Standing Hard..... Hard Stance

There was a time when hardcore singles blew through pressings fastand a pressing of a 1000 could be gone in a week or two. Hardstance'sclassic "face reality" 7" had 5 different pressings of a 1000 on 5 colorsof vinyl. In order from 1st press to last it went blue,red, green, black,and clear. (it was reissued again on conversion records but that don'tcount). I think the 1st copy I got was on red and that was that. Had tohave been mail ordered direct from the label. Demo was good, single was good. There were tons of singles coming out and I was getting tons of records in the mail and at shows. Inside Out were one of myfavorite bands at the time and I remember talking to their bass player andasking him about hardstance and cali posi core and him joking about whohad what color of the HS single. At this point is was pretty easy to get all the records I wanted 1st press. colored vinyl, alternate cover. Maybe I was jaded and thought everything was too easy. Sometime around then, I decided to get all five colors. Seems easy enough on paper. All quests start with a goal or aspiration. Some are noble and some are to collect records. Black and Clear were no problem. Green took a while but I tracked one down. This is pre ebay, pre internet(for me anyway I think it had been invented by then....), so "trackone down" doesn't mean sit their in you PJs on the computer, it means bugyour friends and travel out of town. Luckily, this was also the era whenthere were record stores around that catered mainly to punk andhardcore.(epicenter, fast forward, vinyl ink, trash american style, etc). Record stores that were worth a 2,3, or 5 hour drive. There were also tons of kids doing mailorder and distro, so records would pop up in unexpected places. I can't remember when I got the blue pressing, but it took a long time. Ihad even gotten multiple copies of black, green, and clear.(A lot of kids were "growing up and getting rid of "youth crew" other records they found emabarassing so scooping up extracopies cheap wasn't tough) I wasn't even that focused on the quest anymore, but I saw the single, checked thecolor....BLUE, and had a total burst of pointless euphoria. Quest completed!By the time the thing got repressed on cd and 7", it had beena while since I had pulled it out to listen to, but I still bought them andwas sure to grab promo posters for it as well. Then after a few spins,back into the vaults it went. Good memories, but there is just too muchother music to listen to and try and buy. In the last couple years, I have been selling a lot of records onebay, and that creates a lot of mixed feelings. I sell stuff and buyother stuff and always seem to end up with more in the end. Record geeksare always lusting after one record or another. This was one of my firstoddball obsessions and compared with some of the later ones, not a badone( valentines breakaway 45 and the multi year search for the Smashchordsstand out as 2 recent long-term torments). As I have been selling thedifferent colors of the HS 7"online, I have experienced the full range ofhuman emotion. It's like seeing the 1st girl you kissed, but now you'remarried and things have changed. Why am I selling these? Why didn't I tryand get a test press? Why wasn't I true til death? So now I guess I have a reverse quest. To sell all the pressings of the HS single and settle for the cheap thrills of how much will they go for and where will there new home be? Surprisingly, no one person has tried to get multiple pressings.... what is wrong with the kids today? I guess they are spending their college money on Lockin Out test pressingsOnce the last copy is sold, I wonder how long will it take before the desire toget them all again and get a test pressing will set it??????? Could you do it faster than last time? Jousting at the same stupid windmill that no one cares about all so that one day, when you are probably in St. Louis or Albany or Richmond, you dig out the last version you need from the back of a dusty bin and feel that demented sense of euphoria. The torment starts again.