Nick Mango

Feb 27, 2010

Yuppicide Isn't Dead Yet! Least not for me.

One of my favorite bands of all time is Yuppicide. I still remember where I was when I first decided I needed to check them out. The year was 1995 and I was in Port Jeff with a buddy of mine. We were going to hit the curbs by the statue of Thomas Jefferson. When we got there, there was a sticker stuck to the wax. That sticker said Yuppicide. I thought to myself, "So skaters like this band. Interesting. I better go see them." Here I am 15 years later still obsessed with their music. Still listening to it at least once a week.

Let's do this. Yuppicide - Dead Man Walking - Test Press. The quest continues to get every single Exit/Wreckage release including test presses. It's an impossible goal. It's almost stupid to even say that's what I'm trying to do. People think collecting dischord or revelation is tough. Try collecting a label that barely anyone gives a shit about, let alone collects and saves. I don't even want to get into the retarded pressing practices of this label. I mean what kind of label needs to press 6250 copies of Madball - Droppin Many Suckers on black. Then decides they only need to press 250 in maroon?! I mean seriously, that's just fucking evil.



Been trying to pry this off a dude on HYE for over a year now. Toughest guy to get to return emails or offers. I pleaded with him to return my emails. I even had other people trying to make 3 way trades with this guy. Nothing doing. Then one day, right out of the blue, he posted his entire list for sale on PoisonFree and I nearly had a heart attack. So I injected a few hundred bucks into the german economy, and in return I got myself a pile of records needed to help clean up my Exit/Wreck-age colored collection. Incredibly, I'm still missing a few of the 7s. But on the other hand, I have variants of colors no one knew existed. So that's a pretty cool consolation prize. One thing a lot of people don't realize about Exit/Wreckage is they never cleaned the machine between presses. So there's always a few weird mixed color transition type records available for each release. Those are the real fun ones to find.

This guy even had a sleeve for the test. Must have gotten it straight from the label. Not many people put the test press in a sleeve back then. In fact, no one did.





This is a big score. These sleeves are complete junk and didn't last very long. The one I have for my pink copy is pretty beat up as well.

One day, when I feel up to it, I'll pull out all my E/W stuff and take a picture. Maybe after I track down the few 7s I need. I feel like I'm not only battling the person with the records I want, but also time. With a label like Dischord or Revelation, time is almost a non factor. You know people will always collect them, or at least save them because of their value. But with E/W, a lot of people bought them just to buy them, not to collect them. Which means they don't care enough to keep track of them. And it goes even further then that. E/W had a crazy distribution deal with lumberjack. Shits all over the globe. So add up all that and you get one of the hardest collectible labels to collect. Because really, if you think about it, this is a collectible label. They knew what they were doing. Madball, 6250 in black, 250 in maroon. Even Dead Man Walking was 550 pink 1650 black. Those are collectible numbers for a non collectible label. Bad combination for collectors....if that makes any sense.

Feb 25, 2010

Whoa...I Got a Blog Too?!

Man I tell ya my life is way too busy. I need to either stop taking on big projects, or I need to stop sleeping the 4 hours I usually get a night. Luckily in between designing Clinton Park, working on LP, and hanging with the girlfriend, I've managed to pick up a few records. Well more than a few, but let's just start with these and I'll working on adding one item to that list of duties, keeping up with this blog! Damn I'm lazy.

The singer of KYI, Andy, was selling his whole collection through a third party guy on ebay. I picked up a bunch of stuff. Let's do a couple.

Kill Your Idols S/T - Tattoo Press 8/50 - For a guy that prides himself on his Long Island record collection, I'm really slacking in the Kill Your Idols department. I have a bunch of releases, but not many of the really rare ones. Here's the tattoo press. Only given out to people with a KYI tattoo....yeah they made 50 of them. That's ridiculous. I have no right to own this record, but maybe one day.




Kill Your Idols - The Skinnier Years - White #101/111
Kill Your Idols - The Skinnier Years - Test Press #7/13

Here's another couple hard to find releases that I grabbed from Andy's auctions. Pretty happy to have these two. One of the reasons I was really terrified about starting to collect KYI records was because it's just never fucking endless. They make a million damn variants and they have a million damn albums. Luckily, they're all incredible!

Feb 2, 2010

X Swatch Maxi

I know it's been a while since I posted, but I promise you, I haven't been sleeping till noon and drinking the nights away. My proof is below.



About 3 months ago someone listed an X Swatch Maxi on ebay and I nearly shit myself. They never made an X Swatch Maxi. I read the description very closely and realized that the person selling it, made it. He took a black Maxi, one that looked exactly like the X Swatch, and just added a custom face. The pictures looked great. I was really torn. I wanted this thing bad, but I thought there was just no way I would bid enough to win it. Usually when I want something, I win it. But this time I was like, "Eh what am I going to do drop 600 bucks on a clock!?" So I didn't bid. I just watched the seconds tick away. And imagine my embarrassment when the damn thing ended at less than $250. Wow was I pissed. So here I am 3 months later and for some reason I searched for X Swatch on ebay. I never do that. I don't really have any interest in owning an X Swatch. I don't wear watches. I guess it was fate though, cause when I searched for X Swatch that day another X Swatch Maxi popped up. I thought it was the same one being re-listed, but it wasn't. It was another one built by the person who built the original one I didn't bid on. Well I bid on this one. 275 bucks later I was putting this baby together and hanging it on my wall. The face looks great. No idea how he made it. And I'm not opening it to find out.