Streetlight Manifesto – Keasbey Nights As Performed By Streetlight Manifesto

The last of Streetlight Manifesto’s “albums” to get pressed on vinyl was released a few weeks months ago. Keasbey Nights As Performed By Streetlight Manifesto is an odd album. You can’t classify it truly as a covers album because Streetlight is made up of a bunch of former Catch 22 members. Streetlight’s take on Keasbey Nights is definitely different than the original, but not by much. There are subtle differences though, enough to know the difference between the two versions of Keasbey Nights. The album was most likely recorded to speed up Tomas Kalnoky’s contract with Victory Records.

The pressing info is as follows: 117 copies on clear with black smoke, 240 copies on white and 320 copies on tan. If you order from any place other than Victory you will get either white or tan. I fully expected to get the tan/320 variant as is typical when ordering from distros (getting the least rare color) but received the white /240 variant. The clear with black smoke variant is sold out.

New Found Glory – Connect The Dots 7″

New Found Glory will release their first live album in late 2013, and released a 7” about a month ahead of the album’s release that featured three tracks taken off it. Of the three songs, one of them is a brand new song (title track) while the other two are live versions older NFG songs.

The 7” was pressed on three colors, which is odd for a Bridge 9 release (a 7”, not an LP). B9 tends to do only two colors for their 7”s. Another thing that breaks trends with this B9 7” is that all three variants are half and half splits, when usually they do one solid color and one half and half split. So the pressing info is as follows: 100 copies on half red/half clear, 300 copies on half red/half black and 600 copies on half red/half white. I was in the process of moving and unfortunately missed out on the two rarer colors for this 7”. But it goes hand in hand with the live LP, as I missed out on the rarest color of that record as well and scored the /600 variant.

The insert for this record is not a traditional insert, it’s a post card. A nice touch for this record. Instead of a physical download code/card included with the 7” B9 sent out download codes via email. But it was only for the new song, not the two live songs. So I’m assuming if you buy this 7” from anywhere other than B9 you’re SOL with a download of the new song. But in the end it doesn’t really matter because most people who bought this 7” will buy the full live album as well, where I’m assuming physical download codes will be included with all copies.

A new thing B9 did with pre-orders for this 7” is offering an exclusive early access pre-order for the NFG live album. Everyone who pre-ordered a copy of this 7” from B9 was given an access code to pre-order Kill It Live during a 1-2 hour window before it went live to the general public.

The Gaslight Anthem – 45 RPM Club Annual Record Volume One 7″

One of the biggest debacles I’ve ever been a part of in all my years of buying records was joining The Gaslight Anthem’s fan club, the 45 RPM Club. I say one of because the MTS TOYPAJ disaster will never be topped as worst buying/pre-order experience ever. A yearly 7” exclusive to fan club members was the focal point and why most people, including myself, paid $25 to join the club. Also included with fan club membership was a t-shirt, stickers, membership ID card, and early access to tour tickets and merch like posters. Ultimately the fan club turned out to be a giant rip off and poorly managed. It was started purely as a cash grab, it was never about the fans.

First, the t-shirt members received was a plain white t-shirt with the 45 RPM Club logo printed on it. Members received three stickers, but depending on when you joined you received different stickers. But everyone received the same 45 RPM Club sticker along with Gaslight Anthem stickers. Everyone also received the same membership ID card, which has your member number printed on it. The early access to tour tickets really only benefited the eastern quarter of the country and California. People in the NYC metro area were the biggest beneficiaries of fan club exclusive shows/performances however, as they were able to get tickets to late show performances, not even counting the vastly more amount of shows the band plays in and around NYC. The exclusive merch was all overpriced posters, and there were only two or three of those made available over the course of the year.

The biggest debacle with the fan club regarded the 7”. First off it was delayed by many many months,  and the people who run the fan club kept quiet about it. They pretty much refused to send out an update to members, which is this day and age of email, Facebook, and twitter is inexcusable. They only sent out one update regarding the 7”s not shipping, which was the typical “it’s out of our hands” and “soon” excuses/answers. When they did respond to members via email, there was one standard response, “hurricane sandy.” Infinite Merch/Punk Rock Music.com (who ran the fan club or at least handled sending out physical items for it) used the everything got delayed because of Hurricane Sandy line for months, and for a while it might have been true, but at a certain point it became bullshit.

Having personally been affected by Sandy I have a mix of sympathy knowing how long it takes to recover and deal with the storm’s aftermath. But it was also a slap in the face as they were using Sandy as a crutch for their own ineptness. The claims of “Sandy did it! Sandy did it!” were no longer believable when close to 1 year after the storm approached and the record still did not start shipping. Especially knowing all the plants in Brooklyn that suffered storm damage were back up and running months before the fan club people were still using the Sandy excuse. There were plenty of options available to get the record pressed and out the door to fan club members, and it seemed the fan club organizers did not do any of them.

Once the record started shipping to members the problems still did not stop. Infinte Merch/punkrockmusic.com did not properly ship the records, as they were shipped in boxes way too big for a 7”, which resulted in practically every copy having various degrees of seam splits. Some people had such bad damage that entire sides of the sleeve, which is made of thin glossy paper by the way and is not printed on card stock, were no longer attached. Some people had about an inch of paper holding one side of the sleeve together.  Myself, living in the same state as the 7”s were shipped from, still had a decent sized seam split because of the terrible packing job.

Another problem once the records started shipping was that they were being sent to wrong addresses. Since it took so long to get the fan club records out, some people undoubtedly moved, and when those people contacted Infinite Merch/punkrockmusic.com about an address change ultimately nothing was done about it. Even though the member received confirmation back from Infinite Merch/punkrockmusic.com.

As of writing this there are still countless people who have not received their records. The records started shipping in early July, over a year since the fan club went live, and I did not receive mine till mid September. I sent countless emails, all of which went un-replied. Things got so bad that The Gaslight Anthem’s manager got involved, promising to help get people their 7”. Ultimately she was a liar and refused to help me after a while. She actually told me not to contact her anymore, and it’s not like I was harassing her. I sent her three emails, the first went unreplied (shocker!) so I sent another which got a response saying she would look into it. After 3 weeks and still no  7” I emailed the manager again for help, which is when she said don’t contact me again and to contact Infinite Merch directly, giving me an email address to contact the which did not work (emails got bounced back as undeliverable). Gaslight’s manager only actually helped at most five people, and I’m being generous with that number.

To my surprise I emailed Infinite Merch/punrockmusic.com about not getting my 7” one last time and got a response. I used their contact form on their website though since they never replied to direct emails. So everyone still waiting for their 7” should go that route. Infinite Merch/punkrockmusic.com claimed they already sent me a 7”, which was a lie as the only tracking number on my order was for my initial membership package for the shirt and stickers that was sent back in November. Keeping in mind getting my t-shirt was like pulling teeth too. I quickly got my 7” after contacting them that last time, but getting it so quick was only because it was sent within the same state.

The biggest kicker and the most laughable move made by Infinite Merch/punkrockmusic.com was that started their fan club membership renewal drive before they even sent out the records from the first year. And they wanted almost double the money the first year cost, $45 instead of $25. Further proving the fan club is a terrible attempt at a cash grab. But hey, that extra $20 gets you a cooler t-shirt.

Hellogoodbye/Lissie – Daytrotter Presents No. 6

This is part of a vinyl series that digital subscription service Daytrotter has been releasing over the last year or two. These are available free to subscribers (at least the latest Volume for new subscribers) and/or at a discounted rate (24% off which equates to $9). They are also available outside of buying a subscription but are insanely expensive ($35) before shipping. Shipping tacks on an additional $9.50 (the cheapest method) so you’re spending damn close to $50 on a single LP record, a split record that features only eight songs total, four from each artist. I was fortunate to score a copy of this Daytrotter split on ebay for 99 cents.

To date they have released 16 Volumes, this is number 6 in the series and is from November 22, 2012 (11/22/12 is the release date. Hellogoodybe’s Daytrotter Session that appears on the split was recorded/released 12/23/09). The 12” split also features Lissie. Each artist contributes 4 songs, with Hellogoodbye playing “When We First Met,” “The Thought That Gives Me The Creeps,” “Findind Something To Do” and “Oh, It’s Love” on the a-side. This split also has the distinction of featurinb the first female artist (Lissie) in the Daytrotter Vinyl Series.

An interesting note is that Daytrotter ships these in LP mailers with Daytrotter and United Pressing stickers on them. The guy I won this from on ebay was nice enough/dumb enough to mail it out to me in the original mailer. I say dumb enough because said mailer was in terrible condition, it was beat to shit.

Considering the price of this if you buy it from Daytrotter and the overall poor quality of this split I would not recommend buying this for the casual listener/collector. Unless you need a Volume to complete an already near complete collection or are a diehard fan of one of the artists you shouldn’t waste your money on this. The sound is not all that great and the jackets are very cheap. The jackets are very thin and flimsy, one of the worst in those regards in my collection. And even though they are pressed on 180 gram vinyl the sound is not great because of it. It’s not the worst sounding record I own or heard, but it’s nowhere near the top.

Green Day – Tre (1st Press)

Once again the only color variant for an album from Green Day’s trilogy was a Hot Topic exclusive. Tre was limited to 1000 copies on yellow vinyl. Again a full color insert in included with the lyrics on one side and promo shots of the band on the other. The lay out and color coordinated color scheme does not continue on the insert that is found with Tre. Tre is also the only album to be limited to  a smaller amount, 1000 rather than 1,500. Why the pressing total was lowered was never announced. A reason was never given but it’s most likely due to poor or slower sales with the other two albums (Uno and Dos).

One major thing about this record is that it’s an error pressing of sorts. The track listing is wrong as it was switched at the very last minute; swapping songs with Dos. One song that was originally on Tre was swapped with a song that was originally on Dos. The song “Stray Heart” was slated for Tre but was moved to Dos, and the song “Drama Queen” was on Dos but was moved to Tre. So “Drama Queen” was swapped with “Stray Heart.” That is where the error pressing started, as all three albums were pressed at about the same time (give or take a few days to transition or the plant might have even ran the albums simultaneously), a bit in advance of Uno’s release date.

The error pressing lies with “Drama Queen” as the track listing change was made too late in the game to switch the plates and/or master for the vinyl pressings. Instead of “Stray Heart” appearing on Dos, “Drama Queen” appears. “Stray Heart” is not listed on the track listing on the back of the jacket and does not appear on the record itself. This error pressing does not affect Tre, as “Drama Queen” appears on the track listing. At the time the error was found people speculated, and hoped that “Stray Heart” would appear on Tre so the song would at least appear on vinyl even if it’s on the wrong album, but the track listing change was made in time not to affect the vinyl pressing of Tre.

So as of writing this no copies of Dos, either the Hot Topic color vinyl pressing of the regular black variant that is widely available have “Stray Heart.” And as a result “Stray Heart” does not appear on vinyl anywhere.

Green Day – Dos (1st Press)

Once again the only color variant for an album from Green Day’s trilogy was a Hot Topic exclusive. Dos was limited to 1500 copies on aqua blue vinyl. Again a full color insert in included with the lyrics on one side and promo shots of the band on the other. The lay out and color coordinated color scheme continues on the insert that is found with all two of the three records in the trilogy (Uno and Dos). Obviously only the colors and photos change from record to record, with the colors chosen matching the artwork.

One major thing about this record is that it’s an error pressing of sorts. The track listing is wrong as it was switched at the very last minute; swapping songs with Tre. One song that was originally on Dos was swapped with a song that was originally on Tre. The song “Drama Queen” was slated for Dos but was moved to Tre, and the song “Stray Heart” was on Tre but was moved to Dos. So “Drama Queen” was swapped with “Stray Heart.” That is where the error pressing started, as all three albums were pressed at about the same time (give or take a few days to transition or the plant might have even ran the albums simultaneously), a bit in advance of Uno’s release date.

The error pressing lies with “Drama Queen” as the track listing change was made too late in the game to switch the plates and/or master for the vinyl pressings. Instead of “Stray Heart” appearing on Dos, “Drama Queen” appears. “Stray Heart” is not listed on the track listing on the back of the jacket and does not appear on the record itself. This error pressing does not affect Tre, as “Drama Queen” appears on the track listing. At the time the error was found people speculated, and hoped that “Stray Heart” would appear on Tre so the song would at least appear on vinyl even if it’s on the wrong album, but the tracj listing change was made in time not to affect the vinyl pressing of Tre.

So as of writing this no copies of Dos, either the Hot Topic color vinyl pressing of the regular black variant that is widely available have “Stray Heart.” And as a result “Stray Heart” does not appear on vinyl anywhere.

Green Day – Uno (1st Press)

Uno is the first album in Green Day’s trilogy (Uno – Dos – Tre). There are two variants for it with only one being limited. Pink, which is limited to 1500 copies, was exclusively sold through Hot Topic. It took a lot longer than most expected to sell out and was available for at least two months. Uno was also pressed on black vinyl, which is available everywhere (maybe even Hot Topic at this point since their exclusive pink is OOP) and which the album will likely be kept in print for the foreseeable future.

A full color insert in included with the lyrics on one side and promo shots of the band on the other. The lay out and color coordinated color scheme is found on the isnert  with all two of the three records in the trilogy (Uno and Dos). Obviously only the colors and photos change from record to record, with the colors chosen matching the artwork.

Nirvana – Smells Like… Cover Versions!

I typically don’t buy bootlegs, but when I do it’s Nirvana. Terrible jokes aside, I typically don’t really buy bootlegs for various reason. There are a few exceptions though, mainly certain artists, and Nirvana is one of them. But I’ll never buy a bootleg version of an album that has seen a legit release. Looking through my collection I’ve only bought live boots or boots that have cover versions either recorded live or the rare in studio version . This Nirvana boot falls into the later, partially. It has cover songs and alternate mixes of original songs. I admittedly need to do more research on this boot, and once I do I will update this post with any verifiable, info I come across, or at least info from a trusted source.

Here is the track listing for this bootleg:

Love Buzz (live)

The Man Who Sold The World (live)

D.7 (live)

Turn Around (alternate mix)

Molly’s Lips (alternate mix)

Return Of The Rat (From Tribute 7″ Box Set)

Do You Love Me (Seattle Radio)

Plateau (acoustic version)

Lake Of Fire (acoustic version)

Here She Comes Now (from the Tribute LP)

Jesus Don’t Want Me For A Sunbeam (live)

Son Of A Gun (alternate mix)

Love Buzz (1st Studio version)

Blink-182 – Feelings This 7″ (U.S. Pressing)

As is typical with many singles, this one received two different pressings, one for each respective side of the pond. This, the U.S. pressing, comes in a picture sleeve and is pressed as a traditional record on black vinyl. The UK version was pressed as a picture disc and comes housed in a picture disc sleeve. The UK picture disc is a single-sided disc and only features “Feeling This.” The artwork for the picture disc for it is basically the same as the cover art found on the sleeve for the U.S. pressing.

The U.S. pressing was a promo. I did not acquire the record in the time frame of its original release, so I don’t know for sure the intended use of it as a promo item (i.e. given out to people who bought Blink’s s/t full length at certain purchase points, for pre-orders only, given out at random indie stores). Since the U.S. pressing is a traditional record, the b-side is the song “Violence,” which I believe is exclusive to this 7″. it may appear on one of the several iterations of the CD singles that were released in Europe or on some special edition of the s/t album.

Huey Lewis And The News – Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do 7″

Huey Lewis And The News – Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do 7″. B-side is “Whatever Happened To True Love.”