Uniform Choice - Screaming for Change

Here’s this week’s instalment of Cliché Vinyl. I couldn’t put up an update last week, so I hope this post will make up for the delay. I’ve tried to collate all the information on the classic release; Uniform choice’s - Screaming for change. Screaming for change without fail will always be on my top 10 hardcore LP’s of all time.
This was the 3rd release put out by Wishingwell Records in 1986 and in my view this is a pretty much the prefect release. Uniform choice is well known for being one of the main iconic straight edge bands and for their iconic t-shirts . What is less well know is that some of their songs where going to be released as a split 12” with the rap group N.W.A. sadly the split release never came out :(



From what I can see there are 4 presses of this record.

1s press – This press has a yellow sleeve and yellow labels, unlike the other press’s which have a green sleeve and green labels. I believe most of the 1st press came with a sticker and a large fold out poster. Around 1000 of these were pressed.

2nd press – This press had a green sleeve and green labels. An unknown amount were pressed on black vinyl – maybe around 2,000 plus? As well as the black vinyl version, they made a few colour versions. A lot of these colour versions were sold on tour. A cool thing about the record was that they sealed all the records, so lucky people have picked up the colour version of the press thinking that they were just opening a black version of the record.
From I can see there are 4 main colours pressed. And a couple of “transition version”
The main versions are the:
Green vinyl
Red Vinyl
Purple Vinyl
Grey Vinyl
I believe that pressing plant must have pressed the colours one after another. As some of the Red vinyl versions have some purple streaks in them when you hold them to the light. Also there is a “Pink” version. This Pink version might have been created from a mix of the grey colour and the purple mixing together, or maybe the purple colour wasn’t 100% mixed before the pressing started. I’ve heard that there might like 10 – 20 of the pink versions. The Pink version looks similar to the purple version, but has no streaks in the mix and looks like a very faint purple vinyl aka a pinkish colour. As far the number of numbers that were pressed, I’m guessing they made a same amount of the colour versions as the other wishingwell colour releases. Therefore you could be looking at 250 made per colour? Either way, it’s still a cool record to look out for.



3rd press – This was just pressed on black vinyl. The way to tell difference between the 2nd press on black vinyl and the 3rd press is from the lyric sheet. The 3rd has a smaller more condensed vinyl sheet.

4th press – I’ve heard that this press might actually be a bootleg done in Europe. It looks just like the 2nd press and 3rd press on black vinyl, but has no lyric sheet. A lot of them have surfaced in the last couple of years. All of them seem to sealed, these can be found in some distros at the moment..Odd?



Thanks for reading, sorry about the bad grammar. I’m going to blame it on lack of sleep and jetlag!

Youth of Today – Can’t Close My Eyes - Batman press

After writing about the classic Youth of Today – break down the walls release on wishingwell, I thought I should follow up with another classic Youth of Today record, the “Can’t close my eyes” 7”

I’m talking about that odd 4th press on positive force records / Revelation records, or better known as the “Batman stamp” or “Orange vinyl”. There were only 100 of these pressed, so good luck on hunting them down!

This rare version was pressed by Ray and Jordan of Revelation Records in order to trade for toys that they collected. Often the best way to get those rare Revelation records was to trade all sorts of collectable toys to them (Ask Marcus Andrews .. lucky git!) In a lot of the early releases Revelation records would put in hand made fliers asking people to trade toys for rare revelation records.
Here a just a couple of fliers I dug out:





This Can’t Close My Eyes version was created just purely to trade, if you didn’t have a toys that they wanted, you didn’t get the youth of today 7”. So what does the record look like? The A side of the record has a blue label like the 2nd press of the, “Can’t close my eyes” on positive force records, but the b-side as a blank label. Maybe Ray and Jordan had a bunch of labels left over from the previous positive force releases? On the b-side you will find a black batman stamp, this stamp was also stamped on paper dust sleeve and again on the front cover.







Over the years I have seen other early Revelation records releases with “Batman” and “superman” stamps on the dust sleeves; I believe that if you traded a toy to Rev they would stamp the dust sleeve, to maybe indicate that the record was obtained by trading toys rather than just buying it.


Revelation records also made some other things to trade for toys. They also made the “GI Joe” t-shirt to trade for toys. I have to honestly say I thing I would have rather kept the toy than the GI Joe t-shirt. I believe they made two versions of the GI Joe t-shirt, the version I have is well ... pretty hideous. I would love to see a picture of the other GI Joe t-shirt.





After a quick hunt on the Webb I think I found the GI Joe model used for the t-shirt above. I no expert when it comes to Toy’s!



Again if you are reading this post and you have some more fun facts or interesting information about the Rev trading records or GI Joe t-shirt, please let me know or just leave a comment. 

Youth of Today – Break Down the Walls - Wishingwell Press

I love this release and you know it sounds better on Wishingwell!

Looking back when I first drew up my want lists whilst sitting in school lessons, I never thought I would be able to add these records into my collection. I had a rubbish part time job working in a pub, working as many hours as I could. I would stare at the clock working out how many hours I would need to work before I would have enough to pick up the next record on my want list.
A few years later, 1,000 emails later, 5 jobs later I got a package from Florida, inside it contained not just one colour, but both colours versions of the Youth of Today – Break down the walls on Wishingwell. It’s hard to describe the feeling when you get a package like that. I’m sure ever collector has that moment when that dream package turns up, that just leaves you in disbelief.

Why are these colour Versions so hard to find???

Here’s the legendary story behind the mythical record.
Legend has it there are around 150 on blue vinyl and 150 on red vinyl made. But I think oringally around 200 – 250 where made of each colour. Wishingwell gave 100 of each colour to the band to sell on tour. Before the band could sell anything the tour van that was broken into and everything was stolen. Assuming the thieves weren’t hardcore fans or record collectors sent back in time, then the records were all lost or broken or dumped on the side of the road.
So what happened to rest of the records? Well.. Wishingwell sold the rest to a few record stores in local California area. To add insult to injury, one of the record store owners – maybe an anti straightedge record shop owner nailed the colour vinyl press to his back porch to watch them curl up over time.



Therefore it is my beliefs that there are around 150 – 125 left of each colour now.
After digging through some flyers, I found this Youth of Today record release flyer, for the Break down the release show! As a guess this might of been the flyer for the show where the Youth of Today records were stolen?



The Back and Yellow sleeve press?



(Ripped this photo from the interent)

Not a lot is known about this record. I’m going out on a limb on this one, but after reading though lots fanzine here’s my “hypotheses” on the record. Shorty after Wishingwell released the break down the wall’s 12” Ray Cappo and Patt Dubar fell out. To sum it up Ray thought Wishingwell ripped them off and tried to give Patt Dubar a bad name. Anyway after all the moaning from Ray, I’m guessing wihsingwell just released a 2nd press of the break down the walls “on the sly” And thus the black and yellow sleeve was made. I’m probably wrong, but unless someone else tells me what happened that’s my guess.

WarZone – Lower East Side Crew part I

This where it all started for me!
This is the first ever Revelation Records release and it was also my first ever Revelation (REV) release to put into my collection.
Small back-story - Rev was started by Jordan Cooper and Ray Cappo in 1987 in New York. They went on to release the who’s who of the hardcore scene at the time. Over a period of 3 years they had put out over 23 releases, including the first ever Sick of It All release, Judge – Bringing it down LP, Gorilla Biscuits – Start today lp and many more. As this was the first ever release done by Rev, not everything came out perfect. They had to get help from Kevin Seconds who ran Positive Force records and Kane from BYO records. The recording was sent to Kane at BYO records, who also worked in a pressing plant. Kane then mastered the recording and then pressed the record, he certainly pressed the record, but I’m not sure how much work went into mastering the recording!




So eventually after lots of hard work the Warzone 7” was ready and this where the fun begins!
In the first press 1,000 were made. Not including the test press there seems to be 3 main versions.

1. Stamped number on the b-side label version. A lot of the early rev releases have small amounts with number stamps on them. Maybe the first 100 were stamped? Either way this is a tricky version to find as many people don’t know they own one.



2. Band posters insert version. I’ve been told that the band where given a bunch to sell, so to make them a bit cooler the band added in some extra inserts or just big Xeroxed pictures of themselves in with the record. I believe the pictures were taken from the book “How to make A scene”






3. The legendary “Aborted Press” version. This version is sometimes know as an aborted press, but it is actually the same mix as the other 1st press vinyl’s. Some people think that the record plant might or ran out of blue labels for the press and then defaulted back to the default white label? Either there are around 41 one of these floating around, some come with a coloured in orange sleeve, some have just the regular sleeve. Good luck in finding one!!!

Middle Class – Out of Vogue

As this blog is about hardcore vinyl, I thought I should start it off with this record.



Middle Class – Out of Vogue 7” on Joke Records 1978

Arguably this is the first ever hardcore record ever made. This was pressed in 1978 by the label Joke Records. Joke Records was ran by Billy Star. There seems to be a few versions of this record; one with yellow labels and one with Silver labels.

I was told that only one press was made for the record, so why the different labels? All I know, for every 5 silver label version’s that pop up, one yellow version seem to pop up. Therefore I would conclude that the yellow labels version would be the rarer out of the two. Maybe 2 pressings where made? – A Few hundred with yellow labels and then a 2nd press was made with silver labels? Who knows, if you have any information on the record, please send me a comment.

Fun Fact - Mike Atta from Middle Class now owns and a vintage furniture shop in Fullerton, California called ... guess what "Out Of Vogue"

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