Happy Mondays. Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches. 1990. Factory Records.
A few weeks back, I got a comment on a post I did on this album’s sleeve making mention of an unused version of this cover that featured the album’s working title, Kinky Album. Here it is. Sorry about the poor quality of the image but when has that ever stopped me before?
Posted in music, on your sleeve, record labels
Posted in apple records, Macca, record labels, years after the event
I came across this photo of John and Yoko showing off their latest LPs and, apparently, that there are still plenty of copies of The Wedding Album available. I’ve got to get me one of those wedding albums: a pricey piece of junk that I’ll probably never listen to but that looks plenty cool—sign me up! And look at that Apple sticker on the record that John’s got! This pic reminded me of the somewhat sorry state of my copy of Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band.
I have what I believe is an Australian edition which unfortunately has the censored versions of “I Found Out” and “Working Class Hero”. The omission of the curse words is totally jarring and somewhat upsetting but I can live with it as long as the word “cookin'” is present on “Hold On”. I guess I can take minor solace in the (possibly) unique looking white apple silhouette on record’s label (see above). Most of the copies I’ve seen on ebay have a more conventional white apple (see below).
The inner sleeve of my copy is printed on ridiculously glossy paper—it can practically stand up on its own—as opposed to the cheaper paper pictured below.
Finally, we have a tape of The Wedding Album getting some mention on an Australian chart show. I’m sure that the LP’s appearance on this show is the closest that it managed to get to the charts in Australia or elsewhere.
Omitted at the insistence of E.M.I.:
And here’s a Plastic Ono Band-era Lennon playing a bit of “(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care”.
A pretty good day record shopping. Various labels’ generic sleeves.
Posted in apple records, context, music, on your sleeve, record labels
This is one of those records released by RCA while Elvis was in the army. It makes for a surprisingly cohesive listen despite essentially being a collection of previously released songs thrown together to keep Presley in the thoughts of teenagers during the 1959 Christmas record-buying season. The package comes complete with many photos (some blurry) of Elvis doing army stuff and a reprint of a phony aw-shucks telegram supposedly from The King Himself to Colonel Tom Parker urging the Colonel to “get a message to the fans” thanking them for their loyalty and whatnot.
The back of the LP’s sleeve features a 1960 calendar all ready to be tacked up on the wall and stared at endlessly–which one of the previous owners of my copy apparently did judging from the tiny reinforcement holes made in addition to the one that the manufacturer provided. Also, this album has one of the absolute best titles ever (one so cool that it was recycled at least once). The title is even cooler when you realize that the “date” doesn’t refer to the kind of thing that we all sit around fantasizing about while staring at our Elvis calendars, but to the only one circled on the calendar, March 24, 1960—the day Elvis was supposed to be released from the army. (He received his honorable discharge two weeks earlier.)
Posted in music, on your sleeve, record labels
The generic Rolling Stones Records 45 sleeve really kills the competition. Circa 1972.
Posted in Jagger, music, on your sleeve, record labels
A nice gift I got this weekend, a Planet of the Apes adventure 45. 1974 Wow, on Power Records.
Posted in cinema, music, record labels
Side two of The Sound of Jazz on Columbia with the six eye label. The soundtrack to an episode of the CBS program Seven Lively Arts that aired on December 8, 1957, this served, more or less, as an introduction to jazz for TV-watching squares and features some excellent performances. But, as Levar Burton would say, don’t take my word for it, here is the album or check the video below.
I’ve done this before but it’s just now occurred to me that this is a feature on its own. Here’s a recent pick up, a Dylan mystery: a stereo copy of Blonde on Blonde. It’s an early pressing but the absence of Claudia Cardinale and the whispering scene in the gate (see below) seem to rule out it being a first pressing—either way, the two records themselves are in pristine condition, virtually unplayed. The serial and matrix numbers, along with the “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The” listing (the track listing in the gate continues the song’s title reading: “Memphis Blues Again”) and the presence of the “STEREO ‘360° SOUND'” logo all seem to indicate that it’s a first pressing. Despite this site‘s seemingly exhaustive study of the endless differences in the various versions of the LP’s release, I remain confused as to what exactly it is that I have here.
Apparently, Cardinale wasn’t involved in the photo shoot for the album but was in the photographer‘s portfolio and Dylan thought it would be cool to include it—and who can blame him?
Posted in music, record labels
The other day I came upon an amazing find on ebay. For two dollars I got a 45 by the semi-obscure Chicago-based R&B act Baby Huey and the Babysitters. Baby Huey only released one LP, the misleadingly titled/posthumously released Living Legend (1971), and a handful of songs on a handful of 45s. The 45s are from the early 60s (or so I thought) when the band had yet to develop the sound that can be heard on the long player–the difference in sound is the equivalent of the difference between those early songs that Bowie released on Deram and the stuff he was doing in his Ziggy days. This guy seems to know something about the early singles but they don’t interest me much.
The record that I got is a single from the same time period as the release of the Living Legend LP. It has on it a track that was not included on the album or any of the CD reissues of it that I know of (making the most recent one something of a disappointment despite the great sound quality). The songs on the record are both covers of Curtis Mayfield’s Mighty Mighty (Spade and Whitey). For some reason the song is listed on the record as Mighty Mighty Children. The B side is the odd but fantastic version that is on Living Legend, but the A is a completely different, more straightforward version of Mighty Mighty without the little girl singing or the mention of Thunderbird (Christ what I wouldn’t do to get my hands on some of that stuff) or red beans and rice or ox tails. It does feature some amazing screaming from Baby Huey in the fade and can be heard here. For some reason the copy that I have is on Radio Active Gold records and not Curtom.
In other Babysitters news, their best song, Hard Times, can be heard in the trailer and film JCVD.
Also I have gotten confirmation that this band of squares have no affiliation whatsoever with the actual Babysitters. Imagine thinking you’re booking an evening of heavy, heavy funk and R&B for your party and instead this wedding band arrives.
Posted in music, on your sleeve, record labels
chained and perfumed 