If you missed the previous part, feel free to go back to part IV. I’m going to keep up the quick approach and highlight anything particularly exciting or notable.

TLAL56 – Charogne Stone – La Main de L’ange 7″
Had the chance to work with this talented one man band again so said yes. It has boobs on the cover, not my ideal thought for a record but did not seem to come from a sexist place so was fine with me.

TLAL57 – Sidetracked – Uniform 7″
I consider this another big release. I could be wrong but I think this is the first time a band approached me for art. I love hacked up slashed up artwork and tried to do it digitally. I like the way it came out but didn’t love it. See it here. The border was completely stolen from a MITB scan online and hacked and slashed up. The inside I think opened the wrong way, oops! The record is one-sided and that one side is perfect in my opinion, heavy, fast, modern hardcore mixed with short aggressive fastcore ideas. The first two or three songs are a true story about a relative of the singer dying which makes it so much more emotional. The b-side label of the record, since the band is from Seattle I thought they might love Twin Peaks which they hadn’t seen and I think are now fans, so its subtle homage to the black lodge. I have second press copies of this available because I brought it back into print!

TLAL58 – NoComply – One Sided 7″
2011 I had maintaned a good friendship with Justin from NoComply and he asked me to be in the band and put out a new EP when we recorded and I’m on it. He sent the record in on a colored CD-R and there is an actual CD skip on the record which actually sounds pretty cool.

TLAL59 – Sakatat / Mesrine – split 7″
Another chance to work with both bands. I’m still mad about trying to see Mesrine at MDF on the first day and being stuck in line for an hour and missing them.

TLAL60 – Capitalist Casualties / NoComply – split 7″
After lots of talking with both Justin and CC guys and learning about CC recordings from the Live Butchery session that were leftover, we put together a split! Cap Cas is a band I had encountered early on in my pv early interest and was/am so floored to work with them. They all are amazing people and just couldn’t believe it. The NC session is also throwback material from the 90’s and much to my excitement had Travis from Assholeparade featured on vocals. Justin is a main homie and I decided to do something extra special for him on this one and he is the only owner of a 10″ sized lacquer on the material (pre-test press of the cutting of the record).

TLAL61 – Black Hole of Calcutta – s/t 7″
I did very little work on this but its great. I tossed in cash and sold my copies and was stoked on the material.

TLAL62 – Mind As Prison – Maryland Grindcore 7″
Mind As Prison is ex-A Warm Gun and feature Mough who is an amazing guitarist and was in Magrudergrind for an amount of time. These guys are so raw and so badass and I love the fact that the masters got lost and I couldn’t get them to put them up digitally because that seems to represent this band in my mind. Offline, slightly mysterious, only brutal. I still have copies of this, you all are sleeeeeeping.

TLAL63 – Get Destroyed – Shut In 7″
I just want to use this space to write an interesting story about this band. I saw Gay Kiss and finally met my homie J I’d correspond with from Get Destroyed. GD I’d worked with because 625 asked if I wanted to and I wasn’t familiar with some 625 related bands at first but this is one I’d want to keep up with, amazing pv. Well J played in Raleigh and we got to talking in the stairwell up to King’s and he told me the story of the Get Destroyed LP which never happened. I never heard why it didn’t but there was talk about a final EP, then LP before they broke up. Well all the songs were written and J recorded the drums and on the way back from the studio he got jumped and to quote him “I got the songs beaten out of my head”. I’m glad he is okay and Gay Kiss and his other ventures are amazing and he can still play music but there is a Get Destroyed LP that exists in an alternate world.

TLAL64 – ACxDC – He Had It Coming 7″
I was around for the first rise of ACxDC. I just loved them. I distributed the first EP and talked to Sergio often. Liberate continued on but ACxDC seemed to fade away into what appeared to be obscurity. I sold the crap out of the first EP and kept it in stock as long as I could. In 2012 the world saw a new ACxDC form out of seemingly nowhere and Sergio asked me to do their new EP. I heard it digitally and was beyond floored. I think it was my idea to repress the first EP and I’m glad I did. Did 1500 copies including the pink vinyl double EP gatefold which I LOVE and was the original idea for part of the pressing of this record in my head.

TLAL64 – ACxDC – Second Coming 7″
Sharing the same CAT # with its little brother, this record came out great. I pressed two thousand copies and have maybe 25 hanging out of the green vinyl pressing. I read a book about Lookout Records and talked about selling 5k CDs like it was no problem but 2k EPs is nuts to me. Sex Prisoner sold this many. These are good honest songs in the vein of their first EP but with an updated and heavier sound. There were some cool record release covers.

TLAL65 – Lapse / Eddie Brock – split 7″
Two Baltimore area bangers, I was excited about this and got to see EB’s last show I believe. I haven’t kept good track of these folks but I’m sure they are all still playing or involved in music.

TLAL66 – Curmudgeon – s/t 7″
Love this band, and got to work with Will from BSP again. The art is killer, the barn door style cover opening was great, and the obi-strip with the band’s name is great. I only hate getting orders for this with the second press as making the record takes some extra time. Krystina, Ryan, and Ryan all still play music and I’m glad and happy for them as they are all talented but Curmudgeon was a high point for all of them I think. True punx playing real punx heavy jams.

TLAL67 – Sidetracked – Wrench tape
The one thing I will complain time and time again about this is the tape ‘pressing’ plant took six months to get these tapes to me after I ordered and put a deposit down. I’d get asinine emails about “hey you didn’t send in the art files” or “we don’t have the audio masters” which they 100% had and I’d either tell them they did and they would find them or would send them again. They were specially cut to be short in length but the wait on this was nuts. Since this release I have slowed down doing tapes as I don’t want to go through that again because it stressed me out way too much and the plant is a major tape plant.

TLAL68 – The Kill / White Eyes – split 5″
Well I love The Kill and had planned to do their full length LP with them (I think at this point that is true) and they asked me to do a split before then. White Eyes is a band who had a number of releases and this is their last recording as the singer had an aneurysm and had to learn to talk again. I still have copies of this, a grindcore split in a small package.

TLAL69 – P.L.F. – Pulverizing Lethal Force CD
I will always do anything P.L.F. I love Dave and his riffs and this record is no exception. First time working with long time friend Ralph from Haunted Hotel.

TLAL70 – V/A – To Live A Lie 2011 Sampler tape
Tape sampler of the newest on TLAL. Was good then was gone.

TLAL71 – Fatal Nunchaku – Paving Stone Under The Beach CD
A super mega split release CD for another great French pv band, I said yes. It is still in print and it is super good.

TLAL72 – Chest Pain – s/t 7″
I think CP was over at my house nerding out to my record label room and Matt Needles told me he really wanted me to re-release this EP of theirs he put out. I did because it is perfect. The first time I heard of this band they played a Dreg’s Grotto and were asking my roommate if I was at the show, knowing that TLAL was from Raleigh. I couldn’t make it out for whatever reason and felt honored anyone cared if I was there so checked them out and was blown away. This EP is masterful and I re-released it and it sold quickly.

TLAL73 – P.L.F. / Downtrodden – split 7″
See TLAL69, will always do anything P.L.F.

TLAL74 – Mind As Prison / Disciples of Christ – split 7″
Got to work with two bands filled with friends (love Tristan, Mough, Nolan, Tim, and Chris.. sorry for the MAP people I left off here) and labels of great friends like Nolan from above and Blastcat who is Pat from Backslider. Artwork by Nolan. Lots of Nolan on here. Great record, DC/Baltimore grindcore mainstays.

TLAL75 – Osk – Wretched Existence // Bleak Future : 2007-2010 CD
I’m not sure how this came together but Osk is members of Mass Grave and I liked their songs being more modern grindcore and shorter and to the point. Put out this CD and I’m not sure the band ever took off that much but its a perfect grindcore CD with no fluff. I have a ton of copies, I think I put them up for $5 so if you like grind, grab one and you won’t be disappointed.

TLAL76 – Needful Things / Roskopp – split 7″
Another great grind split. I think this is another one I just put money in and another one I’m surprised I have copies still.

TLAL77 – Tinnitus – Gehenna 7″
This young band approached me with some ripping powerviolence songs. I was a bit hard up on money at the time and the band tossed in a little cash and we did only 300 copies and it honestly sold quickly. A smaller run for a TLAL release but some perfect powerviolence tracks from Boston.

TLAL78 – Unholy Grave / Nak’ay – split 5″
Cool small record. Love both bands. I missed Nak’ay when they played Raleigh because I was super sick and was bummed out.

TLAL79 – Nashgul / Malpractice Insurance – split 7″
Stoked to finally work with Nashgul. Huge fan for some time now. Spanish grindcore legends in my mind. This record’s artwork was perfectly drawn by illustrator Luis from the band. Saw them play in Richmond post MDF and had a blast and was great to meet them. Malpractice isn’t without their high acclaim, I met 1/2 of them at either Gilman Street or at MDF one year and super nice guy. Powerful split on both sides.

TLAL80 – Magrudergrind – Crusher 10″
When Scion’s claim to the pressing ran out in their contract this record got repressed overseas and Avi asked me to press this in the US. While I was nervous of the Scion affiliation I had also seen the band spraypaint over the center labels that said the car company’s name and use different covers so I was pretty confident in their intent and really love the care that went into the all analog recording. This record is a perfect grindcore record. Their last record with Chris on drums and until now the last recordings they did until II just came out six years later. I recently did a second pressing of this to get more back into the world.

TLAL81 – Protestant / Suffering Mind – split 6″
Corey from Protestant and Halo Of Flies and I had been in constant contact at this point, the last few years I’ve lost track of him. I got to see them play twice in my area. Good contrasting split. SM is a band that you easily hear about in the international grindcore arena because they had been making huge waves and for good reason. Really good cool sized record. Sold through them quickly.

TLAL82 – Rape Revenge – Paper Cage 7″
I had gone out on a limb and heard the band and written them and asked about doing their next record. Had heard some weird things about the label who did their first EP and promised I’d do them right. They were excited, I was excited. We all share a lot of similar ideals between veganism, straight edge, politics, and feminism. I love this record. It comes with a zine of song explanations. The record lies somewhere between powerviolence and grind and modern emotional hardcore but never tipping the mixture over into full fledged screamo. Interesting story, years later the Library or at least the country of Canada in general wrote me to purchase a copy for their archives. Unfortunately it was long sold out or I would have been excited for that. I should have written them to tell them they could buy a box of Osk CDs or my remaining Archagathus represses.

TLAL83 – Backslider – Maladapted 7″
Backslider is great. I’ve known Logan for years when Raw Sewage crashed at my old house years ago. While that band wasn’t my cup of tea, Backslider definitely was and is. Pat I’ve known but didn’t meet for a bit of time as he sang in Common Enemy but by the time I helped book them in Raleigh they had a different singer. This EP is just barely still in stock at this time but I’m about to have the amazingly cool discography CD out super soon. The band recently added Jake, another old face I know from Republicorpse, on bass.

TLAL84 – Torch Runner – Committed to the Ground LP
One of the best heavy bands from this area approached me about doing a record. I said yes right away. What I didn’t expect is for them to fine tune their sound almost exactly in the way I’d want. I don’t think they did it for me but they did it and it suited them. TR in the past hadn’t entered the blackened hardcore arena on previous recordings but did that with flying colors on this and also mixed in an ample amount of grindcore drums. This record is perfect and I love this guys. You can’t go to a show in the area without at least seeing Scott’s huge beard somewhere in the crowd. Josh does a great screenprinting company and Rob does an equally cool gym.

TLAL85 – BearTrap – Sleep Eradication 7″
TLAL’s follow up from the well selling first EP I did for them. This record was more raw recorded but the songs are bangers. I think this came out at the wrong time as the band had toured all over Europe and then calmed down a bit I think because of family member reasons. I still have limited copies of this and it is great hardcore punk.

TLAL86 – Six Brew Bantha – s/t LP
I think SBB had a full compliment of labels ready to release this and they shyly asked me to help. A grindcore band doing a full length LP is a ballsy thing to do… a split you only need three to five minutes of music. A full length you need at least fifteen minutes and you need to make things memorable between songs. I’m not sure why they were semi-scared to ask me, I think they were scared of me saying no which is silly because I’m not a large label, but you know I was honored and the record sounded amazing. Well it did well, we pressed more copies, and now I only have a dozen left of that. The band played Raleigh to give me the first pressing copies of this to me and on the road their van completely flipped over, rendering their guitar player in a full leg cast. They still killed it and they gave me undamaged copies of the LP to me which also surprised me. A lot of things about that story surprised me but the way they still played a killer show in a small bar in Raleigh with all their might while having sustained injuries was the most surprising.

TLAL87 – Suffering Luna – Blood Filled Bong tape
SL asked me to do a tape and I said yes. I love this band… so creative with samples and tape loops and catchiness. They are undefinable. They also oddly know how to market themselves as a band… in fact I be they could run a better label than I could.

TLAL88 – Catheter / Mass Grave – split 10″
Another record I couldn’t say no to. I’d wanted to work with both bands for a long time. The best part of this is one side of it the masters got lost (which I don’t understand as it got released as a CD, couldn’t you just use those tracks?) and I think it was the Catheter side that got re-recorded because it got lost which is really cool to me, makes this special and unique. This is a perfect grindcore pairing and lots of good people in both bands including H-Murder from Cap Cas and Bad People Records, who honestly looks frightening in appearance but then you talk to him and he is such a great and friendly person. The Murder part of his nickname does not fit the person at all.

TLAL89 – Mindless – Planet of Pestilence 7″
Mindless’s first EP blew me away. Faiza was the female voice of Hatred Surge but I don’t think harping on that is important as this current band killed it live. Mindless I think is no more and Faiza is in Body Pressure who is like what Mindless is to grindcore as they are to hardcore punk. I have a bunch of copies of this release and I think people are complete idiots because this is a flawless grindcore release.

TLAL90 – Manchild 6: Bye Bye Punk Rock… Hello Adulthood book
Some releases take more sweat than others and this took all my blood, sweat, and maybe a few tears. I scanned each page and laid everything out in InDesign myself. I was the producer and releaser of this book, mainly to keep it DIY, with no ads, and to bring it into the world. Brian Walbsy is an amazing punk artist and at the time was the drummer of Double Negative. Manchild series was continued on in release form by Charles who had a baby and think he sees doing shirts as a better use of time and revenue generation than books, which I don’t blame him but I kindly signed up for the book. This sold strongly and even got to be on the merch table for all Melvins tours as Walsby himself tours around with the band. Only complaint here is the fact that I got served with a big import bill years after putting this out since it was printed in Canada. Now that I have done tape, CD, every type of vinyl, and book… I need to put out a DVD. Maybe Manchild 7 will be book+DVD?

TLAL91 – T.F.D. – Childhater 7″
Flexi from Rich Hoak’s insane spazzviolence band. Rich is better known to most as the drummer of the now finally defunct Brutal Truth. Amazing nerdy great guy and I think the full length Hater was great. I think I said unfortunately no to a vinyl release of that which maybe I should have but Childhater didn’t do as well as I’d hoped so maybe TLAL and TFD weren’t quite meant to work together but I think this flexi is great and fits on TLAL well!

TLAL92 – ACxDC / Sex Prisoner / Magnum Force – split 10″
This is a landmark split in many ways. It bridges the gap of friendship and all bands I’ve worked with in the past. So this started as a conversation between me and Sergio. We wanted something cool. ACxDC and SP stuff had done well so talk got higher up in cooler ideas and I knew it would do okay. The final idea was a three way split. How were we going to put three bands on a split? I suggested a one-sided record. To one-up it I had the idea of an etching which I had never done before. We did fold-over covers for the first press and it sold out right away. I didn’t like how the fold over covers looked so subsequent pressings had full 10″ jackets. The second pressing I asked for a burst of black in the white vinyl and they did it amazingly.. but they did it all by hand and the plant asked if they could just do the rest on white which is how the pressing went. The second press sold out almost immediately like the first pressing did and I hardly got any to a distributor who was asking for more. The third and probably final pressing I just pressing 1000 copies, biggest pressing I have ever done of any large vinyl record on TLAL and it has sold steadily. Great concept record, well executed, love it. Only gripe I have is that Magnum Force maybe didn’t realize the extent of this and only gave two short songs and wished they gave me more.

TLAL93 – The Kill – Make ‘Em Suffer LP
The Kill is a perfect grindcore band in my eyes. They are the P.L.F. of Australia and their singer/guitar player Robbie gave me a huge kiss on the cheek when I saw them play. Not that I have high expectations of anything I do but I’m super surprised I have copies left of this record as good as this band is. The split color vinyl looks amazing, art is perfect, band couldn’t be better. I’m super happy with this record and you’re in luck if you’re reading this as it is in print.

TLAL94 – Last Words – s/t LP
I want to start out by apologizing as I am an ass in a few ways on this record. I had talked initially to another NC label about getting help on this but closer to the release I kind of just needed to do it myself, for my own sanity mainly. Karma jumped up and bit me hard here… there were issues with the initial artwork, there were issues with spelling of song names on the final insert (my fault) and there were issues with the pressing. So lets start out with the pressing. I always always always do a side A and side B master CD, guess when I decided to not do one.. on this release. If I don’t do two CDs I at least master the songs together to a side A and side B WAV file. Well one song got put onto the B side that shouldn’t. Then plates were supposed to be remade but only one got remade, so then the other plate had to be remade, so there were two different mistake test presses. I sold them to pay for the plates I had to rebuy. The third test presses were finally perfect. The record came out great except the song Worth Nothing is called Worth Norhing and Worth Northing depending on if you look at the LP back or the insert sleeve. I had some great recordings of the band and the limited to 100 copies version of this came with a DVD-R I mastered down. LW put on some of the most energetic shows in NC and this and the Abuse. LP coming up are some of my favorite haydays of Raleigh hardcore punk and powerviolence in my eyes.

TLAL95 – Seasick – Eschaton LP
Mark Bronzino is an old homie and this band was ace. I had seen them play a warehouse with Magrudergrind, Stout, Surroundings, and Triac. This was originally pressed as 100 test presses by the label and I don’t know why! I did a pressing and got it out as it should have always been. I almost repressed the Surroundings LP in the same manner. Its still great and should be repressed.

TLAL96 – Abuse. – Self Titled LP
I bought noise equipment mainly to try to join this band in some kind of context. They were a perfect powerviolence band of friends from my town. I was so jealous to not play or be in this band but second best is doing all the artwork on their first EP and their full length and putting out their full length. I was supposed to do their EP but got graced with their huge sounding LP. Its perfect and interesting powerviolence. Everyone in this band still plays music and plays it well.

TLAL97 – ACxDC – Discography LP
As I said earlier, I can spend money on ACxDC and not lose it as people will buy it. So what do you do with their discography, lets make a cool picture disc. And we made a cool picture disc. I did a limited run of black vinyl for those who can hear that bit of surface noise and want to enjoy the record a bit more for the sound. Second pressing, the purple color didn’t come out well and the records look similar but that pressing is almost gone too so no worries in cool collector land as you can generally tell and people wanted them enough to buy up a thousand copies. Great mastering by Dan Randall of Mammoth Sound.

TLAL98 – NoComply / Suppression – split 10″
In the last few years Suppression showed back up as a band. For years between the 90’s and now they either disappeared or played more noise than powerviolence. I think Jason split his noise into other projects and the stripped down two man Suppression of yesteryears returned to the delight of damn near everyone. I did the art on the NC insert. This record rips… could have easily come out in the 90’s but came out now! I think I sing and play bass on this too, you know.

TLAL99 – Backslider – Discography CD
Originally TLAL99 was held for NC/Bastard Noise split LP but that was ill fated. I think I jinxed things by doing the artwork already. Backslider discography isn’t out but it was just sent to the plant. I paid the big bucks and got test CDs and they sound perfect. This is going to be a great showing up the pre-bass, pre-three piece lineup of the band. Mastered perfectly and comes with a cool Japanese style OBI strip. CDs might be a tough format for the punks but a great way to compile 51 songs on something that isn’t a 3xLP.

TLAL100 – V/A – To Live A Lie Vol II 12″
I hate comps, I hate comps, but this was worth it. So my first thoughts is TLAL50 is a comp, it was colored bronze and would be the first in the series of three. TLAL100 would be the silver release and would be an EP featuring more powerviolence whereas TLAL Vol I was grindcore slanted. All these came true but the EP grew to a 10″. Okay I can do an EP for TLAL I (bronze), a 10″ for TLAL II (silver), and an LP for TLAL III (gold). Well I got more and more good songs and its an LP. I think I waited the longest to finally get a Low Threat Profile song but totally worth it. A bummer that Andy Beatie (of No Comment fame) was no longer singing but Joe Denunzio took over vocals for the first time on an LTP song and its on my comp! There is a lot I can say about every song and every band on the comp but maybe I’ll leave that for another day. The Mad Dog song, the vocals were recorded in my room where I am typing right now and originally it said “fuuuuuuuck Will Butler” at the start of it. I took that part off. This record took probably two years to compile and happened to hit around the ten year mark. Perfect for 100 releases.

TLAL101 – Cave State – Self Titled 7″
Cave State approached me to do an EP and I’ll be honest, its hard to see gold. I knew I liked them and would love to do a record for them. Hoy Pinoy is great and CS was way more polished. Here is where I still make rookie mistakes (I never said this out loud but I said no to an Insect Warfare EP at one point once, but to my credit they were brand new and had no recordings online anywhere and didn’t send me anything to hear). So I had cold feet at first and they were nice enough to offer to toss in. I didn’t let them toss in too much but they fact they offered meant they cared about TLAL as a label and believe in their band. Well this record did so super well. The record sold out and I wanted to repress, they said to hold off and they would do another EP and I assumed I was going to do that but next I hear is that they would be working with Deep Six. Serves me a bit right for taking their money on this amazing EP and I’m happy they did a great sophomore record on Bob’s label! It hurts the ego initially of bands not sticking around like ACxDC doing an LP on another label and the same with Sex Prisoner but both those bands did release on great DIY labels. I don’t do contracts with bands for the fact that I want them to work with me as long as they like and if they get a better deal or can do more with their band with another label, then great! If they moved up to a major label I might beef them for a bit but so far no beef to be had. In the end I do TLAL to support the music I love and want the best for the bands.

TLAL102 – Chest Pain – Weltschmerz LP
You know I said yes to the CP full length. They said it would be a bit weird and its perfectly weird. It is inventive and perfect. The band wanted to do an optical effect on the center label but that didn’t end up happening. The cover artwork was drawn by hand and is completely amazing and the record comes with a poster of it.

TLAL103 – Impulse – Chula Violence 7″
I came across this band upon researching bands for the TLAL100 comp. Their EP had become obscure and the label wasn’t going to repress it. I got the plates from the label and did more copies to give the recording another life. This may have been silly as I still have most of those. I have the bands next EP at the plant which almost might be silly but this band is perfectly the sound I want to capture with my label. They blend youth crew with powerviolence.

TLAL104 – Holders Scar – Sin Without Doubt 7″
Greensboro NC’s Holder’s Scar puts on every show in their area and each member has so much heart I approached them to do a record and they excitedly said yes. Younger folks and very passionate, they seemed confused on how the whole process worked. I think at some point they asked if they could do a poster but that didn’t happen. The record is great. Oddly their demo sounded more like a TLAL release and they stopped blastbeating for this EP but it rips so hard still. Win another one for NC hardcore punk and friendship. They are playing Damaged City Fest this year so be on the lookout.

TLAL105 – Fistula – Vermin Prolificus LP
Sludge veterans Fistula approached me passively about doing an LP, I think thinking I would say no. I got an old CD of theirs off an old member when I bought a 16 CD off them on Myspace years back. I had good thoughts of the band as I was no one and they sent me a free CD and others CDs. I re-checked them out and listened to their last LP and it blew me away so I said yes. There was enough fast parts and blasts to go out to the TLAL folks I thought. I wasn’t wrong, the first press sold through. Second press on glow in the dark vinyl looks cool! I’m not sure if the band will go back to putting out records on their singer’s label, who seems to have done a good job so far, and I’m not sure why they didn’t put this on that label, but I was glad to work with them!

TLAL106 – Sex Prisoner – Demo 7″
The singer hinted at me pressing the demo to vinyl the last two times I saw him so I finally pushed them to get me masters from the demo. This itself took half a year to track down and I got the best they could find and got it mastered to make it sound better and boom, a SP demo EP. The band asked for glue covers, did 500 vinyl, and decided to cap it at that. The demo is raw, the guitars sound slightly out of tune, and the songs are mainly the songs on the EP. Its great but it should be a collectible for the die hards, the rest should grab the EP. I decided to be immature and do it on doo doo brown and pee pee yellow like I’m a ten year old, I don’t know why. The band its great and serious but I think they find humor in such things. I did the layout and got it pressed up and its almost sold out.

TLAL107 – The Afternoon Gentlemen – Grind In The Mind 7″
Great UK powerviolence outfit, asked me to repress this. I got the plates from them and pressed some up.

TLAL108 – ACxDC – Fiction Monger 8″
Did a limited lathe of the tracks from the TTP split. Sergio from the band screenprinted the B side and hence a cool collectible record was born. One track was added that wasn’t previously available on vinyl, Cheap Ass Punks.

TLAL109 – Six Brew Bantha – Intraveniously Commodified LP
How surprised do you think I was when the band I was surprised that they did a first LP did a second LP. This time just a joint effort between SPHC and me and I think there was a Euro pressing too. Second pressing on white is about to come out as this sold well too. SBB for a band with a silly name has some traction and some serious riffs.

TLAL110 – ACxDC – Postcard Flexi
Maybe keeping with some of the novelty ideas, ACxDC gave me actual great tracks for this and printed up a bunch of flexi post cards. Its a lovely little record and I’m happy with it!

TLAL111 – Impulse – Backbreaker 7″
This is at the plant now but is the extraordinary return of Chula Vista’s young powerviolence heroes. I’m super nervous about this one as I don’t know if people know this band so make me less stressed and listen to it. The riff are on point, they hardly repeat everything, and they start and stop on a dime. I want this to be the breakout band that no one has heard of.

TLAL112 – Humus – Eterna Condanna LP
Still getting pressed, this is a multi-co-released record of crusty hardcore from Italy. I tossed in with a bunch of labels and we will see how it is. I won’t have a ton of copies so snatch it up while you can.

TLAL113 – Sidetracked – Hired Gun LP
This isn’t even recorded yet but I guess there is enough story behind this and the next one to talk about it for interest sake. Jay wasn’t sure about writing a full LP, as you can tell they’ve been a band so long and have none. I guess I could have asked to do a discography CD but in 2015/2016 I want to challenge bands. I asked ACxDC and Sex Prisoner to do LPs and although they didn’t do it on my label, they did produce LPs. SBB impressed me that they did an LP. Last Words and Abuse. surprised Raleigh with perfect LPs… its time for a Sidetracked LP. I think Jay has written stuff that might have become an LP but liked it more as other material and so the writing method goes on. I think his mind thinks as a final product and not just a collection of songs put together which is a great way to think.

TLAL114 – Rabid Pigs – Spoiled Heat LP
All material by this band has me excited. Reminds me of a different take on modern hardcore much like Coke Bust does. I’m thinking writing a full length is going to be hard for them too, if I’m not mistaken the band might be a bit in disarray or at least putting together a full length might be tough to do as it is. Anyway I believe in them if they pull it off, if they don’t at least it was worth an effort.

Hopefully at the end of this you know more of my thought process. Most of you might not care and might look at me from different angles. I’m just a guy who likes music and likes what I like. This has been my ten year struggle to work with the music I love and bring it to you in the way I can. Some days it makes me crazy, sometimes it makes me antisocial, but in the end I have loved every minute of it. I think 2013 or so marked the point it grew too big to where you could tell something was wrong and I had to cut it back and not set up any new releases for a year. A lot of people thought TLAL was going to die there. I’m still here. I want to keep doing it. Maybe send me some encouragement sometimes and support these bands I’m working hard for and TLAL will keep moving along into the future. Thank you for the support for ten years of time! This has been TLAL’s ten year history of releases as I know it.

If you missed any of the other history posts here are the links:
Ten Years of TLAL – Part I
Ten Years of TLAL – Part II
Ten Years of TLAL – Part III
Ten Years of TLAL – Part IV

Due to the amount of hype and wanting to be fair, I’m going to make an official announcement here. The ACxDC – Fiction Monger 8″ lathe and the TLAL Vault USB stick will be available to order: AT A RANDOM TIME THURSDAY 10/8/2015 via the TLAL Webstore. Most likely this will be after 5pm EST as I will be off work but I may surprise you. I just think this will make this the most fair to people who are excited to grab this.

TLAL100.5V/A – TLAL Vault USB
A 8gb flash drive with all first 100-ish (TLAL99 isn’t out) releases and bonus content. Has TLALVAULT printed on the side. Please note I’m doing a cheaper version of this as a DVD-R in the near future but this one is also pretty price conscious. I made this available to regulars of the webstore last year and these are the remainder.

TLAL104Holder’s Scar – Sin Without Doubt 7″
North Carolina when you think of hardcore and punk you may think of Corrosion of Conformity or even Double Negative but not much else. This state is amazing for music because scenes form in clusters and build up and then unfortunately implode… so when the scene expands it is a really special and ephemeral experience. Up north there is a never-ending supply of raging music but when it comes around in NC it is special. Between my label and Sorry State we were able to capture a good cross section of the hardcore takeover of Raleigh a few years ago between Abuse., Last Words, Thieves, Double Negative, Cross Laws, Stripmines, etc. That bubble burst and there is some exciting stuff forming in the ash of it here (Skemata, Blackball, ands No Love). Right now Greensboro has a thriving scene revolving around some younger blood, primarily the guys in Holder’s Scar. Members of the band separately book almost every single DIY show in town. On top of that, HS puts on an amazing show and this record rips so fast it will make your head spin. Recorded at the world famous Legitimate Business by master audio technician Kris Hilbert (who also recorded the Torch Runner LP and half the bands mentioned above), this record lays down some raging hardcore punk akin to a lot of the punk of yore in NC: Stipmines, Thieves, and maybe throw in some of the new blood from Virginia like Barge and Meth Lab. Be on the lookout for Holder’s Scar coming through your town as they aren’t a band you want to miss out on. You also won’t want to miss slew of members-of bands like Wriggle and Bad Eric. This is actually already up and the limited white vinyl is going faaaaaaast. Buy it now in the webstore here

TLAL108ACxDC – Fiction Monger 8″ lathe
Limited to 75 copies, this silkscreened lathe cut 8″ record features their split material with To The Point and an unreleased early demo version of Cheap Punks recorded during the same session. PLEASE NOTE, a lathe is a special limited run and individually cut record, it will not sound as good as a normal vinyl record and you will need to turn anti-skate on and lower your needle weight.

and new stickers will go in with your orders:

I have one last piece of special TLAL merch for the ten year anniversary, stay tuned.

Oh and don’t forget, the really amazing Fastcore Photos #4 is out too!

If you missed the previous part, feel free to go back to part III. I think I’m going to do a shotgun approach to the rest of the releases as I think I’m going to maybe go crazy and give too much information that is less relevant to anyone’s interests. Here are the next batch of releases. Hopefully the lack of pictures or media doesn’t disappoint anyone out there.

TLAL28 – Hummingbird of Death – Show Us The Meaning Of Haste CD+
After the FxPxOx CD has enhanced info on it, I had to do this CD with some cool content. Has their set from Speed Trials and a cool flash interactive menu.

TLAL29 – Deathrats – s/t 7″
My friend Chris from the early years of me living in Raleigh had moved around a few times and in 2010 he asked me if I wanted to put his band out. I honestly hardly listened to them when I said yes and when I did I was amped. I became good friends with the other band members. The record got some apt MRR hype and this record did very well. Deathrats IS a Deathreat allusion by the way.

TLAL30 – V/A – To Live A Lie Records 2010 Sampler CD
This was next in the series of sampler releases, and this was the second pro-CDr. Amazing art by Matt Gauck. Only blemish is the Tinner song because this band took my money and never pressed their split with Unholy Grave.

TLAL31 – Arctic Choke – s/t 7″
Most people probably don’t know this, they were ex-Rhino Charge. They hit me up to help out when the record was almost done. Great music. They got Matt Gauck to do the artwork outside of me talking to him so the last two releases before this have his art and so does this. The band got most of the copies of this and I hardly felt like I had my hands on the EP and it was gone.

TLAL32 – Mondo Gecko / D9 – split LP
I was so excited about this record and somewhere between the Israeli post office and my front steps, the package got annihilated and I only ended up with five copies to sell. Major bummer. Two really good bands from that area that I was hoping to get more people to check out.

TLAL33 – Get Destroyed! – Burnt Offering 7″
This band was.. amazing. I never got to see them but members went on to the band Gay Kiss. I have a good story in relation to this band I will tell on their second EP in this list. Another great release with 625 and I think also my good friend Paul from Give Praise.

TLAL34 – Thieves – Positive Vibrations 7″
Raleigh had a solid band of a strange mixture of friends of mine from different areas in life that joined and started this band. Rodney whom I knew from hardcore shows and is an amazing drummer (he played drums for Old Painless who you may know from TLAL50), Ira who booked a bunch of shows and later went to play with Stripmines, and Nick who was in a band called Over and Out, and Ben who I had recently met because of this band and he always had a funny shtick at every show. Their demo was more TLAL sounding material but this EP is pretty good although slower.

TLAL35 – Archagathus / Axed Up Conformist – split 7″
At this point I loved Archagathus and wanted to keep releasing stuff for them. Both sides are awesome grungy grindcore.

TLAL36 – Charogne Stone – Live 2008 7″
Approached by a good band from France who sounded a lot like Spazz and seemed to have his stuff together. This was one of those multi multi co-releases and later I realized this is a one man band. Too easy to say yes to this one.

TLAL37 – Sick/Tired – Highlife LP
Sick/Tired came out of left field for me. This was going to be a release on Youth Attack Records and the record was 100% ready to go with the most amazing artwork and some amazing material. Mark couldn’t do it and the band shopped it around and it landed on my plate. The guys in this band are so nice and genuine and Kirk was in MK Ultra which is super cool and Adam does really cool noise stuff in Winters in Osaka. They all honestly do such a number of cool bands that its not worth listed them all.

TLAL37.5 – Sick/Tired – Lowlife tape
Lowlife came out a bit later than Highlife and is a tape of re-imagined songs from the Highlife recording. The band said they were going to do this and I was stoked and boom… Lowlife was born.

TLAL38 – Conga Fury / Shitstorm – split 7″
This record was a long time in the making. I had the idea set forth with Dub from Shitstorm and contacted Conga Fury via a sketching looking webform on their page and lo and behold I started talking to Yoshio from the band. Yoshio was more than amazing and ended up sending me some of his labels CDs and DVDs over the years. Unfortunately the Shitstorm records I think took so long that Conga Fury had almost or had broken up by the release. This is the first and only release to date where I did a special edition on glow in the dark vinyl. This record combine raw Japanese punk with American heavy grindcore, I think a great pairing.

TLAL39 – Charogne Stone – Mr Et Mme Stone Ont Une Fille 7″
Shortly after the first EP I did of theirs this was their next release and I said yes and it’s great!

TLAL40 – XBRAINIAX – Deprogrammed gatefold LP/CD+
I try to reserve round numbers for milestone releases and this is definitely one of them. Originally the band tried to include 625 as both them and I are fanboys but Max ended up not being able to help on this one. The artwork was put together, another example of me not knowing that Matt Gauck was in on this. The CD came first and the bonus CD+ menu again was a pain in the pass to produce and in true DIY nature I fixed all the artwork to the templates and obsessed and perfected this. The CD came out perfect. The LP then, I decided last minute that this had to be a gatefold because the artwork was too perfect so we did that. If you didn’t know… doing a gatefold is hugely costly so that idea is a big deal. I love these songs and I love this release… I wish the band had continued much further on from this. The LP is a great version of this, Matt’s artwork as well as Lucas from the band’s artwork really comes through here. The grooves are hilariously small. I ended up repressing this a few years ago on split color and it looks amazing and perfect and is still available.

TLAL41 – Disciples Of Christ – Demo 7″
Chris Moore asked me to do put this out and sort of split it with the band. I was already very familiar with the band and I said yes yes and yes. I knew Nolan because a long time ago I was going to do a split with Coke Bust and this band called Juice Tyme and Nolan had played in JT. Tim from the band I met and I think he’s an amazing person. I thought this band was odd because why would Chris want to be in two semi-similar grindcore bands but after he left Magrudergrind this band made more sense. I love this band and this record was repressed twice I think and I have just a handful left and they sell here and there constantly.

TLAL42 – Agathocles / Violent Gorge – split 7″
I was excited to do another AGx release and VG is basically Archagathus minus Dan after Dan made Archagathus not a solo recording project so I threw in on this and it was out and then sold out.

TLAL43 – Sex Prisoner – s/t 7″
Another milestone release. I had communicated with the band when they send me their previous band when they were in high school called Female Snake. I got a SP demo after the fact and I’m not 100% sure what set this into motion but I think it was more or less a lame “heard them on MySpace, I have to do a record for them” kind of moment. I always wanted to do something for Female Snake but didn’t think they were quite there as a band (I sound like a critic here don’t I, just being honest).. but Sex Prisoner they were ready. The first pressing I always hate the insert being separate from the cover so the next pressings those were combined. The cover have spot metallic silver ink and I love the style. All the songs on here are heavy and perfect and I think SP and TLAL reached each other at the right time because this record went through two set of plates to reach a total of 2k pressed (which is a lot for a small label). The band went on to sign to A389 but have played the two TLAL fests and always have a home with TLAL. I will be pressing their demo (which is raw versions of this EP) to vinyl in 2015.

TLAL44 – Archagathus / Pizzahifive – split 7″
Following the tradition of raw grindcore, this record is an excellent split. I like to say that I prefer well recorded, well thought out releases.. but there is something amazing about brutal raw sloppy and choppy grind. It reminds me of Neanderthal in its rawness or Siege. I don’t listen to much black metal but I feel the rawness in such genres makes sense and makes it special.

TLAL45 – Assholeparade – Live in Rostock 10″
I know exactly how this record came into being. AP are heroes in general to me. They were one of the first OG pv bands I ever got to see and saw them quite a few times. They made a point to come through and play Raleigh early on and I had mad respect for that. The vocals are awesome, the themes are great, this band is a perfect band. Anyway Travis Ginn started talking to me super late at night on new years 2010 and said that I should put out a live record of theirs. Apparently they had a nice clean soundboard recording from a set from Germany. It took a few months of me asking if he was serious when he asked me that to finally get the audio files. I then went to get them mastered and I don’t think the guy mastering them understood music like this with short fast songs. I gave him all the meticulous time breaks on this so he could master the songs out and everything. Of course I wanted to push the envelope and did some gold foil covers. The covers ended up being floppier than I wanted. The plant I went through said they couldn’t do 10″s with spines and although I could have upgraded the stock to make them nicer, I never did 10″s through them again for covers (inserts they’ve done ever single one of them though). This record sold through so quickly at first and I repressed them and luckily I did enough because I still have some kicking around so this is still available.

TLAL46 – Magnum Force – Self-Loathing 7″
My friend Pat (from Backslider) put out this band’s demo and this band put out some raw grindcore. They happen to be homies with Sex Prisoner so I ended up talking to them about doing this record. It was SUCH a sleeper record. I pressed 500 of them and sold a few at first. Sales trickled, trickled, trickled. Finally people got into them maybe a whole year after this release and it started selling steadily. Y’all need to wake up to these releases, this one is great! It finally sold out. I upgraded the stock on the covers and it was strangely scored because when I folded them it almost seemed like the paper split. The heavy stock feels amazing though.

TLAL47 – Backslider- s/t 7″
Backslider was a household pv name by 2010 and I dig them as people and as a band. They were a two piece and I know the band members separately from awhile ago.. Logan first from Raw Sewage who played in my town and slept at my house a long time ago and Pat who was I believe the original singer for Common Enemy. Odd they ended up in Philly together in a band. Even weirder is Jake who I know from Florida and the band Republicorpse, joined the band later to be their bass player. Pat from the band helped put this out as well as Nolan from DOC and a German label too.

TLAL48 – Godstomper / Dos Amigos – split 7″
Two man powerviolence band split. Godstomper I have mad love for as I talked to Paul Barfo for years and I ended up talking to DxAx guys a lot too, and such a cute name for a two piece band. I don’t think I had these in my hands for long.

TLAL49 – Mehkago N.T. – Massive Fucking Headwounds LP
I have major love for Mehkago, they seemed the perfect fusion of Shitstorm’s fastness and the heaviness of taking the time to slow down songs some. I was amped to do this even though I believe Rick was out of the band by this release and I think Dub was only there to do the vocals for the recording. The CDEP was perfect and I think this wasn’t quite on that level but it was close. I think this was way less popular and the artwork took so long because the ideas didn’t quite pan out as expected and by the time this came out I think we were a month away from their breaking up show. Unfortunate timing but it didn’t kill the record. I have about six copies left to date so it definitely cut off on sales but as with any release, I wouldn’t have said no.

TLAL50 – V/A – To Live A Lie 7″
Round number records as I said earlier are important. Halfway to a hundred is the most important and I reserved fifty for the comp that I ended up stressing out putting together for a year and a half. I decided I wanted to do a series of EPs focusing on different genres and counting up in color combination. The first one, this one, is dedicated to grindcore and would be bronze colored (first of three, bronze, silver, and gold). I asked some of my favorite grind bands and waited way too long on some of them and then this was out. On this was: Mind As Prison, Matka Teresa, Disciples of Christ, The Kill, Old Painless, TFD, Archagathus, FUBAR, Bud Spencer, Worlds, Spoonful Of Vicodin, and Magrudergrind.

TLAL51 – Suffering Luna – s/t LP
Justin Abare connected me with this band and this was going to originally be a NoComply split. I think this maybe bummed out Justin a bit that this became its own release but I owe Justin 100% on this coming together. Suffering Luna you may have heard of as a 90’s powerviolence/noise outfit doing splits with Dystopia and Gasp. This record I was scared wouldn’t sound good as we pretty much maxed out the time length on it, maybe I would have been safer doing this as a double LP but Aardvark did an excellent mastering and plating job and the test presses sounded PERFECT… heavy and trippy. This record is one of the most experimental ones I’ve put out and I adore it. I grew up listening to industrial music and this band weaves so much into their music it reminds me of a powerviolence version of Pigface. I used to talk to Shawn all the time and by the time this came out I got really busy with the label and I think I became a space cadet, think he understood.

TLAL52 – Archagathus – Canadian Horse LP
Another heavy hitter, this is the definitive Archagathus album. The band put together Coffee Grinder right before or right after to offset the fact that they recorded their heaviest and most illustrious release. Oddly their first not lo-fi release to date. The recording was meticulous. The masters I got I couldn’t even play and got a separate disc as reference material which I could hear. The recording was sent to Chicago Mastering to get cut and they did the job this recording deserved (I wish Steve Albini was the engineer who did this project though!). The cover Dan told me was a secret but he would share with me once he got the negative back and that intrigued me. He asked me if we could do a large format poster and yes of course we could, this might have been the first big poster I ever did. The artwork is Dan on a horse playing a saxophone and then him with no pants on the back which has to be the most interesting artwork, to a weirdly well recorded grind/mincecore album to make it a very memorable release. This went on to a second pressing which I have some of on split color vinyl left to round out 1k pressed.

TLAL53 – Sissy Spacek – Vanishing Point 7″ flexi
I never dove very deep into noise but I was familiar with John Wiese because the first Sissy Spacek CD I bought blew my mind. It is like an odd grindcore glitched out CD of utter confusion. This release was the same session that the AGx split came from and I think I accidentally got mad that I thought they were the exact same songs at first. This went on to be featured in a book of John’s EP art. This was a weird release and I think this is shortly after the flexi machine was re-setup and flexi’s began to exist in the world again.

TLAL54 – BearTrap – Nailed Shut 7″
Another important release, Beartrap is mainly the brainchild of Mike Assatly. I was not familiar with his band beforehand but he had put together a great set of songs and an unrelenting EP was the result. I wasn’t too in love with the artwork because it wasn’t punk looking in my eyes but I love things to be different and of their own intent and this was exactly what Mike saw. The release sold fast. The band toured Europe once or twice and people were excited about this band. It was great to work with someone so motivated. I believe Mike toured with Caulfield as his backing band if I’m not incorrect and he posted a pretty interesting tour blog when he was overseas.

TLAL55 – Deathrats – Give Up 7″
Give Up is the second and last of Deathrats records. Chris, my original friend in the band, was long gone but the band continued on full steam. More Skater Action Matt artwork shows up on this one and this time I did glue pocket covers. This release was a big more mature in writing and I think a bit angrier. DR might have been the first TLAL-only released band so I keep them pretty close to my heart in that way. They definitely had a period where they were very popular and could have probably done their second EP with anyone they wanted so it meant a lot for them to come back to me on this one.

Go on to check the last chapter in part V.