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What a strange collection of items this seller has. Mint in package water pistols, creepy 3 for a dollar bendy monsters from the 70s, and some OG demo tape type items. ***THIS JUST IN***: seller is Blaine from The Accused, which explains a bit.

Of interest:

An original Brotherhood demo tape. I believe this is the second Brotherhood demo (the one featuring Ron Guardipee on vocals) and the one that was recycled into the band’s 7″, some of their comp tracks, and eventually the Words Run Thick As Blood anthology on Crucial Response. I heard tell of a little beef between the Brotherhood and Crucial Response camps over owed money, that supposedly ended in a shake-down during a Sunn tour sometime in the last few years. I kinda picture it going down like that part in The Princess Bride when Andre The Giant’s character is standing in front of the castle wearing that same hooded robe that Sunn wears, and shouting ominous things. If it wasn’t that way, I don’t even want to know how it was. Personally if I was one of those Sunn dudes, I’d be wearing that thing everywhere. Down to the convenience mart, to the dentist, wherever.
Yes, if you haven’t caught on, Brotherhood is technically pre-Sunn, pre-Burning Witch, pre-Goat Snake, and who could forget, pre-Engine Kid. Also (and much cooler), post-False Liberty. But truthfully the most interesting aspect of Brotherhood to me is the song The Deal. This is a perfect and, somewhat strange (for its day) hardcore song. It begins with a fairly speedy blasting section, like a revved up SS Decontrol, only to cut to a surprisingly slow moshy section about ten seconds later, before diving right back into the speed. In some ways it predicts the territory that would be increasingly mined by the likes of Infest, and their numerous followers, in subsequent years. I’m not suggesting Infest borrowed a formula here, but just that this is an interesting precursor to one of their trademarks. If anything Brotherhood were probably trying to borrow more than a little from DYS, as well as SS Decontrol on this song. Well at any rate I love it very much.

Also of interest: Northwest Hardcore and More. But what is the “more” you ask? it’s hard to say for sure because this seller’s listings are so sub-par, but The Melvins, Wermacht, the Accused, False Liberty, Spastic Blur, and of course MR. BUNGLE are all in there. Seriously if this guy gets $10 for such a crap listing I’ll be surprised. Seems cool for all you tape buyers out there.

Even though it’s not Monday I can’t not mention that he’s selling a Cannibal Corpse demo as well, although I have no way of verifying if it’s original. There’s a mediocre lot of Accused recordstoo. No Return Of Martha Splatterhead in there unfortunately.

Yo, I’m a little short on time today, but here’s some hott picks anyway.

 First off found a dude selling a Sean John jacket, a SOIA cd, and oh a little 12″ called Breakaway, by one of the finer HC bands ever, Straight Ahead. This is the first press w/ the white DJ jacket and sticker. One just sold for $150, which is effin crazy, but this dude (stupidly) refuses to ship international, meaning that only people with the weak US dollar will be bidding on it. It’s like he opened a cake shop where fat people can’t fit through the door.

Anyway, Straight Ahead made me think of Lärm and I found this store in austrailia with their “No One Can Be That Dumb” e.p. I wish there were more bands that played the kind of tuneless thrash that they played in their day, that were also straight edge, and I was disappointed to hear that the whole band no longer is, (although Seein Red is still pretty ripping in their relatively old age).

Anyhow, after checking the other records for sale by this seller I noticed an OG Hitler SS/Tampax split, which if you’re a real baller, might be of interest to you. Me, I gotta pay that rent check.

This wins the award for
funniest auctions of the week . For Sale:
1 original Vile “Solution” lp, and a bunch of 90’s emo (in case you need a re-up on your Portraits of Past collection).  Vile is mostly infamous for the irreverent lyrical content on the record, although at least on person I know thinks they made the best Boston HC lp. Subtract the obnoxious, lyrics though and you’re left with an over-long, uneven snotty hardcore jam, better than say, PTL Klub, but not half as good as the FU’s. There are a few undeniable hits like 5 to 10, but there are so many great early 80’s Massachusetts HC/Punk releases that it really doesn’t matter much to me. About the only thing it’s good for is pissing off squares. My favorite Vile story is that they beat up their bassist on stage during a show, but that doesn’t really save the album as a whole. I guess this will probably sell for $300. Probably not worth your trouble, but there it is.

 Also funny, but not nearly as funny:
this seller with about a dozen Spazz records, and then the first press of the
Hard Stance “Face Reality” 7″.  Time for this jam to get a reissue, a total hard-edge classic. Btw the
Doom “Police Bastard” they got for sale looks to be either a 3rd or 4th press. Don’t miss that
Gordon Solie Motherfuckers “Chairshot Politcs” either (discography out this year on Painkiller!). Spazz has the best joke band riffs besides Straight Youth, and maybe something else I can’t think of.

Clevtoday is a 90’s Cleveland hardcore special, with a round up of items from the most polluted hell-hole in the midwest.

 Kickin’ it off with this Only The Strong comp on blue vinyl, 1st press. This is the most limited standard variation of the record, the b-side on this one is just a 1-2-3 punch of violent moshy hardcore — the undisputed best Confront song, the only recorded Meanstreak song (feat. Paul Inmate on guitar), and a classic take of Darkness by Integrity. Find me another comp that delivers that well… you’ll have a hard time. A-side has the only good Insight song (Utah? what?), a pretty good Even Score song (they’re called Life Cycle on some pressings) and a good Face Value song too. Speaking of Erba and Anthony Brown…

…Here’s a Face Value 7″ on clear vinyl. Coming Of Age. There’s some great unsung riffs on here, I think they kind of get a bad wrap as being too posi-core for cleveland, and also some of the drumming choices. The drummer obviously is rock-trained, and extremely proficient, but he uses some crappy cheaters beats during the fast parts. I don’t know if it’s laziness or he thought it would just sound better. Even so this was a good highschool jam, and has a cool vibe.

Total idiocy you’re looking for? How about the Integrity/Kids Of Whidney High split 7″ w/ Bloodbook zine. I think the Integs tracks is a demo take of Jagged Visions with some sound effects of pigs dubbed over it. I still have no idea if the KOWH side was actually authorized or what, but “I See Pretty Girls” was a highschool mixtape staple. I’m sure there’s a place in hell just for people like me.

 Here’s one sometimes overlooked, The Mormons self released 7″. This is Steve (9 Shocks & Homostupids) and Kevin (9 Shocks) high school band. I once bought a copy off Steve at a 9 Shocks show and he insisted I explain why I wanted to pay money for it. Honestly it’s a cool record, some of the songs have an early (read: good) Gang Green type sound. Some of it misses the mark, but this is one of the more collectible 90’s cleveland DIY releases. Actually it’s not too far off some of the Homostupids releases, so I guess things come full circle.  BTW: i think Jamie from Boulder/Midnight is the one selling this.

Lastly here’s an Upstab Stabbing The Church 7″, which was sort of a legit bootleg.I always liked this one a little more than their officially released 7″s which were a little cleaner (still good though). When Mind Eraser played with Upstab in Cleveland Chris was wearing a ski-mask and holding an open switch-blade. While it seemed par for the course for Cleveland, it was a far cry from anything on the east coast then, or now, which is too bad. At least there’s still real nihilistic punk music happening somewhere.

Some people have sort of equired as to why myself, and others like me, have such a fixation on this era of Hardcore and Punk, from this area of the country. I feel like there’s a lot of factors, obviously I think the music is generally good, and the cult vinyl pressings are fun to collect, but I really dig the meanspirited-ness that was on display by so many of these bands. Just utterly unconcerned with being offensive, or being friendly or even being noticed. With the exception of a band like Integrity, who were obviously big and opperating in a different scene, despite sharing memebers of bands like the Inmates, most of these dudes were just playing for each other, and as a result went unnoticed by the idiots buying southern crust metal and cut-rate grindcore instead. Of course I was too young to know the difference, but it’s all time and place man.

Alright, I feel slightly unsure of myself on this one, but I’m pretty sure I am right. This guy is selling a small amount of stuff and I noticed he’s selling boots of the Unity 7″, Skins Brains Guts, and the Cause For Alarm 7″, nonetheless, I am pretty certain this is a real Agnostic Front “United Blood”. You may want to email the guy and get some further photos to verify, but the sleeve looks right, the labels look right, and it seems to coincide w/ pressing info. One thing I find reassuring is that the sides are taped with scotch tape which is how a lot of the copies of the record originally came, because I guess there was a shortage of glue on the Lower East Side at the time or something? United Blood is the absolute ultimate proof that skill and ability are absolutely unnecessary to play convincing, memorable, and timeless hard core.

If skill is your thing though, there is this Judge “There Will Be Quiet” 7″ on gold vinyl. Forget This Time is a good, post Metallica jaded hardcore shit-kicker. 1,000 on gold vinyl btw. As good as this is (and it’s pretty good) it’s still no United Blood though.

Got a couple selections from M. Colin Tappe’s auctions here. Nothing too crazy for sale but some good picks, check ‘em all out. Looks like he’s just selling off a few things to buy other stuff.Numero Uno:Anti-Sect: “In Darkness There Is No Choice”- I guess this is one of the big milestones in anarcho-punk and “crust” music. For 1983 it’s frankly pretty shocking how polished it is, and how many bands it was the template for, not just in style but in the sound of the recording. It’s tricky because on the surface it’s basically just a metal album taking a lot from early thrash bands but with the realist/Discharge-style approach to horror and despair that Discharge mapped out. The songs take on a similar driving and hypnotic delivery, but being stretched much longer (the opener “THEY” runs like 6 minutes at the same tempo), so that it kind of reminds me in some ways of Crass (besides the obvious politics), and in other ways of something like Killing Joke (who I think were a big influence to a lot of peace punkers). It’s a pretty important album, and also at times I find it kind of boring. There’s something about an unwavering cockney accent just shouting and shouting and shouting for 6 minutes… I keep waiting for something else to happen. Still it sounds heavy, although I gotta wonder how he kept from getting tongue-tied, i guess they do have 3 vocalists on this album. A lot of the atmospheric shit like wind blowing and abstract wooshing noises that are meant to be dramatic on crusty HC and punk records also in part originate here, and maybe haven’t aged too well. I also feel like this might be a more overwhelming, powerful, and inspirational album if you hear it at a younger age, where I only really sat down and listened about 2 or 3 years ago. So in conclusion, while this is a stone cold classic to the peace punk crowd, and a “first of its kind” type release, it feels a little obsolete to me. I’d prefer the more rhythmic churning Amebix approach, or Sacrilege’s much more refined version of the sound on this lp. Btw this is the Southern pressing, I believe there is one on Spiderleg predating it.Underdog: “Demos”- Here’s one on the other side of the coin. Gotta love that this is the original press with the classic pool skater artwork. When I was really young Underdog just seemed weird and not that hardcore to me. All the groove and singy vocals confused me which is now kind of embarrassing and probably strange to some people in this day and age where weird-hc is the bread and butter of everyone and there’s a popular band named after Into Another’s shelved trip-hop album. Forget all that BS though, Over The Edge is just a very fine well nuanced song, and if half the bands that put Underdog on their list of influences could compose a song so advanced there would be a lot more good songs, and probably less wars or something. Revelation are the current keepers of these demos, but I think it’s time someone considered re-reissuing the Vanishing Point (w/ original artwork), restoring the original mix to the demos, and tying up loose ends, like the demo with Carl Mosher, etc, all on one disc, or maybe 2. Most records like this have turned 20 or are about to, and it’s time someone do a definitive historical package of stuff like this.  Far Out records back catalog is kind of funny as I remember, I think they did the 2nd press of the Fear Of God 7″ around the same time they did this Underdog 12″.

I’m trying to scale it back a little here, sorry for the massive posts… hopefully this will be more manageable for us all.

We got a dude here selling the first Warzone lp on Fist (not Fist/Caroline) with the original handwritten letters on the back. Who the hell told them to change that? It looks much better this way. John Omen’s bass playing on this release never really gets brought up, but I always have thought it sounds great, very full with lots of chords, meaty tone, and after all, played by the guy who drew the sleeve on the Straight Ahead 12″.

Got 3 good compilations for you:

• Look At All The Children Now- In the form of a second, and more common pressing. Best Citizen’s Arrest songs, worst Rorschach songs, and a pretty funny Bugout Society song about the 80’s phenomena of the party line.
• NYHC: Where the Wild Things Are - Don’t have to tell you this is one of the greatest of all time.
• Connecticut Fun- Everyone knows this for the first Youth Of Today songs (which are great of course) to say nothing of the many other decent bands like CIA and 76% Uncertain, but the real attraction for me is the cover art. Look at that punk embarrassing that cop! It’s like a Heathcliff cartoon! “MY UNIFORM! THE CHEIF IS GONNA KILL ME!” Our man Joe Snow was involved in a CD reissue of this recently FYI.

Grab that Poison Idea “Getting The Fear” 12″ while you’re peeping. Maybe my favorite single by them and it looks cool as hell. Though I wasn’t surprised, I was pretty depressed the day Pig Champion was found dead. That was a guitar-player’s guitar player folks.

Here’s a link to all his auctions (some other cool stuff in there too).

I have a big post coming, but before that, please observe a few items in this short weekend post that Reptillian Records of Baltimore is selling. A lot of run of the mill indie store stuff (a clipped Crispen Glover lp, Guided By Voices, Beach Boys, Mr. T Experience…), but there are a few really high demand straight edge hardcore items. BTW: does anyone know if Reptillian still has a street address? I know they shut down, then moved, and I’m not currently sure if they have a store front or are just an online business. Any info would be appriciated. The records:

1) War Zone - Lower East Side Crew 7″ on Orange

2) NYHC - 1987 - Together, standard pressing

3) Judge - New York Crew on Schism records (2nd pressing)

One thing I love is all 3 of these records are raw as hell, and every song is a hit. The War Zone is the big money maker here but Together is probs gonna go for a hundred at least, and the Judge record, though not worth too much in dollars, is valuable at least in terms of the sounds found on it. The thing that really dragged me down to the pit of despair (aka: record collecting) was early rev/schism and related records. Something just looked so cool about the Judge 7″ to my 16 year old mind. After that the seed was planted and the spell was unbreakable. To me these records are great proof that playing straight edge hardcore doesn’t need to be all octave-chord leads, epic tribal drum breakdowns, and grand statements about society and self. Every band on NYHC - 1987 - Together, is basically just scrapping it out, hacking away however they can get the job done. The recordings themselves are not “big”, “clean”, or “huge”, they just sound like some mics pointed at a wall of very fast sound. Timing isn’t perfect, the drumming is primal and simplified, the guitars for the most part sound like beefed up waves of tv static; but every single band delivers in spite of this, and they sound better for it. It’s truely hardcore, “warts and all” as they say, and both the Judge and War Zone 7″s only serve to expand upon, and hammer that point home. Some people, no doubt avid readers of some crap-factory like pitchfork, or buyers of obscure 60’s world music, would protest that this music is juvenile and lacks anything subtle or thoughtful. I on the other hand would like to borrow an arguement from my friend DFJ, that sometimes I still feel the same things I felt when I was but 15, and anyone who says they don’t, is probably a liar. In rememberence, of old New York…

Oh since I wrote this they also added a Unit Pride - s/t 7″ which is neither raw, or New York based but still pretty good. Wide Awake is by far the best song on it though, and I actually don’t love it, but I do love their artwork. In addition, in a pre-emptive Metal Monday note - check the Abruptum 7″ they’re selling which is the first Abruptum vinyl. If you like evil Sweedish black metal made by an actual dwarf, this record is for you. Honestly I’d prefer the War Zone 7″.

Greetings. This is a late post today because I was hardly around a computer at all. Thus it will also be a quick post, which sucks because I’m not going to be able to post the one I was working on, and the auctions it was for are nearly ended. Don’t be bummed though, I’m returning to Jeff Nelson’s Auctions, for a newly listed copy of the Flex Your Head comp, in TEST PRESS form. This is a definitive “scene-documenting” comp, along with jams like Yes LA, Together, and Process Of Elimination… to name just a few. It’s sort of funny seeing who did and didn’t make the comp here (how did they skip The Faith in favor of the worst Deadline songs?). The Youth Brigade songs on here nearly outshine their 7″, the Teen Idles ones feel like table scraps, although that was probably the closest they had to a “name” band at the time. Void - Dehumanized… find the Mudhoney cover - it’s the best. I’ll return tomorrow with a longer post. There’s not too much I need to say about this except that it’s gonna go for at least $300, although I think there’s at least 50 made.

Today shall be part 2 of unionpride69’s auctions, there’s still some really crucial items here. Before that, thanks to everyone for the really good response so far. I’m expecting there will still be a couple things to work out over the next few weeks to get everything looking and running smooth, and when he has the time I’m sure AJ (who birthed this site into being) will be on it, so hang tight, and we’ll try and keep the content coming.

There’s 5 more real cool items that I haven’t mentioned here yet.

• 3 of them are first pressing Minor Threat Records, the Filler 7″, In My Eyes 7″ on red vinyl, and Out Of Step 12″ w/ black back cover. This is it. The best pure USHC around, the best straight edge band. Just the best. I heard Filler when I was maybe 14 and it really didn’t make a bit of sense to me, but a couple years later things really clicked and its been important music to me ever since. I always sound like a douche talking about these records because I automatically revert to like, a 3rd grade essay on my favorite food. You can’t really say why pepparoni pizza is the best because you’re 10 and you just know you really like the taste. There is nothing but delighted bias towards that pie, and any attempt to reason out why purreed tomatos and melted cheese go together so well is swallowed just by the fact that they do. Price wise both of these 7″s are forging on and will probably hit $500 sooner rather than later, then again Nervous Breakdown w/ bricks on the cover was going for crazy ammounts for a minute and now it has cooled off big time. With any luck (for me) the same will happen here. I also feel everything here might go for more than normal because this is such a visibile set of items. When you sell a bunch of related stuff together it tends to go for more than if you sold each item alone. People get into the idea of just winning something from the lot even if it’s not their first choice. So… beware.
• Faith - Subject To Change Lot - Well I’ve never seen this. All four colors of the Faith lp in one place. I’m really interested to see how high this gets. Sami (of www.heatunitreport.com) says there’s nothing like the Faith, and he loves it. Me… I used to love it, and I kind of don’t anymore. This is a forerunner to like Marginal Man and Dag Nasty I guess, and there are some catchy tracks, but I just always wished it would either deliver something a little more complex, or a little more angry and unhinged. I feel it walks a middle ground just too middley for me, although I still have a blue vinyl copy in the archives. I think I definitely prefer their tracks on the split with Void (though it must be embarassing to be so out matched), you can’t deny a perpulsive riff like It’s Time. Btw if anyone has a good quality copy of the Faith demo, that’s another instance of the demo versions being better (rawer) than the re-recordings that made the record. There’s a shitty bootleg of them that the Grand Theft Audio guy did (SOA & Youth Brigade too) but they sound so generated and crappy they might as well be an American Tapes boxset. Here’s part of a Faith interview:

TS: Have you guys ever seen Trouble Funk?
All: Nope.
Alec: Like to. They used to play every Wednesday night a block away at the Paragon II. Ian and Henry and a whole bunch of people went to see them one night and some kid got killed–an 18 year old kid got shot. Shit like that happens.

Chris: I’ve driven through after a show.
Alec: I used to walk through that shit. A lot of those bands, like Mass Extinction, are supposed to be anti-drug in their songs but it’s supposedly a big farce, they’re really into it and shit. They played at my school and like four people got stabbed. So I don’t know, I don’t know what the deal is.

• Where The Wild Things Are test press - totally switching gears here. I actually owned one of these once although it looked like mine had been used to cut lines of coke up on. I traded it and then later took part in reselling it. This comp is legendary if you know anything about New York City Hard Core, or as we like to refer to it NYHC. NYHC: The Way It Is comp (the updated version of the Together comp) did have a little bit of the rougher side of the scene covered (Breakdown, Sick Of It All, YDL), and there were weird flukes (like Trip 6 and Nausea) included, but it was mainly a comp to spotlight the wave of straight edge bands that were coming out of NY (Youth Of Today, Bold, Side By Side, Gorilla Biscuits, sort of Warzone…). Where The Wild Things Are has a totally different side of New York and arguably a more accurate one on display for evaluation. You probably know this already, I’m not sure why I even need to say it, but there it is. The meat of this record is really the Breakdown, Raw Deal, Uppercut, and Outburst cuts (and maybe Maximum Penalty too). Bands that were chunkier, meaner, not straight edge at all, and probably more relavent to the future sound of NYHC. They all have a common sound, the kind of scooped metallic crunch that the guitars on records by Cro Mags, Crumbsuckers, AF already had, but with less attempt to mimic thrashy speed picking big on the crossover circuit, and more of just the musical equivalent to getting a brick thrown at you. It’s a paradigm shift for a lot of people when they get their first dose of Breakdown and Outburst, and many a positive youth never make it back, hate-moshing their way into the future. With all that though, let us not forget the Sheer Terror and Life’s Blood cuts here (frankly if I never had to remember Norman Bates and the Shower Heads or this throw-away Gorilla Biscuits cover, I’d be fine). Sheer Terror, pre-lp I think, still nihilistic, and still with the Tom Warrior crunch, I especially love. Life’s Blood, get a little to oi for me, but their 7″ sort of saves their legacy. On this here test press… well I’d imagine there’s a lot of them because the bands probably all got copies, I’d guess this will run about $150-200. The shreded one we sold got like $100, I bought it for $15 though. Great pick up.

I’m heading home for the holidays this weekend but plan to be posting during the week next week (and beyond). See you then!