John Rivera rest in power

Okay jusr one piece of housekeeping to get past first, the Prayer For Cleansing LP went up for preorder about three weeks ago and sold out completely in minutes. No current plans to repress, I sold 100% of my copies, and I do not know what stores got them from me. I appreciate everyone’s excitement as I am flipping out at the record and the response.

Getting to the main topic but let’s start with backstory. I grew up in Winston-Salem which is a pretty plain and easy town in North Carolina. As I’m nearing 40 that sounds nice but at sixteen that is stressful because you watch Suburbia, and Hackers, and skate videos and CKY and you’re a nice quiet kid but you’re smart and you want more out of it all than working a job and going to high school. So you skate. And through skating you find music. In fact I found a show flier for Dillinger Escape Plan, Converge, Cave In, and Azazel on the wall at Surf Report and I decided to go. At this point of my life my parents are strict but oddly let me drive on my graduated license to this with the notion of if I get pulled that’s on me.

The show clearly lit a spark. I now had three main focuses in my life, skateboarding, technology, and music. The show was at 533 Uprisings, run by Paul from Azazel and Dave from Codeseven. If you’re familiar with Winston-Salem, there was a similar DIY venue run by Dave called Pablo’s. So at this time I knew and loved Dillinger Escape Plan above all because Under The Running Board came out and you know to this day its an insane record. I guess any of this is odd considering my love for hardcore punk and blastbeats, punk came first and blastbeats came later. Metalcore, punk (some cool stuff like Conflict but some mediocre stuff too at this age), and a light smattering of industrial powered me back then and seeing how it all worked and seeing how you could run a venue just for us really warped my thoughts of what was possible and opened my mind to bigger possibilities.

Youre wwondering why I’m going on this nostalgia trip now, well it all will come full circle but before we get there I started a band with my friends called The Dead Body Men. We played heart felt political punk for whatever that could mean for a 16-18 year old. Our first show was at The Somewhere Else Tavern and I first officially met John that night. I honestly sort of forget to pinpoint it to that night but photos prove we were there talking in the parking lot. John was somewhat of an enigma to me. I was new to this scene of people and John might not have been the king of it but he was the prince or something of that nature, existing so easily amongst these people. I would see him bellied up to the coffee shop bar at The Missing Link which was next to venue on Trade Street and he’d be in an engaging conversation with Frank the owner and some folks more my age who were wasting time to go to the show.

So those were the early years of knowing John as an acquaintance. He then was living in Greensboro with Andy and some other folks sort of living this anarchist life after I turned 18, did the college thing all the way through and then was spit out on the other side working and going to shows. This was more my reintroduction to John where we started to piece together a lot of similarities. I’d say let’s fast forward a bit more time to maybe 2010 and John and I are talking often. Usually on AIM but maybe at that point on FB chat. We would nerd out about what computer projects we were working on or we would talk about bands from the old days or we were both running labels so we might talk over that. It would be some combination of nerd and music items and I honestly didn’t have anyone else I could connect with so closely on those subjects so we talked a ton and got close. It’d be amazing to see him in person and hang out but I think our friendship really shined as a nerdy culmination of spitballing things that were possible.

John came up with Punks On Paper and was really exited to talk about how he was hand coding it all. I offered him help but it was really an outlet for him so about all I did was contribute some fliers for Raleigh shows to fill in some gaps, as well as some old Winston show fliers I had amassed and scanned.

John some breathing issues a few years ago and scared the crap out of all of us who really care about him, probably most of all Caroline his partner. He then had a stroke and he had surgery that was supposed to really fix the root cause of these in his brain. Unfortunately John passed away from his health conditions.

My interactions with John as someone who grew up in the same scene and he liked to talk to and respected were no different than his interactions with a lot of other people – he was kind and engaging to everyone in the music scene and beyond. At his memorial show I met a few people who had interacted with John as a stranger to him and he treated them with kindness that struck them as special and notable.

So fast forward to some months ago and I was reached out to by Caroline to plan something special in John’s name. Me, Grant from Bitter Melody Records (and John’s best friend), Dave from Codeseven, and Paul from Azazel formed the show planning committee. I would like to say I was more the moral support, sound board, direction pusher and the rest of these great folks made the show happen. It was exciting early on as Caroline would ask some bands that had not played since John and I were kids and they were confirming to play the show in his honor.

I don’t want to make this overly long of a narrative as I’m typing it on my phone into WordPress after mightnight on Christmas day. Fast forward to the shows and Sunday wasn’t just a big nostalgia trip but it was a gathering of old friends and seeing these bands again was a very real and modern exciting experience that wasn’t fully trapped in that old 533 Trade Street room. I’ve been bothering everyone by reposting a lot on social media from the show but my brain has be a bit locked on that show and in the past. The one thing I kept thinking and everyone kept saying is that John would have really loved to have been at that show. I couldn’t decide if he’d be obcessively filming the show for posterity or if he’d be doing flips over the barricade into the crowd but I’d know he’d be the very first person I’d have messaged the next morning to nerd out about our nights together with.

John was a supporter of the scene and asked for very little back. I’m not candy coating this like we do when someone dies, everything so far is accurate as I know it. He deserved two bands who I never thought would ever play again to play in his honor. He deserved for Codeseven to play the album he loved start to stop. I just would take all the amazement of that show back to have my buddy around to talk about benign stuff like databases and Rapsberry Pi projects back. I know Caroline misses him in similar but different ways and I know Penny has a father sized hole in her heart and I know they know how special he was to a lot of people.

In the end a lot of people had a fun time seeing some fabled bands they saw or didn’t see back in the day in the town where I grew up, blocks from our old 533 stomping grounds. John Rivera was a name and image around the show that everyone knew they were there for but some might not have known him or cared. If you read this far then you may have felt a bit of what made him special and that really was the main point of me spilling this out there on Christmas day as he’d have been on of the first people to get a “Merry XVXmas” text from me this morning and depending on my timeframe I might swing through Greensboro to see him before heading back into Raleigh.

In some other metaverse or some other scene there’s a quiet guy working his ass off on things he finds important for his own obcessive love of it and not for the recognition. If you are that person or know that person then you know John Rivera. North Carolina lost one important guy and a blog post won’t really explain why he was loved but his memory will be echoed in all that he did.

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Second show added

Buy tickets here

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Benefit show for John Rivera

Its with a heavy heart that our close friend John River passed away a few weeks back. A collection of friends have put together his dream show to honor his memory and benefit his family. Undying, Prayer For Cleansing, Catharsis, Codeseven, Funeral Chic, and Riot States are slated to play.

Tickets on sale Friday August 27th
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Happy 2022 – I’m late to the party, here’s whats new

Hey all,

It’s been an insane 2022. We have been pushing releases through as fast as we can and obviously the Spy LP was a huge push to get into hands a few months back. It was a huge success and a second pressing has been queued up. We also did a run of promotional posters. The fourth press of Service Weapon has almost sold through and we are revving up to have a fifth press. A CD version of Habitual Offender is in hand and is great to listen to full blast in the car, plus its professionally replicated as TLAL doesn’t do CD-R duplicated CDs (other than our old sampler CDs). We are also spooling up to do some shirts and banners for the band.

The TLAL Discord is my favorite place to go and talk these days, please head over for some great conversations – https://discord.gg/bB3nEaCJ5t

Peace Test LP flew off the shelves and into hands, as did the NoComply discog LP and the new Backslider full length LP.

Also totally fresh and new in is the Nashgul / Teething – split LP which is an amazing 200 gram picture disc of these epic Brazilian grindcore bands. Hot on its heels is the almost sold out Obsolete Man – Glory Be To The Bomb CS.

Not old but less fresh than the above two coming out in the last week are No Comply / They Live – split 5″, Deliriant Nerve – Post Collapse Cannibal Fantasy CS, and Chulo – Global Grindcore Alliance Vol 2.0 2021 Live CS. The NxC/TL split is awesome pv, DN is new grindcore from some Needle members, and Chulo you know as a great fast hc from Brazil

I don’t think I’ve officially announced this anymore but TLAL is very excited to exclusively license the  Prayer For Cleansing – The Rain In Endless Fall LP from Tribunal Records. While metalcore is in my blood from growing up in Winston-Salem and going to shows at Pablo’s/533 Uprisings, not a lot of the music comes through in the label. Here is my chance to do a high quality reissue of one of the bands that meant so much to me growing up. We have taken the original mix and had Nick Townsend do his amazing work to give the release the bigger sound it deserves. This one is being pressed in Belgium and is a long way off in the release timeline but be prepared because this one rips.

Upcoming releases/status:
TLAL137 – Hummingbird Of Death – Forbidden Techniques CD (freshly at the plant)
TLAL135 – Crom – The Cocaine Wars LP (2022 Remaster) (freshly at the plant)
TLAL216 – NoComply / Sidetracked – split 7″ (waiting on covers)
TLAL221 – Herida Profunda – Power To The People LP (in the mail from Europe)
TLAL224 – Hummingbird Of Death – Full Spectrum Dominance LP (freshly at the plant)
TLAL225 – Musket Hawk / Grin and Bear It / Sidetracked / Ugly – split LP (at the plant)
TLAL232 – Earthdogs – Cry Now Cry Later 7″ (almost in my hands)
TLAL237 – Prayer For Cleansing – The Rain In Endless Fall LP (freshly at the plant)

I went and saw the last Joy show in my hometown. Wish the best to them and still have a few of their LPs bumping around looking for homes.

Lastly, I know I’ve been bad at posting here but it’s been an insane and hectic 2022. Our friends who we distribute at 625 have a big release schedule in addition to ours including the Stockholm Syndrome – Death Watch LP, Suffering Mind – Lifeless LP, and a few others. Make sure to lurk Preorders/New Releases in the store for the freshest releases.

Stay safe y’all. Oh one last thing, have one show on the docket in Raleigh at The Pour House . Tickets available here.

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2021 – Pre-orders For Spy, Death Toll 80k, ACxDC/Pig City, and Cryptic Void

So I’ve left this blog in a bit of void but don’t worry I’m back with lots of major news.

The biggest news is the new Spy record preorders are up. The bad news is most of the colors sold out about instantly.

The next big things is this beast dropped:

And then last week these also dropped:

More big stuff planned for the end of 2021 possibly but more than likely 2022.

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Summer 2020 Superpost

It has been a wild ride for everyone this year. I know a lot of you are forced into unsafe work environments and are faced with depression head on and I really have so much love and respect for all of you. Anyone with the virus and any other disease right now I have the same love and wish you all speedy recoveries.

I have been lucky over on my side of the world. I am privileged that I get to work remotely at my day job and my family and friends are generally healthy and I hope all remain that way. My boss at work has left so I have some more responsibility than normal but my band, shows, and a lot of other things on life are on hold.

Also the label is doing amazingly. Major respect for all your orders. I’ve been shipping fifty to a hundred orders every Saturday.

Earlier this year I finished up my archiving project so head over to Archive.org and grab the new vaults –
https://archive.org/details/TLALVault01

Okay on to the more fun stuff. Lots of pre-orders this summer and a lot of them have shipped – Water Torture shirts sold through and I made new ones and did a preorder and shipped those (unless held with other preorder items), ACxDC – The Oracles Of Death collection LPs have shipped, and Peace Test EPs have shipped on out. Livid LPS shipped out as well. I also did 25 grab bags that were totally loaded out to get some overstock out of the HQ and were really a great deal.

New in hand now are both the Shitstormtrooper EP and the Sidetracked/The Seeker split EP.

Spy tapes (which sold out in two hours) are shipping out this coming Saturday. Good news on the Spy release, Service Weapon will be pressed to vinyl!

Last, the four way 2×7″ I have coreleased overseas apparently is shipping to the European label which means the copies will come to me from overseas, then I’ll ship to all USA co-releasers and bands, and then will ship pre-orders out! Sorry for the wait on those!

So we have a lot out but a lot on deck. At the plant are: Needle EP (but out VERY SOON), following that is the live Capitalist Casualties CS (from a live video I recorded in 2011, RIP Shawn), then the Fuck On The Beach/Endless Swarm split is hot on it’s heals, followed shortly by the new Gasp EP. Headed to the plant is a very special Bastard Noise split LP that will be fully announced soon. The TLAL200 covers comp is still in the works but almost ready

Last bit of news is just sort of a quick teaser… but TLAL will be taking on the major shipping operations of a very inspiration label and I cannot be happier to announce that.

One more more bit of news, I took the time and upgraded the TLAL site to run on HTTPS/SSL, so please check that the GoDaddy cert is in place and you see the encrypted lock by the URL and shop with total safety. Vaguely related to that I also learned to query the Zencart DB and import it into Facebook Commerce which sounds really boring but it means I can now tag and link products in Instagram and Facebook posts. I know that sounds boring because you’ve seen that before but most people pay for a certain expensive monthly cart software but TLAL is running on free open source software and I actually put my SQL code on Github to keep my work to make free things better for other people! Last piece of nerdy news is I have also allowed image linking from the TLAL page to Facebook and Twitter. Why do I not allow image linking you ask? I have a great host who keeps my site a low price so I do them a solid and try not to use too much bandwidth.

That is what is new here! Sorry for any slowness in responding to any of you, my day job work life is hectic and orders are pretty stacked up (luckily I’m shipping everything as fast as I can), and I’m still doing all my normal QA on new releases. I hope everyone stays safe. Anyone dealing with some tough situations please look to a friend in the punk community and don’t go through it alone. I wish you all the best and I’ll see most of you in your mailboxes via a freshly delivered order!

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Announcement – Needle – s/t CS being pressed to 7″

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Announcement – ACxDC – The Oracles Of Death LP/CS/MD & Satan Is King CS/Zip Disk

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Announcement – Fuck On The Beach/Endless Swarm – split 7″ later in 2020

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TLAL Vault I, II, & III

In this world of being isolated, I decided to revisit the TLAL Vault that I put together five years ago. I was missing a lot of tracks and split sides of records so I put in the time and obsessively tagged MP3s. I split the first 100 into two so that Volume I is TLAL001-TLAL050, Vol II is TLAL051-100, and made a new volume of 101-150. All are free to download. Please share on all P2P media and to anyone you like.

VOLUME I – https://archive.org/details/TLALVault01

VOLUME II – https://archive.org/details/TLALVault02

VOLUME III – https://archive.org/details/TLALVault03

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