Collecting The Wonder Years - Introduction & Suburbia 1st press orange & grey /500

It's time for a new crusade.

It's been a while since I feel like I've concentrated on a particular band and put a lot of effort into hunting down and completing their discography. I've decided I'm going to do exactly that with The Wonder Years. Introduced to them by various members of Birmingham's Best Band, they've been a favorite of mine for a couple of years but I only own one LP on actual vinyl. My iPod is full of their songs, but my record shelves are seriously lacking in Soupy and co. Listening to them the other day I thought "this is a madness, and I must change it".

In my opinion, TWY, along with bands like Iron Chic, Such Gold  and The Story So Far sum up just about everything that's been right about pop-punk in the last few years. The resurgence of late has seen some incredible bands come about. I didn't consider it a genre that I could ever give a fuck about again, but I've been proven so wrong.

So the hunt begins. The one release I do have is this one: Suburbia I Have Given You All And Now I Am Nothing.

The orange/grey split 1st press of their 3rd LP released by No Sleep Records last year and limited to 500. I had no problems bagging one of these, I was waiting in line at pre-order stage when it was announced. I've got a couple of TWY records on the way in the post, a couple of records from later presses that were easy to round up and ill post about them when they arrive. But it gets a little trickier from here on out.

My criteria at the moment is simple: to reach my goal of owning a complete discography I want at least 1 copy of each of their records pressed so far, with 1st press being the ultimate aim but I'll have no problem picking up a later press if one becomes available. The one exception with this rule being their 2nd LP The Upsides. The 2nd press of this was in a gatefold with different cover art. I consider this different enough to warrant getting both a 1st and 2nd press to consider it a complete discography.

Their first LP was a CD release only so that rules that one out but as well as both presses of the 2nd LP to get there's a load of 7"s : a mixture of EP's, splits, pre-order exclusives and subscription only deals. One subscriber 7" of the track Don't Let Me Cave In was limited to 35 copies. Jesus Christ what am I doing to myself.

So that's my goal. Let's go! Multiple copies of the same record, test presses and record release presses are obviously fair game, but 1 copy of everything is my primary goal at this stage.

My next TWY post that I do when I've received the stuff that's on it's way I'll probably include a back catalogue list with pressing info to the best of my knowledge so I can nerd out over the information all in one handy Internet place and maybe help anyone else who might want to know someday. The information is already out there, but who wants to flick between multiple websites? Not this dickhead.