True Arcane Steele Vinyl!!

Let me tell you a little story:

Twenty years ago I was a college freshman living in Staten Island, New York. One of my friends and I went out one night to see a few local bands play at a club (he was friends with the guitar player in one of them). The headliner that evening was KILLEN, who were apparently the most popular Staten Island metal band at the time (which I guess is kinda like saying "the prettiest woman in the Royal Family" or "The biggest fan of the Montreal Expos" cuz there's not much to work with...) anyway, they seemed like a decent enough band, nothing that made me into a life long fan, and eventually I forgot all about'em.

A few months ago, however, a certain poster at a certain other forum posted a pic of their lone album (pictured above; it was self released by the band in 1987) in a certain "rare vinyl" thread and I went "Wow, I haven't heard that band in years." I did some Googling and found out that there were bootleg CDs of this release circulating, but they were e-Baying in the $30-40 range and that was a bit steep for my blood, especially because I couldn't remember a thing about how they sounded. Fortunately I was able to find a download of the album to check out before I dropped my hard earned cash on it.

...and boy was I glad I did, because WOW, this band was frickin AWFUL. Imagine, if you will, a third rate Manowar fronted by the love child of Geddy Lee (Rush) and John Gallagher (Raven), whose nuts were being nibbled by wombats during the recording process. The production was cheap as hell (and not in that "warm and fuzzy '80s indie metal vinyl" kind of way) with drums way up front drowning out all but the terrible vocals. The guitars, when you could hear them through the echo, sounded like rubber bands stretched across a cigar box.

I recently found out that for whatever reason, original copies of this album regularly go for over $200 on eBay. That kills me because I used to frequent a record store on Staten Island that had stacks and stacks of this LP in one corner and they never seemed to sell any. I wish I had a time machine, cuz I'd go back to 1988, buy up the entire pile, then come back to the present and make a mint selling'em off to the Troo Arcane Steele Vinyl crowd on eBay!!

The moral of the story kids, is this: Just because an album is considered "rare" and valuable, does not necessarily mean that it's GOOD.

Here ends today's sermon. By the way, I think I still have some MP3s off of this thing floating around in my computer so if any of you want to hear this monstrosity for yourself, just let me know. I let SpectreFate hear a few tracks a while back and he hasn't been the same since!!

I've noticed that quite a few times on things that are considered "rare".It doesnt necessarily mean its something you want to listen much less give $100 or better for.

Thrasher73 wrote:

I've noticed that quite a few times on things that are considered "rare".It doesnt necessarily mean its something you want to listen much less give $100 or better for.

At one of the other forums I post at (Heavy Harmonies) they have a whole section devoted to eBay averages, prices for certain rare releases, etc., and I just shake my head when I read thru that. People are willing to spend hundreds of bucks on some no-name hair metal band's CD that they've never heard before just because it's "rare," and I'm like "but what if it sucks?"

I dunno, I guess I'm just more of a "fan" than a "collector." I'd rather listen to the music I have rather than store it in plastic sleeves and never touch anything for fear of "de-valuing" it.

I listen to all my rare cd's I dont see the point of buying it in the first place if you're not going to listen to it.

And to go along with what Freddy's saying Cryptic Slaughter's Stream Of Consciousness album is one of the WORST albums ever recorded, yet cd copies of it go for hundreds of dollars. I got mine still sealed in a long box for 5.98 haha. Hell, I traded one to Sax one time, and even he thought it was awful.

I've often wondered about guys like sovdat and other "serious" collectors that spend outrageous amounts for rare cd/albums just because it's rare even if it's crap.

Dinosaur turds are rare too, but at the end of the day, it's still a turd.

Post the songs I wanna hear! This reminds me of another album thats rare and expensive Venom The Waste Lands. I only have one Venom cd that I bought a couple weeks ago for the hell of it. I havent even listened to it but a friend of mine used to be really into them and he would make me tapes. I never really gotten into them that much to buy their stuff but if I see it used i'll pick it up like I did with Welcome to Hell. Anyway has anyone heard The Waste Lands? Its Venom and I know a lot of their albums are hit and miss. I keep seeing in a store I go to and their selling it for $100. I looked it up on ebay and amazon and its the same there too. I found it for like $30 on amazon.co.uk but I asked the guy how much the shipping was and it ended up being like another $30 so even though its still cheaper than a $100 is it even worth that much?

I dont know, Ill have to download it now, I didnt like Prime Evil, so I stopped buying Venom albums after that, but had I bought it when it was readily boobs err I mean available, Id have some dough to put towards that Born Again lot.

I have the Waste Lands and its pretty darn good. Not worth 100 dollars, but great nonetheless.

spectrefate wrote:

I have the Waste Lands and its pretty darn good. Not worth 100 dollars, but great nonetheless.

hmmm... then you must get rid of it and send it to me. Im hoping my mind tricks will work

DeathCult wrote:

I dont know, Ill have to download it now, I didnt like Prime Evil, so I stopped buying Venom albums after that, but had I bought it when it was readily boobs err I mean available, Id have some dough to put towards that Born Again lot.

just cant those boobs out of your mind huh? Me neither. The ones on the right just have that something....bounce??

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

Post the songs I wanna hear!

Shoot me your e-mail address via PM and I will gladly send you a few samples of this sonic atrocity.

I have sent two sample KILLEN tracks to Phoenix Reign Drummer, as per his request... I eagerly await his return to this thread to tell us what he thought of them...

Yeah, Im actually kinda curious as to how it sounds myself.

Send me yo' e-mail address via PM and this too can be yours.

Soon DeathCult will know the glory that is Killen. I apologize in advance for any mental cruelty and/or violent behavior that may be caused by listening to this godawful band, by the way.

This guy sounds like he took some muscle relaxers before he started to sing.

BTW, I don't care if anyone posts links to albums or songs or whatever. If the other Admins are OK with it, post whatever.

It doesnt bother me any, but umm, I dont think these particular ones deserve to be readily available

Wow, the drummer sucks, theres a few ok riffs here and there, but this is almost as disasterous as the albums John Frusciante put out when he was on dope.

Ok I listened to Scream in the night and actually I thought it wasnt too bad. The recording is aweful but what can you expect from something that was recorded back then especially by a band like this.

Then I listened to the other song Soldiers In Steel. I wasnt getting into this one.

So its not the worst thing I heard in my life. It actually had some potential I think it just suffers from the vocalist and the bad recording.

This actually reminds me of my bands first recordings. We had a guy singing and he was just god aweful! He was in the bad for a long time too. He even got me in the band but eventually we had to get rid of him. You can only ask someone so many times to get singing lessons till you just go and find someone else. Another thing that was bad about him was that he was tall and he really didnt move or around on stage and he would always look down and sing and wouldnt do anything so we nick named him The Tree. Its a shame cause he was a nice guy and turned me onto a lot of bands but as a singer hes just bad. I think maybe Killen might sound better compared to those first recordings of ours haha.

Killen is pure shit.

Man that's liberating typing that.

I like when he screams "I" about 4 minutes and some odd seconds in, it sounds like someone kicking a chiuaua around

IYIPEEE!

I really cant get over how bad this is, I mean I like some bad third rate thrash, but wow, this blows harder than a hurricane. It doesnt even sound like they're in time with each other.

Hahaha, awesome. Anybody else want a sample of this Troo Arcane Steele? Just let me know, I'll be glad to share the disease.

I betcha wherever they are right now, the members of Killen are going "Hmm, my ears are burning, who's talking about me?"

Maybe it was supposed to be Killem, because thats not a bad idea.