90’s punk

The Greatest Air-Guitar Record Ever! or Green Day – Dookie

/ ds barrett / 3 Comments

dookie

Love it or loath it the 90’s punk revival didn’t go mainstream because of Nirvana, Sonic Youth or any of the other champions of noise from 89 to 93. The exact day it started was February 1st 1994 with the release of Dookie, and it was a monster. It sold 10 million copies in the year following its release and has sold another 10 million since. It was fast, it was fun, it was angry, and it was everywhere! It was the kind of record you knew would be HUGE on a single listen, and believe me, that isn’t an easy thing to say as a critic. Arguably, Dookie may even be the greatest air-guitar record ever!

So from a vinyl perspective, it is an obvious and essential part of the collection, but what is available and where the hell do you start?

Well believe it or not, your options are quite limited. You can find a used copy from 1994, of which a dump load of unofficial copies were also released, or you can buy new and there have only been three “official” re-releases since 2008. The first two are re-issues printed in the US and Europe on black 180 gram vinyl and are still widely available.

The last one is slightly more interesting than the others. It is a limited edition green translucent vinyl that had only 1000 copies printed and were sold exclusively at Hot Topic stores in the US. While the limited Dookie sold out long ago, most Hot Topic vinyl is sold under $30.00.  Resellers are asking over $50.00 for the green vinyl now. Of course, if you have a giant whack of cash, you could buy an original 1994 green translucent vinyl or autographed copy for several hundred dollars on the resale market… but … um… that’s a bit out of my price range.

dookie1

If you are looking to get a copy, your best bet is still the 2008 180 gram version which sounds great and can be purchased at very reasonable prices at all the usual places.

 

Dreams of RSD past (FOUND!) and future: Social Distortion – Hard Times & Nursery Rhymes and eponymous

/ ds barrett / 1 Comment

sdht

Occasionally, as you walk through your local record store, and you try to put together a coherent thought, you just see it, a record you wanted badly, but never thought you would get, just sitting waiting to live a new life on your turntable. That is how I found a copy of the 2012 Record Store Day edition of Hard Times & Nursery Rhymes by Social Distortion.

Since its release in 2011, Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes have had four different editions put out all in limited quantities. The pre-orders from their web site were yellow and limited to 1000. The next 2500 to hit store shelves were red, and the last 5000 were black.

The following April, Social Distortion released 2000 RSD editions in green and included with it a “machine gun blues” poster. The great thing is that besides being an awesome record, it still seems to be readily available at decent prices. Discogs have it listed at $37.75, but I picked mine up for less than thirty a few weeks back.

sdp

I doubt highly that this will be the case after this Record Store Day 2015 when their eponymous record is reissued. This is the classic 1990 record (that actually hit the Billboard 200) that contains the stellar “Story Of My Life.” While it was recently (2012) reissued on 180 gram vinyl by Music on Vinyl over in Europe, it is only available here as an import. That is until Record Store Day, when 1500 split colour blue and white copies hit the shelves.

sd1

It is definitely on my wish list and circled in red for high bloody priority find. I will be a disappointed record collector next Saturday if I don’t find it.