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

Restorations - Little Elephant Session

Tonight I should have been going to see Restorations play in London. They were playing the arse-end of London and the journey there and back from Oxford is a huge pain, but it was going to be worth it. I love Restorations; every time I've seen them play they put a huge smile on my face and I just can't get enough of them. Last time they played, I drove to Newport to see them and dragged some friends along too - the band commented they didn't know when they'd get a chance to play here again, and I worried it might be the last time I'd see them. When they announced their little tour I was so pleased. Bloody coronavirus. This show being cancelled, along with the Vile Creature and Bismuth show in the Black Heart, really hit the hardest. I miss live music, even if as a parent I don't get to go to anywhere near as many shows as I'd like in normal times.

To make up for not seeing Restorations, here are three live songs from their Little Elephant session in 2016. All are from the first half of LP3, an album I adore (number 4 in my albums of the year in 2014). A few years later I was on holiday (back when holidays were a thing) and I only had a few albums on my phone, and no iPod; LP3 was one of them and I played it to death. We'd not long found out we were expecting our first child and I remember sitting on the balcony one evening, reading my parenting book and listening to these songs. I think of that evening every time I hear Separate Songs.

All three songs are great examples of why I love this band so much - great, earnest rock songs with one moment where it all comes together into something absolutely huge - on Separate Songs it's around the lines "Imagine that focus in real life / Imagine going outside / Imagine not waiting for something to come along" (the middle line being very apt right now); on Tiny Prayers it all comes together around the lines "I don't know what's worse / No opinion or no thirst"; on Wales it's in the chorus (and the abrupt ending).

This is the only Little Elephant record I have, although I'd definitely buy more if the exchange rate wasn't so shitty and international post and customs so expensive. They've recorded a lot of great bands. The sound isn't great at the start of the record but soon clears up, so might just be this copy (each one is lathe-cut, which I don't really understand). I ordered this one from the band when they were selling off a bunch of stuff, I assume to fund the recording of LP5000. I also got the Jena Berlin album and 7" at the same time. I got stung on customs charges, so the whole lot proved expensive, but I'm glad to have this record in my collection. Right now I'm just happy to be listening to Restorations play live in any setting, even if it's just three songs and no way near as fun as singing along with a bunch of strangers in a bar in deepest south-east London.

Format: 12", one-sided, lathe-cut, hand-stamped and numbered (#35)
Tracks: 3
Cost: £22 new
Bought: Band's website
When: 03/08/17
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: none

Restorations - New/Old

I bought this copy of New/Old when I saw Restorations on their UK tour earlier this year. It was the only record they had at the merch stand that I didn't already have, and I'd been so impressed I was more than happy to pay £5 to hear one new song.

New/Old is on LP2, but I'm happy to have any excuse to hear those songs whenever I can. 0.014MPH might be a joking reference to the speed of the song because it's certainly the slowest Restorations song I know of. Despite that, about two thirds of the way through a huge drum fill kicks in and the song steps up a gear. It's a great song - the gentle "woah-oh"s in the background are perfect - although I can see how it might not fit so well on either record.


Format: 7", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 2
Cost: £5 new
Bought: gig
When: 22/04/14
Colour: Forest green
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Restorations - A / B

I've spoken about my love for Restorations at length before, so I'll spare you the details this time around. A few months after Fest I saw a pre-order for the new Run, Forever album go up on the Tiny Engines website. I'd been playing their first LP excessively for months so I was keen to get the next one. Shipping from the US is what usually puts me off ordering from there so I decided to stock up on everything I fancied, including this Restorations 7" (on green vinyl from the first pressing, /125).

Of the three Restorations 7"s, A/B is my favourite. It's a rare treat to have a 7" of non-album songs were both are so great. A peaks with a huge outro and B is a much heavier, punkier song. That's that slowed-down aggression in both which makes them even more enjoyable live.

It's easy to forget about 7"s in a record collection and to favour LPs, but A/B is a record I always want to be playing.

Format: 7", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 2
Cost: £5 new
Bought: Tiny Engines webstore
When: 10/01/13
Colour: Green
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Restorations - LP2

It's a very rare thing for a band to be so amazing live and on record when the two experiences are quite so different. I've mentioned before how brilliant Restorations are live and how their first LP captures a different side of them. The same thing can be said for LP2, but I think I love this record almost as much as I love seeing Restorations play. In fact, I'm such a fan that it even topped my end-of-year list last year (in a close fight with TWIABP and RVIVR). The first listen was enjoyable, but it really came into its own over the next few listens. To list the highlights would basically involve listing all of the songs, so much so that on their recent tour I didn't find myself hoping that they'd play any songs in particular; I was happy with any combination of them.

Which brings me round nicely to how incredible they are live. I've now seen them four times - Fest 2011 (when I first heard them and went home with a new favourite band), twice at Fest 2013 and most recently in The Fighting Cocks in Kingston a few weeks ago. Despite it being a fairly regular occurrence, I always forget just how incredible they are to watch (which given that I always remember them blowing me away should say something). I swear live everything is played to its extremes - the drums are battered, guitars thrashed and vocals screamed. The choruses to Let's Blow Up the Sun and Civil Inattention are excellent on vinyl as it is, I can't even think of words to describe how it was in the Cocks the other week. I've played this record a lot since October and had no idea I could enjoy those songs so much more - in my head there are now two versions of Civil Inattention - one where the the lines "I am no longer scared / I am terrified all of the time" are sung, and another where they're screamed frantically.

I was a bit gutted to only catch Restorations once on their recent UK tour (especially having looked forward to it for so long). I moved to Oxford just before they came over which is making a lot of gigs a bit harder to get to. On top of that, I already had tickets to see The Ex on the night of their first London show. The final London show was free which removes that guarantee that you'll actually be able to get in, leaving just the Kingston show. Kingston is now a 5 to 6 hour round trip from Oxford, depending on how bad the trains are across London, but it was definitely worth it. I miss Kingston a lot, and Banquet have more than a small role in how my life has played out over the last five years so it was nice to go back and see a band I'd been so keen to see again play in a venue I know so well.

As for this copy of the LP, I picked it up after seeing the band at Pre-Fest in Tampa (very pleased that they were as awesome as they had been two years previously). The artwork on the inside of the gatefold and the colour of the vinyl (some sort of smoky-white? Possibly the green marble?) are both particularly lovely. I fully recommend checking out this record and catching Restorations live. Both are equally awesome but in different ways.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 9
Cost: £9.45 new
Bought: gig, Tampa
When: 29/10/13
Colour: Smoky-white/green marble?
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Restorations - Restorations

The first of the Fest finds. I'm pretty sure we spent half our time there watching bands we'd never heard of in the hope of finding our new favourite band, or a record that would change our lives. There were a lot of bands to choose from, and we knew they'd all be pretty good. When they put out the Fest samplers on bandcamp in the weeks before the festival, I made a list on my phone of the songs that really stood out. I found some pretty cool bands that way and made sure I checked them out. However, some bands I just wrote down the name of and forgot about.

I think the last band of the whole weekend that we properly watched was Restorations in Looseys'. There'd been some decent bands beforehand and I was too tired to bother going anywhere else. I'm glad I stayed, Restorations blew me away. Like I said, we'd seen a lot of good bands that weekend, but not so many I couldn't still be impressed (thankfully). I'd already spent a small fortune on merch that day (the No Idea yard sale combined with a weak dollar made for excessive purchases) but I figured another record wouldn't hurt. I bought the LP on a disappointingly black vinyl while Sarah bought a split or an EP, I can't remember. Hers was cheaper, mine was $15 (a whole $5 more than most of the records I bought that weekend!). The first time I saw Sarah after coming back she commented on how unimpressed she was with her Restorations record, while I really liked mine. I think we'd both come back and listened to the records by our "new" bands first, hoping they' be the discovery we were after. I guess hers wasn't.

However, the important thing is, mine was and is awesome. I think the difference must be that I really like The Constantines, and they sound a lot like them. I heard that The Constantines live are like a totally different band to record (something the Daytrotter session confirms for me). To an extent the same can be said for Restorations - the live show was immense, and the record misses that a little. But that's fine. Sarah was expecting the blistering punk-rock we saw, I quite like things that are a little indie. (I realise that all these comparisons between mine and Sarah's enjoyment could be that they're simply very different records. I've not listened to the one she bought, and vice versa. I'm going to go with it anyway. I can see how they are different on record, but I like it.)

So what's to say about the record? Track two is incredible. There's this keyboard part in the background when he sings "sometimes nothing happens" that never fails to out a smile on my face. Sideways House is another massive tune. Lovely "oh oh ohhh"s on the closer. The whole thing is pretty awesome. Nice gatefold sleeve and the lyrics, black vinyl as I said (upon getting back to the hotel on the Sunday night we were admiring our purchases from the day - Sarah had got some awesome colour vinyl, while a large number of mine were black. Not that its a big thing, but some crazy coloured vinyl does please me greatly). No mp3s so at some point I'm going to have to make a digital version. Its quite a short record, but I do like putting it on quite often.

There's a few bands we got records by who are clearly tiny bands over there and have no plans to tour the UK, or would love to but its just something that'll never happen. It's a shame, but then it makes me glad we got to see them. When I got home I rediscovered the list I made on my phone and saw that I'd written down Restorations but forgotten make a point of checking them out. By some brilliant coincidence I ended up watching them anyway, and I'm very glad I did.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve

Tracks: 8

Cost: £9.80 new

Bought: Fest

When: 30/10/11

Colour: black

Etching: none

mp3s: no