HALF THE BATTLE!

Long time no update!
Todays instalment will bring you with no big surprise the latest goodies and rarities from Just Another Day records!

i have a modest 18 records to show you today so without further delay lets get. It. On!

HALF THE BATTLE - What we have!

Half the battle stick to JADs usual youthcrew sound which is fantastic! Positive lyrics with a great message! the thing that makes this release unique is that its the first ever Lp pressed for a Philippines youthcrew band, the songs have been put onto a CD before by a different record label but this is the first ever hardcore band to be pressed to vinyl. (this is what i have been told by their singer Easy so sorry if i am wrong) for fans of the first step, champion, set it straight.

the frount of the cover shows a crew of kids destroying a robot in what looks like a apocalypse scenario! im positive the robot deserved it!

there are 4 regular colours for this release!

an awesome clear blue!

this very nice Red

a change from tradition for JAD but a Black that will appeal to those who aren't fans of colour vinyl

and this VERY VERY nice clear orange that reminds me alot of the floorpunch on gold but super sized!!! seriously you need to own this as pictures dont do it justice!

in addition to the regular covers we have 2 other ones
First up we have this awesome screen printed cover that comes with a awesome clear dark green vinyl! im hoping that a limited screen printed cover becomes a tradition for JAD when it comes to LPs, Resolve got an awesome one and now Half the battle have one! fingers crossed that one will come with Freewills discography ;)

the second cover variant is the test press! different to the Resolve LP Seb has made one from a blank sleeve and a live picture, i prefer this a great deal to just having a regular cover with a stamp on it. it makes you feel like you own something special!
pressing info:

15 test

94 green

100 blue

100 red

200 orange

100 black

the following releases break away from the sound that has defined JAD so far. When i started talking to Seb from the label it quickly became apparant to me that he wasn't a one genre horse. whilst he loves hardcore and youthcrew he also has a passion for grunge, grindcore and "8o's goth music" and as he's the dude who pays for all the releases he's the dude who decides what comes out. when he told me he was going to be putting out Sanitys dawn's LP my first question was "Who?" after listening it reminded me alot of what i sometimes listene to about 8-10 years ago. not my cup of tea nowerdays but very good for what it is!

the cover is very gory ! i have no idea about the story behind the cover idea or who the err lovely lady on the front is but im sure it has some relevance haha!

First up colour wise is a very nicely done tri colour! reminds me of the one SFU records did for True colours a few years ago! /321


The splatter is a mix of .. well its yellow with ALOT of other colours haha! /319

onto the 7"s!!

first up is this AMAZING record! i reviewed the Shout aloud 7" some months ago now ( and its soon to be re pressed!) and i thought i had every version! that was until Seb sent me this JAD CREW version /3!!! needless tyosay i am very very very happy to have this !!
is a wonderful mix of clear and white giving it a very nice smokey effect


The next release is

SANITYS DAWN / WADGE - Split '"
following the new diversity in the JAD camp Seb and the gang bring you a 7" split between Sanitys dawn and the bizarre WADGE! both bands have a similar sound so are a perfect combination for a split! Yet again not my cup of tea nowadays but very good for what it is! i wish i could say more but my knowledge about these genres is very minimal!


There are some lovely colours in the transitions for this record the "brown" is my favourite!the yellow is a great solid colour!

and the purple has these awesome dark wisps in it!
baby pule is a mixture of the yellow, brown and black i think


brown is only brown when not up against light! when you hold it up all sorts comes through red yellow black its amazing!!

yellow mix is exactly that! yellow and black!

out of nowhere comes a solid RED! this happened with a previous JAD record it must be the plants idea of a joke haha!


this light yellow looks a little like the neon yellow from the Debaser 7" press!! very nice!

i redesigned the Chung king cover for the test press of this record! ill post the story behind it one day!

pressing info:

20 tests

115 purple

170 yellow

+ the numbered shit

JAD ON TOP FOREVER

The death of Youth Crew Alex (records)

This post will be a little different to my regular ones because i am going to talk about YCAR and to be more specific the Shout Aloud demo 7"!
YCAR was to be my record label and my aim was to put out bands demo's so that tehy could reach a wider audience either in Europe or the states!
My first idea was to put out 2 local bands demo tapes and to get them hear outside of the UK those bands were In this for fun (now Basement) and Dungeons! This was quickly put down when Dungeons announced that they would be breaking up soon. In this for fun (Basement) were still down but needed to record and all i needed was to save up to get things rolling! A little while later i stumbled across the band Shout aloud on myspace, i believe that they were recommended to me by someone who had me added as a friend on myspace at the time. After hearing the band i contacted them and asked if they would want me to do a second run of the tape. The band agreed and seemed excited so whilst In this for fun were recording i got the SA ball rolling!
I contacted my friend Jay Jacoby and asked if he would be up for doing the art work! Jay had done work for bands such as Alert, Outlast and the YCAR logo, i was probably one of his biggest fans! Jay agreed and asked what i had in mind. I believe i asked for something along the lines of " the band with animal heads rocking out" Jay agreed but asked me to supply some reference material and heres what i provided him with :
I cannot remember who is hidden under this eagle head if im honest

on bass is Keith "the eagle" Freeman from Alert
Vitya from Shout aloud is the only one on the cover based on a member from the actual band
on vocals Ryan from Outbreak (i've lost my photoshopped version with the cougar head)


From the reference material Jay sketched out a scene and sent me the rough sketch i believe that the first version had a differnt bass to the one i have here which was later changed to be Sasha from the bands. The band also requested that they be wearing some crucial shirts! here in the sketch you can see Vitya wearing a Uniform choice shirt!

Once i had approved the sketch and the band had as well Jay went ahead and finished the sketch with inks! as you can see a chain and judge shirt were added and the bass was changed slightly!

Jay was also kind enough to contact his friend jym 129 who did Graffiti and ask for some designs for the font on the cover. heres a few of the designs and the one we chose for it in the end:

After we decided upon one of the fonts i set about doing a layout. heres the one i was eventually happy with and the band initially agreed to.

the inner sleeve for my version would have looked like so

The band were keen on having more than one cover so they sent me an image that they liked for a alternative cover and i put that together as well (below)
so after this things went on hold for a little while whilst i got some money together. In this time the band asked a friend to have a go at redesigning the cover and this is what he came up with

the insert:
and reverse of insert
i really liked this design so i approved it and this was to be the regular version with my cover as a pre order incentive.
so a few weeks went by and some stuff happened in my life im not going to go into detail about but it meant there would be no way in hell i could devote the money and time to YCAR that it deserved so i decided that YCAR would be no more until the day that i could afford to do it again.
Luckily during the process of desining etc i had linked Seb from Just another day records to the band and he loved what he heard. Sebs plan was to wait until i had released the tapes and use that as the incentive to press the demo to 7" Seb had even suggested we release them side by side as a joint collaboration! After i told Seb i wouldn't be able to release the tape he put the Demo 7" into production and the rest is JAD history not YCAR.
Seb and the band thought it would be a nice idea to use the demo tape art as the demo test press sleeve. I also get a mention in the sleeve for my efforts and i couldn't be happier that the band have been able to do this.

JAD will be releasing another Shout aloud 7" later in the year! Keep an ear out for that!

The death of youthcrew alex

SHOUT FUCKING ALOUD!

Just another record? i think not!!!

This has to be the most anticipated records for me ever! What's so spacial about it you ask? Well this is the first record i put out......

ok ok ok so i didn't put it out but i was supposed to put out the demo tape on my (now dead) record label last year before i realised i had no money! When i realised that i wasnt going to be able to put it out i passed the band over to Seb at Just another day and he did what he dose best and remasterd the tracks and pressed it to a 7"!!!
The stand out band of Russia's Youth crew scene Shout Aloud first caught my attention mid 09 and i was determined to get them heard outside of Russia/europe! my intention was to press the demo tape for a second time and market it to those in the UK and USA so the band would get a wider audience! Now that JAD have taken the reins and have pressed it to Vinyl i feel that the band will be heard by even more people than i could have hoped to do with my small run of tapes!

ON WITH THE VINYL!

so for a change i thought i would start with the covers!! Above we have the regular cover for this release and its pretty damn nice! its a step away from the regular youthcrew style cover of college font or hooded chaps and i think it really works! printed on great quality card and the same old fflawless quality you come to expect from JAD

Next up is the test press cover! This cover has art from Jay Jacoby and was the art for the demo tapes i was going to put out! below i will put the sketch, final sketch and the layout i designed before this version was decided on! my favourite test press cover of all time!

All art by Jay Jacoby demo tape layout by me

80 copies on white stamped with black ink
this is a really nice white with very subtle blue hints from the plates!

90 copies on solid blue stamped with black ink! a great vibrant blue!

I have 3/17 copies on blue/white mixed vinyl stamped with purple ink and numbered on the labels! this is a very pretty transition from the blue to the white!

4/14 copies on blue/black mixed vinyl stamped with purple ink and numbered on the labels! this record looks simply awesome!!! great looking transition!!

MY FIRST SLEEVE MENTION!!!!

FULL JAD COLLECTION!!

Be sure to keep an eye on JAD this year for Shout alouds first EP!!! i cannot wait to see how this band out do themselves!

LINKS:
SHOUT ALOUD
JUST ANOTHER DAY
HXCWAX INTERVIEW WITH SEB