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Hey all — link below for the MP3s! The quality is UNREAL. I’m excited to hear everyone’s thoughts. The New Hope demo… I have no words. @daveyjones is going to pop in with some more details! HUGE thank you to Davey for this. Not only for doing the legwork and sharing his knowledge (as always), but also for being a lovely human with endless love and positivity for this band. I’m super excited to have this little tape, but it would be pretty useless without your help, Davey, and without communities like this. Anyway, enjoy!! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WoMCY098fJ9acgGMwVQfu5dlDiYBs55V?usp=sharing

for years we thought it was a fake, a rumor, a unicorn! but no. it's real. ok here are all the details for my fellow nerds... first off, with this tape we now have heard all the demo material prior to the dude ranch demo sessions (the ones mark played me in 1996, the ones @veeRob managed to get back to him last year) known to exist. also, @Ry-Bread forget about buddha (~1,000 copies) or even short bus (500 copies). from what i gather these were dubbed for only a small number of industry folks, record store people etc. maybe @blinkstillrules can ask joe vandal if he remembers. but @wastingtime should know that this tape surely has to be the rarest "commercially pressed" blink recording known to exist. cassette side A: cassette side B: RECORDING LINEAGE Denon DRW-585 (through furman power conditioner to eliminate RF noise) --> RCA to 1/8" to iMac (line-in) --> audacity. here is the waveform of all eight tracks: spectral analysis proves the source is not lossy: post processing, pretty standard: - normalization without clipping (top shelf about .5 / -.5 db as you can see) - hiss removal based on blank audio sample, typical four seconds. - track splitting with two second leaders front and back. AND... when i played back, i noticed the tape was not in tune. tape speed error on the original dubbing stage. so i pitch corrected... it was a quarter of a semitone flat. adjusted. all the tracks are now in perfect pitch, standard E tuning now. WAV --> FLAC / MP3 TRACK ORIGINS ETC the labeling on the cassette, though genuine, is inaccurate. i chose to label the tracks exactly as they are presented on the label: 01 A New Hope 02 The Girl Next Door 03 Strung Out 04 Ben Wah Balls 05 Does My Breath Smell 06 Voyeur 07 Wasting Time 08 Don't on the label it says "ALL SONGS WRITTEN BY BLINK 182 AND RECORDED in 1995." first of all, "the girl next door" is a screeching weasel cover (for which ben STILL gets royalty payments! according to @SpinUpSpeedo who is in touch with him). second, some of these tracks date back to at least 1994. my feeling / suspicion with this tape is that it was used to generate interest in kung fu re-releasing the buddha tape in some form. and also to test drive what bonus tracks it might have on it. as we know, those two that made the cut are"the girl next door" and "don't." here are the origins of the other tracks, and how i prefer to name them: 01 Princess Leia (Original Version) - i suspect this is from the 1995 uranus sessions which gave us those three 7" tracks and also "lemmings" and the "good times" TV theme cover. but i'm only speculating based on the sound and the pace of the track. only jeff forest can tell us. i hope @Ry-Bread finally gets him on the 182news podcast. 02 The Girl Next Door - on the final 1998 kung fu records buddha release. i suspect this is a 1995 recording, perhaps the uranus sessions too. it's cheaper to record a bunch of songs at once is why i suspect it's all from a single doubletime session with jeff. 03 Strung Out (Enthused Demo) - this is just the "enthused" demo that ended up on the 1996 australian wasting time EP. that CD's card lists that it was produced by warren fitzgerald of the vandals. @blinkstillrules has info about this directly from joe vandal (joe escalante) but i will let him chime in, i don't want to risk misquoting him. 04 Ben Wah Balls (Cheshire Cat Version) - recorded second half of 1994. same as the album but note the warbling. this tape damage is at the master dubbing level and not unique to @wastingtime's cassette. earlier poor quality rips on youtube etc confirm that it's the same. 05 Does My Breath Smell (Short Bus 7" version). recorded first half of 1994, after buddha. i do not know the session dates. maybe @boxelder remembers the invoice that jeff posted? note the name on label is missing the "?" amend back on for purists. i bought my short bus at a show in 1995 and still have it. i have ripped it to lossless. even with hiss/noise reduction this mastering blows it out of the water. 06 Voyeur (First Version). this is not the "voyeur" on dude ranch. it's the first of three. according to mark from one of his twitch streams, the second one was demoed with other dude ranch tracks. that's the one @veeRob passed along to mark. all three songs are completely different but share the title and some lyrical themes. unfortunately, the source suffers from the same warbling as that on "ben wah balls." to me it sounds like an unbalanced tape head. 07 Wasting Time (Short Bus 7" version). recorded first half of 1994. even with hiss/noise reduction this mastering blows the short bus version out of the water. 08 Don't - on the final 1998 kung fu records buddha release. i find it hard to believe that this was recorded for buddha with pat secor and then cut. by all accounts they were pressed for time. BUT mark's vocal DOES sound very buddha-esque on here (low register, winded, a bit flat). and there you have it! if people throw these up on youtube or wherever it would be nice to credit jo182 as the tape owner and daveyjones as the cassette ripper. but we know internet's gonna internet. we knew that going in. i expect chesh to watermark these and start selling bootleg CDs out of the trunk of a car before we know it.

Octaves aren't pop punk? fucking hell, this thread is an absolute cesspit of terrible opinions haha.

Shoutout to Skatepunkers on Facebook for this amazing shot from the side of the stage with skater Steve Caballero playing bass with Blink! also that's Mark with the blue bucket hat and Lagwagon shirt ? 1/31/1998 The band performs at TBA in Oahu, Hawaii, ending their stint on Warped Tour 1998.

I’m an up and coming SoundCloud rapper. Eventually I’d Iike to make a pop punk tribute album.

darn it! ninja'd by @blinkstillrules and @Patient #48273 !!! oh the shame.

9 months 29 days 13 hours!

You have to watch Rick Beato's video on Youtube, if you already haven't, on why this song is great when he reviews ATST. Great breakdown.

Also. Water Gun Diddy? ✊

Gender is a social construct. Sex is biologically determined, but it's much more complicated than DNA.

The idea of MSandt ever having a relationship- let alone having the opportunity to turn someone down because of their gender identity- is much sillier than they/them pronouns.

I'm gonna go back to the fish thread.

Octaves arent pop punk and MGK is an all time great...according to Jan ?

*too

Man i caught COVID and this is the first time ive been able to really slow down and catch up on this forum, and hearing this has really brought back memories of downloading the old blink demos years ago. needed it this week. thanks to everyone who made it happen

Wow I don’t think I’ve heard that Voyeur and the quality on these are INCREDIBLE compared to the crappy YouTube versions!

I narrowly avoided getting my ass beat for liking Blink182 in those days. The punk scene was ... "opinionated" here in San Antonio and Austin back then ... I'd have been hung if I had done anything short of cruelly mock Simple Plan and anyone who listened to them.

I put a song on soundcloud and my friends asked what drugs I took that weekend.

We should do a bracket-style tournament of pop punk bands.

It's incredibly easy to dismiss something as silly if you put no effort into actually trying to view the world from someone else's perspective. I'm glad your sister helped open your mind Speedo, and your girlfriend Diddy,and honestly @JarJarBlinks you're better than that. Come on.

File this under things you should keep to yourself

This hurts. You've become a great poster over the past couple of years and I think I've been nice in response to that. That said, Old Jan was a pain the ass and you deserved everything you got.

1/10? You're an enemy to the Krew as far as I'm concerned

Well, you call it pop, Tom call it a ballad. Neither of you is right, it's a jazz infused funk song.

beato breaks it down succinctly if you haven't seen it. i also love how he says "suss"

Rick Beato's channel is generally awesome.

I submit that All the Small Things wouldn’t have been nearly the hit it was without the use of octaves after the first chorus. Made the song so much catchier

I love octave chords. They're kinda like power chords, just omitting the 5th and muting that string, so they're not really major or minor (like a power chord isn't really major or minor) and can work for either. I can definitely think of poppy sounding songs that use them. Lit's "My Own Worst Enemy" for starters. That intro is octave chords. "Feeling This" by blink.

What? First Date and All The Small Things literally are filled with octaves numb nuts

interesting take. all the poppier bands i can think of use them. every single one. but then you're talking major keys and basic circle of fifths stuff. but you're right that bands like BR and NOFX use minor keys and chords, and pair them with progressions in more discordant ways for a darker edge. @blinkstillrules... thoughts on power octave use when you have a moment please.

now now let's watch the hard Rs.

So i do remember seeing them by chance at warped tour, right before they blew up. And they were really good. I remember thinking I found a really rowdy punk band hahaha

If I had a dollar for everytime Speedo changed his name..

Ray from Teenage Bottlerocket liked my riotfest post once. That's about as cool as I've gotten.

these sound so fucking awesome

I posted this image to the Facebook group trying to figure out what the hell it actually is. I've had the shitty mp3s since the 2000ish. It's nice to finally shed some light on this tape. Thank you @wastingtimefor sharing rips with us via Davey. I finally have a listenable copy and it sounds great.

Thanks for ripping this, Davey. Really appreciate it. Also thanks to Jo and John. Since the early 2000s, two rips have been floating around. One was super over-amplified and the other was decent. Not sure which one(s) is on YouTube. I've kept the decent (192 kbps) rip, but this 320 rip is audibly better quality and less flat, even without headphones. It's curious that "A New Hope" isn't listed as "Princess Leia" like in the previous rips. I remember seeing a copy of the tape on a Facebook group in early 2018, but it was never listened to properly. It had to be the infamous promo.

Hey, you've ever tried SpinUp?

I can't believe MGK is making it onto some lists here ? Don't get me wrong, it was a decent effort that I enjoyed but in the top 10 pop punk artists of all time? fucking mental

This is awesome!! Thanks again @John Roundear @daveyjones @wastingtime. From what I can hear based off how the drums are eq'd as well as the guitar tones, the first 3 tracks were definitely part of the same recording session and production which I assume is the Warren "demo session" and tracks 4-8 were all likely recorded and produced from the "Short Bus sessions". You can especially note the kick drum and snare difference between the 2 sessions. Another interesting note is this was the Ben Wah Balls recording that made the final cut for Cheshire Cat even though Steve Kravac reminisced in this interview on how he recorded a version during the Cheshire Cat sessions. Maybe the band preferred the original take? Only bummer on this release is hearing the tape warble on the original Voyeur ?

So Joe didn't have much to say regarding the demo sessions with Warren other than he'd have to check with him (Warren). He also suggested I message Warren as well. I did but never heard back yet. Joe did have this to say regarding the Buddha Promo tape Davey just ripped: It was a low budget production engineered partly by this guy named "O". Warren Fitzgerald remixed some of the tracks after we acquired it. It probably cost $100 per track to produce. Dude Ranch was more like $8,000 per track.

gonna echo what everyone else is saying here. sounds great and i might even prefer this version of new hope over the album version. makes me disappointed that blink has no interest in making things like this available in an official way.

that's the date i talk about on the podcast. anne got me on the tour bus after the show. i helped raynor pack up a bit. he was not in a good way.

Amazing. Thanks so much for this, much appreciated!

Certainly possible. Getting Jeff and maybe even O on the podcast would probably certainly help clear things up.

we know "ben wah balls" was recorded during the cheshire cat sessions and is the album version on this tape. could joe perhaps mean that the short bus sessions (as we call them) is when all the rest of these were done (first half 1994)? i could buy that. the timeline makes sense, and the variance in quality can be explained by the fact that only some of them were remixed. "princess leia" sounds like a straight up jeff forest doubletime job, for example.

Davey, this is incredible. You’re the best. And if anyone does upload anywhere, it would be great to also credit the original owner, @John Roundear!

scott's drums are what stood out to me the most on it.

At last someone seems to be making a profit outta AVA lmao

he mailed stickers to those who donated to CHLA. the note on the back is just an acknowledgment of the catching up after many years that we've been doing lately.