Post Nazi Germany is Great

When imports are brought up, I think most people would think of two things. Crazily expensive (it must be because of the shipping...) Japanese imports with those weird cardboard panels with all the Japanese letters, and the mandatory 3 B Sides that no one in any other hemisphere got. And then there's boring UK imports, which are generally CDs of dumb bands that people buy in malls. Rather than a cool panel like the Japanese have with cool writing, some bald sticker with some Helvetica ripoff typeface proclaims: UK Import. Boring.


I don't know about other music, but it seems like in the underground scene, there's a lot of cool German pressings of stuff. I guess they're not imports, but I import them through the power of eBay I guess. Here's a select few.


Minor Threat's Out of Step EP or LP, I don't even know what to classify it, was pressed in the UK (not all UK stuff is boring I guess) as well as Germany. The trademark blue/turquoise stripe gets a green treatment, and recommended price is a very fair 12 DM (Deutsch Marks). The UK has similar changes; red stripe and £2.50 . What makes the German pressing superior to the others is the song titles are listed in German. Ex: Betray becomes Verraten. How bad ass is that? Despite being a German pressing, this remains on Dischord.

Black Flag had a few albums pressed in Germany on what is possibly the coolest label name ever: Aggressive Rockproduktionen. Everything Went Black is pretty cool for a few reasons. First of all, one thing that pisses me off about this album, is that most versions say Everything Went Black on the cover, and then the spine says Everything Went to Black. SST has got to get their shit together like Aggressive Rockproduktionen, who got it right both times. This is also a double LP, but it's a gatefold, with lyrics and pictures of other Aggressive Rockproduktionen releases. The back is similar to the normal one, with a Black Flag bio, but this one is in German. I wonder if the translation is decent or not.




This last one is something I saw on eBay that I don't own, but would like to. The Gorilla Biscuits self titled 7" was apparently pressed on a 12" in Germany. Has the original pressing's lighter blue lettering, and a full size insert, that looks different from the 7" version. Maybe I'll bid hard and include a better writeup for the zine. Speaking of the zine, it will feature other cool German pressings, so you can't always rely on this online garbage as being complete. These photos were garbage, so expect much better photos in the zine that won't result in way too much flash.

Shout out to Soural

Rude Awakenings

Record collecting is no doubt something that has the potential to quickly escalate into a dangerous obsession. Like from drug addictions and women, this obsession can creep its way into the subconscious and reappear in our dreams. I'm not sure whether to call these instances of delusions welcomed good dreams, or hellish nightmares. Like many nightmares, which recur, there is always the same mythical record shop in my dreams, in an unknown city which seems to be laid out similar to downtown Victoria. I seem to associate die cut picture discs hung all over the walls. They carry a lot of punk and alternative music, but its split up and arranged in some unknown sporadic manner, and whenever I think I'm finished shopping, I find a new bin.

My most memorable dream of this record store was finding Minor Threat - Out Of Step, but an old Canadian pressing, with a maple leaf on the lower front cover. I guess I should also mention that I have almost every pressing of this record, including the UK and German import. This Canadian pressing was obviously a huge deal, not only because I didn't own it, but I didn't even realize that it existed. Once I woke up, I was delirious, and it wasn't clear whether I found it, owned it, or if a Canadian pressing even existed. Once I began to reach full consciousness, I realized that there was no Canadian pressing, and I didn't own it. Rude, rude awakening.

A more recent dream was set in a Value Village. Normally, in conscious reality, I don't have the patience to flip through the bins, but in this subconscious paradise, I found a sealed copy of some rare New York Dolls record, which also doesn't exist, but had a colour scheme similar to this Tom Petty record. Remember, dreams don't need to make sense. Anyways, the clever record collectors at Value Village were aware of the value of this record and had it priced at 49 dollars. I peeled off that price tag and found a tag underneath listed at 2 dollars. Bingo bingo bango.

Working on this zine project has been quite exciting for me, and constantly brainstorming new ideas has made me toss and turn in bed unable to sleep. I recently sold some rare NOFX records, 8 of the original 7" of the month club releases on colour. The guy I sold them to referred to these records as his white whale, the ones that had been keeping him up at night.

All in all, it seems records are unhealthy to anyone attempting to maintain a regular sleep pattern.