The Get Up Kids - Eudora 2xLP - Mint Vinyl (/600)

Vagrant / Heroes & Villains (2016, Reissue)

When I wrote about the Get Up Kids Woodson/Red Letter Day 12" a few weeks ago, I had mentioned that my favorite GUK songs were the ones on the various 7"s that came out before and immediately after their first full length.  That's the main reason that I finally decided to pick up this LP.  I've had the CD since it first came out and the songs on the original 7"s were certainly on quite a few mix tapes in the late 90s, but I didn't have the vinyl.  When I saw the 2016 version pop up unexpectedly on the vagrant site for twenty bucks, I grabbed it.  Seems weird that some were kicking around all these years later if they were limited to 600 copies, it is what it is, I guess.

Now, I do wish the Woodson songs were on this.  It would make life a lot easier and would pretty much dump all of my favorite Get Up Kids songs on one release, but I figure Doghouse didn't want to give up the rights to their cash cow.  It would have been easy to make room by ditching a few of the EIGHT cover songs polluting this release.  There are way too many bad cover songs on here.  "Suffragette City" is OK, "Alec Eiffel" is good and "Burned Bridges" is pretty great (mostly because of how absurd the lyrics are), but the rest of them could have been jettisoned into the sun and the record would be better for it.

The highlights for me on here are the two songs from the first GUK 7" ("Shorty" in particular was always a favorite), the two songs from the Sub Pop 7" and the band's very best song, "I'm A Loner Dottie, A Rebel."  This version of "Loner" is the one from their split 7" with Braid and is approximately a hundred thousand times better than the one that ended up on their second LP.

Normally, I'm very much in favor of having songs run chronologically when put on a singles comp.  I always find it weird when bands decide to make the track list out of order.  But, the one saving grace about how they organized the songs on this record is that just about every song I really want to listen to is on LP two.  So I can avoid a bunch of the crappy covers and some of the later 7" songs that didn't hit as hard for me.  This is a bloated record for sure, but the hits are still pretty great all these years later.

The Get Up Kids - Eudora:
https://vagrant25.bandcamp.com/album/eudora

The Get Up Kids - Two EPs: Red Letter Day and Woodson

Defiance (2002)

I will never claim to be the biggest Get Up Kids fan in the world, but man oh man did I just love the Woodson EP and the other assorted singles that came out before and right around the time of their first album.  I like their first record Four Minute Mile just fine, but it's the stuff that came out leading up to it that really is what got my attention.  By the time that second album with the robots on the cover came out, they had changed into something I didn't really have any interest in.

But let's get back to Woodson.  I have the two 7"s that make up the Woodson CD EP, but let's be honest, it is something of a hassle to pull out two 7"s in order to listen to four songs.  I recently discovered this German vinyl release of Woodson and the Red Letter Day EP.  I had Red Letter Day as a 10" on green vinyl, but I sold it, probably about ten to fifteen years ago.  Pretty sure I got a decent amount for it, but I hadn't listened to it in ages.

When this record came in I relistened to the Red Letter Day side and you know what, those songs are pretty decent.  They're not as good as the ones from Woodson, but they're probably just as good as the first album, which I also haven't listened to in forever.  The four Woodson songs still rule.  I only wish they put the version of "I'm A Loner Dottie, a Rebel" from the Braid split on here too, then it would have been perfect.