As you may remember about 2 months ago I was feeling like complete crap and I took it out on my bank account by picking up some Shutdown test presses. I also noted that I really wanted Shutdown - Against All Odds, which is pretty high up on my want list. In fact it's REALLY high on my want list. But the person that I thought might have it, didn't. Well the other week my friend Brian sent me a link to someone selling a bunch of stuff on ebay. I've seen this guy many times selling tons of cool records. Mostly from Victory. I didn't think I was going to find anything I wanted but I scrolled, and I scrolled, and right there at the bottom of the list there it was. A record I've been looking to find for almost 10 years. Shutdown - Against All Odds Test Press. BOOM! What a find. With Victory they didn't make a lot of tests. There might only be 6-8 of these. Who even knows, there might be less. But there it was. Unfortunately there was a slight problem. The listing was a buy it now and included 2 other copies of the album on color. Not sure why he put these 3 records together. I mean I doubt there's anyone that would pay an insane amount of money for a test press, and not have all the colors. Maybe he figured he'd give it a shot. Either way the buy it now was there for the taking. And the slight problem? I personally thought the price was a too high. But then again, I rarely ever think a buy it now is cheap, as I pointed out in my Rhythm Collision test press post. So I shot this dude an offer, he made me a counter, and by the end of the next day the deal was done.
Victory was one cheap label when it came to test presses and pressing plants. As you can see, just a plain white label test from some unknown plant. They did with this with a lot of records. I got a bunch just like it. This one has a small sticker on the jacket, and some hand writing on the sleeve.
Another cool little part of this purchase is the person I bought it from owns a label called Words of War. So he sent me a couple of records.
The first one is a band called At Half Mast. The album is "Alive, Alone, and Waiting." This is a hardcore band from South Carolina. Don't know much about them, but in checking out their myspace page it sounds like this could be a good record.
The other record he sent to me is from a band called On My Side, which is a texas hardcore band who sound pretty decent as well. Unfortunately their breaking up. This album is their most recent on Words of War called 'Grow".
So there it is. Shutdown - Against All Odds test press. Pretty amazing that I own this after this much searching and hoping. The economy going to shit here in the US has definitely hurt a lot of people. This includes me. The only comfort I can take from it is the exposing of some of the most exciting records. It's like sunken treasure in a lake drying up from the drought of cash. The deepest and most protected treasure is always in the center. And it's always the last to go. The question is, have I seen the deepest part of my lake...
That was part 2 of my 3 part post. Tomorrow's item is great. There's no doubt about it. But to most it won't be as great as this record. The story is more interesting though...that's for sure.
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