lyrically there are repeating themes of fuel and industrial machines and a general feeling of aggression, which matches the music well. I think it's that combination of things that makes me like it so much as an album. Other HWM albums feature parts of these things, but none rely on them quite so heavily.

This copy is from the 19th (!) pressing of the album (and includes a complete pressing history on the insert), which makes it the third most re-pressed record No Idea have put out (their discography page has a very detailed list). Of course other LPs might have had larger runs, but it's still impressive and something called out on the etching in the run out groove. I picked this one up in Gainesville last year because it's definitely a record that I should have on vinyl.

Format: 12", a4 insert
Tracks: 11
Cost: £7 new
Bought: Hear Again Music, Gainesville
When: 04/11/13
Colour: Purple/red mix
Etching: Side A: "Whoa - ten years!" Side B: "How many times have we cut this thing?!?"
mp3s: Download code

Hot Water Music - Caution

Caution was the first Hot Water Music album I bought, but the story of how I got into HWM really goes back to the story of how my friend Hugh got into HWM, so this first paragraph is about him. Hugh bought Kerrang! magazine nearly every week for at least three years. The great thing about that was that it meant I didn't have to (unless the occasional free cd looked good) because he'd bring it into school or college, and we'd all read it throughout the day. The routine was to turn straight to the gig listings (it's funny to think about the old days, before I had the internet set up to tell me these things), then the reviews, then the articles. Anyway, sometime in 2001, they gave the new Hot Water Music album, A Flight and a Crash, five K's (the highest score, for those not familiar) Something in the review must have appealed to Hugh, because he bought it on that alone (and it probably took some effort to find; I don't remember our local MVC having a Hot Water Music section).

He became a big fan, and one afternoon in Punker Bunker I decided to check them out for myself. I can't remember if he'd even played me any at this point, but for £9 I was willing to chance it. I asked him which of the LPs they had in stock was the best place to start and he said Caution. And that's how this record ended up in my collection (for those interested, it's from the huge first pressing of black vinyl, which is shame given the crazy colours it's been printed on since). It was definitely a grower - I don't remember being blown away the first time I played it, but I'm a big fan now. Depending on my mood, my favourite HWM record moves between A Flight and a Crash, Caution and Fuel For the Hate Game (the latter always feels so different - it's like HWM tried to write the heaviest album they had in them). So many of their biggest songs are on Caution and it has some huge choruses. Highlights are numerous, but Remedy, Trusty Chords, The Sense and Wayfarer are all incredible.

All this brings me to problem I have with HWM (which isn't a fault of theirs, but of mine) is that I want to sing along to these huge choruses, but I have no idea what Chuck and Chris are singing half the time. I've sat down with the lyrics sheet and it's barely even possible to keep up. Those guys squeeze a lot of lyrics in. I've seen HWM three times now and each time I've come away wishing I'd been able to sing along. Each time I've gone home and tried to figure what they're saying, but it never sticks. The layered vocals at the end of The Sense are excellent, but I have no idea how they relate to the words written in the sleeve. I've just about managed the chorus to Trusty Chords, but that's barely scratching the surface.

Anyway, HWM music have had a fairly huge impact on my life in varying ways. Half of the bands we saw regularly in Wales wanted to sound like HWM (with varying degrees of success) and a year after I moved to London, I travelled all the way back to Wales to see HWM play in Newport with all my friends. And that's not even mentioning the fact that I may never have heard Chuck Ragan's solo records if I hadn't first heard HWM.

I don't know what that Kerrang! review said to convince Hugh to check it out, but I'm glad he did.

Format: 12", 16"x12" insert
Tracks: 12
Cost: £9 new
Bought: Punker Bunker, Brighton
When: 16/09/06
Colour: Black
Etching: Side A: "...is a word that I can't understand" Side B: "One hundred records since finding the rhythms...can you believe it?!?"
mp3s: no

The Bouncing Souls + Hot Water Music - Split

If I had to pick my favourite Bouncing Souls song, I'd almost certainly say True Believers and, depending on the day, there's a good chance I'd pick Wayfarer as my favourite HWM song. Those two reasons make this split very exciting: the two bands covering my favourite song of each other's. I missed the first press when Banquet got it in (I didn't have £6 to spend on a 7" at the time), but picked up one of the second press soon after it came out. It really is quite awesome.

Hearing Wayfarer without the gruff vocals is a bit odd at first, but that song is all about the "woah-oh-ohs" and The Bouncing Souls nail it (the first time I saw HWM was when I really discovered how awesome this song was, having foolishly neglected my copy of Caution a bit). I nearly get out of breathe listening to Chuck sing the opening to True Believers but love it almost as much as the original. Everything sounds slightly heavier and it works.

I've since seen both bands play the covers live (Bouncing Souls instore at Banquet, and HWM at Reading) which was also pretty special. The great thing about this split is that I imagine almost all fans of one band are fans of the other, so it's a real treat. The colour is pretty nice too.


Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £6 new
Bought: Banquet
When: 18/03/11
Colour: Black and red splatter
Etching: no
mp3s: no