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

Rocket From The Crypt – Live From Camp X-Ray LP - Yellow w/ Black Splatter Vinyl

Vagrant (2022, Reissue)

And here is the second bonus post of the week.  Because I missed Monday and because there isn't much to say about two records that I've already written about five other times each, I decided to post these on Tuesday and Thursday - days that I typically don't write anything.  Thus, bonus.

Another reissue of Live From Camp X-Ray, this time on yellow w/ black splatter.  I don't understand vinyl colors that have nothing to do with the artwork or color scheme, but alas, not all share that opinion.  No matter the vinyl color, if you put a Rocket From The Crypt record in front of me, I will buy it.

Rocket From The Crypt – Live From Camp X-Ray:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nKnmzeI1FIkTtSDffvbLqcPOwW_sQhUt0

Rocket From The Crypt – Group Sounds LP - Orange w/ Black & White Splatter

Vagrant (2022, Reissue)

I wasn't able to get anything written up for yesterday, so I'm going to throw out a couple of bonus posts today and Thursday to make up for it.  Also because neither of these records really warrant a full on write up, since they are just different colored vinyl variants of records I have opined on numerous times in the past.  Vagrant just seems intent on giving me the option to buy these records over and over again.

And speaking of, here it is: the newest version of Group Sounds.  This time it's pressed using the orange with black splatter color way that's typically more associated with Live From Camp X-Ray.  But, I am an annoying variant hunter for Rocket From The Crypt, so I must keep the collection up to date.  It's also an amazing record, but you can read about why in one of the other five posts I've put up about this record.

Rocket From The Crypt - Group Sounds: 
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6lTOyJ0taau3r39jaedwqgMTAlHG4z1o

Rocket From The Crypt - Live From Camp X-Ray LP - Orange with Black & Yellow Splatter (/500)

Vagrant (2021, Reissue)

This is the companion post to last week's Group Sounds review.  As part of the Vagrant Records twenty fifth birthday thing, they've been rereleasing records from their past.  As they had two Rocket records, it was probably inevitable that they'd be rereleased again.  This time out though they were exclusives sold through Newbury Comics.  

This was the last Rocket From The Crypt full length to be released and the fact that it is eighteen years old is a little crazy.  I keep hoping and hoping that we'll get another one someday, but so far there isn't anything in sight, I'll just have to keep on hoping I suppose.

This vinyl variant looks great with the album artwork, but it's also super similar to the 2013 reissue they did for that year's Record Store Day.  I'm fine always buying whatever variants are released to keep the archive up to date, but I wish they had done a version that was a little bit more unique.  While this is certainly the best looking version and is an improvement to the 2013 one, it is pretty much the same and I'm not sure why they didn't make it stand out just a bit more.

Then again, most people probably aren't idiots like me that own six versions of this same record...

Rocket From The Crypt - Live From Camp X-Ray:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nKnmzeI1FIkTtSDffvbLqcPOwW_sQhUt0

Rocket From The Crypt - Group Sounds LP - Yellow w/ Black Splatter Vinyl (/500)

Vagrant (2021, Reissue)

For Vagrant Records' twenty-fifth anniversary, they are rereleasing some records from their catalog.  To say that label had an uneven output of albums is the understatement of the century, but they did give the world a few John Reis releases, so they get a pass on the rest.

In addition to being part of the Vagrant reissue campaign, this particular version of Group Sounds was released as a Newbury Comics exclusive variant, limited to five hundred copies.  I already have five other versions of this on vinyl (and two on CD), but I just can't help myself from buying Rocket records.  The urge to have a complete archive of every version of every release is something I just can't shake.  Which is why the red vinyl version of the Pure Genius 7" haunts me daily.  Someone sell that to me please.

Anyway, this version looks pretty solid.  Yellow with splatter.  I don't know that it really stands out as being anything better or worse than the other colorways out there, but when you get to the tunes themselves, there are few records in this land as great as this twenty year old masterpiece.\

Rocket From The Crypt - Group Sounds: 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6lTOyJ0taau3r39jaedwqgMTAlHG4z1o

Rocket From The Crypt - Live From Camp X-Ray LP - White w/ Black Splatter

Vagrant (2016, Reissue)

This version of Live From Camp X-Ray is the last of the newer Vagrant reissues to write about.  Like most of the others, it's a splatter vinyl variant.  I will say that even though these colors don't really go with the color scheme of the artwork particularly well, I do like the way this looks more than a lot of the others.  It's one of the more simple and classy looking splatters that I've seen.

Music is just as good as always, so there's not really a ton more to say, particularly after the yarn I spun about this album last week.  So enjoy the picture and but the record if you don't already own five copies of it.

Rocket From The Crypt - "I'm Not Invisible":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK01FtMags0

Rocket From The Crypt - "Too Many Balls":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqv3vg04Pmw

Rocket From The Crypt - Live From Camp X-Ray LP - Clear w/ Orange & Black Splatter

Vagrant (2017, Reissue)

Rocket From The Crypt is my favorite band.  All I know about writing about their records is to gush about how much I love them.  Live From Camp X-Ray is another record of theirs that I love.  It's short, but it's a powerful blast of rock and roll straight into my soul.  It also has a special place in my heart as it I was involved in promoting it to college radio in a past life.

I also promoted Group Sounds to radio when that came out, but I was a new member of the radio team at that time.  While my Rocket tattoo was certainly used as a bargaining chip to help my company get on that record, I didn't have any contact with Vagrant and didn't have much to do with it on that side of the promotion world. (It's a weird thing, different promotion companies had to seek out record labels and convince them we were the best team to promote their record.  It was an interesting part of the job).  But I pushed Group Sounds as hard as I could to the radio stations I dealt with. My favorite part was convincing stations that they had to play it the week of my birthday that year.  I got a lot of extra spins that week. What a bizarre job.

By the time Live From Camp X-Ray was coming out, I had moved up the ladder and had many more labels that I was in charge of communicating with.  The moment I heard a whisper about this new Rocket record, I was immediately on the phone with Vagrant trying to make sure we could be involved.  There is no one who would have promoted this record to radio harder than I would, surely they would see that pretty quickly.  For whatever reason, the dude that worked at Vagrant that was in charge of the promotion and hiring of indie promoters for radio was being difficult.  I'm not sure if he was trying to get me to jump through hoops or maybe he just didn't like me, but he cat and moused me for weeks and weeks and just wouldn't give me any information or commit to anything.

Around this time John Reis came to town to play a show.  I actually can't remember for sure if it was a Rocket or Hot Snakes show (I could probably look it up and figure it out, but I need to finish this up), but it was definitely at the Bowery Ballroom.  I searched him out (I had started talking to him recently so that my company could help promote the Swami records releases) to just get his ear about wanting to do the Rocket record.  John was his usual super awesome self and said he'd put a word in.  I consider myself truly lucky to have been able to work with him in any capacity and to have at least a tiny part in helping out some of my favorite records of all time.  

I went back to work the next day and did my weekly follow up call with the Vagrant dude and he reacted really negatively towards the fact that I had spoken to John and accused me of going over his head.  I couldn't tell if he was joking or not but it was all very odd.  Fast forward a few more weeks and I got a call from a different guy at Vagrant.  He said the first guy was no longer with the company, the new guy (who I had actually known from other places) was taking over the promotion side for a bit and that my company was officially hired on Live From Camp X-Ray effective immediately.

He gave me everything I needed and sent over an advance of the record and I've been listening to it constantly ever since.  We had a nice little run with Live From Camp X-Ray and I consider it a highlight of my radio promo career.  We made a photo copy of my Rocket tattoo and mailed it out along with the CD and the bio sheet when we sent the album out to stations.  It was good times.

This newer repress is on clear vinyl with some black and orange splatter.  It looks pretty good for a splatter, though that's not my favorite vinyl type.  I would have gone with a black and orange split color, personally, but as always, I'm glad to add to the ever growing and apartment consuming Rocket From The Crypt record collection. Long live the dead.

Rocket From The Crypt - "I'm Not Invisible":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK01FtMags0

Rocket From The Crypt - "Too Many Balls":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqv3vg04Pmw

Rocket From The Crypt - Group Sounds LP - Yellow Vinyl

Vagrant (2016, Reissue)

This is the last of the Vagrant 20th anniversary reissues of Group Sounds.  It's on solid, translucent yellow vinyl.  I suppose it's the least interesting of the three newer reissues, though I will admit that yellow is my favorite color so I have a bit of a soft spot for it.

Considering that the others were wackier splatter variants, I'm not sure how this relatively tame third one ended up coming out.  The color doesn't really tie into the artwork particularly well.  You could make an argument that the cobra is yellow, but that's kind of stretching it and the cobra certainly isn't the same color as the LP itself.  

It could just be one of those unsolvable mysteries, but if there's a Rocket From The Crypt variant out there, it needs a loving home in my collection.  All three of these reissues have that loving home now.  I'll write up the two Live From Camp X-Ray reissues next.

Rocket From The Crypt - Group Sounds:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6lTOyJ0taau3r39jaedwqgMTAlHG4z1o

Rocket From The Crypt - Group Sounds LP - Clear w/ Black & Yellow Splatter Vinyl

Vagrant (2016)

This is the second of three Group Sounds reissues that my wife got me for Christmas.  I'm pretty fortunate that she doesn't mind stoking the fire of this collection that has rapidly taken over most rooms in our place.  All I can say is that I'm a lucky, lucky guy.

I like this variant better than the one from last week.  Though splatter vinyl isn't my favorite of vinyl colors, at least this one takes some colors from the actual artwork to use.  I'm not entirely sure why last week's had blue splatter.  Sure there's a bit of blue on the insert, but it just seemed a bit out of place.  Though let's be honest, the best variant of this LP was the record store day variant on white vinyl with yellow splatter from a few years ago.  That one made the most sense anyway.

No matter how you slice it, that doesn't change the fact that this is one of the all time best Rocket records.  Maybe most people don't need so many copies of the same record, but I for whatever reason, I do.  I have one more version of this album that I'll post next week, then it's on to Live From Camp X-Ray.

Rocket From The Crypt - Group Sounds:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6lTOyJ0taau3r39jaedwqgMTAlHG4z1o

Rocket From The Crypt - Group Sounds LP - Clear w/ Blue Splatter Vinyl

Vagrant (2016, Reissue)

Back in 2016, Vagrant rereleased a handful of records as part of their 20th anniversary.  Two of the records that received the reissue treatment were the two albums that Rocket From The Crypt released for them.  Despite my unhealthy need to own every crazy variant of every Rocket From The Crypt record, I dragged my feet picking them up.  They seemed kind of pricy and also felt a little unnecessary.  They were always on my list of records to pick up, but I kept prioritizing other things.

Luckily for me, I have an amazing wife who really understands and tolerates my stupid hobbies more than anyone actually should.  She picked up all of the rereleases for me for my birthday and Christmas.  I'm going to be trotting them out over the next few weeks.  There likely won't be a lot to say about them as the only difference is the vinyl color, but it is fun for me to document.

This version of Group Sounds comes on clear vinyl with blue splatter.  Splatter variants aren't usually my favorite and on this one I'm not really sure how those colors tie in to the artwork, but so be it.  I'd like to think that if you're reading my website I don't need to tell you what an amazing album this is.  Ranking Rocket records is a difficult task for me, but I can safely say Group Sounds is one of my favorites.  If you're not familiar, please go listen right away.  A wonderful new world awaits.

Rocket From The Crypt - Group Sounds:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6lTOyJ0taau3r39jaedwqgMTAlHG4z1o

J Church - Racked 7"

Vagrant (1995)

"Racked" is the song that got me to give J Church another chance recently.  Prior to hearing "Racked" it was the combination of an intimidating discography and having heard mediocre songs by them when I first became aware of the band that kept me from really pursuing any of their records.  "Racked" was such a perfect song that it made me give them another try, and I'm quite glad I did.  Arbor Vitae has become a frequently played LP and I'm starting down that dark path to pick up a few more of their records.  While I don't think I'll ever have the courage to tackle their entire discography (it really is insane), I am going to search out the highlights.  

I wasn't even planning to get the Racked 7" yet, but a friend of mine was purging it from his collection and I figured it would be a great addition to the jukebox project.  Sadly that project is on hold, but at least I have a few new J Church songs.  The way "Racked" combines the upbeat chorus, palm mutes and harmonics in the solo, it really is just an amazing two minutes.  I would encourage everyone to start there if you aren't familiar with the band.

On the B side we have two more songs.  The first is "Mary's Moving Out."  This one is a smash hit as well.  A blisteringly noisy guitar squall starts things off, giving way to a fast paced and dynamic verse.  It's a really short song, but it's excellent.  The last song on this 7" is "You Fucking Trick."  This one isn't your standard J Church pop punk, it sounds more like one of those noisy, sludgy songs Fluf would sneak onto their albums.  It's not awful, but it isn't for me.  Still, just for the first two songs I'd recommend checking this out, especially if you've been looking for an easy entry point into the vast J Church discography.

J Church - "Racked":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbmJDUtKk84

J Church - "Mary's Moving Out":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weqE4qRIKMc

J Church - "You Fucking Trick":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgn8D9G1e3k