"DAVID'S TOWN" (LP)

Even the most avid collectors and fans of regionalia haven't heard thresh this fresh...

Jacket - Front

Jacket - Back

Vinyl - 'A' Side:
FU logo

Vinyl - 'B' Side:
Matador logo

Stats:

Year: 2011

Label: Matador Records OLE 958-1
Matrix A: OLE-958-1 A GOLDEN ⓤ
Matrix B: OLE-958-1 B GOLDEN ⓤ

Inserts: No insert

Variants: No (known) Variants

Pressing info: 2000 copies, Record Store Day release





Notes:

Announcement LFG Post (March 30 2011)

Anyhow, another exciting thing that's happening is we're doing another Record Store Day record. Last year if you remember, we co-ordinated it so we released a 7" with 10 different covers, all featuring a different record store on the cover. Probably entirely because of that, record stores managed to survive another year, so there's gonna be another Record Store Day this year. So we decided instead of recording any new music, why don't we just release this compilation album from 1977 we'd been sitting on since from before we were all born? We found like 750 copies of this great comp so we're gonna just use that.

FU webstore:

All the hottest bands from Byrdesdale Spa! All in one place! History is a gas dissipating into the aether, so hold onto a piece.

Pitchfork Interview Extracts (Jan 19 2011):

Pitchfork: But not only did you see the concept record through, you extended the concept to another record, the David's Town compilation made up of fictional punk bands. 

DA: If anyone can take credit for anything on this record, my big mouth can take credit for that compilation. I was talking to Tom [Breihan] at Pitchfork and he was like, "What else are you guys doing?" And I was like, "I have an idea for this compilation..." and started brainstorming it as I was talking to him. And then everyone in the band read that and was like, "I guess we have to do this comp now." 

Pitchfork: How quickly did David's Town come together? 

MH: In about a week. 

DA: There were a couple of songs on there that were going to be on the LP, but they just didn't fit in with the story. It was unfortunate that it came together so late in the game, because we had a lot of cool people that had tentatively signed on to do songs that couldn't because of timing. But everyone who's on that record is a friend of the band-- we've toured with the Cloud Nothings and Let's Wrestle, Carl Newman's an awesome guy. 

MH: Jonah's wife is on it. Some of the songs we literally did on the spot. 

DA: We were doing, like, three songs a day and my voice just couldn't handle it, so I'd take a break and Mike and Jonah would just go down there. You guys had a game, right? 

MH: You know slam poetry? It was like that. I'd do a take, and then Jonah would listen to it once and do a take of the drums.

DA: Except for [the hardcore spoof] "My Old Man's a Ginger", which I wrote and played everything on myself, thank you very much. If anyone has any doubt that I'm lying when I say I have no musical ability whatsoever, all they have to do is listen to that song.

If It Goes There: Kevin Drew vs. Damian Abraham Interview Toronto Standard 20011:

And this rock opera takes place in Britain, in the late 70s, early 80s. Why Britain?

The time period was so exciting for England, because that was the first time you have the manufacture of a product in the hands of the youth making the music. The youth culture had always been generated by the youth, but the actual manufacture and distribution of youth culture had been in the hands of adults. This was the first time you had kids putting out their own tapes, their own records. Hip-hop was forming. 

Then it’s also the time you have the death of Old Labour, the unions are going to be broken by Thatcher, you have Reagan in America. That time in England was so exciting, and I guess we’ve romanticized it in this band cause you think of Smiths songs and Morrissey growing up in Manchester… you think Oi songs, Sham 69, even Slade…

Sleeve Notes:

Front:

Byrdesdale 1977, seen through Rose-coloured glasses. The colours nod to the (alchemical ?) colour schemes of "Hidden World" and "Chemistry Of Common Life", as does the Sun image.

The other two records use symmetry with the Sun appearing on a central axis between two opposites. This time it's at 45°; the record is supposedly a collection of 45s.

Maybe that's all just coincidence but the Sun is definitely giving a knowing wink.

Back: Have fun spotting the references to FU themes - some Light Bulb factory ones are highlighted opposite. Also having a skinhead song named after the local football club and another inspired by German WW2 military aesthetics is strangely familiar. Strangely most of the sleeve colours get a name check and there are quite a few elements mentioned...

''Year Of The Ox''

I'm the ox who broke my chains, so I could fly away...

Sleeve - Front:
Merge Records Press

Sleeve - Back:
Merge Records Press

Vinyl - 'A' Side

Vinyl - 'B' Side

Lyric Sheet - Front:
Year of The Ox

Lyric Sheet - Back:
Solomons Song

Stats #1 - Merge: 

Tracks: Year Of The Ox B/W Solomon's Song
Year: 2010
Label: Merge Records
Matrix A MRG-391-A WG/NRP
Matrix B MRG-391-B WG/NRP

Pressing Info: 
First Pressing: 2175

Test Pressings: 5

(Thank you to Wilson Fuller for the pressing info!)

Inserts:
Lyric sheet as above

Stats #2 - Matador: 

Tracks: Year Of The Ox B/W Solomon's Song
Year: 2010
Label: Matador Records
Matrix A OLE947-1 BA13859-01 A1 MRG-391-A
Matrix B OLE947-1 BA13859-01 B1 MRG-391-B

Pressing Info: 
TBA

Inserts:
Lyric sheet same as Merge but slightly different paper

Variants:
1. Merge Press
2. Matador Press

Sleeve Front:
Matador Press (Top) has brighter print + different text at bottom

Sleeve - Back:
Matador Press (Top) has brighter print, different text at bottom and barcode sticker.

Label - 'A' Side:
Matador Press (Left) has different address on LHS 

Label - 'B' Side:
Different logos at top

Notes:

Promo Info (Merge Records): 

Recorded over 6 months by Jon Drew at Giant Studios in Toronto, Year of the Ox is the band's fourth record in the continuing 12 year cycle and adds to its evolving retinue of guest musicians. The patient and building Year of the Ox features Nika Rosa Danilova of Zola Jesus for a guest vocal passage and Toronto's string quartet, New Strings Old Puppets. The b-side "Solomon's Song", a gothic vampire love tribute to Twilight, features a 5 minute saxophone solo from Aerin Fogel of the Bitters and heavy synthing from Trust.


Solomons Song (LFG Post Aug 09 2010):
It's not really about vampires, but we told everyone that it was. What it's really about is sex, and we copped the lyrics straight from THE BIBLE. You can read them when you buy the record, ok?


An interpretation (From Guest Review on American Aftermath):
The A-side is the title track, which opens with a strings, both haunting and hollow sounding, repetitive and tense.

More weight on the back of the aging ox (Youtube screenshot)

The lyrics revolve around life of work-ox. Plugging ahead, never falling out of line. The riff plugs along with the ox whose days are all the same and has no identity beyond labor value. Over time, the need to increase productivity forces more weight onto the back of the aging ox and that increased tension is shown brilliantly through the music. But, like Boxer, the Ox “Will worker harder.”

The Ox displays self-awareness in the second verse where he realizes that “the turning world rests on my heels.” Economic progress is in the hands of the workers and by the fourth verse, the Ox realizes the tyranny of work and breaks free.

The freedom is not without pain as he looks back at the world he’s left. However, in the absence of the yoke, the Ox grows wings and flies away from the brutality of his masters. The strings return playing a celebratory tune of emancipation and promise for a better world.

The climax of the story takes place over the bridge where Abraham is joined by Nika Roza Danilova (AKA Zola Jesus), the haunting voice of freedom, whose clean female vocals contrast Abraham’s brutal intensity and collide before the Ox’s majestic declaration of independence from his masters.

The ox flies away and the track closes with the familiar strings.











Sleeve Notes:

Front: 'Ox Flying Away' by Susan Gale (No other info available - assumed to have been commissioned for the record)

Back: Les trésors de Satan (1895) by Jean Deville.

(From Wikipedia): During the last decades of the 19th century, many people in the West reacted to the materialism and hypocrisy of the period by developing an interest in esoteric, occult and spiritual subjects. The enthusiasm for these ideas reached its peak during the 1890s, the decade when the Belgian painter and writer Jean Delville was at the height of his powers.



Though Delville frequently wrote about his ideas, he almost never discussed his paintings. He left the interpretations to the viewer, and as a result his best pictures have an air of mystery and intrigue.

Satan’s Treasures depicts Satan with a wild, fiery head of hair and huge red tentacles instead of wings. Scarlet waves surround his left arm, as he presides over a river of unconscious men and women. The nude bodies of these figures appear orange and yellow in reproductions, but in the original they are a subtle mixture of acid pinks and yellows, highlighted with touches of green. They lie transfixed in the centre of a luxuriant coral reef, surrounded by coins, jewels and strange fish. Beyond the reef one can see vast vistas filled with jagged rock formations, and painted in shades of orange, yellow and brown. Though the full interpretation is again left to the viewer, it clear that Satan’s Treasures is not a traditional vision of hell. It reveals a fascination with decadence and the erotic which was typical of Péladan and the period in general. At the same time, as in the Portrait of Mrs. Stuart Merrill, there is probably an underlying theme of initiation.

Delville was a great admirer of Eduard Schuré’s The Great Initiates, and it could well be that Satan’s Treasures is inspired by an episode from the Initiation of Isis in Schuré’s book. In the relevant scene, Schuré describes the novice’s failure of an early test, the temptation of the senses. Wrapped in a dream of fire, the novice becomes drunk with the heavy perfume of a seductive woman, and later falls asleep, after wildly satisfying his desire. This failure is described by his hierophant as a fall into the abyss of matter.

Delville’s vast undersea world, ruled by Satan, is almost certainly an image of the material abyss. Satan, lord of the physical realm, presides over its sleeping inhabitants. Wrapped in delusion, the dreaming men and women are mesmerised by Satan’s spell, and trapped by their own desires. Satan’s “treasures” include not only their sensuality, but also their attraction to worldly riches, represented by the pearls, coins and corals which surround them. Above all, the entranced people themselves are the treasures of Satan.

Mad Men / Madmen

Madmen is Jonah's solo hardcore project.



Liner Notes of Mixtape 4 (By Mike Haliechuk): 
Jonah doesn't really have access to current events and media for some reason, so in 2009 while the show Mad Men was ripping up the Neilson charts (do these even exist anymore?) and women's’ Facebook status updates everywhere, he formed a one man band, also called Mad Men. Eventually some one will clue him in about the TV show, and he will watch it, right after he finishes watching The Wire and Thirty-somethings. Anyways, besides all that, Mad Men (the band, not the award winning, ubiquitous, hit TV show) is some pretty ripping stuff, his seamless tribute to the glorious anvil headed hardcore of the great lost years of the middle 1980s (i.e. right before he was born). He was gonna call this song (Wax World) “Wayne's World” but I advised against it, for obvious reasons. Jonah responds: “1st Mad Men Demo was recorded June, 2007. 1st Mad Men TV episode aired July ’07, haha, so there.”

Despite his rightful claim to the name, Jonah's "Mad Men" was shortened to "Madmen" at some point around 2010; the two demo tapes issued prior prior to that are under the name Mad Men, later releases are Madmen.


 Discographied below are the following vinyl releases:

• ''Madmen / Bootleg''  (12")
• ''Suspiria'' (7")

The tapes and a compilation get a mention too...

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"Madmen / Bootleg" 12"

Sleeve - Front:
Generic white sleeve, with glossy sticker

Sleeve - Back:
Photocopy track list / images pasted over centre hole. Some copies have the photocopy as a loose insert

Vinyl:
Blank labels...

Stats:
Side I: Too Hot / No Mind / The Neighboorhood / Square Glasses / Counterfeit Traitor
Side II: Madmen, The Awakening / Wax World
Released: 2010
Label: Not on label
Matrix A: 85870 -1A EW26
Matrix B: 85870 -1B eW26
Pressing Info: 
Test Pressings - 10
First Press - 500 copies, some have alternate sleeves - see pictures further down.




Notes:

Demo Tapes: The vinyl bootleg combines the material from the first two Mad Men demo tapes, plus an additional track.

Side 'I' contains the first demo, orginally released as a cassette in 2007:

Demo 1
(Image from Discogs)

Side 'II'  has the second demo, consisting of two tracks, originally released as a cassette  in  2008, plus additional track "The Awakening".

Demo 2
(Image from Discogs)

The material from both demos plus the additional track were also compiled on the "TWO AT A TIME PLUS ONE" cassette (2009)

TWO AT A TIME... Cassette
(Image from Discogs)

"The Awakening" (The additional track on the bootleg and the third casette)




Fleetwood Mac: According to Rumours, the bootleg 12" was actually released before the "Two at a Time..." cassette. It's not clear at this stage, how the bootlegger got hold of the additional track before it was released, or why the dates of the releases don't tie in with this fact, but the rumours came from a reliable source, so let's not be pedantic.


Quietus Review Feb 15 2010: Come early 2010, this 12" turns up in various keen distros: white label vinyl in a plain white sleeve with a tracklisting glued on the back. Official word is that it's a bootleg, but given Fucked Up's obtrusive approach to verifying the 'official' nature of some of their releases, smart kids reckon this might be Jonah's doing after all. If you're reading this and silently decrying it as irrelevant wild goose chase collectorscum anti-marketing-dollar hypeman bullshit, shame on you – what kind of monster would deny maladjusted men with low self-esteem the chance to feel part of an exclusive club? Anyway, this record bangs hard: constantly threatening to be tuneful but mostly sticking to the splattery chaos of metal-flecked 80s icons like Die Kreuzen and Void. Side two ups the weird a mite, slathering reverbed vocals and martial drumming over the turmoil.

In both style and aesthetic, Mad Men could be deemed 'mysterious guy hardcore'. Seriously? The scare quotes – that is an actual thing? Sort of, yes. It describes some bands with identifiable commonalities, which is generally how subgenres are constructed; it just doesn't exist outside of a few messageboards. (At this point – also thinking of 'hypnagogic pop' and 'wonky' here – annoying people seems to be as good a reason as any for inventing your own name for a basically unnecessary genre.)




Commodity Fetishism:

Alternate Sleeve # 1 - Front
White on black artwork - sheet pasted onto generic sleeve

Alternate Sleeve # 1 - Back
(As above)

Alternate Sleeve # 2 - Front
Gold on black artwork - sheet pasted onto generic sleeve

Alternate Sleeve # 2 - Back
(As above)

Test Press Sleeve - Front:
Black on white artwork pasted on

Test Press Sleeve - Back:
Black on white artwork pasted on

Test Press Dust Sleeve / Vinyl:
Black & white collage artwork pasted on. White hand-written label.

Test Press Dust Sleeve / Vinyl:
Black & white collage artwork pasted on

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"Suspiria" 7"

Sleeve - Front:
(First press)

Sleeve - Back:
(Second Press)

Sleeve comparison:
Top: 1st press - Fold out sleeve on glossy card. reverse is blank.
Bottom: 2nd press - Pocket sleeve on matt card. Back of sleeve is same artwork as first press

Vinyl:
Left: 1st press with small spindle hole
Right: 2nd press with punch-out hole

1st Press Insert: 
Lyrics & credits, photocopied on A4 red paper. Single sided - reverse is blank.

2nd Press Insert - Front:
Lyrics & credits + string vest printed on glossy paper

2nd Press Insert - Back:
Manly

Stats:
Side A: Suspiria / The Italian Flag
Side B: The Myth
Released: 2011
Label: Slasher Murder 009
Matrix A: U-64937m-A MURDER-009 Ⓤ
Matrix B: U-64937m-B MURDER-009 Ⓤ

Pressing Info (Thanks to Matt Bickle @ Slasher Records)
20 Test Pressings
300 First press
400 Second press





Notes:

Printing Errors: The ''first press" sleeve and vinyl were actually printing errors; the intention was for the record to have the punch out centre hole and matt pocket sleeves.


French Connection: Sleeve artwork by Ryan Hogan of Montreal Band  Omegas. Jonah gets production credits on their "Sonic Order" 7"

Italian Job #1: Suspiria is a cover version of the title track of a film score for the cult Italian horror film of the same name.

The original is an instrumental recorded by Italian prog band Goblin. The Madmen version extends and develps the tune into second track "The Italian Flag".




Commodity Fetishism:

"Pre-Release Sleeve" (Front)
Sold at a show before the proper sleeves were available? TBC

"Pre-Release Sleeve" (Back)
This one's housing a Test Pressing 

Test Pressing:
Hand written labels - ''Uomini Pazzi"

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More Notes:

Italian Job #2: At the time of writing (July 2015), the only Madmen track that dosen't appear on a Madmen cassette or record is a cover of  "Odia", originally by Italian punk band Tiratura Limitata.


French Connection #2: The Madmen version appears on the compilation "City Limits - Down And Out In Toronto & Montreal", which was released on Chris Colohan's High Anxiety label and is gives a snapshop of a particularly symbiotic sector of the Toronto & Montreal scenes.

Most of the recordings are exclusive to the comp; Jonah recorded a lot of the tracks on the 'Toronto' side and closing the circle, Yannick Sarrazin of Omegas recorded a lot of the Montreal ones.

MILLENIAL REIGN

After five years of promising each other that they would start a “clevo” style band , one day, Jordan (ex No Warning) and Damian (Fucked Up) finally just said fuck it and did it with the help of Jesse (ex No Warning). This band is about old friends getting together and playing heavy music again.

(From Former Millenial Reign Myspace)

Sleeve is fold out design

Main pressing comprised white and purple/grey-marble vinyl

Cultural Diaspora. Mass Exodus to a virtual world. A final evolution. 
(Lyrics on inside of sleeve)

Stats:
Side A: I Start Fires With My Mind / Moores Law
Side B:  Irrational Disdain / Luminous Veil
Released: August 31, 2010
Label: A389 Recordings A389-044
Matrix A: u-64374-M-A A-389-044-A
Matrix B: u-64374-M-B A-389-044-B


Pressing Info:
Test Pressings - 16
White Vinyl - Qty unconfirmed - probably 200, or 250.
Transition - Variable, mixture of whites and blue-greys - Qty unconfirmed - maybe 13
Purple/Grey Marble - Qty unknown, but most common variant

Inserts: No insert

Variants: 
Three vinyl variants - different colours as above
Two sleeve variants - Regular Sleeve & Limited "Leather" Sleeve - 65 numbered copies 50  made available for sale, originally as part of Record Store Day 2014

The rarely seen blue/grey-white transition vinyl (LHS), together with the two equally-pretty regular versions

'Leather' sleeve made for RSD 2014 - contained regular vinyl, cover and numbered dust sleeve. (Top left)
Test pressing vinyl and sleeve (Bottom and right)

Bones, dust, nothing - test press sleeve image

Notes:

Vice: After ten years of having to suffer difficult-to-listen-to arty screamo bands made up of sensitive guys wearing lampshades on their heads, it seems like hardcore kids are looking back to the straight up power violence/metalcore bands of the early 90s for their inspiration.

Four new bands that we like include Millenial Reign (Toronto, CN), Pulling Teeth (Baltimore, US), Living Hell (Boston, US) and an SXE band with the best name we’ve heard in years, Coke Bust (Washington DC, US).

While Coke Bust’s new demo sounds like vintage Infest doing Youth Of Today songs, the other three bands all owe a HUGE “artistic debt” to one of our favourite hardcore bands of all time, Integrity.

What started off as a vaguely normal straight edge band from Cleveland turned into an institution which would create a crossover sound of crusty punk, metal and hardcore which would go on to create metalcore, screamo and hardcore as we know it today. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that during the recording of their genre-defining For Those Who Fear Tomorrow album, downstairs from Nine Inch Nails’ studio in Clevo, the band were consuming a sheet of acid, weekly, bought from Filter’s singer Richard Patrick. Or maybe not.

In any case, Millenial Reign’s singer, Fucked Up’s Damian Abraham, told us that the main motivation behind his new band, which is named after an Integ song, was “total Integ worship”.

We got in touch with Integrity’s founder Dwid at his Belgian home to ask him what he thought about all this drooling fanboyism but he declined to comment. Instead we talked to Damian from Fucked Up and asked him what the hell was going on.

Vice: What the hell is going on? Can you explain why all the best new bands are ripping off Integrity and fashion labels are making shirts in their honour?

Damian Abraham: Well, I think the thing with Integrity is that it is a complete vision and package. I was never a “metal” kid growing up because I couldn’t vibe with the aesthetic and the straight up fantasy schtick. The thing with Integ is that they had all the elements that made metal appealing to me: The crushing metal riffs of Aaron Melnick but they also had Dwid’s complete warped world view and were rooted in punk. They invented metalcore and as someone who sings in hardcore bands: Dwid had the most intense vocals I have ever heard and really is one of the few vocalists to push the genre. I actually told Dwid about the band and we’re talking about getting him to do the artwork for the seven inch.

What do the rest of Fucked Up think about all this?

They are all Integ fans so they are into it. I think they are also hoping that this will stop me from trying to force the Integ thing on them.

A kind of “if we let him do this hopefully he’ll grow out of it” kind of vibe?

Kind of, yeah.

ANITA CRAPPER

Vice Magazine April 1 2007



The recording “was supposed to come out years ago on another label but fell through the cracks.” (Dom @ A389) 2010