The Mars Volta - Live at The Electric Ballroom

I remember being pretty excited when I found this record. I was in London for a night before going to the airport. In a lot of ways, it was a bad time to go record shopping - I was going away for nearly two weeks, going to Heidelburg, Vienna and Lancaster before going back to my parents' house for just three nights before going back to Australia for another six months. Not only did I have to lug this, a couple of other records I bought in London (and the ones I bought on my travels) on a number of flights and trains, I also had only three days to enjoy it (I frantically recorded all the records I bought that fortnight onto tape before going back to Canberra, but somehow missed off a whole side of the Murder City Devils live LP, something I was annoyed to find out when I tried to play it in Oz). After buying this, I stayed at my friend Jo's house and we watched the Johnny Depp version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and had an early night ahead of my flight; there's a detail no one cares about.

Anyway, I was really into The Mars Volta at the time. I'd enjoyed Deloused in the Comatorium but really got into them on Frances the Mute (an album I'd still argue is their finest). During my first six months in Australia, they released Scab Dates which contained some incredible live recordings along with some frustratingly long field recordings of bollocks. This record - a straight-forward live recording from the sound-desk at a London show in 2003 - was then right up my street. The tracklisting is basically all of Deloused (in order) along with Concertina from the Tremulant EP (which I bought about six months later, just before I left Australia for good). On top of that, the sleeve stated that it was for promotional use only (but probably actually a bootleg) as well as singing the praise of being a purely analog recording, something I was pleased to see other people consider important, having had frequent and irritating conversations with my friend Tom about whether digital could be better than analog - see the last picture for the full text. I also bought the 12" single of Frances the Mute that day.

The quality of this recording is perfectly fine - you couldn't call it outstanding, but it does the job. What is perfect is the band, who are on incredible form. The thing that amazes me is that I saw them just two months after this recorded and they were terrible. I remember being really excited to see them at Reading Festival and they played what felt like two songs over a 45-minute set - two elongated jam-fests (which I might enjoy now to be honest, but wasn't in the mood for at the time). I can't have been the only person in the audience who was hoping to hear Inertiatic ESP. In hindsight, we were probably being treated to some early versions of songs from Frances the Mute, but we weren't to know. I saw them a handful of other times over the years and had far better experiences after that - their set at Southside Festival in 2009 was particularly brilliant. The version of Cicatriz ESP is far more enjoyable than the version on Scab Dates because you don't have to fast-forward ten-minutes of bollocks to get the huge climax. The recording of Televators is pretty breath-taking too - Cedric's voice on top form - and Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt is a superb closer. I think for a long time they'd take the stage and introduce themselves as a different band - on this particular show they came on stage with the line "Hello, we're Mudvayne", a nu-metal band that I'm sure most people have long forgotten. It's a strange blast from the past whenever I play this album.

Despite being a bootleg/promo/"unofficial release", copies of this album seem to be about two or three times more than I paid for it, which is always nice (although peanuts compared to how much the reissue of Deloused is now going for - and to think I complained about my copy costing £27, an annoyingly common price for an LP these days). A nice bonus was that the two records are on coloured vinyl - transparent yellow and blue. Whilst not strictly an official release, I'm very glad this is sat in my collection and that I decided to lug it around Europe rather than leave it in Selectadisc that rainy January day. I miss The Mars Volta, so it's nice to have a live recording of some of their best songs.

Format: Double 12", plain sleeve, insert, promo-only
Tracks: 9
Cost: £20 new
Bought: Selectadisc, London
When: 13/01/06
Colour: Transparent yellow and transparent blue
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Poison the Well - Ghostchant

I never really got on with Poison the Well's third album, You Come Before You, but I think that's mainly because I left it far too late to hear it. Tear From the Red was huge and I was into from the off; The Opposite of December and Distance Only Makes the Heart Grow Fonder were heavier but I was into them too. It helped that I heard all those albums within a little over a year of each other (and that that year was 2003, a good time to be a fan of Poison the Well). I also got this 10" single of Ghostchant that year for £3 in Selectadisc London, the day we went to see Deftones play Wembley Arena (for the first time) and also the day I got my Aeroplane Flies High boxset. It was an ok single, but didn't grab me like some of the songs on Tear From the Red. There's very little memorable about it - I've literally just played it and couldn't really tell you much about it.

What probably didn't help was that the day I bought this was also about a week before I started university, where I was introduced to all sorts of new bands - in the first few months alone, some Americans in my halls introduced me to Hum and Black Eyes; these were exciting times and Poison the Well definitely got left behind. In fact, it'd be 2006 before I finally bought a copy of You Come Before You (a cheap cd purchase in the HMV in Sydney, just days after I'd found my surprisingly rare copy of Hum's You'd Prefer An Astronaut on vinyl). Australian summer, combined with being a few years older were not the right conditions for enjoying Poison the Well's metalcore. Moreover, it felt like they'd done away with the unexpected acoustic guitars and shameless emo that made Tear From the Red so interesting; similarly, there were none of the hooks or breakdowns that made the earlier stuff fun too. And, like that, I pretty much stopped being a Poison the Well fan. I still play Tear From the Red from time to time, but not very often at all.

Anyway, there are two other songs here: Midair Love Message, which has some strong blast beats but not much else, and a demo of Sticks and Stones Never Made Sense from Tear From the Red, which is just a scrappy version of the album take (I know that's what demos are, but usually ones that get released and a bit more interesting). It's not one of the more interesting records in my collection, but for £3 you can't really complain. Red vinyl, numbered (#1018, out of 2000 it seems).

Format: 10"
Tracks: 3
Cost: £3 new
Bought: Selectadisc, London
When: 19/09/03
Colour: Red
Etching: none
mp3s: none

Modest Mouse - Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks

In 2004 I made a very long journey from Lancaster, where I was studying at university, to Winchester and then even further south to Portsmouth to see Pitchshifter play in the Pyramids Centre. They were a band that we'd all loved throughout school and college, so it was nice to return to see them in a venue we'd seen them in before (on a date we'd seen them play there too) with some old friends. They were so important to us, that I took a five-hour train ride on a Wednesday after my classes finished, watched the band, stayed at my parents' house (for the last time in the house I'd grown up in - they moved a month later) and got a train back the next morning. I'm not sure I'd be quite so committed again.

Pre-booking the train meant I could travel for very little, but also meant a transfer across London. They always gave you an hour to do this, but I knew it only took about 15 minutes, so I jumped out in the middle and went to Selectadisc in Soho for a very quick shopping trip (my ticket didn't technically allow a break, so I had to plead ignorance with the guards at the gates on the tube). It was rushed, but I found some cool records, including this and Silverchair's excellent Neon Ballroom (for a stupidly cheap £6).

I'd been given the mp3s of The Moon and Antarctica by a guy called Andy in the first year of university and enjoyed them. I think the tracklisting was all twisted and I didn't get an actual copy and hear it in the right order until the Christmas after I bought this. The summer before, however, Float On had come out and I was in love with it (the fact that the 7" had a remix by John Congleton of The Paper Chase had endeared them to me further).

All that means that this record was at the start of peak-Modest Mouse fandom, an era that continued throughout university and a little into the Cardiff days. Their set at ATP was slightly disappointing - Isaac was sick and they played a set heavy in songs I don't care about (before they played I commented on how easily they could play a set of unbelievably huge songs, or they could take the 75% of album tracks that are just ok and be underwhelming; they went for the latter). At the end of The Melvins' set immediately before Modest Mouse, they wheeled out the two Modest Mouse drummers to join the two Melvins drummers for the last song, which blew all our minds - it was going to be a tough act to follow and they couldn't in my mind. That was probably the beginning of the end for me.

I enjoy this record, but it is in no way essential for the casual fan. Night on the Sun is the highlight and the reason the record exists really - it was a way of getting the Japanese-only EP out globally, along with some extra songs. It starts slowly (which makes the slow opener Willful Suspension of Disbelief feel a bit unnecessary) but Isaac's singing and the drums get it moving. There's a great almost-call-and-response moment with Isaac shouting "Well there's one thing you should no about this town" followed by a softer reply. It's a long song, but they squeeze in a lot. There are some filler tracks like the opener and The Air, but You're the Good Things is interesting and speeds up in a great way, and I Came as a Rat (Long Walk Off a Short Dock) is a welcome closer - not sure I could accurately say what the difference between it and the album version is. So Much Beauty in Dirt is a nice little song too, packing a lot of lyrics into a minute-and-a-half.

I played this record a fair amount back in the day, but not so much anymore - if I'm wanting to hear some Modest Mouse I tend to reach for The Moon and Antarctica or The Lonesome Crowded West (or even Baron Von Bullshit Rides Again, the live album which I found in the huge Virgin Megastore January sale in Lyon, France). I periodically think I should fill the gaps in my Modest Mouse collection, but I wonder if the moment has passed.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 8
Cost: £9 new
Bought: Selectadisc, London
When: 06/10/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: None

Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking

In 2018 it's easy to be dismissive of Jane's Addiction - on the surface, there's a lot that hasn't aged well, but probably no more than most bands from LA at the same time. Sure, the reunions and reunion albums (yes, plural, apparently) probably didn't help, but if you ignore all of that, they released two landmark albums. I wrote about Ritual de lo Habitual five years ago, but kept forgetting to write about Nothing's Shocking.

There's a very good chance I've not listened to this album in the years in between; if I had I would have remembered how great it is and written about it straight away. The second those amazingly uplifting guitars hit in Up the Beach I would have been mentally writing paragraphs after paragraphs about it. Over the 15 years I've had this album I've periodically had this same thought: Ocean Size might be the biggest riff ever. I mean, literally the-size-of-an-ocean huge. The production is incredible (this was recorded in 1988) and it does everything to possible to make you focus on the sheer size of that riff. I like Up the Beach as an opener, but can you imagine if they'd just opened it up with Ocean Song? People wouldn't have known what hit them.

Nothing's Shocking is a funny one - there are songs that in my mind are less essential, but actually all have their charms - Summertime Rolls takes a little too long to get going but I do love where it ends up - I think I even used to put it on mixtapes; Idiots Rule ends up being this jazz explosion but starts as something almost throwaway; and Ted, Just Admit It builds in an almost post-rock style that was a world apart from anything they'd written before. Of course there's also Mountain Song and that bassline - a song that would dominate any album that didn't already have Ocean Size on it. Snapcase did a cover of it which worked well. I think Sepultura covered it too. It's a classic.

Jane Says was, as mentioned before, my introduction to Jane's Addiction, although I was used to the live version from Kettle Whistle being played on MTV. I was excited to hear the original version when I bought this album - I'd found a copy of Kettle Whistle a few months beforehand, which quenched my thirst for the song (and introduced me to demos of Ocean Song and Mountain Song). I like it, but not as much as the live version - the steel drums are far quieter in the mix. I'm still a little bitter that I've never seen them play it live - at Reading in 2002 they had the steel drums by the side of the stage but didn't play them; they cancelled their set last minute at Reading 2011 and when I saw them in Brixton they were playing Ritual in whole. I might have to accept that I'll never see it.

If I had to say which Jane's album was the best (no one is asking, but I like to ponder these questions) I'd be torn. Ritual was the first I heard and I spent a lot if time listening to it in the two years before getting Nothing's Shocking; I love it and all its strangeness. On the other hand, Nothing's Shocking has the big stand-alone songs - Ocean Size, Mountain Song and Jane Says; when I think of the best Jane's songs, I think of those songs. But maybe that answers the question itself - Ritual is the better album, but Nothing's Shocking has the songs. Either way, both are important and excellent.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 10
Cost: £9 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 20/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: None
mp3s: None

The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute b/w The Widow

Frances the Mute - the album - gets a lot of hate, but it's always been my favourite Mars Volta album. I remember being knocked over by it the first time and I still listen to it often now. The way they bring Cassandra Gemini around at the end was perfect; I remember telling my dad that they were a modern-day Led Zeppelin, a ridiculous claim but what I felt at the time. I once saw a copy of the album on 4LP glow-in-the-dark vinyl in a record shop in Melbourne for $400 or so. I wasn't remotely tempted, but I knew I'd never see a copy in the wild again and, so far, I was right.

This isn't Frances the Mute the album, but Frances the Mute the single. The cd case for the album had lyrics beneath the cd tray for a song that wasn't on the album. Those lyrics are the lyrics to this title-track that didn't make the cut, since the album was already pushing the limits of a single cd. I can remember the excitement of finally being able to hear a song whose lyrics had been so mysteriously left behind on the packaging. It's a good song and would have fit the album, but I don't think it suffers for missing it. It's 14 minutes long, but really only about 8 or 9 of music. Had it been on the album with all the ambient noise either side, I think it would have harmed the flow. The hint of Cassandra Gemini through the static at the end always makes me want to put the album on.

The b-side is a live acoustic version of The Widow, which mostly sounds lovely and works far better than those words suggest it will do. To account for the almost-screamed chorus (which would struggle over the gentle acoustic guitar), Cedric messes around with his voice through all sorts of effects pedals and boxes, which isn't as good as the original but interesting nonetheless.

I found this copy in Selectadisc in London the day before I flew out to Germany to visit my friend Matt. From Germany I went to Austria to see some friends in Vienna, then back to Lancaster to see some other university friends followed by a quick trip back to Winchester before flying back to Australia for my second term over there (my carbon footprint at that time was substantial). That means I didn't actually get to listen to this until I was back in Winchester a few weeks after buying it, and then not again for another 6 months. I recorded a couple of records I bought that winter onto tape to take back to Canberra, but this one didn't end up anywhere. It's slim sleeve means I've routinely overlooked it in my collection (especially surrounded my The Mars Volta's other album in their double gatefold sleeves). I've not listened to it enough.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £6 new
Bought: Selectadisc, London
When: 13/01/06
Colour: Green
Etching: Side B: "The Widow live at the Wiltern"
mp3s: None

Manic Street Preachers - Know Your Enemy

Know Your Enemy is 16 songs and over an hour long, but somehow they managed to squeeze it onto one piece of vinyl. It was released in 2001, which was probably the lowest point in vinyl's popularity, so it was presumably something of an afterthought. I stumbled across this copy in Selectadisc in Nottingham three years later, where it had been sat neglected all that time, for an incredible £4 (vinyl still wasn't that popular in 2004 either, it seems). It was in perfect condition and I was very pleased to add it to my collection, especially at that price. It has since been reissued on 180-gram vinyl, but I can't help but wonder if that adds nothing when the songs are so tightly packed; the grooves have to be so shallow to accommodate the runtime. Ideally I'd say it needs a double LP reissue - fingers crossed. The cover of McCarthy's We Are All Bourgeois Now is sadly, but understandably, omitted. It's a shame, because it's a great bonus track.

Know Your Enemy was the first album that came out after I became a huge Manics fan - the previous album being the one that got me into them. I was a pretty nerdy teen, so wanted to hear the album as a complete album on the day it came out - I'd daydreamed about how cool it would have been to sit down and play Generation Terrorists or The Holy Bible in whole the day they came out and wanted that for this album at least (I can't say I've done the same for every album since, but most). I walked into town after after school on Monday 19th March 2001 and bought my copy on cd for £12.99. Somewhere I still have the receipt. I paid in exact change, because I somehow thought that was important. Like I said, nerdy teen. I then got the bus home, went up to my room, lay on the bed and placed the left speaker of my hifi next to my left ear, the right next to my right and hit play.

I'd made a point of not hearing the singles Found That Soul and So Why So Sad before the album came out. There was a small piece in Kerrang! Magazine about the album that I purposely didn't read until I'd heard the album. I wanted nothing to possibly alter my enjoyment of the record as a complete work. Friends had heard the new singles and had the fairly-standard opinions that Found That Soul was great and So Why So Sad wasn't, but I couldn't really avoid hearing something about it.

At the time, I enjoyed it. I remember hearing songs I thought were really good, and the band showing more sides to their songwriting style than they had previously. I wasn't blown away, which in itself was something of a let down. Perhaps I'd built up too much anticipation for it - it's worth noting that White Pony came out the year before so had given me the excitement of the first new album from a band I loved that had proved to be seminal. Given how strong The Masses Against the Classes had been, I think I was justified in hyping it up so much. The influence of that song was strong throughout - the album had far more fuzz than they'd ever used and it was a world away from the clean production of This is My Truth Tell Me Yours, probably intentionally. I suspect that change wrecked havoc with their career, at least in the eyes of the record label; a slick, clean follow-up would have been so easy, but so un-Manics.

17 years later, I can't say it's gone down in history as one of their greats. There are some really strong songs (Found That Soul, Wattsville Blues, Freedom of Speech Won't Save My Children - seems that I love the songs where they found their inner grunge band), but none that have become absolute classics in my opinion; when I see the band and they don't play anything from this album, I don't walk away wishing they had. There are some singles that did little for me initially but have become songs I do really enjoy (Ocean Spray, Let Robeson Sing) and some oddities that I quite enjoy (Royal Correspondent). There are also a lot of other songs - I'd struggle to even say whether there was a Manics song called Dead Martyrs or The Convalescent let alone tell you they were album songs and not b-sides. The funny thing is that Dead Martyrs has a huge chorus that I'd completely forgotten about.

I don't think culling any songs would have saved it. It's probably the most inconsistent Manics album (Nicky and the fuzzed-up Wattsville Blues being followed by the faux-70's Miss Europa Disco Dancer might be one of the strangest pairing of songs on any album). Over the years that followed, they tried being a few different bands but the albums stuck to those individual themes more consistently. I feel Resistance is Futile might by the first time in the 20th century that they've fully committed to doing what they do best without trying to do/be anything else (and it works - more on that another time). This album is the polar opposite of that.

A lot of this sounds negative, but I do like this album. I don't play it often, but it's an interesting moment in their history. 

Format: 12", picture sleeve

Tracks: 16

Cost: £4 new

Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham

When: 15/03/04

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Bad Brains - Bad Brains

When I bought this album, I don't think I'd actually heard Bad Brains. I was in London to see Deftones play Wembley Arena with A Perfect Circle, and it was about a week before I started university. I remember being in Selectadisc and deciding to buy this album, along with a few other bits (I'd also got my original copy of The Aeroplane Flies High boxset that day). I'd read many, many things about Bad Brains; Kerrang! had definitely included them in their "100 most influential bands" issue that I'd been using as a reference guide for at least two years already (and still have somewhere in the house). I was getting into punk via the way of hardcore (mostly thanks to Gorilla Biscuits, which was really thanks to Rival Schools and Quicksand), so it seemed like a good purchase.

Other factors that day almost certainly included: Hugh was with me and likely suggested it - he did the same thing to our friend Rich about five years later, although I doubt Rich enjoyed Bad Brains as much as I did; I was amused by the sticker on the sleeve saying "limited edition black vinyl"; I had dreadlocks, so it was assumed I liked Bad Brains often; and finally I knew it was a classic album - that cover was very familiar from the off.

A month or so after buying this, I bought a cheap cd copy of the Bad Brains best-of, Banned in DC, so I'm a little more familiar with that than I am this album - I didn't take my turntable to university initially, so only had a few listens to this album before going away. The overlap between the two albums is huge, which is a testament to how strong the album is. A year or so later I got the Bad Brains tribute album, Never Give In, which I then probably played even more. I enjoyed Snapcase's take on I, but the real star of that show was, unexpectedly, Moby's cover of Sailin' On, which he stretches out over four times the original length and completely reimagines.

In fact, I'm such a fan of that Moby cover that I find it hard to think about Bad Brains without thinking about Moby doing a slow version of one of their songs. This is probably an indication of my general feelings towards Bad Brains. In principle, I like their thrashy hardcore, and they definitely have some excellent songs. However, the shitty production makes it hard to enjoy them. I get that they were pioneers, and that I doubt anyone had any ideal how this sort of music should sound on record, which is a shame. The guitars on Supertouch/Shitfit are such an unexpected highlight then, because after so many songs something clear and crisp finally happens, and it sounds excellent.

If I'm somewhat on the fence about Bad Brains' hardcore, then I'm very much of on the "not interested" side when it comes to their reggae moments - Jah Calling, Leaving Babylon and I Luv I Jah are not for me. I get why they're there, but I'd enjoy the album more without them. Take them away and the hardcore songs that are left are almost all classics and excellent songs, if poorly recorded. I imagine some people will disagree with me here, but I'd get a lot more out of this album if it had been recorded maybe ten years later. Songs like Supertouch/Shitfit and Right Brigade shine, but only just about.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 15
Cost: £9 new
Bought: Selectadisc, London
When: 19/09/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: none

System of a Down - Steal This Album!

System of a Down were one of the bands you had to like if you were into nu-metal around the year 2000. They somehow were the edgy, cool band to like, especially if it was before their second album came out. The first one, released in 1998, felt like the closest thing to an "underground hit" that the genre had, at least amongst the people I knew (which is obviously bollocks in hindsight, but felt like it at the time. Like I've said many times, the early 2000's was a dangerous time to be a teenager). Their second album, Toxicity, came out in 2001 and suddenly they were everywhere.

I got a copy of the first album in 2001, just weeks before Toxicity came out, but I'd borrowed it from a friend earlier and made a cassette copy, so knew the songs very well. On top of that, I'd bought a copy of a limited edition tour cd from a distro that a guy someone had met at a record fair was running – it had three of the album tracks twice each, the studio version and a live recording. Toxicity dropped the day after they played a great set at Reading Festival on the main stage, almost certainly winning them many more fans (I distinctly remember the maniacal look in the bassist's eyes as they walked out on stage to a song about how they're all on drugs). An enterprising record store owner who routinely had a stall at the festival stayed open until midnight to sell copies of Toxicity and Iowa, the new Slipknot album released on the same day; they must have made a killing with that festival audience.

SOAD enjoyed a lot of success from Toxicity, especially from the single Chop Suey!, which became an instant classic in rock clubs all over the country. Then they had the awkward follow-up, the difficult second album (except, in this case, the difficult third album). In 2002 they released Steal This Album!, an album I always believed to be a b-sides/rarities album, but I've just read online that it was more along the lines of leftovers from Toxicity, or even tentatively a sequel to the album. Either way, it wasn't billed as a regular album, so I certainly never listened to it as such.

The cd was released with four different designs on the cd itself, which given that it didn't have a sleeve was basically the cover of the album. I bought the one with the skull on it, which was my favourite of the lot at the time – I think the shop had at least one of each. A few months later I was in Nottingham after an open day at Lancaster University, and found this double picture disc of the album for a bargain £9.50. It was appealing in itself, but I liked that each side had one of the four covers on; it made me feel better about having picked just one of them on cd. That price seems like even more of a bargain given that copies on Discogs are now around £75.

As an album, I remember liking it less than the first two, but that was almost to be expected, given that it wasn't an album proper. A.D.D. was always the highlight and still has a huge chorus. It could have been a huge song had it been on either of the first two albums, although that awkward transition between the verse and the chorus probably needed some more work. Otherwise, there were some nice enough songs (Highway Song has the second best chorus on the album) and a few slower moments (good ones, like Mr Jack and unnecessary ones, like Roulette). A common theme was one of half-heartedness, or incompleteness - Chic 'n' Stu and I-E-A-I-A-I-O both had that fast-paced singing that Serj could so uniquely do, but piss-poor lyrics; Boom was a political song with none of the subtlety they'd shown in the past. All in all, an odd collection, but a nice enough record to own.

Format: Double picture disc 12", insert
Tracks: 16
Cost: £9.50 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 20/02/03
Colour: Picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Unwritten Law - Elva

This album is just Very Bad. I don't think I've ever taken any real enjoyment from it. Every now and again, if I'm in a particularly shitty toilet in a bar or pub, I think to myself "I really hope I don't die here; I'd be so embarrassed for people to know that this was the last place I was alive". Listening to Unwritten Law in 2017, I'm thinking "god, I hope I don't die listening to this; I'd be so embarrassed for people to know this was the last music I heard". What if people thought the last music I heard was so important to me that I wanted it played at my funeral. What a shitty funeral it'd be, soundtracked to this album. Urgh. If you're reading this, I didn't die listening to Unwritten Law (at least, intentionally) so that's good.

When I was at school, we pretty much all had copies of each other's cds collections on tape or minidiscs. Nick had Unwritten Law's third, self-titled album, and I remember having a minidisc of it (in fact, I still do, but either my minidisc player is broken, or all of my minidiscs have broken themselves). I guess I enjoyed that album at the time, but I couldn't tell you much about it. I was never a huge fan of that California-punk, and it'd be a long time before I started listening to other genres of punk.

A few years later, I was in Nottingham and found this for £4 in Selectadisc. I bought so many records in there that day that I was putting some back because I couldn't carry them all. Luckily, I can't remember what I put back, because I'd almost certainly be kicking myself. It's hard to imagine what could've been less enjoyable than this. According to Wikipedia, Unwritten Law made a conscious choice to move away from punk towards a more "accessible hard rock" sound. I wish they'd put that on the fucking sticker, rather than boasting about two singles I now know to be shit.

There are many crimes on this album, but one of the worst is the first song - Mean Girl is the worst song on the album, and opens the album for reasons I can't fathom. Up All Night isn't terrible in comparison - it's probably not a good song, but compared to the opener it's quite the relief. There are other lows (Actress, Model... is appalling) and some moments that aren't as shit as everything else, but it's all relative. It's also far too long. In two words: stupid and pointless.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 17
Cost: £4 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 15/03/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Korn - Life is Peachy

As I've mentioned a few times before, the early 2000's was a dangerous time to be a teenage boy; nu-metal was just too appealing. I take comfort in the fact that Deftones proved to be a band grown from that scene that you could love well into your 30's (and beyond, I hope). I'm not saying this (just) because it's the acceptable thing to say, but they always were my favourite from those days - the finest example of what that genre had to offer, and that it wasn't all shit.

Not everything was so good, and Korn, certainly in hindsight, feel like the exact opposite of Deftones, despite the fact the two of them were credited with the dubious honour of starting the nu-metal genre. While Deftones have stayed relevant and excellent, Korn went the other way and it's almost impossible to take any enjoyment from them in your 30's; it was touch-and-go in your late teens to be perfectly honest.

I bought into the whole Korn thing, but even 16-year-old-me had my doubts. Blind is and was a huge song, but the rest of the self-titled debut is utterly terrible. At the time I was incredibly put off by the idea of a grown man crying about his daddy issues on their major label debut. I later discovered they were all off their heads on crystal meth, which makes a lot of things make sense, but you like to think at some point, someone, somewhere was sober enough to say "is this really how we want to finish the album?". It’s reassuring to know that, even though my musical taste had some very dodgy parts at that time, I was able to draw a line; Jonathan Davis crying on record was far on the other side of that line back then, and that's something. However, I didn't hear the whole album until much later, having been introduced to Blind by the live version on the Woodstock 1999 cd my friend Johnny had. I was already bought in by the time I heard the man cry.

Over the course of five months, I got copies of Follow the Leader (the album which, in hindsight, was clearly the strongest in terms of hits), Issues, the self-titled album then Life is Peachy. After being disappointed by the self-titled album I was pleasantly surprised by Life is Peachy; in my teens, I considered it my favourite Korn album. Now, in my 30's, it’s slightly disconcerting to think that I once had a favourite Korn album, but I was once that guy and I guess I wouldn't be here if I hadn't been. So maybe I should be pleased I once had a favourite Korn album? No, that's too far; it's a thing that happened, that is all.

A year after I got Life is Peachy on cd, they released Untouchables, which I knew at the time was shit. It was 2002 and Rival Schools had just entered my life, setting it onto a far more respectable (and enjoyable) trajectory. However, in 2004 I found this copy of Life is Peachy on vinyl in Selectadisc in Nottingham for a mere £6. I was long out of my nu-metal phase, but decided it was a good purchase - it had been my favourite Korn album after all, and that felt like something.

Needless to say, I've not listened to Korn in any way in a very long time. In fact, given this was my last Korn purchase in 2004, I'm going to say it's been at least a solid 10 years since any of these songs have graced (that feels like the wrong word) my ears. How has Korn aged? Terribly, of course. Life is Peachy lacks the huge singles the albums either side had, and listening to it now, the songs I thought were highlights at the time really don't stand out as much as I remember. Perhaps I just rated it so highly to be different. Good God was always my favourite, and it stands out a bit here. Mr Rogers and Wicked were also ones I thought highly of back in the day. It's hard to write now that "they're still good songs" because they're not, so I won't (sorry Chino). The opening duo of Twist and Chi sound pretty bad, and the one with all the swearing is mindless. People always talked about the bass sound Korn had, but quite frankly Jonathan Davis is so ridiculously high in the mix that it's hard to hear anything else.

Luckily, this is the only time I'll have to write about Korn on here. It also probably signifies the last time I'll intentionally listen to them; I really can't see any scenarios in my near-future where I'll find myself listening to them. In a way, it's a bit sad - they were a small part of my formative years - but I can easily still have those memories whilst listening to something that's actually good.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 14
Cost: £6 new
Bought: Selectadisc
When: 15/03/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Audioslave - Audioslave

Can you remember the excitement around this album when it was announced? Good lord, it was crazy. Let's forget about how the album actually turned out for a moment and focus on that excitement. Rage Against the Machine had been the biggest name of the late 1990's and Soundgarden were one of the biggest names of the the early part of that decade. Chris Cornell had long been one of my favourite singers and still has one of the best voices in rock. The music Rage Against the Machine had put out was hugely important and I still get that same feeling when I listen to them now, more than 20 years after they started. How could a band consisting of Chris and Rage (minus Zach) not be great?

Before the album came out the video for Cochise did the rounds on MTV and it was awesome - the band playing on top of some structure in the desert with fireworks going of all around them. If the excitement levels weren't already raised high enough then that video pushed them even higher. I rushed out and bought the cd the day it came out. I was at college then so I used my free periods to go home, turn the hifi up dangerously loud and play the album. (I picked this copy up a few months later - I was still into it enough to spend £15.50 on it, which was a lot for an LP back then.)

It started with a great opening duo, the single Cochise and Show Me How to Live, which is still huge - the lines "Is this the cure or is this a disease?" is one of the greatest pre-chorus breaks that hard-rock did in the 2000's. There are some slower, heavier songs like What You Are which work well - think Mailman from Superunknown - and some slower ones like Like A Stone, Shadow on the Sun and I am the Highway which I think could have easily been culled. They're nice enough songs and show off Chris's voice well, but aren't what I (or most other listeners I suspect) were wanting to hear from this band. Had it been a Chris Cornell solo album then it would have been great (and would have shat all over his actual solo albums). There are late-album treats like Exploder and Light My Way but they often get forgotten in the expanse of the album.

My main complaints with the album was that it was far too long. It's funny, but as I've got older my"ideal album length" has changed. It used to be twelve songs in 45 minutes, but these days I'm finding the nine songs is strong length. Either way, 14 songs and an hour long is too much. As I've realised is often the case with super-groups (a term I don't think existed in my vocabulary in 2002) is that no one will tell them when to stop, or that maybe some of the songs aren't that great. The result tends to be album that are too long and don't really reflect any of the artist's best work.

Is Audioslave as good as Soundgarden? No, of course not. Some of the songs could make it into a top 20 Chris Cornell songs, but not the top ten. Is Audioslave as good as Rage? Again, not a chance. The musicianship is as good here, but it's more traditional hard-rock, which isn't what people listened to Rage for. The band are still tight as hell, but I don't think any of the guys really shine here (Tom gets some very short solos on What You Are and Bring 'em Back Alive).

I saw Audioslave at Roskilde Festival in 2005. I remember it fondly, although mainly because they played a bunch of Soundgarden and Rage songs. Chris even treated us to a solo performance of Black Hole Sun which was incredible. I hadn't seen Soundgarden at that point, so it was really special. Needless to say, his ability to rap like Zach de la Rocha was sub-par, but I'd seen Rage before so I'd already had my fix of hearing those songs how they're supposed to be played.

As is often the case with these blog posts, I've not listened to Audioslave for a long time before putting the needle on the record today. I'm surprised how well it stands up. I mean, I don't find myself wanting to listen to this sort of music much these days, but it's good. Plus, it's so deeply rooted in nostalgia (for itself but also for Soundgarden and Rage) and that early excitement it's had not to smile a little and have a little headbang.

Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeves

Tracks: 14

Cost: £15.50 new

Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham

When: 20/02/03

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Thursday - War All the Time

War All the Time was the beginning of the turn against Thursday for a lot of people I knew. They'd blown us away on Full Collapse and Five Stories Falling but I remember everyone disliking War All the Time. I think the general thinking was it was too polished and smooth; one acquaintance particularly hated the single Signals Over the Air with quite some passion.

Whilst it didn't grab me as much as Full Collapse, I still thought War All the Time was a great album. I concede that it's smoother in places, but that kinda works for Thursday - they didn't need to be the heaviest band in that genre for me. What War All the Time showed was that they could write great songs without them needing to be overly-shouty screamo/post-hardcore. And those moments were still there - Division St. could have fit just as easily onto Full Collapse as it does here. The piano-led This Song Brought to You by a Falling Bomb would sound thoroughly out-of-place on any earlier album but works beautifully here. Other highlights include For the Workforce, Drowning and Asleep in the Chapel and the title track in particular. As an aside, I had a Thursday t-shirt with some artwork for For the Workforce, Drowning which eventually became my running t-shirt. It almost soured a relationship before it even started because the girl in question thought less of me for being a Thursday fan (but she liked to think of herself as very cool - her Les Savy Fav t-shirt helped).

I got a copy of this album on cd for Christmas one year (the same year I got Waiting) and a few months later found this LP in Selectadisc in Nottingham for a very reasonable £10. I still listen to it a lot - it has a lot of fond memories for me.

Format: 12", booklet
Tracks: 11
Cost: £10 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 15/03/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Pearl Jam - Vs.

I own many Pearl Jam albums on cd but this is the only one I have on vinyl. I was introduced to them at school by a friend named Johnny. He'd become a very big fan of theirs very quickly and I remember him getting very excited when Binaural came out in 2000. He lent me a copy of Ten and I quite enjoyed what I heard. I wasn't instantly blown away with a lot of the big singles on there, but I was particularly taken by Black (and, eventually, came around to liking the hits). I say he introduced to them to me, he introduced their music to me; they were already a name I knew but had no idea what they sounded like. The picture of them in the sleeve of Ten made me think they weren't going to be very cool, but he reassured me that they were a cool band.

I bought a copy of Ten on cd a short while later and followed that up with Binaural just after Riot Act came out. Binaural did very little for me and I became a bit sceptical of their more recent releases. I also bought a copy of No Code and began to wonder if Ten was a bit of a fluke in terms of Pearl Jam music I enjoyed. A little while later again I bought this copy of Vs. in Selectadisc in Nottingham for a relative bargain of £8. I never planned to have much of a Pearl Jam collection, I was just buying whatever cool vinyl I could get my hands on back then.

Vs. had more going for it than No Code, but still didn't grab me as much as Ten. Go and Animal are a strong opening duo but I always thought Daughter was too slow too soon and ruined the flow of the album for me. There are other highlights (in fact the opening duo on side 2 - Blood and Rearviewmirror - are great too) but there weren't the real highlights I was hoping for. Maybe it's because Ten was scattered with so many hit singles that every other album was always going to sound sub-par.

Buying Vs. made me realise I should stop buying Pearl Jam albums. They were always so cheap in record shops that I kept finding myself nearly buying them but I knew I wasn't very likely to enjoy them. It was quite a relief to skip past the Pearl Jam section in the shops without feeling the need to see how much their other albums were. I eventually broke my rule in 2013 when I found a brand new copy of their double-disc best of album in a charity shop in Clapham for £1. For that price it seemed rude not to and enough time had passed that I might get more out of it. Plus, I hoped at some level that just having the singles would be what I needed to like them more. The album is split over the two discs with the heavier songs on one and the softer on the second; unsurprisingly, the first disc gets much more play the second. I've not bought any more of their albums since then.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £8 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 15/03/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

One Minute Silence - Buy Now... Saved Later

One Minute Silence were, along with Pitchshifter, one of the most important bands of my middle-teenage years. Both bands made their first impression on me on a free cd given away with Kerrang! magazine - the now legendary (in my world at least) The Devil's Music Volume 1. Pitchshifter opened things up with Everything's Fucked, followed by my introduction to Henry Rollins (in the form of Rollin's Band), followed by One Minute Silence's Food For the Brain. That first 10 minutes changed my world in huge ways. My young mind didn't know what hit it.

That was more than half of my life ago, but it's a pleasant surprise that OMS's brand of Irish nu-metal has aged so well, although that might partly be due to the very firm place they hold in my heart. We saw them four times over three years - the most memorable was in the Astoria with Will Haven (featuring some terrifying circle pits) but I also fondly remember the last time, in an old church in Salisbury. I used to have so much fun throwing myself around at their shows - it's comforting to think that my youthful energy was not at all wasted.

I can't think when the last time I played this album was before today. I've played their third album once of twice in recent years and got moderate enjoyment out of it. However, Buy Now... Saved Later was always the classic. Their debut, Available In All Colours, had some huge songs (Brainspiller, South Central, Pig Until Proven Cop - I might have to give that album a play today too!), but didn't quite hit the same spot. I picked up a promo copy of BN...SL on cd (with alternative artwork) on holiday in the states when I was 16 but I already knew all the songs - Hugh had bought a copy a long time before and I had a very worn-down cassette of it.

I think the reason why OMS worked so well for me was that rare mix between quite smooth vocals, genuinely heavy music and a groove that you could dance (mosh) to. On top of that, there were occasional quieter moments (important for regaining one's breath in the pit), but they always exploded back into something heavy. I used to love hearing them play any of these songs, but it's worth calling out Rise and Shine, 1845, Food For the Brain, Fish Out of Water (what a side A), If I Can Change and A Day in the Light Of in particular. I loved trying to sing along to the fast-paced lyrics (with moderate success, probably adding to how knackered I was in the pit). Even the slower Words builds up to a hugely aggressive outro and closes the album in excellent style.

I picked up the LP during a trip to Selectadisc in Nottingham, which resulted in a number of incredible bargains - I was returning home after an open day at the university I'd go on to attend, but took a detour via Nottingham on the way. It was 2003 and clearly the staff there had decided that the only way to shift a OMS record was to price it at £2. I wonder how much more I would have paid for this album back then? I'm glad my desire to own everything on vinyl went so far back.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 14
Cost: £2 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 20/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Cay - Nature Creates Freaks

Cay were the second band I ever saw play live (preceded by a band called Subcircus and followed by Feeder, who were headlining and the reason we'd gone to our very first gig). They also ended up being the first band I saw play twice, as they played early on the Sunday of Reading Festival in 2000. It's a strange that such accolades are for a band who ultimately didn't achieve very much.

In writing this, I wondered what happened to them after that second time I saw them, and Wikipedia tells me that drugs and infighting became their thing and then they kind of disappeared; a classic after-effect of a rise to fame too fast (they won Best British Newcomer at Kerrang!, as the sticker on the sleeve states). Most shocking to read was that the singer died five years ago after being hit by a train. I'd never really thought what might have happened to them after their brief fame until now, but it's sad that it all went quite so wrong.

I picked up this copy of their only album in Selectadisc in Nottingham for £1 (not the only British album from around that time I bought for £1, although Ideas Above Our Station was a much more significant record). It was 2003 and I'd already forgotten about Cay. I remember some friends becoming big fans when we saw them in 1999 and raving about the album. For £1 I figured it was rude to not at least check it.

The openers to each side - Better Than Myself and Neurons Like Brandy - were always the highlights back in the day and still hold up fairly well now. Princes & Princesses keeps the album moving, but the title track as the third song slows things down sooner than I think is ideal; it's got a reasonable chorus mind you. I remember Dragonfly being annoying back in the day - like they were trying to channel Sonic Youth but failing. Overall, there are a few songs that are more enjoyable than I remember but that are also a lot of annoying and too-slow moments (particularly on side-B) that ruin the flow for me. In short, there's nothing terrible about Nature Creates Freaks (except maybe the title) but there was also not enough to give the longevity to survive any amount of time.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 11
Cost: £1 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 20/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

The Offspring - Smash

Everyone has a copy of this album, don't they. It's an album that everyone knows backwards. The cool thing about Smash though is that creates instant good-times. I was driving with a colleague who got very excited to find this on my iPod - the next 40 minutes were far more fun than driving around the M25 should be. God knows that Bad Habit is a dangerous song to drive to, not just for the sentiment but also for the loss of concentration whilst everyone tries to remember the order of the swear words to sing along to the break.

Smash has so many huge songs - Nitro, Bad Habit, Genocide, Come Out and Play, Self Esteem, Not the One, Smash; that's a lot of highlights. The intro even deserves calling out for setting the scene so well.

I picked this album up along with a huge haul of records from Selectadisc Nottingham on my first visit there. I had found so many albums I wanted (and mostly at bargain prices) I found I was having to put some back because my arms were hurting. Smash made the cut - I knew it was a classic and an album I'd love to have in my collection. I had a few other Offspring albums on cd and had listened to Smash at various friend's houses over the years but didn't have a copy anywhere. I paid £5 for this, which is a bargain by anyone's measure.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 14
Cost: £5 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 20/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no