vardcore

What the crap did I get myself into? Oh well, if I said it, I'll back it up! Haha!

You go back in time and get one of the 90 we sold online. Wish we had more. -- A THOUGHT: as I am currently spinning a copy of THE TIM VERSION "decline..." LP... I have to say that I'm still super excited at how it turned out. From the music to the art down to the vinyl colors (orange is my favorite for this one). Esthetically and sonically, it's a winner for me. Anyhow. Just throwing that out there. Dunno why.

Bite me. First press. Three colors. And they made the release date. Up yours! (None of your business how many pressed. No color less than 100, so calm the fuck down. Grey (in the photo) looks sweet with the art, also: Purple, Green.) (Starts shipping next week, so don't get all twitchy!)

-- Blue covers... there was a version with blue covers. Ha. Sorry if your face melted. (For an extra $100 we'll screen print any damn thing you want on the cover. Your face instead of Axl, for example? Hahaha.) -- The new LTJ looks like it was pressed at GZ, judging from the appearance of the vinyl. I do not have one yet, but I bet the inscription is stamped in, not hand scratched. That means direct-metal mastering and a different material than used in the USA.

Greyish purple, Purpley grey, medium grey swirl. You are doomed. on other fronts: I asked this question of the pressing plant: "Do you use the same material for the various weights of LPs?" And the answer was: "Yes the vinyl is all the same." -- I will report more as I find it. In the meantime, I'm going to press RAR on 180 and on 140, both black vinyl. A small run, between 100 and 300 each. I'll post when they are closer to arriving. Let's get to the bottom of this, haha!

And this is comparing the SAME album? That's what I am curious to know. Not comparing different albums. Heck, I might see if I can get a mythbuster pressing going. See once and for all, haha.

For 180 vinyl, the RECORD is thicker, but the groove is not deeper, as far as I know. The material used could be different that the 140, but I do not know. I don't think it is different. They should wear exactly the same, unless the material is different. Again, comparing one 140 record to another 180 one is only valid if they were pressed using the same metal mothers. THIS is something I'd be curious to know. Anyone? Yes, some of our records have been pretty thick, but no one was calling them 180 at the time. Especially the older ones, pressed on manual presses, would vary a bit in weight throughout the pressing. Specifically for the TFNO record, we could never get that exact color again. I always wondered if they were using up some weird leftover stock. It is still one of my favorites.

The weight does not matter, with the exception that if a vinyl press has to apply less pressure to the stampers to allow a heavier record, then there is a higher likelyhood of non-fill in the grooves and a worse sounding record. Now, any plant that is touting the heavier records probably knows this and already worked out the bugs, i.e. the plants that only press black records on 180. There's a reason. Theoretically, a thinner record would sound better, as the plates will definitely have squeezed way down into the vinyl blob. Of course, a flimsy record is a bummer... and too far in that direction feels like it could warp more easily. There was a problem a few years back with thin-ass records getting warped by the force of their own shrink wrap. Ha. Shrink wrapping vinyl is a bummer for other reasons too, of course. Ha. If you press a record on both 180 and 140 (same color vinyl) they will sound the same, as long as the same metalwork is used on both. It's all in the mastering, i.e. the lacquer-cutting phase. If you compare something cut at Aardvark with something cut direct-to-metal at GZ, you will probably like the GZ version better. (Case in point: Fifth Hour Hero / No Choice split 7". Go ahead. Compare the US and UK versions.)

You know 180 gram is silly, right? 140 gram does not sound 40 grams different. It sounds the same. It just SEEMS very cool when you pick it up. Why is that? It's all psychological. All it really does is cost more to ship, more to press, and it eats up resources faster. Petroleum. Gotta love it. There has already been a vinyl shortage, semi-resolved for the moment, but still: the raw material is shipping from overseas. Records are far from "green" to begin with. 180 just seems like going overboard. That's just me. (Prediction: Prices are going to skyrocket for vinyl from the Czech Republic, not that I press there, though many do. Hooray falling USD! Look for steady increases on domestic pressings over the next year too.) Why the hell am I talking about this? Oh yeah, the suggestion of blue 180 Gram. Not gonna happen. Picture Disc? Probably gonna happen before 2008 takes a crap and little baby 2009 rolls in. Been on the backburner for years. Other variation that's been peeing itself to be born? Red/Black split color. Yeah. I said it. Think about it. Let the flavor seep into your face. (No promises on that one, but it would be cool.) Salsa. Guacamole. Made fresh. Think about that instead.

that's an earlier pressing.

Since I've seen a few mentions in various places, here are a few insights: -- We totally love the energy and insanity of record collectors. We make records first and foremost for ourselves, then for everyone else who wants them. We are basically fans of the music we release, so we want to keep things exiting and fun for US and then for everyone else too. -- We often press records on random colored vinyl. When we do this, we have no clue what the colors will be until they arrive. That's the mystery factor. Sometimes they are all grey/purple. Sometimes they are 10 distinctly different colors. We get some pretty insane colors some times. Stuff you could never order, it's just fate. Also, these colors fade across the pressing. So, if we make 500 records, there might be 4 distinct colors. But they fade in and out. So what starts as "orange" might be lighter for 20 and darker for 20 but fairly consistent for the middle 200. Overall you have 240 orange. Where do you draw the line? Could you get uber-anal and call it THREE colors of orange? Sure. But that gets crazy after a while. Variation within the variation? That's up to the beholder. We try to be reasonable about it. -- What if we had never posted color breakdowns? How would that effect your quality of life? Would you own as many copies of the same record? Or less? Or more? Would it improve the chase... or kill it? (Before we had pressing info posted, we used to get a LOT of questions. And that was before everyone was permanently glued to the internet. I think it would be worse now. Posting it keeps people from constantly asking, besides being pretty interesting. It also serves as a mythbreaker for some records.) -- We like to make colored vinyl for every copy pressed so that EVERY person that gets a copy essentially gets a SPECIAL copy. I think that's cool. As an after effect, for some records, that also means that uber-nerds break into a sweat every time a new batch of records arrives from the plant. This is a side effect. We're not shirking it, but really, 95% of each pressing (or more) is going to NEW people, not collectors who have multiples. -- Don't take it too seriously. Especially with RAR. It's just a record. A damn cool record, but just a record. Especially with the random colors... you will NEVER get them all. And the colors will repeat in unplanned, close proximity to each other, over time. We change the label colors to help ease the minds of the select few die-hards, and just to be weird, but... to try for them all is to be doomed to a life of misery. WE don't even have a visual record of all the pressings. For real. -- HT tends to get the larger run colors. Just so you know. That said, they still get a fair variety over time. -- Did anyone notice that we changed the logo / address on the back cover of RAR? I wondered if anyone caught that. There have been at least five variations of the covers over the years. Mostly it's just in the paper stock or varnish (and not all were intentional). -- That said, I have a few ideas for future RAR pressings. Some of them have been on the backburner for a couple years. Stay tuned.

There are several thousand copies of the OLD GLORY version. No clue the actual number, but it is a few thousand.