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

The Cat Empire - Two Shoes

Twelve years ago I spent a month driving through the Australian outback with a group of ten friends. We flew to Darwin, hired three cars and started driving south, all the way to Kangaroo Island, just off the coast, south of Adelaide. It was an incredible experience. I couldn't drive at the time, so made myself useful by bringing along a bunch of mix cds for the journey (it was on that trip that I made a bunch of people fall in love with 57 by Biffy Clyro). After about three weeks, the cds were scratched from being in heavy rotation and even I was beginning to tire of my mixes. Luckily, we were passing through Adelaide where Seb's girlfriend was studying, so she gave us some new music. A short while beforehand she'd mentioned an Australian band that she and Seb had both been enjoying called The Cat Empire. I'd not heard of them, and for a few days, until we got cd in the car, I thought they were called "The Cat On Fire" (clearly confused by Seb and Vio's French accents), a much less pleasant band name. I remember it vividly, driving through the rolling green hills of the south of Australia, pondering the band name, The Cat On Fire.

When we got in the cars to continue south to Kangaroo Island, Vio popped Two Shoes by The Cat Empire in the cd player and I was introduced to the band's music for the first time (and their correct name). I didn't really know what to expect, the couple had a varied music taste, but I enjoyed what I heard. It was upbeat, fun and the perfect music to drive through Australia with the windows down to. They sample from so many genres it's impossible to pin them down, and (mostly) tread the thin line between pop and rock with such enthusiasm you don't mind when they cross over into full-on pop.

A short while after getting back to Canberra after the new term had started, I found a cd copy of Two Shoes in the second-hand cd store in town (along with a Boysetsfire cd, K by Kula Shaker, an album I'd had a strange craving for for a couple of years, and The Acoustic EP by The Early November, the latter of which was $1 and I only found because there was a person in the queue so I had a quick browse of the bargain rack by the counter. They were generally a terrible band (I'd go on to find out) but that EP was brilliant and became a hit among some of my friends that term). It was about £4, which was pretty cheap and I had greatly enjoyed it, so was very pleased to add it to my little collection of cds and records over there.

Popping the cd onto my hifi, I was finally able to listen to it properly - although some might say that the noise of a road-trip and friends chatting over it is the correct way to hear this album. Two Shoes is a solid record - the opening trio set the scene brilliantly, but the songs that make up Side B on this LP release are the gems for me - The Car Song and Two Shoes are amongst the most quintessential Cat Empire songs. The latter has a slower moment of reflection that makes the surprisingly sombre Miserere less out of place (although it never returns to the carnival like Two Shoes does). Miserere is another song I have a huge amount of time for, partly for how different it is, but also for how good it is - the lyrics reach a great intensity whilst the music keeps things calm - it's something I've not seen much of since Dub War's Silencer. Side C features some of the shamelessly upbeat songs (which actually plays out as the weaker part of the album) but The Night That Never End closes it off perfectly (with it's miniature waltz-break), along with the "hidden track" 1001.

A few years ago I saw that the band were releasing all their albums on vinyl and I thought to myself it'd be pretty neat to have them all on vinyl. On top of that, there was a boxset version of all of them that I spent a while eyeing up on the internet. The postage from Australia was obviously off-putting and it eventually disappeared from the website (either sold out or never made). I didn't jump on it because I only had their first two albums when I was in Australia and hadn't bought any more of them since returning (but had liked what I heard of So Many Nights from the live album). I wasn't sure if they were a band I still cared deeply about or whether it was just nostalgia; in the latter case, I only really needed the first two. I was pretty pleased then, three or four years later, I found the individual reissues in my local record shop. I bought both the first two on the spot.

In the years since, The Cat Empire have become a go-to band when my wife and I have people over for dinner - I'm in my thirties now, so it's fine to admit that. It's in that rare cross-section of music that we both enjoy, so they've had something of a resurgence for me. It's nice, because every time (without fail) I'm taken back to those times cruising through the Australian countryside.

Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeves
Tracks: 11
Cost: £21 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 07/11/16
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Hot Water Music - Exister

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

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

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


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

Chuck Ragan - Live at Skaters' Palace

Chuck Ragan seems to have slowed down his relentless output in the last couple of years. Between 2007 and 2014 he was playing solo shows constantly, and cranking out albums at a pace that was hard to keep up with. We saw him whenever we could, and found ourselves singing along in increasingly large venues. In the last three years, he's only released one studio album (which is a perfectly normal cadence for any other musician) and I can't think when the last time he toured was.

Luckily, for every studio album of his I have, I also have a live album (I'm on five of each, not counting the split album with Austin Lucas, but including the Daytrotter 10"), which means I can get some of the Chuck Ragan live experience whenever I want. Live at Skaters' Palace is the most recent of the live albums, and probably the one I know the least well; it doesn't include mp3s and I tend to go for Chuck Plays Frankfurt when I want to hear him live, because I'm not sure I'll ever tire of hearing it.

The setlist here is strong, but some of the later songs never struck me as hard, and I find too much peddle-steel guitar a bit grating. Most of the classics are there though - it finishes with the brilliant duo of The Boat and California Burritos, and has excellent versions of Rotterdam and For Broken Ears. If I were there, I'd have been shouting for Glory and Cursing Concrete but I have both of those on other live albums (Daytrotter and Frankfurt, respectively), so I can live with them not being here.

The unexpected highlight of this set is undoubtably Drag My Body, a Hot Water Music song from their 2012 album, Exister. One of the last times I saw Chuck was an afternoon in-store in Banquet Records that I was very pleased to be able to go to (this was whilst I was still finishing up my thesis). It was a short set (and my request for Cursing Concrete wasn't heard) but he played brilliantly. It was great to see him play entirely solo again, as that was something I hadn't been treated to for a good few years. The unexpected highlight of that set was also Drag My Body, so I was happy to have a Chuck-solo recording of it - I remember being floored by what a great song it was that afternoon in Banquet, and that's true of this version too; it's an incredible song and I recommend either version of it thoroughly. It works so well as a solo song that I wonder if Chuck wrote it with that intention. The only other HWM song he often plays live is "God Deciding", which doesn't translate anywhere near as obviously - whenever I hear either version it takes me a moment to remember the other version.

Keen to keep my collection of Chuck Ragan albums reasonably up-to-date, I ordered this from Uncle-M records in Germany shortly after it came out and was able to get the blue vinyl version (which now seems to sell for quite a lot on Discogs). I remember it arriving, because we had my friend Vicky staying with us for a couple of weeks, who commented on what a nice colour the vinyl was. At the time I remember thinking that £22 was a lot for an album (including postage from Germany!), but clearly things have changed a lot in those few years since.

Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve, insert
Tracks: 17
Cost: £22
Bought: Uncle-M Records website
When: 03/02/13
Colour: Light blue
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Jeff Buckley - Grace

There were a number of years when my record collection was spread across two houses - mine and my parents'. I was moving every year (into increasingly small rooms in London) and it wasn't practical to have them all with me. One trip back home, I was flicking through the LPs I'd left there and stumbled across Grace by Jeff Buckley, a record I had no memory of buying. It didn't take long to realise I bought it during the Tuesday-record-from-Spillers year, but I was pretty shocked that I'd forgotten that I owned a copy of it.

My relationship with Grace goes far further back, back to my first year of college. My local record shop had just started stocking vinyl for the first time, in the form of 180-gram reissues of "classic" albums. I was browsing them with my friend Guy, who got very excited over a copy of Jeff Buckley's Grace, an album and artist I'd never even heard of (my musical education at that point came from Kerrang!, so I'd never heard of Tim Buckley either). He told me it was a classic and insisted on lending me his copy. I played it and really didn't get the fuss. Whilst I thought I was open to many types of rock music at the time, it was very different to most of what I listening to and I remember being distinctly under-whelmed.

A short while later, Guy and I were at our friend Tom's house playing poker and Jeff came up again. Tom insisted on playing the album whilst we played (people like to insist on listening to Jeff Buckley it seems) and it sounded better. In particular, Eternal Life sounded excellent and I enjoyed the whole album more than I had the first time. Sometimes you just need the right time and place. In the second year of university I eventually bought a copy on cd, having spent two years hearing my housemate Matt routinely tell me how great it was. Very slowly realising that the album was indeed a "classic", I bought the LP three years later, on a Tuesday with few other records I fancied in Spillers.

So I'm not an evangelical Jeff Buckley fan (like so many of my friends), but I am a fan. A lot of the songs have heavier moments than I remember and build to some real highs. Of course, everyone knows and loves Hallelujah, which is a highlight. The slower moments like Lilac Wine and Corpus Christi Carol still do less for me, but I can still appreciate them for Jeff's great voice. At times, I'd be tempted to say it's a bit over-produced - there are just these moments every now and again that don't add much to the song and the album could easily live without - but it's a very small criticism. The other small complaint is that the LP doesn't include the bonus track on the cd that I have come to love, Forget Her - it's a great song, far better than you'd usually expect for a song tacked onto the end of an album.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 10
Cost: £8 new
Bought: Spillers Records, Kingston
When: 04/07/08
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

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