3 Shows LA / SD w/ Los Crudos 2/8 & 2/9/2014

3 shows in two days (5 for Crudos in just over 24 hours) Pretty solid lineup at the Echo Sat night. Entire early set played with clean guitar(?!?!) at the che, and then a pretty sick show sunday evening. Sucks the capacity of the Che just got lowered because it feels empty in there for sold out shows.

Echo 2/8/2014

CHE 2/9/2014 early

CHE 2/9/2014 late

Cant get this one to show up here VIDEO

Reality Part #2 LP/CD COMP.

DS-11


Some late 90's heavyweights on this comp released by Deep Six Records. There are some on color vinyl but i don't own em. I seem to remember green, white, and black vinyl versions. Infest song is a demo version of cold inside. This is from the original 1995 session of NMS before it was revved up.

No Man's Slave LP

DS-25

I remember chilling in a parking lot in 2002, at a late summer show in NJ and finding out the Deadalive distro had copies of the mythical 2nd Infest lp available. I had already ordered it from the label but i did the same as a bunch of others. I bought the lp and proceeded to listen to it 3 times in a row when i got home from the show at 3am. When the music kicked in after the opening sample I was FLOORED. I was not expecting it to be that good given the few demo quality tracks that had popped up on various comps in the years leading up to this release. Instead what blasted from my speakers were 19 songs that matched or even surpassed the older material. The 1995 session people doubted they would ever hear had been remixed, revamped, and given some newly recorded vocals in 2000. It was everything you loved about the old stuff plus more. Maximum RnR even reviewed this multiple times in the same issue, it was that good. Another nod to the Boston wolfpack scratched into the matrix.

??? Test Press

Never saw one. Most likely all at D6 Headquarters.


100 Mailorder Color Vinyl

100 Copies on various shades of blue. Some copies are bright solid blue, some are baby blue, and some are marbled blue vinyl with yellow swirls. I ordered mine the second i found out it was available and got the swirl copy below. The reasoning for the big 1 / 2 on the labels and the colors of vinyl chosen was they match billiard balls -1 yellow and 2 blue, silly but 100% true.

First Press White Background w/ Black #

Repress White Labels w/ Green & Red Print

From what i remember these showed up later when i was reordering copies for the store i worked at. Not sure what order they were released but they come after the labels above.

Re-master / Re-plate

??? Test Press

Copies that have the black background w/ white # were the last pressing of this lp. It looks like the plates broke or were lost and they needed to have a new master cut. The matrix now has lyrics from The Temptations/ Undisputed Truth, and the songs on the b side are spread out more than on the original plates. It doesn't really sound different to me. Maybe the drums sound a little punchier.

UPDATE JAN 03 2017 : A new level of stupidity has been unlocked. I just got a copy of NMS that has the black background with white # labels (until now only found paired with the remastered plates), but its pressed using the original plates. This could be a copy that was run off before the plates broke, or just like all things deep six and Tootsie Pops, the world may never know.


Initium style neurosis.

This was given to me by my buddy Cooch over at Painkiller Records. Its barely noticeable unless you look really hard under a bright light. This copy, from the last pressing, has some red and white streaks. The whole lp has a hazy grey tint. If you see a copy of NMS used somewhere you might want to give it a good looking over. Its possible there might be some grey marble copies floating around out there. Break out your jewelers loupe, its really dark and was hard enough trying to photograph it with dust, fingerprints, and reflections.

Mysterious Yellow Vinyl

There are 100 copies on yellow vinyl that were pressed back in 2002 at the same time as the blue copies. These are supposed to come in a yellow jacket with yellow insert. None have been sold. Maybe they will be available for the 10th anniversary of its release this summer. Matt just posted a photo of a yellow copy online today (the same day this was set to list on the blog)

UPDATE NOV 2016 : 50 Joe copies have finally been set free over the last year or two. Housed in a 3 color, screen printed hitler/sinatra cover, hand numbered with special inserts. If you want one... BIG BUCKS. The other 50 copies are still neatly tucked away next to a broken hose and some garden gnomes.

S/T. Machismo. Where's The Unity? 7" EP

IF -001

The first ep. 10 songs of unrelenting power and aggression recorded in the spring of 1988. A BIG step up from the demo. These songs are from the same session used on the Slave LP but this 7" only has 10 of the tracks. A nice nod to DYS inscribed in the matrix.

Test Press: 4?

Got this in a message from Matt when i asked about tests: "I suppose 4 were made. We are not a band that made 10 or 20 tests. 4 guys = 4 tests." I have never seen one for sale or on a trade list. The photo below is of Matts copy currently in lockdown at his socal vault.

Press 1000 copies Black Vinyl

Sleeves and inserts were made when the band could steal copies in batches of 50-100, so the print quality and paper used can vary quite a bit. As with everything Infest there are ALWAYS variations. Some copies come with stickers, hand written dust sleeves, flyers, letters, etc. There are some sleeves out there on color paper. Years ago Erich from OTD sold a copy that had a red sleeve (photo below from owner Capn' Drawblank), and there is a copy in Tejas that has a green sleeve... And if you wanna nerd out even more, some have different things copied on the inside of the sleeve or the back of the insert (see photos near end of post) The scan below shows the B side label. If your's looks different you have a bootleg (more on that below).

LTD Color Vinyl

The colors are easy; clear and purple vinyl (slightly opaque). When i started collecting this stuff I heard there were 100 clear, and 100 purple and they came AFTER the black vinyl. Matt said "All colors of the 1st ep were done at the same time. The press amounts are foggy these days I think it was 1000 black, 100 purple, 60 clear." When Dave sold his stuff in the late 90's he claimed there were 113 copies on purple vinyl. My friend has a purple copy that is #107 so that makes sense. I have seen clear copies numbered in the high 80's. The back of the sleeve for both is different from the black vinyl. It has a draw blank logo added, a small white square where your copy will have its number, and press is changed from 1000 to 100. The clear copies i have seen come in a heavier card stock sleeve and have a live photo on the back of the insert with draw blank records in the bottom left corner. The purple copies have a thinner average photocopy paper sleeve and the live photo on the back looks a bit washed out. Insert is one sided. Lets just say 100 Clear 113 Purple give or take a few.

The clear copies have a nice thick flat edge, same with the black vinyl. The purple copies are a bit thinner and share pretty much the exact same color vinyl as the Confrontation demo 7" that was recorded in 1989 (not sure on the release date). BUT my purple copy has a letter inside from Matt dated 1/7/88 that says thanks for the order hope you like the 7". Thats before the 7" was even recorded unless he was using euro style dating. According to some collector heads who were around at the time they remember clear vinyl, but either remembered purple coming later or didn't even know it EXISTED. So basically who knows? There are about 100 of each and when they pop up these days they both go for big money. If you have one, be happy and go for a bike ride. If you want one start selling your blood.

Purple Confrontation, Purple Infest. Pretty close eh?

Random insert/ sleeve backs, color sleeves, color vinyl with schmutz in it....

BOOTLEG / ??? Pressed / Black Vinyl

As with any bootleg no one knows how many were made except the bootlegger. At least they were not trying to pass this off as an original. They made some changes to the b side label, and the back of the sleeve. The sleeves are printed on cardstock. There are 2 different backs, which may indicate they pressed it twice.

Where's the unity?

Here's the unity...

Now let's break it down...

In the beginning there was nothing...Then God said let there be brutality.

Shall we start at the beginning? Before Infest, some members were kicking around in the bands Open Your Mind, F.Y.I., and Death Dose. OYM recorded 2 demos but the sound is a far cry from the razor sharp hardcore that was coming down the pipe. F.Y.I. was mentioned in an old interview as sounding like SOA. Death Dose supposedly has some rehearsal tapes and sound like a more metallic Infest. Of course i wouldn't hold my breath waiting to hear these. If only Infestguy would return from the murky depths of the internet and toss us mortals some scraps to feed our ears, and video clips for us to feast our eyes. Infestguy we miss you...

The original demo was your usual diy affair. Colored paper covers and hand written tape labels on the finest cassettes lurking in the audiophile section at the local VONS, with some even sporting a yellow and black printed logo sticker, slick and professional. Some copies have a 2 sided lyric insert. A bunch are missing this insert so its possible they didn't all have them or they were just lost over the years. According to second hand information from a rock solid source (ebay description) Dave Ring told the seller there were 100 copies of the original tape. Seems like the light brown/ tan paper is the most common. Below are some various photos and scans of original demos. There are definitely variations out there; just check out the 2 different lyric sheets posted here. Got a variation? Send in a pic or add to the comments section. If anyone out there decides they no longer need their copy i'm you're man. One of the few things i do not have and "NEED".


There are bootlegs out there. They were mostly kicking around in the 90's and look very similar to originals. B&W photocopy sleeve and the tapes are obviously 90's designs. I got mine from Poison Planet Tapes and its on some terrible brightly colored Memorex DBS tape.

The copy below is interesting. It has an added panel on the right (skull with BSU tape distro logo) and appears to be numbered below the song titles. Someone says they purchased a copy from this distro in 1989. Not sure if it was Ok'd by the band to print up some copies or already being booted. Either way if you see one like this its not the original band released edition.

Time for HARDCORE!!

Now that's a fucking show!! Below is a link to a photobucket folder i put together with all the scans of various flyers i've found over the years. Some of them are nice high quality scans (thanks timmy, jack, and clint). Others look like dog shit. I don't collect physical copies of original flyers because as cool as some of them are i can enjoy a digital scan as much as i could enjoy a ratty stained piece of paper thats 25 years old. Please send in nice high res scans of any flyers i don't have or any i have in abysmal -42 dpi quality. Anything sent in will be added to the archive.

Updated 3/6/2012 (3 new flyers added)

INFEST FLYER ARCHIVE

INFESTINFESTINFESTINFESTINFESTINFEST

For hours, days, years i've talked to fellow Infest fan boys, band members, and friends ad nauseam about pressing info, color vinyl, and rare versions of their records. Despite this band being one of the all time greats in the realm of brutality, there is scant information on the web about them. There are more bootlegs with their name on em than there are official releases. Hopefully this blog will take some of the mystery out of what is what, what came when, and how many were made. Any and all submissions can be sent to my email: random colors, limited sleeves, flyer scans, etc etc would be greatly appreciated. Lets close this first post out with an amazing description from an old ebay auction. A review doesn't get any better than this...

"US HC killer. Only released in Switzerland. All in all, only 1,000 copies of this original first pressing in several different vinyl colors were made. This one was born in black vinyl. 18 tracks, 18 killers. This cracker is for true believers and not for children. You are bidding on the ultra-fast and brilliant FULL-OF-HATE shocker Slave by legendary US Hardcore/Crustcore/Brutalcore band INFEST. This old-school classic will knock your head off. Mixing the insane power of maniacs, INFEST left most others looking like they were playing in slow motion. Here’s the complete track listing of this outstanding and masterful HATEBREED KILLER.."