Back on my bootleg bullshit. I posted one earlier this year when I added another live Slayer boot to the collection, but I had the itch for more, so this is my first one for Megadeth. I wasn't too impressed with the goofy looking cover art for this Megadeth bootleg, but since it was a very early live set for the band, I couldn't resist it. Recorded live in San Francisco on February 19th, 1984, so these are the very early years of the band. We are a full year out from the release of Megadeth's first album, and Mustaine is still cobbling together musicians trying to find a group that works... i ..read more

There was a time, not that long ago, when the first thing that I'd do each morning was open my latest Discogs wantlist message to see if there was anything new that I should buy. Over the past 6 months or so, I gave that routine up. Same shit everyday with the same shit prices. It was frustrating, so I started ignoring them. A couple months back, I was itching to buy some records, but didn't know what I wanted... so I hit one of the wantlist messages and was surprised to see something that I wanted... and at a good price. What? Posting my second test pressing this year? Damn, this almost feel ..read more

Last year, I was all about checking out new music that was outside the normal spectrum of what I typically listen to. I was really craving something new and different for me, and I found all kinds of stuff that was fresh and interesting to me. In that spirit, I stumbled upon the band IDLES as I was checking out some new music on Spotify. The artwork of the pink frosted cake for the single Gift Horse caught my eye, and I figured that I'd take a chance and give it a quick listen. I was really digging the Gift Horse single and quickly checked the other two song that were on Spotify to promote th ..read more

I'm not big on alternate recordings for songs. It just doesn't interest me. All I need is the final version that ended up on the record. Anything else is wasted on me. So when I heard that there was a new Minor Threat record with some outtakes, I didn't give it much thought. However, as I was listening to the DJ station on Spotify and it queued up this different version of In My Eyes, it caught my ear and I thought it was kind of cool. Okay, a little backstory. Chad Lutzke is an author that I enjoy quite a bit. He writes short novellas that tend to come in just over 100 pages, and focus on da ..read more

When I first heard the Manifest Decimation album from Power Trip back in 2013 it didn't do much for me. I think that I just had so much great new music that year, that I couldn't sit still long enough to appreciate it. So many other great records were taking up all of my attention. Power Trip finally clicked with me with their Nightmare Logic album in 2017, and even though that record was one of my favorites that year, I was still slow to go back and give Manifest Decimation another go. Last year had me revisiting Nightmare Logic a bit, and I figured that it finally time to give Manifest Deci ..read more

No doubt, last year I really branched out on what I was listening to for music. I was craving something different, and I discovered all kinds of stuff that hit that spot. Part of that shift was that I allowed myself to listen to single songs. I've always been a "full album or nothing" kind of guy, but realizing the freedom with Spotify to listen to a song with zero commitment to chase anything else changed my entire outlook. Plus, as my friend Doug and I were sharing with each other the oddball shit that we had listend to that year, he told me, "Spotify is totally for listening to shit you won ..read more

When Sandwell was over from the UK, and I met him in Boston for the afternoon, he was kind enough to bring me a couple of gifts. The thing about me is that my personality is 50% records and 50% books, so Mark knows me well. First up, Mark delivered me a book on the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. I've got a few books covering the NWOBHM, and the series of them from Martin Popoff, I've read a couple of times, so I'm happy to add one more to the shelf. It has been a few years since I've spent any time reading non-fiction books on music, but the next time the NWOBHM obsession kicks in, I'll be ..read more

One last record before I checked out of Wanna Hear It. I said that I wasn't going to spend a lot, and while I did walk out of there with six records, they were all relatively cheap, so I'm saying that I did an okay job with self restraint. When I bought the Abuse Of Power 7 inch back in 2017, I only grabbed the black vinyl pressing, and I was okay with that. Black vinyl was the more limited pressing, and while there was a small itch to grab a colored vinyl option, I kept my cool and didn't do it. Now that I have this edition with the Atlanta Vacation cover, and it puts my total collection for ..read more

I'm not a big fan of live recordings. Sure I'll break out Kiss Alive or Black Sabbath Live Evil every now and then, and I'll grab the occasional live bootleg for the historical documentation of what songs some of the big metal bands were playing at that point in their career, but for hardcore bands... kind of pointless. Is there a single live hardcore record that people listen to on a regular basis? Fuck. I was at the last Have Heart show, and still, I have no interest in listening to the live album from it. So when I was obsessing over the early 2000's in recent years, and picked up a couple ..read more

When I listen to music, I usually pick a year and then stick around listening to the records from that year over and over, until I feel the need to move on to something else. A couple of years ago, I found myself stuck in a 2008 playlist. For me, that seems to be a time period that I rarely reach back to, and I attribute that lack of attention is due to the fact that my brain insists that 2008 was just a couple of years ago. I either listen to stuff that is brand new to me, or stuff that is really old... anything in the middle kind of gets lost, and 2008 kind of falls in that weird in-between ..read more