RSD 14 Pt. 6: THE BELTONES

It was great to get some of these RSD releases... The UN album, the One Man Army album, and all the others were just sweet bonuses. But for RSD, I had my eye on the prize for one piece of wax... The Beltones "On Deaf Ears". The Beltones are arguably my favorite band and have been one of the major influences on me ever since I was 13 years old. I even chose The Beltones to celebrate my 100th post nearly 2 years ago. This release is an absolute classic. Unfortunately, when it was released in 1998 it was only on CD. It took 15 years to come out on vinyl but the wait was worth it!

I've been lucky enough to catch the Beltones live twice over the last few years, and both times I hounded them to release this on vinyl. I also hounded Mark from TKO Records at the One Voice Fest this summer to release this on vinyl. I was thrilled when I heard they would finally be pressing it for RSD. I like the little story on the lyrics sheet.

For historical reference (because no doubt someone will read this before they pay a bunch of money for one of these on Ebay in a few years...) The TKO Records version (Splatter) only has one sticker and is not shrink wrapped, with the sticker being on the poly sleeve. The black copies are shrink wrapped with two stickers. 

The splatter vinyl is out of /300 and the black is out of /2000. The splatter vinyl is amazingly still available! Considering that old Beltones vinyl goes for big bucks on the bay, I figured these would be long gone. If you don't have a copy, go pick one up and I promise you will not regret it. Without a doubt this will end up being my favorite and most important release of the year, and I'm super thankful it's finally out on vinyl. 

Check out this later 90's live footage of the Beltones playing "My Old Man".

"Another empty bottle thrown over your shoulder, another hazy morn grown another day older, another weekend gone and so are you. And all the bottles collecting up on the shelf are there to ease the pain but it just done help, so now you hate yourself and you hate me too.

Well lookin at you puts a lump in my throat and makes it hard to swallow my beer, there's a reason that it's giving me the fear.  Cuz you're shaking like a leaf and I've seen that shake before my friend. I ain't giving you no shit just understand... You're looking like my old man!"

RSD 14 Pt. 5: Up Front & Autistic Behavior

I am going to admit that I had never heard this record. I have seen the iconic cover, but never owned any copies of it and never took the time to find a download for it or listen to it. Shame on me. I'm glad I got one of the RSD represses of this. Out of /700 on red vinyl and looking sharp. Just what you would expect out of late 80s East Coast youth crew. 

Here is a release of early 80s punk that I have never heard of before Record Store Day, and this was totally an impulse buy. It sounded good enough on youtube after a quick preview to throw in my online shopping cart. I got the version on splatter vinyl which apparently is long gone out, out of /500. They also pressed this again on red and black vinyl on a larger pressing. This is a decent release but it's not exactly blowing me away. 

RSD 14 Pt. 4: Die Kreuzen & Toxic Reasons

I was pretty excited when I heard there would be a repress of Die Kreuzen's first EP from Beer City Records for RSD. "Cows and Beer" is surely a 80s Midwest Hardcore classic that can't be denied. When I saw Sorry State Records post it online the day after RSD, I quickly ordered it without hesitation. While doing some research for this post, I realized there was 5000 of these pressed, with 1000 each on five different colors. That irritates the fuck out of me. 5000 pressed, are you fucking kidding me? That is just way too many pressed. 

It did come with a really cool comic book. This is the third comic book I have now in a release... The others are from Bumpy Knuckles and Cross Examination.

I also threw in the Toxic Reasons seven inches that were Beer City RSD releases. These were slightly more limited at 1000 per release. "War Hero" was the bands first release, recorded in 1980. I must admit I had heard the name but I had never actually heard Toxic Reasons. I did a quick youtube search to hear the song "War Hero" before purchasing, and threw it in the mix without hesitation. Now I'm glad I picked this one up since it seems it sold out pretty quick.

This was recorded in 1981 and is a great release as well. The track "Ghost Town" mixes in some reggae elements, while "Killer" and "Noise Boys" get right back to business. I'm glad I picked these up, I downloaded all the songs and now I've been listening to them quite a bit. Great stuff!

RSD 14 Pt. 3: Taang! Box Set

I was very pleased to see Taang! was doing a box set this year for RSD with their first ten singles. Some of them are fluff (Moving Targets and Oysters, I'm looking at you), but without a doubt a couple very heavy hitters in there. I have never owned any of these of vinyl, so I was glad to add them all in one shot. 

Nice professional sturdy box, it even has some velvet type material on the inside.

Here's the lions share of the box. It also came with a CD with every track from these singles, a great bonus I quickly uploaded onto my itunes. I had mp3s of alot of these, but they weren't as high of quality as the CD is. It sounds like Taang may have remastered some of the tracks because they sound great. 

A very nice booklet, with a couple pages dedicated to each release.

But let's be real, I really wanted this for the Choke trifecta. Negative FX, Last Rights and Slapshot. I love all of these bands and anything Choke has ever done (including Stars and Stripes). 9 out of 10 hardcore kids are going to say the NFX single is the Alpha dog in this pack, but to me Last Rights just can't be beat. I love Last Rights and I wish they released more material. I'm glad to finally have all these on vinyl, but I wish Taang would have done them all on different colors of vinyl. All copies on black vinyl. I would have loved a Negative FX on red, Lemonheads on yellow, Gang Green on  green, you get the picture. Kind of a missed opportunity in my opinion.

#1405 out of 2000. I was also disappointed with the sheer amount pressed. A "limited" box set I think should not have had more than 1000 made. I would have preferred /500 copies. Then it would really feel special. Something tells me that with 2000 made I'll be seeing these floating around in local record stores for years. 

RSD 2014 Pt. 2: One Man Army

One Man Army's "Dead End Stories" was another re issue that I was drooling over for Record Store Day. I have never been fond of One Man Army's later poppy releases but I've loved "Dead End Stories" since it came out. This album has that unique San Francisco late 90's/early 2000's street punk sound similar to Reducers SF and Swingin' Utters. Over the last decade, this album has logged countless hours of listening time to me. I can pretty much recite the lyrics for every track off the top of my head. Every single song on this album is a banger. I think this album never got the "street cred" that it deserves because it was released on Adeline Records, which was started by Green Day's singer of course. If this was released on TKO Records, I think it would have been forever remembered as one of the best street punk albums of all time. 

Either way, I have never owned a copy of this on vinyl so I was really happy to pick this up. As far as I know they only pressed it on red. I'm not sure of the pressing info on this, but I'm assuming it's in the thousands. This wax takes me back to Freshman year of high school all over again!

RSD 14 Pt. 1: UN or U Out

This years Record Store Day was very good to me. I never left the house, and did all of my shopping online. I ended up getting (almost) everything that I wanted, and a few releases I really wanted came out. This was the 2nd most important release for me to get. Above is the limited blue vinyl version of The UN's - UN or U Out album. The UN was a New York rap group fronted by one of my favorite rappers ever Roc Marciano before he went solo. This album is an underground classic and has been pretty much impossible to find since its release in 2004. Fat Beats decided to release this for the 10 year anniversary of this album. When I heard Fat Beats would be releasing this a few months back I was ecstatic. I was even able to grab the limited version on blue vinyl which sold out really fast.  

This is such a cold ass album. Roc Marciano is simply one of the best MC's to ever grace the mic and it's great to hear him early in his career with the UN. If you get a chance to pick this up, do it!

Check out "Ain't No Thing" above. This is true hardcore gutter rap, not for the weak or faint of heart. The second verse from Roc Marci is BRUTAL.

Focused Minds - Straight Edge Overload

A few months back Dogyears Records put out the new Focused Minds "Straight Edge Overload" EP. I don't know what the hell I was thinking not getting it right away. If I remember correctly you could score a test press, a special pre order cover and color on pink /50, and the band color on green out of /100. The most common version was on "mixed color" vinyl out of /250. For some reason, like a dumb ass, I slept on it and didn't order right away. I kind of forgot about it, and when I remembered to go check back all of the limited colors were gone. I was so disheartened that I didn't even want to order the common press out of /250.

When Record Store Day rolled around this year, I had a kind of long disappointing day. I was happy when I came home to see that Focused Minds had posted a special RSD Version of their Straight Edge Overload EP out of /25 with a sweet ass cover. I was all over it, and while I was at it I picked up one of the mixed vinyl pressings out of /250. 

Dog Years did a great job with the layout and this is another great released by Focused Minds. If you are not familiar with them, they are a force to be reckoned with. They'll be putting out their debut LP soon, and I won't make the same mistake twice. When those pre orders go up I'm going to get every color I can. Midwest Straight Edge Lives!

Looking at this picture upsets me because I know I could have had a test press, a pre order cover and a limited "band color" on green of this record. What a dummy. I'm stoked I atleast got the RSD cover, which is hands down the coolest of them all! 

RSD 2013 Pt. 3: Thelonius Skull Crisis

Here are the left overs for my RSD 2013 buys. Here is the Thelonius King 7" by Blu. I wasn't really excited about this one as I haven't been very impressed by Blu's latest releases. However, I didn't even realize that RA The Rugged Man was on this track as well. What a pleasant surprise. In all actually, this single is a serious banger and Rugged Man absolutely murders his verse on it. Out of /700 on black vinyl. Glad I got it! Check out the video for it below:

Next was the Earth Crisis 7". I have never been a big Earth Crisis fan so I guess it's whatever. I'd rather have it then not have it, in case some day I suddenly get into Earth Crisis. Out of /900 on red vinyl. 

I almost didn't get this copy of the Misfits and Lemonheads split. The super tacky cover art really turned me off, but now I feel good about it. I must be honest with you, I have never really even heard of the Lemonheads. I was really impressed with their acoustic cover of this classic track though. 

RECORD STORE DAY 2013 WRAP UP:

I guess now that I look at the pictures of the stuff I got, it doesn't feel like RSD was all that bad. However, the day of was a pretty shitty experience. My frustration levels were off the charts. I essentially waited in the line above at Streetlight Records in San Jose, CA for almost 2 and a half hours by the time I paid and got to my car. RSD has become a big deal and brings every bozo out of the woodwork that never goes to a record store all year long. I would put my paycheck on it that probably 90% of the people in that line don't even own a record player or give a shit about any of the music. I saw flipper after flipper walking out with shit I wanted and it was just so frustrating. Now, I can either not go next year and boycott it, or I can show up hours early like other people do and be patient...

But to me, it is more about the big picture of how big vinyl collecting has become. I made a conscious decision over 10 years ago to buy strictly vinyl. At the time, I could walk into my local record store and find all kinds of great shit all day long for killer prices. Now, the prices on everything are through the fucking roof and it will only get worse. Until the fad ends and all these sheeple move onto something else that is. It just really saddens me that people have to take a good thing like this and turn it into a chance to make a quick twenty bucks. All that being said, my dumb ass will probably be in line at like 6am next record store day. What did you guys pick up or miss out on this year???

RSD 2013 Pt. 2: Liquid Swords Chessboxin'

For this Record Store Day, I was most excited to get Notorious BIG's "Ready to Die" and the GZA's "Liquid Swords" box set. I wasn't able to get Biggie's LP, but Liquid Swords was a great consolation price. Liquid Swords is not only one of the best Wu Tang solo side projects, but one of the best hip hop albums ever recorded. Mention Liquid Swords around any true hip hop head and they'll tell you whats up with it. GZA The Genius drops some serious knowledge over super grimey beats, with almost every song being a classic on this release. 

Here was one of the stickers on the shrink wrap that I unfortunately had to rip off to get to the good stuff. If this was just a regular old LP maybe I would have kept it wrapped, but being that there was an entire chess box inside there is no way I could resist opening it!

As you can see this was a pretty huge box. I won't even be able to put this on my record shelves, I'll have to put it somewhere on display.

This is what it looked like when I first opened it up. Super cool artwork all over this thing!

A very cool sticker set that will surely never be used. 

The cover of the insert booklet. This thing is amazing quality. It's super thick almost like a book more than a record insert. 

The first page, going with the chessbox theme.

The book has a ton of pages and contains all the lyrics as well as really cool artwork all throughout.

This is a 4LP release. It contains the full length on 2 LP's and then the instrumentals on 2 LP's. Hip Hop shit really needs to be on 2LP's. Most of the old hip hop releases were all on one lp, and now everything is pretty much on two because it makes the sound quality so much better with the deep bass lines. 

I was a bit disappointed that it was all on black vinyl. They went so over the top with this release on everything else, I really think it should have been on color vinyl. I think it would have been amazing on light blue or blood red to go with the album art. 

Here it is with the actual chess box in full effect. The chess pieces are very nice quality, they are all wood with the little felt stuff on the bottom of them. I have no idea how to play chess, I just put a few pieces on to give ya'll an idea.

I am really impressed with this release and happy I picked this up. For those of you that aren't that familiar with Wu Tang, you really need to check this out and some of the other Wu side projects. For years there has been a huge argument on what the best Wu solo side project is within the hip hop community. Just search it on google and you'll see page after page of forums with people arguing which is the best. Well, I'm going to give you my top 10 list. 90% of people will agree that OBFCL and Liquid Swords are the top 2 releases, but the big argument is usually about which one is better. In my opinion, here are the top 10 best (in order):

1) Raekwon - Only Built for Cuban Linx

2) GZA - Liquid Swords

3) Ghostface Killa - Iron Man

4) Ghostface Killa - Supreme Clientele

5) Ol Dirty Bastard - Return to the 36 Chambers

6) Inspectah Deck - Uncontrolled Substance

7) Method Man - Tical

8) Masta Killa - No Said Date

9) Raekwon - Immobilarity

10) Killah Priest - Heavy Mental

Check out the video for "Cold World" feat. Inspectah Deck, one of the singles on this album. And yes, this is where the band Cold World got their name from, just so you know...