The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Jukebox Explosion: Rockin' Mid-90's Punkers!

I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of this record. I've tried, but it just doesn't do much for me. There are moments that I kinda enjoy (the saxophone on Son of Sam, Down Low, Do Ya Wanna Get It) but there are others that are just plain unpleasant on the ears (Showgirl, Train #1). I've tried, but The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion aren't for me.

I picked up this collection of JSBE singles in Spillers during the Tuesday-record-from-Spillers year in what I assume was a fairly poor week selection-wise. I must have been taken in by the amusing cover and bargain price and a desire to give Jon Spencer a second try. Some years beforehand I'd found a JSBE cd in the sale in MVC in Winchester (which had always proved very fruitful in the past). I can't even remember which album it was, but it was a fiver and I'd heard the name so figured it was worth a shot. I didn't get the band then and I don't now. So I did something I've rarely ever done - I returned the cd. Part of it was that I wanted my fiver back, but it was mostly because I knew I wouldn't listen to it and thought someone else might get more enjoyment out of it. That Tuesday in Spillers, I guess I thought my musical tastes had progressed to the point where I could enjoy JSBE, but they hadn't. Six years later and they still haven't. I even saw them play at Jeff Mangum's ATP but they either made no impression or I was too tired to remember (they played at 1.30am) because I have no memory of it. They can't all be winners I suppose.

Format: 12"

Tracks: 18

Cost: £10.50 new

Bought: Spillers Records

When: 29/04/08

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

The World is a Beautiful Place and I am No Longer Afraid to Die - Whenever, If Ever

The end is usually a bad place to start, but here I can't help myself. Getting Sodas couldn't be more perfect as a closer to Whenever, If Ever. I still remember the first time I heard the album and being left amazed at the end. I immediately played the whole album over again in the hope I could repeat the enjoyment. A closer should make you come away from an album feeling triumphant and like you've just listened to something special, and that's exactly the feeling that Getting Sodas cements for me. Everything comes together perfectly in that song and the build up leads to such a wonderful, explosive conclusion. It feels like everything, musically and thematically, was just a build-up for this moment.

Or at least that's what I took form it. Before Whenever, If Ever, I'd heard a few TWIABP songs here and there (a band whose name is so long even the acronym gets abbreviated) and enjoyed them. However, similarly to how I feel about a lot of Low songs, I felt the grand build-ups stopped too soon and I wanted them to go further. For me, Getting Sodas is to TWIABP what Nothing But Heart is to Low. Both are songs that I longed for, I never want to end but never fail to put a huge smile on my face.

The timing of this post seems appropriate too. Whenever, If Ever appeared on the internet in a slightly un-momentous way just before its release and Topshelf announced a stream on Bandcamp. I was just about to start my first job after graduating and decided to give the album a play one afternoon. A few weeks into my new job I played the album a few more times in my headphones when the office was a bit quiet and, for a while, it was my go-to streaming album at work. In October I finally saw the band at Fest and was suitably blown away by their live show. I bought all their EPs and received the LP for Christmas. I placed the album at number 2 in my albums of the year (it was a close fight between TWIABP, RVIVR and Restorations). Two days before I left the job I got last summer I was lucky enough to catch the band play in Banquet Records and The Fighting Cocks in the same evening. Then I left my job, moved to Oxford and started a new adventure. TWIABP, and this record, really covered that period of my life very neatly. I'll still enjoy it in the future I'm sure, but it's connected to that period of my life in so many ways it feels like a part of it.

So what of the rest of the record? It's all pretty good. After a gentle intro, Heartbeat in the Brain really kicks things off and Picture of Tree... and Gig Life are all excellent. And of course it ends on Getting Sodas, putting this incredible cap on those exciting moments that have just passed. The album feels short but there's so much crammed in. As for the pressing, I'm inclined to say that its the clear vinyl from the first pressing but it's hard to tell for sure. It looks pretty nice either way.

Format: 12", picture sleeve

Tracks: 10

Cost: free, new

Bought: Gift

When: 25/12/13

Colour: Clear

Etching: none

mp3s: Download code

Iron & Wine - Woman King

The first time I ever heard Iron & Wine was on his incredible cover of Such Great Heights by The Postal Service. I can tell you exactly where I was when that graced my ears - sat in the ANU campus theatre waiting for the Burton and Garran Hall annual theatre production to start. I have no memory of what the play was about in the slightest, but I do distinctly remember hearing Iron & Wine beforehand. I knew the original and a friend told me it was Iron & Wine singing. It was playing loud enough that it drowned out most of the pre-show chatter and in my memories everyone else was sat there in as much awe as I was. It was pretty lovely.

Two and half years later, I finally bought an Iron & Wine cd. The name had come up a bunch of times in the time between and I was frequently being recommended them. My friend Aled from work was adamant I should watch them at the Explosion in the Sky-curated All Tomorrow's Parties, but I'm pretty sure they clashed with someone else I wanted to see. When Virgin Megastore went into liquidation, the closing down sale was quite an event with hundreds of cds going for dirt-cheap. You had to rummage through boxes and boxes of shit to find anything good, but there were some real treats hidden in there. Amongst the many cds I bought over a period of a few days was Woman King by Iron & Wine. Only six songs but only £3, so worth a shot I figured.

To this day, Woman King remains my favourite Iron & Wine release. The other albums haven't done so much for me, but these six songs are perfect. The vocals float beautifully over the gentle guitar and the other instruments are superbly sparse. Highlights are Jezebel, My Lady's House and Evening on the Ground (the line "we were born to fuck each other / one way or another" always makes me smile). I found this copy in Gainesville the day after Fest last year and decided for $10 I definitely needed it on vinyl. There's nothing particularly noteworthy about the vinyl release, other than the six incredible songs cut into it.

Format: 12", a4 insert
Tracks: 6
Cost: £6.30 new
Bought: Hear Again Music, Gainesville
When: 04/11/13
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Rocket From the Crypt - Live From Camp X-Ray

Have you ever seen a more appropriately coloured vinyl than this? Squint your eyes and those black streaks on the vinyl look exactly like the forks on the cover. I heard this one was getting a reissue for Record Store Day 2013 and figured it would be a nice one to have. Sadly, very few copies made it across the Atlantic and I went without. When pictures of that brilliant splatter vinyl started appearing on the internet I was especially gutted.

Fast forward to December 2013 and Rocket From the Crypt were playing their first London show since their reunion and I was very excited to be going. I managed to get into RFTC after they broke up and had to made do with the live DVD of their last show all those years. Looking back at festival line-ups from my youth, they'd played a bunch of times but I'd consistently missed them (meaning that December show would also make up for some bad choices in the past). Anyway, the show was incredible and I had an awesome time. At the merch stall, as well as their tour-only 7" (which I'll write about another time) they had copies of Live From Camp X-Ray and Group Sounds on the same coloured vinyl as had appeared on RSD. I don't know whether these are identical to the RSD version, extra stock or further represses but I jumped at the chance to get them. I only had enough cash for one, so I opted for Camp X-Ray; it's partly for the reasons beneath but partly for that incredible coloured vinyl.

Live From Camp X-Ray was my first RFTC album (in a shockingly late 2007). I was in Paris just after new year and stumbled into the giant Virgin Megastore on the day their January sale was starting. The bargains were ridiculous - boxes on cds and records everywhere and pretty much everything was 5€ (about £3.35 at the time). I left with 15 cds and records that day. I hadn't planned to go record shopping but, as is often the case, the record shopping found me. One of those cds was Camp X-Ray. I enjoyed the album and found myself wishing I hadn't taken so long to get into RFTC. Better late than never. Highlights are I'm Not Invisible, I Wanna Know What I Wanna Know and Too Many Balls (even if the way the song ends always bothered me). Annoyingly, there's a loud pop during Bring Us Bullets and I'm not sure if that's on every copy or just mine. Still, it's nice to have this one on vinyl, even more-so such a well-coloured vinyl.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 10
Cost: £15 new
Bought: gig
When: 06/12/13
Colour: Transparent orange with black and white splatter
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Tool - Opiate

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

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

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

Minor Threat - Minor Threat

I think we all have a copy of this record. It almost reminds me of that scene in Wayne's World 2 when Cassandra shows Wayne a copy of Frampton Comes Alive - "Exqueese me? Have I seen this one before? Frampton Comes Alive? Everybody in the world has Frampton Comes Alive. If you lived in the suburbs you were issued it. It came in the mail with samples of Tide". Maybe not quite, but as hardcore records goes, it's pretty much standard-issue.

The first time I heard Minor Threat was in the form of Silverchair covering Minor Threat as the b-side to some Freak Show-era single. I knew the name somehow but I enjoyed what I heard. As a statement about the band, that minute and a half song summed everything up pretty well. Except people did pay "mind" to them, and 30 years later they still are doing so. I love how the song almost downplays their role, especially looking back on it now. A year and a bit later, I picked up the First Demo Tape cd in my local HMV and had the chance to properly listen to Minor Threat by the way of eight cheaply recorded songs. It was pretty exciting stuff back then. A year or so after that, I found this copy of Minor Threat for £5 in Replay Records in Bristol (along with this copy of Screaming Life by Soundgarden). Even though I had most of the songs, I wanted to have them on vinyl and I was keen to hear a few more. Plus, I knew it was a classic before I even played it.

What's to say about the songs? Well, almost certainly nothing that hasn't been said before. Straight Edge is probably the simplest answer to the question "what does straight edge mean?", I Don't Wanna Hear It and Small Man, Big Mouth are classics of the genre. Despite knowing full well the story behind Guilty of Being White and that Minor Threat aren't in the slightest bit racist, I still can't help but feel a little awkward listening to it. I love Steppin' Stone for it's beat and terrible recording. They're not easy-listening songs, and probably sound horrible to people who don't enjoy heavy music, but I wish everyone could appreciate them for at least the piece of history that they are.

To finish I should mention In My Eyes, which always struck me the hardest out of all the songs here. When Ian sings (or screams) "What the fuck have you done?" I can't help but feel that he's aiming that sentence directly at me and I'm left thinking "well, what the fuck have I done?". It's even more soul-destroying coming from a cornerstone of the DIY punk world. I can't be the only one either. I wonder how many people he's broken over the last 30 years with just that one line? I love that a record can have that effect.

Format: 12", 11x22" insert
Tracks: 12
Cost: £5 second hand
Bought: Replay Records, Bristol
When: 10/12/04
Colour: Black
Etching: Side A: "Down and out, up and over..." Side B: "Over and over, over and out"
mp3s: no

Far - Tin Cans With Strings to You

The ten-year anniversary of the first time I heard Far was few months ago; on the 3rd of November 2003 I bought a copy of Tin Cans With Strings to You on cd having pretty much no knowledge of the band at all. I'd been in Preston a few days beforehand to see if the record shops were any better than the ones in Lancaster and noticed a couple of albums by Far in the local HMV (it was also on that trip I got a Fu Manchu record and the best of Bad Brains). I'd heard the name and read about Water & Solutions in a Kerrang! magazine list but that was the extent of my knowledge. I went home and re-read the piece on them and figured I should give them a chance. The next time I went into HMV in Lancaster I saw the cds and decided to pick up Tin Cans. I don't know why I chose that album, but I've always found it to be my favourite of the two major-label Far albums, so I'm glad I did. The first time I saw Jonah I had him sign the booklet of Tin Cans since it was my favourite if his various band's releases at the time (Hugh was getting his copy of Thriller signed and I, unusually, felt like getting something signed too).

The Kerrang! article I mentioned was a list of the Top Ten Post-Hardcore/Emo Albums and had Water & Solutions at number 3. The description didn't really give me much warning that Far would be as heavy as they were (although Tin Cans is a much heavier album in my opinion, take the outro to In the Aisle, Yelling for example), but I was very happy with the music that came out of my speakers on that day ten and a bit years ago. It was 2003 and "emo" was already becoming a dirty word, but there was nothing about Far that made me think they were an emo band. I swear Job's Eyes was one of the darkest songs I'd heard in years and Love, American Style was huge too. A couple of years ago I saw Jonah play an acoustic version of Joining the Circus and it made me love that song even more - the vocals were even more haunting live. (Incidently, Far wasn't the first time I'd heard any of the bands Jonah had been involved with. About 18 months beforehand I'd bought the Rival Schools and Onelinedrawing split, but it would actually be a while after that I finally made the connection between the two bands.)

I heard that SRC was re-pressing Tin Cans and Water & Solutions and figured I pick up copies. I had hopes of finding them when I was in America for Fest, but to my luck (and my bank account's bad luck) SRC had a stall at registration for me to drawl over. The records weren't the cheapest I'd get that weekend, but they were all ones I really wanted in my collection and still cheaper than getting posted over, so I bought a bunch. I didn't buy Water & Solutions because it was still a few days until payday and I needed to save some money for food. I may live to regret that; as much as I've always loved Tin Cans more, Water & Solutions is still an excellent record and one I'd love to have in my collection. I had a nice chat with the guy from SRC running the stall about Hum and the fact that he was slowly re-issuing all my most prized possessions (see this, this, this and this) and came away with an armful of vinyl. The reissue is lovely - it sounds great and there's a great attention to detail, with the cd booklet pictures spread across an insert. The colour on the cover looks a little too dark to me, but I'm far from an expert when it comes to colour, so it's probably fine.

I was pretty excited when I heard that this record was being re-pressed and now I have it in my hands, I'm even more excited. There have been a few times when I've seen Jonah comment on the fact that "not many people knew about Far". I was always surprised by that statement, even more-so knowing how many other people were excited about this LP.

Format: double 12", gatefold sleeve, insert
Tracks: 12
Cost: £15.75 new
Bought: Fest registration, Tampa
When: 29/10/13
Colour: Yellow
Etching: none
mp3s: no