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. 

BACK ON THE MAP!

Here is my old copy of Slapshot's debut "Back on the Map". Some say this is Slapshot's best release. I think I prefer "Step on It", but this is a total classic too. I think Slapshot is criminally underrated. I remember when I was younger not really digging Slapshot that much, but as I have grown older they have become one of my favorite bands. It's a great mix of Boston hardcore with a nice Oi! flavor in there. You just can't fuck with Slapshot.

I love that funky old 80's Taang! logo. I'm not sure how many of these were pressed or if there was any color press, but I'm pretty sure this is an original pressing. I'm listening to this right now and it gets me so pumped up I want to start doing push ups or something.

Here's one of my favorites; "Addiction". It is a bit slower than the other tracks and has a nice Oi! sing along flavor to it. 

Deptartment of Youth Sevices

The Brotherhood LP by DYS is my favorite from the band and most people would agree with that statement. True Boston hardcore before they went for a more metal/crossover sound. This classic LP can easily be argued into anyones "All Time Best Hardcore" album list. Eventually I would like to own the XClaim #4 copy of this, but when I saw that Taang! was reissuing this on red vinyl /500 I was all over it. They are still available at Rev HQ and if you are a fan of old school Boston hardcore then this is a must own. This is one of the best hardcore records ever made, so don't sleep and go pick up a copy on color vinyl for cheap instead of getting raped on Ebay!