I’ve worked a few jobs across my twenty-two years of living, and my first and favorite role was a relatively straightforward one. Between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, I delivered papers around the neighborhood in which I lived, putting in a shift six days a week so that I could afford music magazines and CDs (this was long before I started buying vinyl). I loved being able to work in a (somewhat) leisurely manner, pulling my trolley or carrying my bag loaded with newspapers and supplements. For a teenager, it felt like easy living, and I was raking it in, not hating the job while earning. The only aspect of the role I disliked (aside from the dogs) was the early start time. I was the only kid I knew to ever got up before seven AM on a school day. I got up at five and then had a seventeen-minute walk to the newsagents I worked for. Funnily enough Trash Talk’s breakthrough LP Eyes & Nines clocks in at just a little over seventeen minutes.

Released: 2010                              Label: Trash Talk Collective
Variant: 1st press /1400              Purchased from: Discogs

Due to its concise length and blistering intensity, Eyes & Nines was the accompaniment to that walk to work on many a morning. It was as good a wakeup as I could want, a boost of adrenaline to get my tired legs moving. It was a caffeine kick of epic proportions, the only way by which I could effectively begin my day. I’d play it walking to the shop, and I’d normally play it when walking back as well – to get me ready for a day of school. I can’t think of any other records from that period in my life that would do the job quite as well as this one. Trash Talk’s third LP was short, sharp and ferocious, a gritty behemoth despite its runtime. I look back on it incredibly fondly.