The Middle Class were a Southern California punk rock band from the late 1970’s who are often credited with putting out the first hardcore 7″ EP with their legendary and extremely valuable Out of Vogue EP. It was the band’s first release and they’d go on to put out another excellent 7″ and a less excellent LP (where they softened their sound and got way more experimental). They also had two amazing cuts on the Tooth and Nail compilation.
Like a lot of great punk rock, those records went out of print and the band broke up and the records became very rare collectors items that fetch large sums of money the few times they ever trade hands. A few years ago, Frontier Records did the universe a solid by compiling all the best Middle Class material on one handy LP (and CD). That record came on red vinyl and until now it was the only color it was issued on. Now that the original pressing is long gone, Frontier decided to give it a little face lift and issue it on a new color of vinyl.
This new pressing is on random colored vinyl. That means that you really don’t know what color you are going to get. The color variations are solely based on what leftover color vinyl compound the plant had on hand the day they pressed these up. Usually it results in most records looking purple, gray, brown, or some mixture of all three. As you can see in the photo of the one Frontier Records sent over, this example looks like brown marbled vinyl, similar to the “gravy colored vinyl” pressing of the Adolescents LP featured last week. Whether they are all similar to this or not is one of life’s great mysteries, but if you happen to pick one up for yourself from the label’s website, be sure to chime in and let me know what yours looks like.
You can get this fancy colored LP for a limited time directly from the Frontier Records website for a very reasonable price. If you have never heard this band before, fix that now and grab one!
