Run the Jewels - Bust No Moves

The final in a little trilogy of Run the Jewels records, this is a 12" they put out for Record Store Day in 2015. I wasn't buying a huge amount that year - in fact, I only bought four records, but one was a Manics record and the other by the Dirty Three, so both essential purchases (the other was a Clutch album, which I didn't really need but enjoy anyway - I was up early and it felt like a waste to do so for only three records).

I didn't know much about the release ahead of time, but was keen to get it regardless. As it is, we get two new songs - the title track and Blockbuster Night Pt 2, which is safe to assume is a sequel to Blockbuster Night Pt 1 on RTJ2 (I think it might have been a bonus track somewhere, but not one I had). The version of Love Again is the same as on my copy of the LP, but apparently the first pressings didn't have the verse by Boots. Pew Pew Pew is one of the bonus tracks on the second disc of RTJ1 - it's probably the best song on this EP.

It's a nice little record, but easily forgotten between the gatefold sleeves of the RTJ LPs around it - plastic sleeves are rarely eye-catching when side-on on a shelf. The colour is nice, although I couldn't confidently say what colour it actually is.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 4
Cost: £13 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 18/04/15
Colour: Clear with splatter
Etching: none
mp3s: no

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

Run the Jewels - Stay Gold Collectors Box

With Record Store Day just around the corner again, it's probably time to write about some old releases again. Musically, this was a luxury purchase for sure. There's a lot of stuff in the photos below, but ultimately there are four songs here - Kill Your Masters from RTJ3, an instrumental version, a remix of Stay Gold and an instrumental version of the remix - so nothing vital as such.

Kill Your Masters is a great song and Zack de la Rocha's verse is nice. For reasons I don't understand, it's listed together with A Report to the Shareholders on the LP - maybe because they're thematically linked? Anyway, I appreciate that instrumentals are a thing, but I rarely get excited about them. I mostly just miss the lyrics. It is nice to focus on El's beats though. The remix of Stay Gold by Smiff & Cash works well - the whole feel of the song is different - kinda haunting, which somehow has less of an effect on the instrumental version - and there's some extra verses added.

At £43, I probably should have left this behind on Record Store Day in 2018, but it looks so lovely that I couldn't resist. Plus, I was already spending an obscene amount that morning, so this wasn't that big a percentage, sadly. I missed RSD the year before, and the year after (and probably will this year too), so it kinda evens out on the years when there was nothing I was after. In the gold metal box we have a poster, a slip mat, and alternate sleeve for RTJ3, some stickers and, of course, the four songs on a one-sided, etched clear 12". It's a nice package for sure, and given that some LPs are edging near to £30 on their own, it's not even that expensive really.

Despite it having space for the three RTJ LPs to fit in, I've never put them in there - just doesn't seem necessary. Maybe I'm missing the point (I'm not much of a Marvel fan, so the effort that's gone into the Marvel version of the sleeve is lost on me too). A strange detail to get wrong (if you consider it wrong) is that the writing on the edge of the box goes in the wrong direction (wrong by UK/USA standards - in continental Europe I think most books and records are oriented this way around).

Format: Etched one-sided 12", gatefold sleeve, box, stickers, posters, slipmat
Tracks: 4
Cost: £43 new
Bought: Truck Store
When: 21/04/18
Colour: Clear
Etching: etched b-side
mp3s: no

Dave House - Kingston's Current

The first time I heard Dave House was when he supported Lemuria in Swansea's Bar Sigma. The Arteries opened the show and there was a good crowd of people I knew there that night - Lemuria had got a bit of a buzz going, and we seemed to see The Arteries pretty much weekly back then. I enjoyed Dave's set and bought a copy of See That No One Else Escapes at the end of the show. I think I asked him which album to go for, and he recommended that one; I went through a phase of asking which album to buy at the merch table, sandwiched between phases of buying the ones with the best covers (who says you shouldn't judge a book by its cover?).

Six months later I'd moved to London and just discovered Banquet Records in Kingston (a story documented in detail here). On that first trip, I bought a copy of Lemuria's First Collection and Kingston's Current by Dave House on cd. Those two releases were linked to Banquet Records in ways I wouldn't realise for a while to come - I'd bought the cd of Lemuria's first proper album, Get Better, in Spillers about a year earlier, a cd that Banquet themselves had put out. Dave House, who I'd first seen supporting Lemuria, used to work in Banquet (and possibly still did when I bought the cd). I wouldn't find this out for another year or so, having replaced another longtime Banquet staff member in a house share in Surbiton, and getting to know JT and Mike and co through him. If this story didn't need yet another set of semi-related anecdotes, I also bought an Above Them split 7" on that first trip to Banquet; that 7" contained photos of a very drunken night out we'd had with the guys in Above Them in Bar Sigma on the only other time I went there. I knew none of these (tenuous) connections that day when I first let Banquet Records begin to change my life.

Anyway, some years later Kingston's Current got a vinyl reissue for Record Store Day. By this point I'd just moved to Oxford but was back in Kingston a few days after RSD and popped into Banquet to see if they had any of the records Truck hadn't got in. I think this had actually been a release from a previous year, because I got it for the bargain price of £5 (the same price I paid for the cd). I was pleased to add it to my collection, partly because it's a good album, but mostly because the title-track is by far my favourite Dave House song. There was something nice about getting that song, singing the praises of Kingston so nicely, either end of my time in Surbiton/South London. I'm a sucker for acoustic punk-rock and gang-vocals.

The strongest songs on the album are often the more lamentful - Weeknights and Weekends and Stereo are both great, slower songs. I'm not 100% sold on the electronic beats used elsewhere, but perhaps that's because my introduction to Dave's music was as an acoustic singer at a punk-rock show. I didn't notice until I was taking the pictures below that the insert is numbered in pencil and mine is #3/250. I wonder who has #1 and #2?

Format: 12", numbered (3\250), insert
Tracks: 10
Cost: £5 new
Bought: Banquet Records, Kingston
When: 21/04/14
Colour: White
Etching: none
mp3s: none

Manic Street Preachers - Your Love Alone is Not Enough

I didn't go to my local record shop on Record store Day in 2017. I've written about it before (at length) and you can read that here, but the reasons were basically that I only really wanted a couple of records, and I couldn't bring myself to wait in the cold for 5 hours with the usual strangers who are all excited about records that I have no interest in; I visit record shops routinely and came to the conclusion that RSD isn't about people like me, and that's fine. If it keeps record shops open then I'm all for it. If there are no records I really want, then I will very happily stay in bed for as long as possible.

That said, there were three records I wanted in 2017 - Snapcase, Dirty Three and this Manics 12". My Manics collection hasn't always stayed up-to-date, but I'm back on it and this record had to get bought. As it happens, Send Away the Tigers represented the start of me drifting away from the band so I think I felt the need to over-compensate to make up for it.

In the ten years that followed, Your Love Alone is Not Enough has become something of a classic. I certainly get excited every time I hear them play it live. It wasn't clear that it would go that way when it came out - it's instantly very poppy, which runs the risk of feeling dated quickly. Ten years proved that not to be the case. The speed at which James and Nina begin harmonising still catches me off-guard, but I guess that's part of its charm. The chorus absolutely soars though and Nicky's lines are brilliantly unexpected every time, even though I know they're coming.

The b-sides are three demos, each different to the version that appeared on the reissue of the album. All three show the songs in different states, working backwards in arrangement and complexity to Nicky's very basic version. The first has James vocals dubbed over themselves instead of Nina, which is equally strange. James' demo is nice and simple, and Nicky's is interesting to hear how the song sounds at almost half the speed.

Anyway, I didn't buy a copy that cold April morning. However, my friend Sarah lives very near to Banquet Records and was able to grab a copy for me - they get in huge amounts of stock for RSD and often a good percentage of the stuff I'm after is still available after the queues have gone or in the following days. (I was able to get a copy of the Dirty Three record online a few weeks later too - Sarah wanted a copy for herself so couldn't buy me one of those). I took delivery of the record from her when we went to see Deftones in Alexandra Palace. This is number 1458 out of a few thousand I'm sure. There's not a great deal more to say about the release. It's a nice way to pay appropriate tribute to a enduringly great song though.

Format: 12", numbered #1458
Tracks: 4
Cost: £10 new
Bought: Sarah
When: 05/05/17
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: none

Jason Molina - The Townes Van Zandt Covers

I have two copies of this record, a situation I entered into somewhat willingly. A good number of years ago, a Kickstarter appeared for a project about a carousel (I think) that I normally would have not even given a second thought about (as you can tell by the fact I'm not entirely sure it was even a carousel), except that one of the backer rewards was a Jason Molina record featuring some unreleased songs. My Molina collection was in its infancy, but I was keen to pick up what ever I could, so pledged for that reward. I think it was about £30 in the end, which was a lot; it wasn't clear that the record was only a two-song 7" at the time.

As is so often the case with crowdfunding, the project fell through and the money all sort of disappeared. There'd been a while where I was periodically checking for updates and getting concerned that nothing concrete had appeared - I can't remember how long that period was, but I remember having to dig through emails to figure out when the money first came out. Eventually, it all fell apart and I remember emails blaming various people - things look like they got ugly.

Secretly Canadian, the record label who released most of Jason Molina's music announced two things in 2016 - they'd be releasing those songs as a Record Store Day 7" and that they'd be sending out free copies to anyone who backed the campaign. I thought that was incredibly good of them - I imagine a lot of people lost a lot of money in that project (my £30 would seem negligible) but they had no obligation other than a desire to help the fans who had lost money; it was a great gesture. I had to prove that I had backed the campaign, so I sent off the screenshots.

I can't remember exactly when that was (I could look it up I suppose, but it seems clear I'm not going to - perhaps I'm too worried I'll see exactly how much I paid to that project and get annoyed all over again), but before the record arrived, Record Store Day came around. I think part of me was worried that the record wouldn't actually turn up, or there'd be some material difference between the two, so I decided to buy a copy on RSD anyway (what's another £8 on a day of expensive records!?). Plus, I was eager to hear the songs.

The two songs on the 7" were covers of Townes Van Zandt, a musician I'd never really heard much about, let alone consciously listened to. In the years since, I've always thought I should check out more of his music, but I still haven't; I probably will one day. I'll Be Here in the Morning is a lovely warm, live recording of a song that sounds more Magnolia Electric Co than it does Songs: Ohia, despite consisting of just guitar and voice. It's a nice song. Tower Song is a slower, sweet song. Both tend slightly more towards Americana than Jason normally does, but I guess that's the nature of the songs. Definitely worth a listen.

Anyway, as expected, a second copy appeared in the post a few weeks later. They are identical, except my free copy got damaged in the post and has the slight crease you can see in the top picture. I say "free", I technically paid about £30 for that second copy, but I didn't record it that way - in my mind I lost £30 to a crowdfunding folly and learnt an important lesson; I also got a free record - the two are related, but I drew a line under that £30 and decided not to be annoyed by it. Sometimes you just have to let things go - it makes life easier sometimes. I have no intention of selling either copy - like most RSD releases you can still pick up a copy for not too far from the original asking price (of course, it's hard to know which records will end up being worth much more vs those that are ten-a-penny after RSD). As it is, I have two copies to remind me of the dangers of crowdfunding.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £8 new / free new
Bought: Truck Store Oxford / Secretly Canadian Records
When: 16/04/16 / 19/05/16
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Pinback - Information Received, Pt. B

I'm not very sure why I bought this. Actually, that's a lie, I bought it because it was £3 down from £7 in a pile of post-RSD reductions in Banquet and I'm a sucker for a bargain.

I have one Pinback album - Summer in Abaddon - a similar bargain in that it cost £3 second hand in Soho, although for a whole album. I knew the name because Rob Crow had been involved with Team Sleep but don't think I'd actually heard any of their music before buying the cd. It's a nice enough album, but I'm not a huge fan. There are bits I like, but I struggle with his voice. The same goes for the songs on this 7" - True North is a really interesting song and the guitars in the break sound great, but I don't like his style of singing. I imagine his style and voice are so fundamental in the band that it's obscene to say such a thing, but with a different singer there's a good chance I'd be all over this. But I'm not. The b-side CLOAD "Q" is a bit more upbeat but, of course, suffers in the same way. There's a third song on a separate groove at the end of the second side, but it's just a high-pitched squeal, unless I'm missing something? Seems like a strange addition.

As is often the case with records on Temporary Residence, the packaging here is lovely, albeit slightly annoying: you have to cut through the sealed brown paper bag to get the 7" (I did a reasonable job of not making a mess), but there's also a fold-out sleeve and lyrics sheet.

Format: 7", sealed brown-paper bag, insert, gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 3
Cost: £3 new
Bought: Banquet Records, Kingston
When: 24/05/14
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Various Artists - First Kiss

This record came out on Record Store Day in 2013, but I didn't buy a copy until over a year later. I can't remember why it was that I didn't buy a copy in 2013, but it would have been for one of three reasons: Banquet hadn't got any copies in stock; it was in stock but all gone by the time I got into the shop; or I simply forgot to pick up a copy. Given how much stock Banquet get in, it's likely not the first reason and I know what I'm like, so it's quite likely the last.

The main reason I was keen to get a copy was that my friend Matt's band, Among Brothers, was on the compilation and I really like their music. Their EP Homes is the only thing of theirs I have mp3s of, but still gets pretty heavy rotation. The other nine songs were mostly bands I hadn't heard of, or only knew the names because Matt knew them (particularly in the cases of Samoans and Without Maps). At the time I thought I was fairly in touch with a lot of what was going on in the British music scene, but this compilation is proof that I really wasn't - or at least the scenes I knew about were existing in entirely non-overlapping circles with these bands. I'd moved out of Cardiff a few years before this compilation and, I assume, before a lot of these bands had their Cardiff connections, so I moved away assuming the punk scene was all there was.

The compilation is ten songs from ten bands who made up the first ten releases on Jen Long's label, Kissability. It open with one of the weaker songs in my opinion - DZ Deathrays' The Mess Up which doesn't do as much as I keep thinking it's going to. Cut Ribbons compare themselves to Deftones, which nearly comes through in the guitars, but Mew is a much more obvious comparison in my mind. It's nice and I imagine they'd be good to watch live. The Among Brothers song, Keep, is unmistakably them, but sounds quite different - as ever, they fit a lot into a short song. It lacks any central theme to hold it together, which was also my criticism of the 7" they released. They're followed by Without Maps, whose math-rock is much more to my liking, and reminds me of a lot of bands I've enjoyed over the years, including Grown Ups, a band Matt got me into. Thumpers close the record out nicely with Velveteen - apparently they released an album on Sub Pop, which is pretty impressive.

Anyway, a year after RSD13 this record did find it's way into my collection. I was in Manchester to see Neutral Milk Hotel with my friend Aled and went record shopping during the day. Piccadilly Records (a great record shop with some really interesting stock) still had at least one copy in their shelves, and had been sat there for over a year. I was pleased to finally add it my collection, so included it in the armful of records I was buying that day (as an added bonus, it was reduced to £5). The sleeve is numbered (#22/100) and has what I think might be an actual lipstick kiss in the corner. The insert looks like it was supposed to chopped about an inch shorter in each direction, or it's possibly intentional that all the print/layout stuff is left around the edge. It didn't come with a download code, so it's not had very many plays at all, which is a shame. I'm not sure I would have become a huge fan of any of the bands had I listened to the songs many more times, but it would have been nice to feel more in touch with a clearly active part of the UK music scene.

Format: 12" white label, insert, numbered 22/100
Tracks: 10
Cost: £5 new
Bought: Piccadilly Records, Manchester
When: 18/05/14
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: None

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

Back in the early 2000's my love of the Manic Street Preachers and discovery of eBay collided with excellent consequences; I bought so many strange releases in an early attempt to hear as many of their songs as possible and have a complete collection. In my browsing of eBay, I heard about the "US mix" of The Holy Bible for the first time - a guy was selling bootleg copies and I was kinda tempted. I decided not to buy one - the bootlegs were still quite pricey and I didn't like the idea of buying something that wasn't real. With that decision, it ended up being another couple of years before I'd hear the US mix of the The Holy Bible.

In 2004, it was announced that the Manics were releasing a 10th anniversary edition of The Holy Bible with the US mix on a second disc. I had a flyer about it from somewhere (possibly after seeing them on the Lifeblood tour?) and remember texting a friend about it. I was excited, not just for the the bonus tracks (some of which I had, some I didn't) and the dvd, but mostly to finally hear the US mix that I'd read about.

I remember being slightly underwhelmed by the mix when I first heard it. I think I expected it to be more different - I imagine a couple of years of wondering what it might sound like didn't help keep my expectations in check. The differences were there, but rarely make a material difference to the album as a whole. I'm not remotely an expert on music production (I'm far less than a novice) so to the (very) untrained ear it is very hard to say what has been mixed differently. As a result, the following paragraph about how the songs sound different is painfully vague and has an over-reliance on the word "different".

From the off, Yes just sounds different - not better or worse necessarily, just different. The guitars are quieter (I think) and it somehow sounds slower. I think I prefer the the original mix here, but maybe that's just my memories of listening to a murky cassette copy when I was 15 kicking in - there's something brilliant about the opening song sounding so intentionally off-putting, and I love that. Ifwhiteamerica... also sounds cleaner, but it works for that song. Funny how subtle differences can work in different ways. Of Walking Abortion barely sounds different, whilst She is Suffering is one of the most notably different versions - there's almost a wash over the whole song that adds a certain dreaminess. Achieves of Pain is far less dark and the guitars just before the chorus have hair-metal feel to them - it's only brief, but makes a difference to the song nonetheless. The verses of Revol are definitely worse - it feels like everything has been swept away and covered in cotton wool. As a result, the choruses lack the punch. It's not until This is Yesterday on the second side that I can hear that anything has changed (so much so, you almost wonder for a while if they pressed the wrong side B). The difference on This is Yesterday appears to mostly be extra echo on James' vocals; again, I couldn't say if it's better or worse, just different. The intro to Die in the Summertime is all over the shop; The Intense Humming of Evil is also pretty similar whilst P.C.P. was something strange done to the vocals that I'm not keen on.

Having never been musical, I do find it fascinating to see the effect of a new mix. You always assume the songs are the sole creation of the musicians in the band, but the relationship with the producer becomes apparent quite quickly; how that then translates to the mixing and mastering is another thing altogether. I can't begin to imagine what it's like to hear the song you wrote as countless slightly different versions and choose the one that fits the best - a bit more reverb here, an echo there - the lifecycle of a song is something I'll probably never fully understand unless my musical abilities take a dramatic change for the better (they'd have to exist first). I'm not actively working on this, so I very doubt I'll ever know.

Anyway, for Record Store Day 2015 they repressed The Holy Bible on picture disc - the UK getting the US mix and the US getting the original mix. I was lucky enough to find a copy of the US release on holiday a year and a half later (on sale too). I love the artwork they used for the US mix - a close up of the boy from the Faster single faintly overlaid with the image of Jesus that appears on the cd picture disc and in the booklet - it's so subtle I didn't notice it until recently. I love the original artwort, but I think this would also have made for a striking album cover the first time around. The reverse is disappointingly plain, but no one is looking at that.

Format: 12", picture disc
Tracks: 13
Cost: £25 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 18/04/15
Colour: picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Snapcase - Lookinglasself

This year, for the first time in eight years, I didn't go to a record shop on Record Store Day. Around that time every year, there's a lot of chat about RSD - some positive, some negative - and I won't be drawn to one side or the other; I can see the arguments on both sides.

I had planned to go to Truck Store at an ungodly hour on the Saturday morning. I'd even bought breakfast supplies on my lunch break. But as the Friday went on, I found myself increasingly not looking forward to sitting outside my local record shop for four hours, cold and bored. I'd described it to a friend earlier that day as a "self-inflicted torture", and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that it wasn't/isn't a pleasant experience and that I really didn't want to do it. So I decided not to; I slept in and it was lovely.

There are a few reasons why I decided against going: Firstly, I always feel like the odd-one-out in that queue - everyone else has a huge list of records they're excited about buying, whereas I had three records I wanted. Furthermore, the records I'm after are rarely the ones that sell out straight away. Very few of the ones I've bought in the past have been difficult to find in the coming weeks (and sometime end up reduced later in the year). Everybody else in the queue would be excited about Bowie and Prince and The Smiths and I'd be that guy who got up early to buy The Dirty Three and Snapcase. The more I thought about it, the more I realised I'm not who this event is aimed at and that's ok.

JT from Banquet had been on the news a few days beforehand talking about the importance of RSD, saying how it's great that it gets people in who wouldn't normally visit a record shop, and that is really great. I spend a lot of time and money in record shops and I'm in favour of anything that means they stay open. But as a result of that, RSD isn't tailored around people like me. The list of releases this year (and last year, to an extent) had very little for me on. There are always a few "that could be interesting" releases, but RSD isn't a day to buy a record by a band you don't know well - it's too expensive for that. This year there were three releases I really wanted in my record collection and, in the case of this record, I was pretty sure I'd be the only person who'd be interested in buying it (and right I was - on the Monday it was still sat there in the racks).

I'm a huge fan of Snapcase and Lookinglasself was the first album of theirs I owned (although I was introduced to them through the much more accessible, and excellent, End Transmission). I found the cd 14 years ago in a second-hand record shop in Bristol that definitely no longer exists - it was underneath a roundabout junction and I only found it because they were blasting out metal from some speakers. I was in town for a university open day and was going to buy more in there, but it was the day before I got paid and I hit the bottom of my bank account (they had a Cave In record I picked up for my friend Hugh, but did mean I couldn't buy the Nine Inch Nails 12" singles they had - I'm a good friend). However, I did get that first Snapcase album.

Lookinglasself is a much harder listen than End Transmission, but so are their other two proper albums. It's a great album though - short but has no messing around and surprisingly long songs for a short hardcore album. It was a shock on first listen, but I was glad to push through with it. Of the first three, I consider Lookinglasself to be my favourite, but then End Transmission sits far above it. When I saw that it was being reissued on vinyl for RSD, I wanted a copy more for nostalgia than anything else. If I want to listen to Snapcase, I almost always go for End Transmission, and I suspect I always will do. But it's nice to have an album I'm very fond of on vinyl too. Plus, I feel if no one buys the heavy and obscure records on RSD then it will eventually tend entirely towards mainstream music.

I'm not anti-RSD. In fact, I thoroughly support the idea, but I support it it as a person who shops in independent record shops more than as a person who collects records (which of course I am, but there is a distinction there). I have many records I've bought on previous RSDs - some of them are my most prized-possessions (and others are ones I regretted almost straight away) - and most crucially, I will definitely queue up any year where there are records I feel it is worth losing sleep over. This year, however, was not one of those years.

It's hard to break traditions - me going to a record shop on RSD predates RSD even being a thing in the UK - but it's important to do so, otherwise they become even harder to break. I've broken the spell RSD had over me, which is great because now I can dip in as casually as I like.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 9
Cost: £29 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 24/04/17
Colour: Blue
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters

I've been listening to The Twilight Sad for nearly ten years, and I still don't feel like I know their albums that well. I love their albums, but they're so dense and difficult that I've found that I've never really broken my way into any of them. That's not a criticism; in fact I think it's actually a part of their charm. I've seen them play this album in full, and I still don't feel I know it that well.

I was introduced to the band by my old housemate Nicky, but then bought the Here, It Never Snowed. Afterwards It Did EP which contained reworked versions of nearly half these songs. I then bought the limited Killed My Parents and Hit the Road cd, which featured live versions of some of these songs (and a cover of Modern Romance by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which works incredibly well). I eventually got the album on a trip to Avalance Records in Edinburgh the Monday after a stag weekend. Despite knowing versions of a lot of the songs, I was still treated to a heavy wall of dense sound; at times both welcoming and unwelcoming. There are a couple of definite highlights, but I can never really remember which songs they actually are. Looking at the lyrics online, I think Cold Days From the Birdhouse and Mapped By What Surrounded Them are the ones I always really look forward to on this album.

The first time I saw the band was quite an experience - they were supporting Mogwai in Brixton Academy and the singer paced the stage side-on to the crowd the whole time, almost entranced by his own microphone. I thought they were great; Sarah was unimpressed and has never become a fan. I think there's something about their particular style of shoegaze that people either love or hate.

In 2014, the debut album was reissued on vinyl for Record Store Day, along with a bonus disc of demos from the time. I'd bought the first two albums on cd for some reason, so was pleased to get this one on vinyl, and the demos were a great addition. That was my first RSD at Truck Store, having moved to Oxford a week beforehand, and it was a particularly strong year - there were a bunch of must-haves and this was definitely one of them for a lot of people.

The package is nice, with the second LP in a separate sleeve kept together in a plastic wallet and with an appropriately stripped down version of the artwork. The songs all have obtuse titles, much like on the split demo cassette with Frightened Rabbit from three years beforehand. They're great to hear and most of these demos are non-album songs, which is nice. Untitled #4 and 2d are particularly good songs.

Format: Double 12", two sleeves, picture sleeve, 24"x24" poster
Tracks: 17
Cost: £27 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 19/04/14
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

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

Clutch - From Beale Street to Oblivion

Seventeen years ago I saw Clutch for the first time. They were great, and a while later I got a copy of their excellent album The Elephant Riders; it was, and is, a fantastic record. For reasons I can't put my finger on, I didn't buy any more of their albums until 2015, when this double-LP copy of From Beale Street to Oblivion came out on Record Store Day. Nearly two years later, I still don't know any more of their albums.

I like Clutch. They really are a very interesting band and I enjoy listening to them. However, I just have shocking amounts of apathy when it comes to seeking out any more of their albums. Had this not been an RSD release, there's a very good chance it wouldn't be sat in my record collection (I've had a bad habit of buying albums on RSD that I wouldn't on other days just because I'm pleased that there are releases I'm slightly interested in. Everyone seems to be buying so much that I often feel a bit ridiculous getting up so early to buy so little. It's a stupid reason, I know, but I'm easily suckered into buying things it seems). I think a part of me wanted to hear more Clutch, but another part of me felt that I was perfectly happy with just having The Elephant Riders. I see their albums in shops from time to time, but they're never "bargains", and often quite the opposite. That said, this album was £25 so clearly the RSD-factor played a large part.

Annoyingly, From Beale Street to Oblivion didn't come with an mp3 download code, so I've not played it anywhere near as much as I should have. That said, on the times I do remember to put it on, it's great. There are a lot of huge songs on here, which is great - You Can't Stop Progress is a great opener and The Devil & Me, Electric Worry, Opossum Minister are all brilliant and have a great groove to them (which is something Clutch are very good it). I have no idea of how it sits in Clutch's back-catalogue both in the sense of a timeline, but also in popular opinion - is this one of their best? Who knows. Again, I could research it but just can't be bothered. I feel like I might over many years buy more Clutch albums, but it'll be on days where there really aren't any other albums I'm after (which rarely happen), or if it's unusually cheap (which also rarely happens).

Strangely, White's Ferry and Rapture of Riddley Walker swapped on the track-listing from how the songs actually play. The rest of the release is quite nice, there's a whole additional LP of bonus tracks, half live at the BBC and half live in Australia (mostly songs from this album - the Australian recordings are far more exciting than the studio ones at the BBC). Both records are on purple vinyl. It makes for a long listen - I'd be inclined to say the album itself could lose a few songs, but I am a fan of shorter albums these days.

Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeves
Tracks: 21
Cost: £25 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 18/04/15
Colour: Purple
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Mudhoney - On Top! KEXP Presents Mudhoney Live On Top of the Space Needle

I have far more live Mudhoney records than anyone really needs (and more live albums than actual albums). It all started with Live Mud in 2008 which really blew me away. On Record Store Day in 2014 I saw that Mudhoney were releasing another live album and I quite fancied a copy - I'd seen the band a couple of times and knew they were great live. I certainly hoped the new one would be as good as Live Mud.

The record is a recording of a very strange gig. Sub Pop and Mudhoney both turned 25 in 2013 and, in a mix of all things grunge/Seattle, they played a special show on top of the Space Needle to a very small crowd and broadcast live on a local radio station. I'm not sure I knew all those details when the release was announced, but I certainly like the idea. The live show isn't as good as Live Mud, but given the circumstances it's not that surprising. The set-list has some great songs (and less-enjoyable ones like Chardonnay) but the sound is thinner and a bit rougher (What to Do With the Neutral sounds particularly flat). Touch Me I'm Sick, I'm Now and Suck You Dry all sound pretty good.

Just one month later I found a copy of their live album from Third Man Studios in Rapture in Witney and bought it for two reasons - I was excited to finally have a Live at Third Man record (given that most of the bands they'd recorded do little for me) and because I felt that I had to buy something (and there really wasn't anything else particularly exciting). I think I now have all the live Mudhoney albums that I need, but you never know what's going to happen in the future. I should probably buy more of their actual albums before any more live records at least.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 10
Cost: £15 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 19/04/14
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Dirty Three - Sad & Dangerous, Mysterious & Exciting

I've been gradually building up my Dirty Three collection over a number of years now. I first heard of them when I saw a screening of the All Tomorrow's Parties film in London - there was a clip of them playing at a previous festival and they looked incredible; they played with such passion and power that it blew me away. I figured if I could be that impressed by them on a film, then I'd enjoy them even more live. They were playing at an ATP I was going to shortly thereafter, so I bought a copy of Ocean Songs on cd to listen to in advance. I'll write about that album another time, but I became a big fan of the band and have seen them a bunch of times since. Every time I see them play, I remember how much I love this band.

For a while, I was gradually buying their albums on cd but decided a while ago that I'd actually quite like to have them all on vinyl - a lot of the more recent ones aren't hard to come by but are often a little pricey. The last few Record Store Days, Bella Union have been reissuing some of the earlier ones which will make the collection much easier to complete. This year they reissued Sad & Dangerous, Dirty Three's first album. A few days before the list of RSD releases came out, I'd found a copy of Sad & Dangerous on cd and, thinking it'd be hard to find on vinyl, bought it to add to my collection. I'd never seen the cd around before and it'd been a while since I'd added any Dirty Three albums so I was pretty excited (the cd I found was the Torn & Frayed Australian release, which already has two more songs than the original LP release). I think had I not found that cd so soon before the RSD list announcement, I'd have been even more excited by the vinyl than I was.

I'd played Sad & Dangerous just once before the list came out and, whilst I enjoyed it, it didn't jump to the top half of my favourite Dirty Three albums. I have a huge amount of time for Ocean Songs, Whatever You Love You Are and the self-titled album, but struggle with some others. Sad & Dangerous is a long album and there are some great songs on there (Jim's Dog, Warren's Waltz) but I find it doesn't grab me as strongly as the other albums do; it's hard to explain exactly why. I hope that over the years it'll grow on me - I certainly think it has the potential to do so.

The RSD release is pretty lovely - for a start they've added in three extra songs that aren't on the cd release (or at least not on my cd release - the sticker says four extra songs, but there's either three or five, depending on which cd release you compare it to). These are wrapped around the final track Turk, presumably to fit everything on the sides of vinyl - Turk is a long song - or perhaps they are calling Turk one of the extra songs. Who knows. The bonus tracks are a nice addition - In Bed With the Dirty Three is a very different song to usual and has a very varied structure and style. Bull is a nice song and Dirty Three Theme has some very unexpected vocals and a nice strained guitar sound. The two records themselves are on a nice green vinyl and the package is pretty nice all round.

Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeves
Tracks: 13
Cost: £25 new
Bought: Truck Store Oxford
When: 16/04/16
Colour: Green
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code