Somehow, I don’t exactly know why, the whole Mental hype that ruled the Earth in the first few years of the 21st century didn’t last. At first I thought it could have had something to do with the fact that some of the dudes sold out but if you look at bands like Carry On or American Nightmare that were around at about the same time with members not only breaking edge but also wearing stockings and lady make up and then pulling off successful reunions, their popularity didn’t really fade away as much as Mental’s one did.
I am semi curious about the mechanisms behind the whole “hype” phenomena as well as the mechanisms that lift some of those “hyped” bands into the hardcore “classics” category after their demise while some of the others that were the shit in their prime fade into obscurity not standing the test of time.
In any case, I still think Greg is a cool dude and I spin those records every so often. For me Mental never lost its initial power.
Records marked orange are the ones I am still missing. Email me if you have them and want to trade.
Both demos, courtesy of Brian Murphy (quantities made: unknown)
And You Know This EP
Lockin’ Out Records #1 2002
1st press
Test press / 10 (???)
Record release, clear vinyl #28/100
Clear vinyl / 200
Black vinyl / 800
2nd press
There were 1000 pressed on blue vinyl
850 came with regular sleeves
150 came with tour covers designed by Morgado of which 25 were orange
and 125 were blue
Get An Oxygen Tank EP
Bridge 9 Records #40 2003
Test press / 15 (???)
1st press
Record release with Jaybil’s MENTAL CREW sleeve / 100
and a T-shirt to go with it
Posi Numbers pressing / 250
Most of them were stamped with MENTAL stamp on one side and B9 RECORDS stamp on the other side
Very few were mis-stamped with MENTAL on both sides, like this one here
Preorder on clear purple vinyl / 300
Yellow marble vinyl / 700
2nd press
Pressing plant error. 500 copies on light purple marble vinyl were pressed but about 8 came out blue like this one here
The rest of the press came out like this / about 492
Poster for the B9 release
Self titled aka YO! EP
Lockin’ Out Records #11 2004
Test press / 10
1st press
So called Tour Pressing. The covers weren’t ready so photocopies were made, quantity unknown, possibly under 100 (???), some of them came on red marble
and some on pink, nobody knows how many of each..
Yellow marble vinyl / 200
Red marble vinyl / 600 minus the ones with photocopied sleeves
Pink marble vinyl / 600 minus the ones with photocopied sleeves
2nd press
Clear green vinyl / 500
Clear red vinyl / 500
Planet Mental LP
Lockin’ Out #16 2005
Test press / 10
1st press
White vinyl, preorder
Record release. Clear blue vinyl, EARTH SUCKS stencilled on the cover
Clear blue vinyl
Black vinyl
Euro Tour pressing.
I think these were actually pressed in Europe (Netherlands?) so it is safe to assume that separate set of test presses exists although I have never seen nor heard of any.
Red vinyl
White vinyl
Demo #2 EP (7 song version)
Six Feet Under #20 2008
Fuck up version aka Bum Rush. They made 1500 of those but somehow one song didn’t make it to the final cut so Dave decided to keep 210 of the fucked copies and destroyed the rest. How this managed to go past the test pressing stage is a mystery. I thought tests were made to avoid this kind of situations :)
Test press #5/12
Green/orange vinyl / 210
Demo #2 EP (8 song version)
Six Feet Under #20 2008
Test press #6/8
Pink/brown vinyl / 105 (It was supposed to be pink/black but it looks more brown to me)
S&F Record Release
Blue/white vinyl / 105
Preorder
Blue/maroon vinyl / 358
Black vinyl / 770
I didn’t even know the second EP was pressed on vinyl. LOL. That’s a good haul, for sure.
You mean the 2nd demo. It’s only been done quite recently.
I’m not a fan of pressing demos onto vinyl (demos are demos, records are records) but for the nerdoish reasons I gave in …
[...] Dobek Ohashi’s comprehensive Mental collection. [...]
Just got an email from Tre McCarthy with the explanation of the 2nd demo fuck up version:
I think if I remember what Dave told me, that actual master that Greg sent Dave was missing the song.
Dave listened, it sounded fine. Approved.
“Oh wait, there’s actually 8 songs… not 7, sorry Dave, forgot a song”
Or something like that.
:)
To clear up the Euro pressing of Planet Mental. 500 of each colored made, right on time for the 2nd and also last Mental tour in the summer of 2005.
I think Complete Control records took care of pressing these records but the labels and stuff all say Lockin Out. Reflections might also be responsible for getting them pressed. So saying Belgium would be safer than saying Netherlands, since I am not sure if Reflections was involved.
I remember asking Cris from Complete Control about these records and him telling that they didn’t do any test presses, which makes sense since I never heard about Complete Control or Reflections test presses.
Awesome, one less record to track down :)