Tuesday 19 July 2011

Zero Tolerance 'Fuel The Fire' / 100

Zero Tolerance. Most known for being the other band to release a 7" on Hi Impact Records (the label that released the Turning Point 7" back in 1932). I got my gold vinyl Zero Tolerance from the dude who released it quite late (circa '96/97) and that was it. I was stoked. Fifteen years later I find myself buying a new Zero Tolerance 7"...

Well, not exactly. This isn't a new record. It's a vinyl pressing of a cassette release from 1991. Reaper Records pressed this onto wax last year and I didn't get around to buying one even though I kinda intended to. But then my friend Adam at The Essence announced that he was releasing his own version, so I decided to waited for that.

However, rather than actually press their own version, The Essence just bought 100 copies of the clear vinyl second pressing from Reaper on the cheap and packaged them in a different sleeve and numbered them. An interesting business model no doubt. But the result is a great record in great packaging. You can tell that time, thought & effort was put into this one:


What I find weird is that the sleeve for the Reaper version seems to have ring wear. Even on the test press copies. It's as if the ring wear is a part of the artwork. See HERE and HERE. Not a good look really, and in my opinion the sleeve of the Essence version is way better than the sleeve Reaper used.

Even though there were only 100 of these things made, it looks like there are still a few copies knocking about in the store waiting to be picked up by persons like you. So go here if you are interested before they're gone forever:

http://www.theessence.bigcartel.com/

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are seeing one picture of the testpress and then you say THEY have ringwear? That's kind of an incorrect induction! My copy on Reaper that you link hasn't got ringwear...

mcs said...

I linked TWO pictures in my post, not one. Every picture of the cover on the whole internet shows ringwear. That's the reason for my induction.