The Alkaline Trio Archive Blog

Matt Skiba originally posted this image on his Instagram on April 9th 2023 with the caption Album arting ❤️💀. It was exciting to see something new knowing they were in the studio recording and would be releasing a new record.

Yesterday, August 10th, after thirteen years of searching, I finally snagged a white whale I can’t wait to have in hand. For now I’m keeping what it is private, but it’s something I’ve been chasing for the better part of a decade. I know I overpaid, but FOMO got the better of me. Once it’s in the collection I’ll be happy, and the thrill of the chase made it all worth it. It’s only the fourth copy I’ve ever seen, and just the second I’ve ever seen for sale. I’m hoping it turns out to be the bright spot in what’s otherwise been an extremely stressful month.


In other news, I also spotted another white whale yesterday: the Demo Tape. It popped up on Discogs for the crazy sum of $2,750usd. I know of four tapes that have sold in the past few years, none surpassing $1000usd (the high end one came with two copies of a rare 7" as well!). All four were of varying quality, and this one on Discogs is probably the best looking of the bunch, but none of them came anywhere close to that asking price.


Sellers have every right to ask whatever they want, and this particular seller is (or was) a well-known figure in the Trio collecting community. They’ve sold off a ton of their collection in recent years to other fans, many of them amazing people. I’m glad those pieces found happy homes, and even with the steep price tag on this tape, I hope it finds its way to someone who will cherish it just as much.

Anyway, back to the good news: after all these years the chase is finally over for me. Still riding the high from it, and I can’t wait to share more once it’s actually in my hands.

When I started my archive in 2019 it was a very small venture. I aimed to catalog vinyl variants so I had an easy way to complete an entire VC of their music. I never thought my collection, or my website, would be where it is today.

To date I have worked on this archive nearly everyday since the end of 2019 taking days and at most a week and a bit off for vacations. But even then I was jotting down ideas for new features and new things I could do to really make this a band archive.

For the first few years of this website I focused on the vinyl, styling the site, adding small features, and adding information to help others identify what vinyl they own, or are planning on buying. I'm happy to say I've had dozens of people reach out to me via reddit, Instagram, Facebook, and even email to ask me questions and give me kind words about how this archive has helped them. It's really been a labour of love for this band and their catalog, and makes me happy to help others.

For the past 4 or 5 years this archive has exploded with catalogs for Trio's CDs, test pressings, lyrics, tracklists, posters, clothing, various merch, collection tracking, sales history, trivia sections and many, many upgrades behind the scenes.

Recently I've created an article section that is almost entirely automated and a few other pages that aren't public like a 3D virtual poster museum and a backlog of sales history dating back more than a year.

I can't wait to see what my archive becomes in the future as I continue to improve and create.

Thank you for visiting!

Welcome! This is the first official blog post on the archive.

Here I'll be posting updates about vinyl, news, releases, stories, personal collection stories, and more. I've wanted to keep a blog or journal about my collection, finds, and experiences since My Shame Is True came out, and now I have a space of my own to do so.

Hopefully you enjoy the reads.