I am the arsonist - 7"
Spark of Life
Here's what their singer Steve had to say about this release: 'It was released on New Age on July 3, 2024. I told Mike I didn’t want to do a traditional New Age release, that I just wanted to do a super limited run because the songs were already out on streaming platforms and they were songs we had written that weren’t going to make the new full length. I also told Mike there would never be a second pressing.
Back when I was a kid, my favorite hardcore bands didn’t have money or budgets and they used to make inserts at Kinko’s (chain print shop in the USA) on a simple black and white copy machine. They would also steal paper bags from grocery stores and cut them into record sleeves and print or draw their own artwork on the homemade bag covers.
I always loved the DIY effort of those bands and wanted to do something similar. So… this was my love letter to my favorite local old school hardcore bands. We found a company that made plain brown cardboard covers (mimicking the stolen brown paper bags) and we had each one screen printed (using a t-shirt press) with one color artwork. I then hand stamped each one myself. I made the copies for the inserts at Kinko’s and let them degrade naturally as more copies were made. I hand typed, cut and pasted and put the insert together. No computer was used in any making of the record.
Mike was on board with my idea and I told him I didn’t want it to exist anywhere except on the site until it sold out and then it would be gone forever… like all my favorite records haha. There were two different color covers made. 150 black. 50 green. All of the records were Los Angeles Dodger blue (because its where we are from… and I’m a huge fan). There is also a handful of test pressings. I don’t know the exact number… but I think there is maybe 5?
The records sold out online during the pre-sale. I did purchase a small number of those for the band, that we sold at shows. Once the pre-sale was done, the records were sent out and it was taken down.
I hope that explains it! It is one of my favorite things we have done as a band. It's a bummer, it means they won’t be pressed again, but its also why I think it’s so cool haha.'