Vinyl Of The Day

This is Bad Religion's very first record, a 6 song self-titled EP from 1981.

Self-produced, self-recorded, and self-distributed, this is not just the Holy Grail of Bad Religion vinyl, it's also the very first release from Epitaph Records (courtesy of a loan from Brett Gurewitz's father), making it a hugely important slice of vinyl across all of Punk-dom.

I found it at some record store and paid, I think, around 10 bucks for it. Even at the time (mid-90's) that was quite a deal for a bit of punk history that I've never seen before or since.

But it gets better.

The label is actually a misprint. Well, not really a misprint really, it's actually the wrong label altogether...on both sides. It's for some band called Suffer!, which is a fantastic coincidence since Bad Religion's best album, released 7 years later, was called "Suffer". The fine print is actually in German, which leads me to believe that either Suffer! was some German punk band who had a record being pressed in the same factory, or that this is actually a German bootleg which got mixed up with another printing.

Either way, it's a great little DIY fuck-up.

Add in clear red vinyl and the fact that it still plays beautifully, and this is by far the coolest record in my collection. I don't have a clue how much it might be worth since I've never seen another one, much less one with a misprinted label.

Greg Graffin and the boys have come a long way. And since I'm feeling nostalgic, here's an interview I did with BR bassist and founding member, Jay Bentley, just a few weeks before I graduated from SDSU.