My first write-up of exceptional older records available on Discogs for five bucks or less was published back in 2013, and I could not have predicted how used record prices would skyrocket in the ensuing decade. The word “astronomical” doesn’t imply the appropriate level of stupidity when talking about the prices Misfits records sell for in 2025, for instance, but you know what, even as the “classics” and their lower-tier strivers insist on beating up your bank account, there are still certain eras, genres and barely-known obscurities that can be had on the cheap and are likely to generate vastly more enjoyment per square cent than that hundredth spin of “London Dungeon” in its original pressing. (That said, if you’re looking to unload a first-press 3 Hits From Hell for 2013 prices, let’s make a deal.) Here are seven more records sitting around on Discogs right now, all of which can be acquired for less than the cost of media-mail postage. Grab ’em!

Fat Nuts Settin’ It Straight 7″ (Back Ta Basics, 1995)
You know who’s conspicuously absent from the multitude of reunion-centric hardcore fest lineups? FAT NUTS, that’s who! Their ridiculous name stunned me and my friends when we first saw it on one of those self-propagating Back Ta Basics flyers that lined every record shop and show-space in the mid ’90s and it’s only gotten more ridiculous with time. You just know that this Jersey hardcore band decided on its name with a total lack of irony or sarcasm, unlike today’s crop of winking, self-aware beatdown bands. It’s refreshing to bear witness to such direct and sincere hardcore lunacy, and that extends to the six songs here, which vacillate between 25 Ta Life “Smakin’ U’ Up”-style groove-mosh, an “old school”-inspired speedy slap akin to Shutdown and Warzone’s rousing call to arms. No, it’s not great, but where I come from, hardcore isn’t separated from its cultural context and judged solely on the exacting replication of its influences. This isn’t a digital Bandcamp demo with a JPG cover image that was never actually printed anywhere – if you pick up a copy of Settin’ It Straight, you’ll get to handle the Rob Liefeld-worthy juiced-up skinhead on the imperfectly hand-cut Kinkos cover, peruse the lyric sheet (including “Theme Song”) and probably dump out at least half a dozen of those Back Ta Basics distro flyers tucked in the sleeve (in various colors and sizes). The antithesis of a non-fungible token.

Fireball Blessed Be 12″ (High Roller Society, 2005)
The existence of this, Fireball’s sole recorded document, has been shocking me for twenty years now. How could such a perfect band come to be? It’s appropriately titled, considering that listening to Blessed Be feels like witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime comet, but not one of those cute ones that leaves a tail of shining stardust – I’m talking about a big ugly molten meatball ready to leave a Gulf of Mexico-sized crater and take ninety-percent of all life on Earth with it. These five Brooklyn women somehow had the intuition and taste to put together a band that melds the best of definitively blown-out Japanese hard rock ala Mainliner / High Rise with lavish stoner grooves and expressively tuneful vocals. Singer Jennifer Black dukes it out with her band (always ending in a bloodied draw) over the rawest NYC guitar music, in spiritual lineage with both Pussy Galore and No Fucker. They even cover Amon Düül II’s “Archangels Thunderbird”, because of course their record collections were cooler than everyone else’s in 2005, and they do so with the gnarliest kick drum I have ever heard. I haven’t dug too hard to find out what else the members of Fireball have been up to since then – if anyone knows and there’s something really cool, please holler – but I’m ultimately content to cherish this EP for the impossible perfection it achieves. Absolutely blows my mind it’s a four-dollar record… we should be out there clawing over each other, crabs-in-a-basket style, to have the privilege to pay a hundred times as much.

God’s Gift Today I Never Thought Of You At All 12″ (Polydor, 1993)
A couple years ago I was picking away at a few of those friends-of-Boomkat year-end best-of lists (wherein Boomkat shares the favorites of what seems to be every single living artist they’ve ever distributed), and sitting at the top of Jessy Lanza’s list was this intriguing name and title. Being familiar with the crude UK DIY act God’s Gift, I googled to see if she was on an unexpected Desperate Bicycles kick, and was thrilled to discover that it was something else entirely: an absolutely bonkers one-off ’90s Euro downtempo R&B earworm. We’re talking true love at first listen, as it only took one chorus of “Today I Never Thought Of You At All” to sweep away my mind, body and soul. I’m not entirely sure who this God’s Gift is, as they seem to be a loose, poorly-documented major-label production squad that time forgot, dropping a small handful of afterthought pop tunes easily dismissed in favor of Ace Of Base, Color Me Badd and Boyz II Men at the time, but I can only assume their lack of renown is because no one besides Lanza bothered to listen to the a-side here. The beat has this volleying thwop that takes control of my shoulders as if through some sort of secret Bluetooth connection, unable to stop myself from pop-lock grooving during “Today I Never Thought Of You At All”‘s much-too-short duration. And the vocal is intoxicating – I’m picturing some guy in Z. Cavaricci clothes with Vanilla Ice hair laying in his nondescript European penthouse loft (Antwerp? Prague? Lyon?) pathetically recounting how he’s over his girl with every piece of evidence piling up against him. Obscure pop perfection that I hold so dear, and maybe I’ll eventually listen to the b-side, “Jelly On Rye”, more than twice.

Haircuts Haircuts Are No Fun 7″ (Sack O’ Shit, 2005)
Friendly reminder that this is a punk website (blog / newsletter / LiveJournal), so here’s some cretinous punk in the true Killed By Death fashion, ripped from the missing-URL pages of Terminal Boredom. I bought my copy off a distro that used the TermBo message-board to advertise its goods when it came out, and this record has been getting complaints about its behavior from the singles its filed next to ever since. To get specific for the nerds, they take the primitive sonic approach of those first Cramps and Hospitals records and dumb it down to summer-school levels ala The Generics or The Meaty Buys, two simple songs with the worst kid in your neighborhood on vocals. If that’s not enough of a winning gimmick for you, they attempted to glue piles of hair to each and every record sleeve, which in my experience went rogue, a guaranteed mess if you ever made the poor decision to pull the paper sleeve out of its plastic. They hate haircuts, yet managed to amass enough hair to generously adorn three-hundred different covers… I cannot think of a purer form of the artist being tortured by the process of creating their art. Before someone decides to comp the weirdest and wildest early ’00s punk (let’s give it another ten years, please), you’ll wanna grab this for cheap, and also negotiate down whoever is still trying to get twenty bucks for the first Nix single while you’re at it. Come on now.

Shona Laing Soviet Snow 12″ (TVT, 1987)
Shona Laing’s “Soviet Snow (Popstand Remix)” came into my life right around the same time as “Today I Never Thought Of You At All”, and it’s amazing that I didn’t dissolve into a silvery puddle of bliss with both tracks fresh at my disposal. Shona Laing is a New Zealander who found herself on TVT in the late ’80s, a fiery vocalist with an emotional versatility that could place her among pop heavyweights like Pat Benetar as much as New Romantics like Spandau Ballet, art witches like Kate Bush and the earliest stirrings of Nine Inch Nails. I haven’t delved super deep into her discography (yet), but she was willing to get political: her 1987 album South (of which the original version of “Soviet Snow” appears) opens with “(Glad I’m) Not A Kennedy”, a song whose sentiment feels particularly timely today, but it’s “Soviet Snow” that fully captured my heart. Over a sprightly synth-pop dance beat, Laing waxes poetically about the fear of Russian nukes, though from the way she sings you’d think she’s finding empowerment over a betrayed heart. Maybe it was both? That chorus just kills me, it’s so damn good… I can’t help but picture Björk in the starring role of a Mongolian adaptation of Dances With Wolves when I listen for the fifth consecutive time. If I didn’t lose you with that, please allow me to recommend this twelve-inch version, as the Popstand remix adds some dance-floor punch to the original beat and stretches this glorious song out past six minutes.

Minmae I’d Like To Apologize For Last Night 7″ (Airborne Virus, 1999)
In all the grotesque Numero excavation of the ’90s emo-adjacent underground, how come Minmae have yet to receive their roses? Pretty sure they’re the only artist in this edition of Discogs Cheapos to boast a functioning Bandcamp page, and maybe the fact that they never officially broke up(?) works against their collector appeal, but I’ll be damned if they aren’t a prime candidate for a thoughtful reassessment replete with deluxe vinyl pressings, and if it can be sourced, combination Dave Grohl / Thurston Moore liner notes. Like Duster, Hood and Flying Saucer Attack, I file Minmae on the avant-experimental end of the post-hardcore/emo spectrum, operating with the same staunch DIY ethics of that era’s hardcore-punk but crafting music that happily glides past the stylistic borders found in Punk Planet‘s record reviews. On this hand-glued / hand-stamped seven-inch record, you get an a-side track of blissed-out jet-engine guitars ala Labradford; it’s a beautiful sun-bleached spot to linger. The b-side diverges sharply, opening with a crusty drum loop and Her Space Holiday-esque slow-core guitars, and closes with a brief Elliot Smith-y indie-pop depression stain. Combined, it’s a fantastic document of true ’90s bedroom-underground experimentation. I really enjoy what current leftfield-indie bands like They Are Gutting A Body Of Water and Chronophage are doing, but do either of them have the guts to put out a split with Gang Wizard? For better or worse, Minmae did.

Ed Solo / JFB Watch Your Eyes / Time Collapse 12″ (Sludge, 2009)
Alright, set your watches back to the dubstep explosion of 2009, before shirtless bros co-opted the almighty bass-wubble for nefarious ends and Thom Yorke even knew who Burial was. We still had five years until Skrillex’s stupid debut album arrived, and the underground was buzzing with inventive freaks armed only with a Soundcloud account and a prayer. You can file Ed Solo and JFB under such a designation, two UK producers who managed to release no fewer than five different split twelve-inches together between 2008 and 2010, clearly inspired by contemporaries like Skream and Mala. That’s luv, mate! Watch Your Eyes / Time Collapse is my pick of the litter, thanks to the weapons-grade industrial excavator that is “Watch Your Eyes”. Opening with a vacuum-sealed kick / snare to rival the glory of “When The Levee Breaks”, Solo tickles the listener’s chin before dropping a pallet of cinderblocks on their gut. I realize that the dubstep wobble is an unloved son at this point, bastardized by so many of the worst people to claim a role in music, but every aggressive form of music must weather its eventual backlash, sorting the poseurs from the loyal and true. “Watch Your Eyes” cannot be taken down no matter how much anti-dubstep propaganda you throw at it – it still fires me up as it did in 2009, ready to finally take Muay Thai lessons (until someone kicks me – then I’m out). JFB’s track, “Time Collapse”, is less exceptional but still a pleasure, firing off a museum-heist arpeggio and more of that first-wave dubstep swagger, a clear predecessor of Girl Unit and many others. I wish Lil Wayne’s handlers had the prescience to get him rapping over stuff like this back then, but then chances are good that it would’ve become a global phenomenon, this original Ed Solo / JFB record garnering legendary status and costing you way more than the two quid it’s selling for now. Let’s not mess with history.

Smack in the middle of a week-long heatwave, Safe Mind were set to make their second Philadelphia appearance in support of their debut album, Cutting The Stone. Their single “6′ Pole” was my favorite tune of 2024 (if I haven’t mentioned that enough times already), so I had no choice but to venture up to the second floor of Johnny Brenda’s, easily the most revered of Fishtown venues (neither too revoltingly corporate nor falling-apart dumpy). It’s unsettling to reflect upon any significant passage of time, but I have been patronizing JB’s for over twenty years. My personal shoestring fry-count must run into the tens of thousands.

Opening the merciful two-band Tuesday-night bill was Chemical, a newly-homegrown act of whom little was publicized. Of all the contemporary band-naming conventions, I think I prefer the ungoogleable-due-to-ubiquity route to quirky misspellings or stylized alternate text. No need to be Chemi_kul, or ¢hm¢l, you know? “Chemical” is so droll and commonplace as to be functionally useless, like calling yourself Band. I appreciated it in the mid ’90s when the UK duo Chemical released their sole LP of hazy psych, and I appreciate it with this new group now.

Chemical’s bio on the Johnny Brenda’s site was, in its entirety, “devotional philadelphia insurgence group [sic]”, almost as meaningless as the band name, though it ensured that the few people who actually read opening-band descriptions on the club’s ticketing page could expect an aloof mystique. As Chemical took the stage, this traditional guitar / bass / drums rock trio looked like college dropouts who hang out at Graffiti Pier after dark, bearing none of the paramilitary monk style relayed in their bio. I keep forgetting that cruddy late ’90s fashion is once again in full effect with the youth, as the guitarist’s sleeveless white undershirt and extra-length jorts resembled the style of someone I would’ve been close buds with in eighth grade. There must be a German word for the combined emotion of endearment and unease brought about by the cycling of trends.

Ready to accept whatever style of music this intriguing group had to offer, I found myself pulled into their vibe right off the bat. Theirs is an arty and morose post-grunge style, and alongside their stern on-stage presentation, I’m guessing that they’re fans of the Julia’s War label and its roster’s opaque, left-field interpretations of today’s prevailing shoegaze / dream-pop trends. Their opening tune bore the subdued threat of violence I hear in Her New Knife; both groups seem to reinterpret Sonic Youth’s moody discordance with an added blackened sense of doom. I would’ve been content with variations on that basic template, but Chemical clearly had a number of musical ideas at work, the guitarist chopping it up Gang Of Four style, shimmering like Billy Corgan in a silver tuxedo and meekly picking at chorus-washed strings like some petrified ’90s goth, sometimes all in the same song, his feet (white athletic socks with velcro Teva sandals) tapping at a finicky chain of pedals. He brought three guitars on stage and admirably used them all in their brief opening set. For as much as I admired his style, the drummer was noticeably cool too, tall and Ramones-y and hunched over in dark sunglasses, though the bassist (also in dark sunglasses) may have been my favorite of the three, confidently delivering her own unusual bass-lines that didn’t replicate the guitar’s melodies so much as dance around them. There was one song in particular where her bass-line was so busy that it seemed to loop beyond the 4/4 timing of the song; I hope to hear it again on their debut EP. They had CDs for sale ahead of the official Bandcamp release date, which in true Y2K-throwback fashion were packaged in clear jewel cases with the name stamped on the CD, ready to be tossed on the passenger-side floor of your boyfriend’s Honda Civic next to back issues of Transworld SKATEboarding and the remnants of last night’s Taco Bell. I’m gonna go pull up the Bandcamp now!

Johnny Brenda’s layout is defined by its bottleneck – this can result in varying pockets of crowd density, though both floors were starting to fill up before Safe Mind took the stage. Gus Muller found an extremely charismatic vocalist in Jae Matthews, storming the world’s dance-floors with sultry, after-hours minimal-wave as Boy Harsher. It would seem he landed an equally enthralling vocalist in Cooper B. Handy, the wage-worker-turned-GQ-profiled-outsider-hunk, for their Safe Mind project. Handy’s solo music (confusingly under his own name as well as the moniker “Lucy”) is preposterous and cool, flipping the stink one might anticipate from say, a trap beat thrown over the Titanic soundtrack into something substantial, catchy, and desirable (that’d be “Rhododendron”). His elusive pop-star quality is given ample room to play with Safe Mind, as Muller’s beats and melodies for this project are bright and upbeat, no sign of the dark-velvet-n’-chains goth that defines the Boy Harsher experience.

Wandering on-stage in their windbreakers as if it wasn’t sweltering outside, Handy grabbed his guitar as Muller settled behind two full-size, right-angled tables of synths and electronics. The contrast between their musical resumes was on full display, what with Handy’s meager Peavey combo amp dwarfed by Muller’s cutting-edge synthesizers and hardware devices, the sort of synth-wave buffet one can amass through Boy Harsher-sized paydays (or, if you can find one, a wealthy deceased grandparent). From there they jumped into the entirety of Cutting The Stone with all the excitement of a fresh new band that only has one album to pull songs from. Leaning on their patented 75% New Order / 25% Paula Abdul formula, songs that sounded sleepier on record (“Standing On Air”, “Life In A Jar”) bounced with energy into the eager, supportive crowd. When Handy wasn’t playing guitar, he bopped in place with simplistic and repetitive b-boy moves in his now-signature bandana, not unlike a six year-old recreating a Bell Biv Devoe music video from memory (and nearly as cute). The charm of this confident duo shined throughout, though most clearly when busting out “6′ Pole” second in the set list. They closed their performance with “Autonomy”, the Boy Harsher song that features Handy on vocals (and logged over two million views on YouTube). The crowd cheered as the opening arpeggio hit, one last dance before wandering back into the oppressive, stagnant air outside.