Hot Topic Isn't Really Aimed At Me

I nipped over to the States at the weekend to scour round a few of the dead malls with only a few stores still open, ghost towns which are a shadow of their former selves now that there is a Walmart superstore on the next block that has everything the average loser needs under one roof.  One of these flea bitten decrepit joints had a Hot Topic in them, I've never been inside one of these and only heard about it when bands put out exclusive vinyl colours only available at Hot Topic which means I'll never own.  For anyone who hasn't been in one, it's the place you buy those long gloves with the one finger hole on them and neon hot pants that you see tweens wearing in the summer, it's also a place where you can pick up the latest Bring Me The Horizon shirt complete with a design that looks like a gorilla ate a complete paint set and then threw it up on a shirt.  Apparently you can't work there unless you have a mullet/sweep fringe combo and ears stretched so big that you can fit your hand through them.

Anyway, my curiosity was sated enough for me to leave until I noticed a couple of boxes of LP's hidden away at the back, naturally I had a flick through and came across the first Head Automatica record, for anyone who doesn't know who these are it's Daryl from Glassjaw and Josh from American Nightmare (going under the britpop moniker of Jarvis) playing a kind of funk dance punk thing, sounds shite on paper but it's dead catchy.  This is the first time it's been pressed into vinyl after coming out in 2006 and  Hot Topic had 1500 on green/blue split, the rest of the press was only available on black.  I read about this reissue in a magazine last September and didn't think anything of it because of the Hot Topic thing so it's cool that I found one in a shitty old mall.

This next one I was debating purchasing, I didn't enjoy the record in the slightest on the first time round, haven't been able to get into it in the years since but for ten bucks I couldn't really leave it in that crummy store.  This is one of the clear pink records that come with a super big poster insert with the background music cover on the back, I'm assuming that reissue has the same poster inside too.  It's a shame they didn't have Bakcground Music in stock as I haven't picked up any of these reissues from Deathwish and I like that record much more than We're Down Til We're Underground.  Not bad for ten bucks eh?

 I don't own a copy of the original pressing of this record, did it come with a gatefold cover?  I know Background Music didn't on the first pressing, not sure on this though.

Tonight I will redefine everything and tomorrow I will start in on my better days

Saves The Day - Can't Slow Down [Equal Vision]

I could write out this albums lyrics from beginning to end without listening along to the songs, I know them that well. It's their best album by far, yeah it rips Lifetime off but if you're going to rip one band off in a melodic hardcore (yeah I didn't say pop punk) band then they're the band to steal from. I listened to this record way too much in the early 00's along with the second record and acoustic EP. I'm posting about this because this week I'm seeing them play with Sunny Day Real Estate in London, it'll be the fourth time I've seen them play (first for SDRE obviously) and the first time since 2003, shit has it been that long? Well, it might not even happen seeing as the ash from the shitty volcano in Iceland might stop both bands from getting to the UK on the plane so fingers crossed eh.

The record I've got is the press Equal Vision did when Vagrant snapped the band up in 2000, they repressed Through Being Cool and all the Converge records too as they'd just signed with Epitaph. The red LP is limited to 300 from what I can see, it's not an oiginal press but it's a pride and joy to listen to nonetheless.