Description
**This is a pre-order. It will be shipped ahead of the release of TNS100 on the 19th February. Please order other items separately if you’d like them to arrive sooner**
We’re very excited to bring you TNS100! A 33 track compilation featuring bands both on TNSrecords and from the wider DIY punk scene. The compilation is released across double 12” gatefold vinyl and on CD! We also have t-shirts, a zine and a jigsaw in the bundle.
As we approached our 100th release, we knew that we wanted to do something a bit different, something that said something about our whole time as a label and something that involved lots of members of the DIY community. We realised that this wasn’t actually far from what we were thinking when we started the label.. What did we do right back at the start? We released a compilation featuring the bands we loved, who we felt weren’t getting the attention they deserved.
TNS100 being a compilation album seemed like the obvious choice. We grew up on compilations. In pre-internet/streaming days they were absolutely the best way to find new bands. We loved them as albums in their own right too. We miss those days. It was incredible when over the years people said they got the same experience from our compilations that we got from numerous compilations ourselves.
However, doing a compilation raised some big questions and concerns for us.
Are compilations even needed or relevant any more?
Would it be on vinyl? In there early days, the dream was to release vinyl, but it wasn’t financially viable. These days, CD sales are mixed and vinyl is a necessity.
How would we pick the bands? We released three volumes of our compilation albums (as well as a sampler for Safety Pin magazine). Volume two and three were double CDs, allowing us to include loads of incredible bands from the DIY scene. Vinyl, even with a double LP would massively limit the number of bands. And we like so many bands. We’ve also worked with so many bands.
Would it be a retrospective or would it be new bands?
We tore our hair out about these issues for ages. But, we knew that going back to our roots and doing a compilation was the most apt thing for this release. We decided to sit down and decide what we actually wanted from a compilation in today’s DIY punk world. This is what we came up with.
We didn’t want it to be a label sampler. We wanted to include some bands we’d never worked with before who we wanted to give some exposure to, very much in the spirit of our first release. We didn’t want it to be a retrospective, as we wanted it to be forward thinking. We wanted recently released music and at least a handful of unreleased tracks. The aim is also to represent the diverse range of sounds we find in the DIY scene.
So, this is where we ended up. This is just a small part of what TNSrecords is about, spread over two records or one CD. There are some bands we have worked with in the past who are very big parts of our story who aren’t on this release and numerous bands that we absolutely love that aren’t either. There are even a couple of bands who we have planned to release stuff for, who we’ve not included. Sorting the track listing for this was very hard. But, there is a tentative list for next time round if this goes well and we are convinced this sort of compilation is still worthwhile. In short, there are many, many bands that are part of the TNS family and important to our story.
We certainly aren’t claiming this represents the whole of the huge and wonderful DIY scene. This is just where we are now. It is a collection of bands that we absolutely love who have either recently been released on our silly little label or who have blown us away at a small venue in recent years.
The next challenge was the name. I’m sure any DIY band can relate to the ‘cheap cans’ or ‘broken vans’ bit of the title. The ‘basement bar bands’ bit relates to where we were when we started the label and ran regular gigs in the Basement bars of Retro Bar and Joshua Brooks in Manchester. These were amazing and formative years, where the ideas that eventually led to us reaching 100 releases were originally formed. The art has a different circle to represent each of the 100 releases. Every single release has been important to us.
We hope you find some new bands and enjoy the tunes on this album. We are humbled and blown away to have reached this milestone. We really couldn’t have done it without the love and support this community has offered us. We hope you enjoy this release as much as we do and we’ll see you in the pit when we come out the other side of everything happening right now.
‘Cheap Cans, Broken Vans and Basement Bar Bands’ is available on double 12” gatefold vinyl (one record is pink and one is silver) and Digipak CD.
In the bundle you can also pick up a t-shirt, zine and jigsaw.
The t-shirts have a pocket print and full back print with the 100 dot design. We have the option for a white or black t-shirt. The silver and pink ink will be mixed on the printing screen so that every shirt is unique. The shirts are on ethical B + C Collection shirts and are printed by EHC Screen-printing.
The zine is a full colour over 16 page and printed on 170gsm paper. The zine tells the entire history of TNS.
You can also get a 1000 piece jigsaw.
Track List
Incisions – New Day
Jodie Faster – Don’t Take It Bad
Brassick – They Say
Faintest Idea – Stomp Them Down
Nosebleed – I Got You (previously unreleased)
Aerial Salad – State O’Yer
In Evil Hour – 2050 (previously only released digitally)
The Restarts – Freedom From (previously unreleased)
Haest – The Turtle Is in the Handbag
Roughneck Riot – A New Day Is Dawning (previously unreleased)
Knife Club – You Can Only Try Your Best (previously unreleased)
Bobby Funk – I’m A Cat
Harijan – Paranoid
Youth Avoiders – Steel Concrete
PI$$ER – Time
Martyrials – Parachute
Uniforms – Searchlights
Grand Collapse – Turncoat
Casual Nausea – Empty Rewards
Pizzatramp – I Got Work In The Morning
Stöj Snak – Fire
The Sewer Cats – Rich Cheaters
The Domestics – Don’t Tell Me What Love Is
Tim Loud – Anyone Else But Me (previously only released digitally)
Skinny Milk – Here It Comes
Daves – I Drank The Beer
Follow Your Dreams – Rinse and Repeat
Matilda’s Scoundrels – Heathen
Rash Decision – The Martockian
Christmas – Push Fast
Throwing Stuff – A.C.I.Y.H.A.B. (previously only released digitally)
Redeemon – Anaphylactic
Speed Dinosaurs – Stegasaurids
