Don’t Be Swindle

Every few weeks, I purge my record collection to make room for new stuff, and to get money to buy new stuff. There’s no motive of gain, some sort of pyramid scheme, or anything like that. To me, records have a utility to them. I’m not a collector, I’m just a listener. So, when searching for something to listen to on any particular day, if I find myself combing over the same record again and again, then it’s time for it to go.

One really helpful thing to note is that I don’t always need to be a completist. Until very recently, I had a tentency to try to get every record from a band I liked. Sometimes this is a good thing because more records of something that I like is good. However, I finally started to realize that it’s ok to like one record of a band persay, but not like their entire catalog. I don’t need to keep holding on to their other releases, just because I like one of them. A good example of this is Coke Bust. I love their Fuck Bar Culture EP. It’s so fast, and sounds a lot
like Heresy to me, who are one of my absolute all-time favorites. I was excited to get their LP when it came out, but when it arrived, I just wasn’t as into it as I was that EP. So, that LP sat on my shelves for the past 2 years, until I decided to pull it out a few weeks ago, and give it another chance (another of my habits; to reevaluate stuff I thought I previously didn’t like). Turns out I still didn’t like it, so it’s time to go.

This brings me to another point. I think that some bands can do in an EP what they can’t always do on an LP. Almost any band can give a good 5 minutes or so at a time, but when it comes time to deliver over a longer span, it just loses the impact. Another fine example of this is the Insect Warfare side of the split with Carcass Grinder. I was really excited to get that record when it came out, and it was hell to get copies from the Czech label, who didn’t seem that eager to distribute them to the US. I already liked IW at this point, but when I first heard that split, it blew my fucking mind. I couldn’t stop ( and still can’t) listening to it. It’s basically 4 minutes of blastbeats, and ridiculous riffs. Then, when the LP came out, it didn’t hit me in the face quite the way those 4 minutes did. This doesn’t just go for grind bands either. I never quite understood what anyone liked about World Burns to Death. I hadn’t listened to them in a few years, and then I got their split with Slang, and again was totally blown away. I wish that their LPs were as good as that one song. Perhaps it’s easy to put a ton of focus, energy, and quality control into a small amount of music, and it’s hard to obtain that same effect over a longer session.