Friday Freebies

Free samplers are the name of the game today.

Quote Unquote Records has posted their 2009 sampler. It’s got stuff from upcoming releases: Bomb the Music Industry‘s Scrambles, Let Me Crazy‘s Virgin Metal, O Pioneers!!!‘s Neon Creeps, as well as stuff from Laura Stevenson and Shinobu. They were doing this whole “pay what you want” thing way before Radiohead and Trent Reznor, so support them and their awesome releases so they keep their website running and have all this stuff available.
Download the 2009 Quote Unquote Records sampler.

Suburban Home Records has also posted a sampler of their stuff. It’s called “2008 was a great year, 2009 will be better” and just smokes. Stuff from pretty much everything they released in ’08, as well as sneak peaks at some of their forthcoming releases for this year. Tim Barry (who’s playing Lawrence in March!), the Takers, Joey Cape, and 27 other artists. They actually do this for a living, so help Virgil and the crew out. The longer they keep going, the longer we’ll keep hearing the great music they put out. This is to say nothing of the crack-like addictive nature of Vinyl Collective, who I’m sure I’ve plugged far too many times here.
Download “2008 was a great year, 2009 will be better”.”

Do your shopping early

Want to show that punk rocker in your life how much you care for them this holiday season? Two labels are having sales right now, and they’re both pretty insane as far as deals go. Hell, I’m tempted to just tell the wife what I’m buying, and have her sign her name to a card. Really, it’d probably be for the best, all around.

* Bridge 9 is having a monster of a sale in their store that ends TODAY:

*All CDs are $3, 6, or $9!
* Tons of T-Shirts $3, 6 and $9!
*Limited Vinyl is on sale!
*$15 and $20 hoodies

In these tough economic times, we know people need all the help they can get. And for us, we wanted to give you the chance to save as much as you can.

Going with the theme of the election, we need change in our webstore. For one week only, we have a massive sale going. We found some gems lurking in the warehouse, such as Panic “Dying For It” hoodies that we’re trying to say goodbye to-and we have shirts from DBD, H2O, Crime In Stereo, Have Heart, and just about every band-we love them-but want to see them replaced with new, better designs. We’ve also got some classics in all sizes and if you’re a YL, XL, or XXL.

LITERALLY EVERY CD WE HAVE IN STOCK IS ON SALE-AMERICAN NIGHTMARE for $3, Champion for $6, all 2008 releases for $9.

I feel like a car salesman.

We also have FREE SHIPPING for individuals who spend more than $50 in the USA and more than $75 worldwide.

Use the coupon code SHIPUS for Americans
Use the coupon code SHIPWORLD for Worldwide shipping.

* All Sailor’s Grave Records and Thorp Records releases are on sale through the end of the year. Two labels, one store – save on shipping. Full-lengths are $5.99, EPs are $4.99. They did this sale last year, too. Always a good way to pick up quality tunes cheap. Check out a tune by skatepunks My Revenge below for a taste of the goodness of which you can partake.

My Revenge – “Sing Now While You Have a Song” (from Strength Through Nonviolence)

Too many choices

Record companies: please, please, please stop it with the variants. There’s not a day that I visit the Pop Punk Bored that someone isn’t dealing with some form of color variant regarding some record. Color variants, different colors, limited pressings… just fucking stop it, all right?

The extreme end of this phenomenon is courtesy of those fine gents in Less Than Jake. There is currently an auction on eBay for the Ultimate Less Than Jake vinyl collection. You just have to click and take a look at it for yourself. The number of color / cover variants is staggering.

And this is sort of a prime example as to why I have such a problem with limited edition vinyl: I don’t own some of these records. Simple as that. The idea of pressing 500 copies of a record? I understand that. You don’t want to press 1,000 and have 600 sitting in your warehouse for five years. That makes sense. But if you press 500, and make 100 on blue, 100 on red, 100 on clear, 100 on black, and 100 on gold, you’re going to end up with 100 vinyl geeks who want all five, as opposed to 500 people who just want to own the fucking record.

You press 500 on red and it sells out? Fucking repress it. You want to do another color to differentiate? That makes sense. I can get behind the logic there (see here for a good example). What I don’t understand is pressing limited amounts, never repressing, and never putting out a singles collection. That seems to me to be a slap in the face to your fans. In this day and age of Internet and eBay and collector scum, there are going to be people who buy records simply to flip them, like folks did with baseball cards and comic books in the ’90s. I’d prefer this not to end up like the ’90s, with shops and companies going under from this sense of “gotta catch ’em all.” If Matador wasn’t doing a singles collection after shit like this, I’d probably be forced to make threatening phone calls once a day until the police showed up.

What it all boils down to is this: you make a record, make sure people can get it. Limited quanities build a buzz, and get people excited, but those of us who don’t have two hours a day to commit to crate digging, online searching, and trading on various forums would like to be able to walk into a store, buy a record, and bring it home to give it a spin. Compromise: do your limited press of 500 on clear red splatter, and then just keep that fucker in print from now until the end of time on good ol’ black – best of both worlds.

* Please notice I didn’t name names, for the most part – this is because I love the record companies that do this crazy shit, even though they do this crazy shit.

Jay Reatard – “See/Saw” (from Single #1)

Lessons learned

Well, I learned a valuable lesson the other day. I went to Warped Tour a while back, as you may recall. Had a great time, shot some good photos, met some folks, hung out with friends, and managed to find a couple of good deals on records. Well, those “good deals” on records have come back to haunt me. One deal, specifically.

You ever look back on something and realize with crystaline clarity what a bad choice you made? Yeah, this was one of those times. I’d been wandering around, and it was nearing the end of the day. While waiting for the Architects to play their set, I happened upon the Bridge 9 booth.

I’m a fan of the label. They put out the new H2O record Nothing to Prove, they released the original American Nightmare stuff… good label for hardcore kids. Well, they also recently put out the International Superheroes of Hardcore record. The band is pretty much New Found Glory with Chad on vocals and Jordan on guitar, playing Good Clean Fun-style funny as hell hardcore, posi-core, whatever.

Anyhow, I walk up to the booth and ask the guy about the ISHC record and the H2O release, ’cause I’d like to buy them on vinyl. Well, he tells me that they’re out in the van, and he’ll have one of his guys grab them. He says for me to come back in half an hour. Now, it’s 90 degrees out. We’re in a parking lot the size of several football fields, and it’s July in Kansas. Park a van on that blacktop and stick some vinyl discs in it, and think they’re going to survive?

I did not think about that. I saw the Architects play their set, wandered back to the booth, got the ISHC record (they were out of H2O), put it in my backpack, and headed to the car. Got home, cleaned out my bag, and forgot about the record. I’ve got the ISHC on CD, so I’ve been busting that out in the car. Well, I wanted the wife to listen to the record while we were hanging out the other night, so I pull it off the shelf and drop it on the turntable.

Yeah… it’s so warped that when the autoplay function kicks on, the warp in the record bounces the tone arm right back to its rest. Fucked up. I e-mailed Bridge 9, and it’s been two whole days, and not a goddamn peep. I wouldn’t care so much if it’d been mailorder, or something like that, but I bought it straight from them. At least I didn’t buy the H2O album… although I still don’t even have that on CD, because the copy they sent the station for review was fucked up at the pressing plant.

the International Superheroes of Hardcore live set at B-Sides ‘R Us.

Give these men your money

Mutant Pop Records totally deserves your money. A couple weeks ago, I sent $12 for three records. Idiot me filled out the order form, then let it sit for a week. I didn’t bother to double-check the website before sending in the form and my check. It’s old-school mail order – you print out a form, fill it out based on what he’s got listed for sale, and mail in form and money, hopefully marking some alternates.

Two records he didn’t have in stock (the Ergs!‘s Books About Miles Davis and Slow Gherkin‘s Death of A Salesman), so he sent me a credit slip for that amount. I was able to get Kosher‘s Bored In America 7″, which he did have in stock (if you’re wanting some more Kosher, he has the Death to Drama CDEP as well).

In addition the amazingly hard to find 7″ and my credit slip, I got four bucks cash, basically making that Kosher record free.

Customer service, to be sure. Tim’s also remarkably communicative if you want to shoot him a message. Give him your money. Along with Mike Park at Asian Man and Virgil of Suburban Home / Vinyl Collective, he’s one of the people with whom I love having financial transactions.

the Ergs! – “Kind of Like Smitten” (from Jersey’s Best Prancers)
Slow Gherkin – “Trapped Like Rats In Meyers Flats” (from Shed Some Skin)

Milk it for all it’s worth

Reissues drive me insane a lot of the time. I’ve written about Elvis Costello‘s thrice-reissued My Aim Is True, but that album’s a classic, and gets a bit of a slide. I’m fine with classic albums getting the reissue treatment, with bonus discs of demos and live shit. It’s a way to bilk the consumer and get them to shell out money for a record they already own, to be certain. However, considering albums like the Clash‘s London Calling or Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde got pretty basic treatments when they first hit compact disc, it’s nice to see them remastered with some value-added content.

Really, an album should be out for a while before it gets the reissue treatment. There’s been a glut of albums in the past few years getting reissued a year – if not several months – after they first hit store shelves. I understand the thought behind this in some cases. The KillersHot Fuss saw a reissue with bonus tracks a while after it first hit, because the record blew up something fierce. It was competitively priced, and actually replaced the original pressing.

Victory Records has capitalized on the trend of its artists blowing up by reissuing Hawthorne HeightsThe Silence In Black and White, Atreyu‘s The Curse, Between the Buried and Me‘s The Silent Circus, along with other albums by groups like Silverstein and Darkest Hour less than a year after their initial issue. It’s fairly ridiculous for any fan of the label to purchase any of their new releases, as it’s pretty much guaranteed at this point that any album that does well will come out within the year redux with a DVD and bonus tracks.

Now Epitaph is getting into the swing of things. Bad Religion‘s last album, New Maps of Hell, which came out last year, will see a reissue on July 8, nearly a year to the day after it first hit stores. That’s fucking insane. Yeah, it was a good album, but by no means is it deserving of reissue treatment. Why does this album get a DVD and bonus tracks, whereas the back catalog that hit the streets a couple years back only got remastered? The same thing is happening with Offspring‘s two Epitaph releases, Ignition and Smash – remastered and new packaging, but nothing past that.

I’m going to have to agree (and it pains me to say this) with the various online postings I’ve seen regarding these reissues. Most people seem to think this is a cash grab by labels who’ve not released anything of note in the past few years. Epitaph and Victory used to have this brand identity (OC punk and hardcore, respectively) that’s been diluted over the years as both labels attempt to grow with the trends. Surprisingly, Lookout artists into print once again. Even Mike Park’s not totally innocent, but at least the Goddammit reissue waited until it’d been ten years since Alkaline Trio released their first full-length.

Let’s hope that the fans stay away and refuse to buy albums a second or third or fourth time, and let the labels know that they’re dissatisfied with what’s being done. If the emphasis of these venerable labels would be on quality new shit, as opposed to milking the past for all it’s worth, then maybe people would pay for what’s coming out. Maybe if the labels would just tack on an extra buck at the start, and give the fans the extra stuff at the start, rather than getting them to drop money twice for the same album, I wouldn’t be bitching along with thousands of others. Perhaps then we’d buy records instead of getting them online for free.

Alkaline Trio – “Trouble Breathing” (from Goddammit)
the Offspring – “Come Out and Play” (from Smash)
Bad Religion – “Heroes and Martyrs” (from New Maps of Hell)
Atreyu – “Bleeding Mascara” (from The Curse)
Between the Buried and Me – “Mordecai” (from The Silent Circus)

Writing about writing about listening

Reading about stuff, especially music stuff, makes me happy. I mentioned Seven Ten Twelve recently, but I’d like to more deeply explain why it’s one of the best vinyl sites out there. Yeah, the stuff he covers is a litte hipster-y, but it’s all quality stuff that my local record store carries, so I actually know what i’m getting into. It’s like a second opinion from a friend you trust. A lot of the stuff Paul (Lawton, the fella who runs Seven Ten Twelve) mentions is limited, so it’s a nice heads up regarding things you might otherwise miss out on. And, as an added bonus, he’s from Canada, so you get interesting spellings like “tonne.”

Along the lines of obscure, limited vinyl is the simply-named Limited Edition Vinyl. As one would expect, that’s the subject, be it big name or small name stuff. You get pressing colors, variations, numbers, and (most importantly) where you can get this stuff ASAP. The best part about the site aside from the content is the insanely long list of labels that sell vinyl in the page’s sidebar. You can start randomly clicking and soon find your credit card maxed out. I recommend starting over at Voodoo Rhythm out of Switzerland. It’s run by the Reverend Beatman, frontman for the Monsters. Crazy crazy blues garage rockabilly label.

Lo-fi craziness, as is the stuff over at Douchemaster. They put out a Hex Dispensers 45 that I picked up after SXSW, and it’s damn good. They’ve put out a couple Carbonas singles, as well. Their stuff is a little more limited than the Voodoo Rhythm material, but the site isn’t a hodge-podge of bad HTML and spotty English, either.

the Monsters – “I Wanna Do What I Wanna Do” (from Garage Punk Vol. 1)
the Hex Dispensers – “Taxidermy Porno” (from the Lose My Cool single)

A love letter, of sorts

To the Ergs!:

Ending your pop-punk cd with an eighteen-minute long guitar feedback freakout is amazing. Please continue to make music, especially if it means you will at some point come through my town. Upstairs / Downstairs has been the soundtrack to the last few days here at the Nuthouse, to say nothing of your sweet-ass rockin’ split with the Grabass Charlestons (out now on No Idea Records – go buy it).

To the Ergs! record label, Dirtnap:

Please continue to put out music such as the Exploding Hearts, the Gloryholes, Dirtbike Annie, and the Ergs! The power-pop perfection inherent in these artists is what gets me through the day. Every time I have to listen to another shit-ass indie band, crappy laptop electronic act, or white boy backpack rapper, I can come back to your bands and rock out, smiling like an Irishman let loose in the Guinness plant.

The Epoxies are pretty damn sweet, too.

the Ergs! – “Most Violent Rap Group
the Ergs! – “AJA
the Ergs! – “More Vox In the Monitor

the Ergs! sounds page.
Dirtnap Records sounds page.

Wicked Cool Records latest releases

Hawaii Mud Bombers – “Mondo Primo”
the Novaks – “The Novaks”
(Wicked Cool Record Co.)

Okay, right off the bat – fuck you, Little Steven. Your “Underground Garage” program seems to get all sorts of acclaim, but your record label sucks. I have yet to hear something on Wicked Cool that is either wicked or cool. The promo descriptions are always off-base, and pretty much everything the label’s described as “garage rock” has ended up sounding more like the Ataris than the Fuzztones.

The Hawaii Mud BombersMondo Primo is no different. Kinda / maybe a little surfy pop punk from Sweden that is boring, boring, boring.

The Novaks? There just seem to be some bands that can’t quite deal with the fact that the Gin Blossoms aren’t big anymore. The whole Matthew Sweet-influenced, Big Star-derivative pop rock just doesn’t do it unless you’ve got some chops or something original. The Novaks have neither, and yet this record still got put out.

Hawaii Mud Bombers – “Summer Sensation

For children still interested in Star Wars costumes there can be no greater outfit for a Halloween costume than to be able to choose their favorite character and buy a Star Wars costume just for them. Now you can go online to find a costume store and find a good selection.

Drop it like it’s hot

Let us discuss labels dropping acts, shall we? The Explosion posted the following message on their MySpace page:

“Hello one and all!

We are writing you from the dead of winter here in Park Slope Brooklyn, with a long over due update about the Explosion and our record, Bury Me Standing. As some of you may know, the record label that we have been working with for the past 3 years, Virgin Records, has decided not to release our new album, and release us from our contract. To some that may be bad news, but to others (who know about the perils of major labels) know that it is not such a bad thing. The good news, is that we have gotten the record back from Virgin, and are in the process of finding a label that may put it out. We will keep you updated. Thanks to all of you who have been writing (over and over again) to find out what is up with the record. We hope to have it out ASAP. Thanks again you all!!!! xoxplsn”

Hmm. Why do all the bands that I’ve liked that have signed to majors gotten dropped? The Blue Meanies, Less Than Jake, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, the Suicide Machines… seriously, this shit is ridiculous. I blame the labels for unrealistic expectations. Decent touring numbers and selling 50,000 copies of a record on an indie is good for a band. It equates to a minor success… emphasis on minor.

However, this doesn’t instantly guarantee that the newest major label signing is going to be the next Fall Out Boy. Sometimes, a band has found all the fans that they’re going to, and no loss-leader displays at Best Buy or advertising placement will boost that. You’d think that by this point, your average major would realize that just because you advertise a record more and get a band some better studio time, that it’s not going to instantly equate a sudden jump in record sales.

Still, you see several posts every week over at PunkNews about the latest underground success making their way to a major. Of course, for every single one of those stories, there’s another like the Explosion’s.

Fall Out Boy – “This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race