Every year, on the third Saturday of April, music lovers all over the globe get the chance to grow their collections even larger due to an event called Record Store Day. Recording artists make special appearances and performances, "meet and greets" with fans, etc. are all events of Record Store Day. The most special part though is the exclusive vinyl and CD releases that are only available during this holiday for audiophiles!
This year's Record Store Day was on April 16th, and just like in previous years, I had to work so I didn't go out. My good friend and fellow audiophile, Eric, however, was able to help me out! I asked him to pick up 3 items for me if he happened to see them: 1) Nirvana's "Hormoaning" ep repress, 2) Sonic Youth's "Whore's Moaning" ep repress and 3) the Coliseum/Superchunk split 7" where they perform Misfit's covers. He had a wedding to go to that day, so even his shopping time was cut short, but he still had quite a haul. In the first store that he went to, he managed to secure a Sonic Youth ep for himself along with some other goodies. They wouldn't let him purchase two copies though, so he ended up finding another one at the second store that he stopped at, and picked it up for me. Also at his second stop, he located a copy of the Nirvana ep and again, was only able to purchase one copy. I was pretty bummed, but also stoked that I would get to hear his copy at least. Happy ending to this story is that we were able to locate a store that had leftover copies of the Nirvana ep four days later! No Coliseum/Superchunk split though...
"Hormoaning" is a release from my absolute favorite band of the early '90's, Nirvana. This came out during their Australian tour in February of 1992 on DGC in support of their massive album "Nevermind" and was only available in Australia and Japan. I have always wanted this; I've only ever seen it in music magazines in the Rockabilia section, but who has $30-something dollars to send away for this import when your 14? (I know I didn't.)
Four of the six songs were eventually released on "Incesticide" later that year in December. 'Turnaround' is a cover of a Devo song. 'Son of a gun' and 'molly's lips' are both covers of Vaselines songs. The version of 'aneurysm' on the "Hormoaning" ep is significantly slower than the version contained on "Incesticide". The two remaining songs are were originally released as B-sides for singles from the "Nevermind" album: 'D-7' is a cover of a Wipers song and can be found on the UK version of the 'lithium' single; 'even in his youth' can be found on the 'smells like teen spirit' single (along with the aforementioned version of 'aneurysm'). Also, these versions of 'aneurysm' and 'd-7' can be found on the second disc of the "With The Lights Out" box set, released in 2004 on DGC.
The 2011 Record Store Day repress of this ep sounds fantastic and the vinyl is a cool light brown color.
"Whore's Moaning" was originally released in 1993 on DGC for their Australian/New Zealand tour and is an obvious parody of fellow label mates Nirvana's "Hormoaning' ep. It is basically the UK version of the 'sugar kane' single, just slightly different; the track listing is in a different order along with the inclusion of the song 'tamra'. The artwork on the front of the sleeve is a photocopy of one of Kurt Cobain's dolls from his collection, done by Kevin Kerslake (who directed the 'come as you are', 'in bloom', 'lithium' and 'sliver' videos for Nirvana). I have been a fan of Sonic Youth since 1992 and I have practically all of their releases on CD, but I could not remember hearing of this release all those years ago - I'm so glad that the decision was made to repress this gem of an ep!
The first track on the ep is the radio edit of 'sugar kane'. The first time that I saw the video for this song was on the MTV program 'Alternative Nation' after my neighbor and I had gotten back from our first NHL game (we saw the Devils and it was awesome!). In the video, the band was portrayed playing at a fashion show; two interesting facts: 1) the clothes were from the "grunge collection" by designer Marc Jacobs and 2) this was the first film appearance of actress Chloe Sevigny, who went on to star in the films "Kids", "Gummo", "Brown Bunny" and the HBO series "Big Love". This track is followed by a cover of a New York Dolls song called 'personality crisis' which was originally released on a flexi-disc for Sassy Magazine. 'The end of the end of the ugly' is an instrumental jam that became the song 'shoot' from their album "Dirty". The cover version of 'is it my body' was originally recorded for the Alice Cooper tribute on Sub Pop in 1991. The final song on the ep is an instrumental called 'tamra'. 'Personality crisis', 'the end of the end of the ugly', is it my body' and 'tamra' can also be found on disc two of "Dirty - Deluxe Edition", which was released in 2003 on DGC. The artwork on the back of the sleeve is an illustration done by Kurt Cobain.
The 2011 repress of this ep also sounds fantastic and the vinyl is a stunning clear blue color.
Each of these two records came with a sticker mentioning the 20th anniversary of the release of Nirvana's "Nevermind"; I kept one and gave the other one to my brother Neal to put on his new bass guitar. On the back of the stickers, there is an ad announcing the 2011 release of Dave Markey's documentary "1991: The Year Punk Broke" on DVD. I still have my VHS copy and I can't wait to see the DVD version with extra footage!
Next year, I am requesting the day off from work, getting up early and grabbing as much vinyl as I can for Record Store Day, my new favorite holiday!
