The Rough Kids

I bought this release by Los Angeles' "The Rough Kids" as an afterthought basically with one of my recent orders. The band name and description caught my attention so I said why not, throw that bad boy in there. To my surprise, this release has turned out to be arguably my most listened to release of the year so far. I am totally addicted and hooked on it. Sometimes I just need to mix it up a little after all the hardcore and rap, and this is a breathe of fresh air for me. It is snooty '77 style punk that is catchy as fuck. The vocals are great, the music is great and some of the guitar licks will kick your ass. But why take my word for it, you can download the whole album for free from their bandcamp!

I highly recommend you go download this, I don't think anyone will be disappointed no matter what style of music you're into. I am not to sure when this came out or the pressing info on it, if someone wants to clarify please do. 

Sai Nam - Crush

RWHAF not only tipped me off about the Cro-Mags "Alpha Omega" reissue, but they also tipped me off about the Sai Nam - Crush LP on limited vinyl. I pretty much ignored this release when it came out because of a silly band name, shitty cover, and the fact that Reaper never put it out on vinyl and only released it on CD. Kind of foolish of me, because after listening to this is actually a very good release. The band is fronted by the singer of Trapped Under Ice, so it is obviously going to sound very similar to TUI. Dare I say, I think I prefer this over any of the TUI stuff? The band also has members of Breakdown, Crown of Thornz, and All Out War. Demons RunAmok, the European label that also released the Alpha Omega LP recently, did a pretty limited pressing with /100 on white available to those of us in the states via RevHQ. Wouldn't you know, there are some still available? I recommend this release and if you are going to do any Rev orders, throw a copy of this in before it's too late!

86 Mentality Damaged City Press

For those of you that were lucky enough to go to the Damaged City fest, I am extremely jealous. It was probably the best festival this year, maybe even better than Black n Blue in New York. I have been anxiously waiting for Grave Mistake to release 86 Mentality's collection "Nowhere Fast" on vinyl for well over a year now. I feel extremely lucky that someone was looking out for me with some of these Damaged City pressings, and this is the crown jewel of them all. 86 Mentality is one of my favorite bands ever, yes ever, and in my opinion the best band to come out in the 2000's. Their signature style of Oi/Hardcore is becoming super popular now with the rise of bands like Boston Strangler, Violent Reaction, Vacant State, Violent Future, and the list goes on... I know that kind of style has been around for years with bands like Life's Blood and Slapshot, but to me 86 Mentality took it to a whole new level. 

I was lucky enough to see 86 Mentality in the Bay Area when they came out here in 2007. They played two shows, one at the Burnt Ramen in Richmond and one at the Gilman in Berkeley. The Burnt Ramen show (as usual) was off the fucking hook. For those of you straight edgers, you would probably hate the Burnt Ramen. It is almost like something out of a movie, a little shitty warehouse in the middle of the ghetto. Sometimes local crackheads will sneak in to smoke some crack and check out a few bands. Every where you look there are beers flying around and cigarette smoke filling the air. Hearing gun shots pop off in the surrounding neighborhood or seeing fights during most the shows there is nothing out of the usual. Needless to say, it makes for quite a punk show atmosphere, and has made the Burnt Ramen one of the most legendary and wild venues on the West Coast. 

Anyways, seeing 86 Mentality at the Burnt Ramen is still one of the most memorable shows I have been to in my entire life. I wish I could have video footage of it. 86 Mentality played and alot of the Bay Area kids had no idea who they were, but after their intro and "Life Trap", the entire place erupted and was going insane. The next day they played at the Gilman and I was all hungover, and the show just kind of sucked compared to the Ramen show. The Gilman has a shit load of rules and security, and that show just couldn't get close to the energy and excitement of that classic Burnt Ramen show. I'm sure if you asked one of the members of this band about playing at the Burnt Ramen, they would tell you the same thing. 

I cannot wait for the regular pressing of this to come out, and I'll make sure to buy it quick because I'm sure whatever color it is pressed on will sell out fast. This version was made strictly for the festival and is on screen pressed card stock, hand numbered #45/175. 

A cool little insert that came with the release, that kind of tells their story a little bit. Check out the footage from Damaged City fest below where they played a surprise reunion set:

Red and Rugged

On 3/7/12 I posted only my third blog post onto this here blog. That post happened to be a post about R.A. The Rugged Man. That right there should show you that R.A. is one of my favorite rappers of all time.  In 2009, R.A. released this compilation of a bunch of unreleased songs or songs he had done with other rappers. This compilation has some of his early 90's work all the way up to some 2009 stuff. This thing has so many classics on it that it's silly. He has one of his first songs ever, Cunt renaissance with Notorious BIG, tracks with Mobb Deep, Kool G Rap, and alot more. He also has his track with Jedi Mind Tricks named "Uncommon Valor" which many hip hop aficionados claim to be one of the best verses in recent years. RA's verse on that track actually won several awards in 2006 for Verse of the Year in different hip hop magazines and websites. 

In 2009 I don't even think they released this on vinyl, and if they did I never heard about it or saw it anywhere. Anyways, when I heard they were going to put it out on vinyl this year with some limited copies on red vinyl, I was all over that shit. 

Apparently everyone is trying to kill poor R.A. I love the artwork on this album.

Concrete shoes baby! The theme continues. So far this year, R.A.'s new album "Legends Never Die" is  running off with my "Album of the Year" award. I don't know if any album, hardcore, punk, rap whatever can beat it. Check out one of my favorite tracks from this release, "Supa" below:

Whether you like rap or not, you cannot deny this man's skill. Rugged Man was even one of Biggie Smalls favorites. 

MEGA MINDSET!

After record store day, Mindset put up their RSD version of Leave No Doubt limited out of /100 on their big cartel store. They announced it a few days before on facebook and set the specific time. I was at work that day, so I set an alarm and basically went on break to go sit by my phone for them to post it. They ended up posting it almost 20 minutes later, and I sat there for 20 minutes hitting "refresh" every 2 seconds on my phone. That was alot of work, but luckily I snagged one because these all sold out in just a few minutes. By the time I added it to my cart, paid for it, and then returned to the page to see if any were left they were already sold out. Couldn't have been more than 60 seconds.

Hand numbered #57 / 100. Cats rule.

It was supposed to be on purple, but mine looks almost identical to my blue copy. They should have named it "barely purple". My guess is that these were meant to be blue copies but some of them got mixed a little different and came out different, so they decided to make a special cover for them.

I posted all my pre order copies of this album with a more in depth review when it came out which you can see here. However, back in March I was able to see Mindset live on their California tour at the Gilman and score a copy of Leave No Doubt on white /100. As far as I know, so far only one of these has made it to ebay so far and it went for a pretty penny. Since these all sold on tour and never made it online for sale, time will tell if this becomes one of the more elusive copies to find of this album (even more so than the RSD pressing that is). 

Then, in April I saw React! was selling left overs of their Euro tour press on Clear vinyl out of /300. I had to snag one of them as well. 

Literally about a week before I ordered their RSD copy on purple, I took a group picture of what I thought would be the end of my Leave No Doubt collection, which is all "regular" pressings (no test pressings, record releases, special covers, etc). This is nowhere near the behemoth collection that Mike has got going on, but I am pretty happy with mine. Now I feel bad about being too lazy to drag all these records out again to take a picture with the RSD purple copy, but whatever. 

Pressing info: There have been multiple versions of the pressing info released, but it goes something like this:

Purple (RSD Cover) = /100

White (Cali Tour Press) = /100

Blue Smoke (Pre Order) = /200 or /250. (React has said both numbers.)

Clear (Euro Tour Press) = /250 or /300. (React has said both numbers.)

Red Smoke (Pre Order) = /400

Black = /1000.

If someone from React would like to clarify once and for all the pressing numbers on this in the comments, please do so! :)

Clearly, it's not Age of Quarrel...

A few weeks back while reading RWHAF blog, a reissue of the Cro-Mags "Alpha Omega" LP caught my eye. Now, we all know that nothing compares to Age of Quarrel. I have heard some half hearted arguments that AOQ is not their best stuff, and all this is baloney. My girlfriend happens to like this record more than Age of Quarrel, but she is into metal and Slayer and all that crap. I am sorry if I am offending ya'll, but as clearly labeled at the top of this blog this is a hardcore, hip hop, punk and Oi! blog... I am not down with very much metal, so this release has always been just to metal for me. I still enjoy this album though... (Eyes of Tomorrow & See the Signs gets me hype as fuck).

Enough griping, this is still Cro-Mags were talking about on limited vinyl. The clear was limited to /100 and exclusive to Revelation, /100 red were exclusive to Green Hell Records, and /100 blue and /200 black exclusive to Demons Run Amok Records.  Since the other labels are European, I was more than happy to scoop a limited copy from Rev. I'm glad I got on it right away, because the Rev copies sold out super quick. If RWHAF hadn't tipped me off, I would have missed out on this. Thanks bro!

 Holy crap dudes... Metal as fuck. That is a funny ass picture, I love Harley's hair and JJ's glasses. Is Harley wearing a shemagh? Sweet!

Labels behaving badly! (Pt. 3)

Mike posting this nice piece about receiving the above record yesterday sparked me to finally put up my impressions of my experience. Mike is a really nice and patient guy, and I'm glad it worked out for him. I think that I am wound a little bit more tight than Mike is, so I am still fucking furious with Camp records about this release.

Like Mike, I ordered my copy well over a year ago after seeing Mindset post something about this new up and coming band that is going to be the shit. Ok cool, I figure I will check them out and scoop some limited vinyl. No problem. Months and months go by, emails don't get responded to, false promises come out on facebook that they are going to release the record over and over again and it never comes out. I went to paypal and tried to get my money back, but too much time had passed. I sent emails to the label that never got replied to asking for a refund, and I never got any responses. I pretty much gave up. I figured it was Flatspot Records all over again. 

Finally about a month ago I got a package in the mail with the records I ordered. It had some stupid ass letter saying I was awesome for waiting for so long or something along those lines. Man, Fuck you. Don't fuck with me, don't fuck with my records. Those are two things you don't want to do. And then send me some corn ball shit to boot? You should have atleast added some extra free shit. 

What sucks is this is a really good release and it will probably be worth a lot of money soon. It is the limited version on /100, with /500 also being pressed on black. Caught in a Crowd will be having a record come out on React records soon. Hopefully they will get it to me sooner than Camp did. 

I also picked up Camp's "More Than A Piece of Mind" comp, which features some pretty good bands. This is on "solid yellow" (but it's really just orange) out of /100. These are still available, but I would not recommend ever buying anything directly from Camp unless you are a glutton for punishment. 

And as with all "Labels Behaving Badly" posts, check out another episode of People Behaving Badly from my main man Stanley Roberts:

Only Built 4 Cuban Linx

Recently a color repress came out of one of my all time favorite albums (of any genre), "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx" by Raekwon the Chef. I have never owned this on vinyl and I have been jamming this album hard since I was about 12 years old, so I was thrilled when I saw this while shopping around on Fat beats. 

As I said in my Liquid Swords post, this is the best of all the Wu Tang Clan solo projects and in my opinion is better than anything Wu Tang put out as a group (yes, including 36 Chambers...). I know a majority of the people that follow my blog are into hardcore and punk rock, but if you haven't heard this album then you are seriously missing out. This is one of the most influential and classic rap albums ever made, and there's really nothing else I can say about it. From top to bottom some of the hardest lyrics and beats to ever make their way on wax. There is no happy "in the club" bullshit anywhere to be seen on this. It is dark as fuck. You will not hear any of these songs being played out of a strip club, these are more tracks you would hear bumping out of a '89 Cutlass about to do a drive by. Comparing this to mainstream rap is like comparing Negative Approach to Nickelback... Get the fuck outta here!

I got the limited edition on a beautiful purple wax. I put it up to the light to give you an idea, it really looks great. Sadly, I had to damage the purple tape sticker to get the record out, but I can live with that.

Check out some of these old Raekwon videos from this album. So sick!!!

"Incarcerated Scarfaces"

"Ice Cream"