A rare and magical evening at the ‘birth’ of #KateBush ...
Back in 1978 when #KateBush appeared apparently ‘from nowhere’ (*not true - she had been sponsored by #DavidGilmour and, as a young girl had sung backing vocals on a Lesley Duncan 45), her weird voice and witchy appearance was catnip to certain young men - me included!
Her debut album was a collection of great songs, occult references and name-dropping mystics, which made her seem strange and intelligent - and even sexier than the notorious Gered Mankowitz picture.
She announced a tour in 1979 and tickets sold like the proverbial hot cakes. I went to the Manchester Apollo gig and, from the moment I entered the theatre, it was clear that this was not going to be the usual rock and roll.
On every seat was a Programme of Events, which announced there would be mime, fire eaters, dance obscure, etc.
The performance was astounding - so much energy, and so much commitment. The musicians were fabulous and Kate was extraordinary. She struggled with a radio-mike (which was new technology at the time) but despite that she was wonderful; a true star.
In and around the venue there were the usual souvenirs for sale - T-shirts, badges, scarves, etc, and an official tour programme. I considered buying a programme as it was well made, but it was expensive and I was short of cash. And anyway I could buy a programme on her next tour. The worst decision ever! As we now know, she didn’t tour again and there would be no more programmes to buy.
Here is an original programme from that ‘79 tour, with the various inserts and the precious ticket stub from the Manchester Concert.
At Acousticsoup, we like to show you the history of music and groups, not just sell things. This is a precious artefact that I’m very inclined to keep. But if - like me - this is burning a hole in the heart of a true Kate-fan drop us an email at [email protected] and we can talk. It has been stored in a plastic sealable bag and is in excellent condition. But to part with Kate we could be talking in the region of £550.
Very rare and beautiful #Beatles items ...Fan Club Xmas discs!
Back in 1963 when #TheBeatles began their quest for world domination, fans flocked to join The Beatles Fan Club. The Fab Four were still enthusiastic enough to want to reward the fans for their loyalty and so decided to issue special Xmas discs to their loyal following. These comprised a flexi-disc containing songs, greetings, and bits of Goon-inspired comedy and the discs were presented in Christmassy sleeves. Read on if you want to know more about the history of this very rare and exciting package! ...
We make no apologies for the length of this post because we’re sure you will want to know about each of these amazing discs. When the first disc was issued in 1963 the Fan Club had well over 50,000 members but, even so, the discs are now difficult to find - particularly in their original sleeves and even more so in the original mailing envelopes.
As the decade wore on and it became a little uncool to be a member of a Fan Club, membership numbers declined, fewer discs were sent out and they are consequently much rarer with discs for 1968 and 1969 being particularly scarce.
By 1970, The Beatles own enthusiasm for making a special Christmas disc had waned to the point that the Fan Club decided to send the remaining Members a full LP record containing the contents of all the previous flexi-discs. These LPs themselves have become rare and are much sought after.
For Beatles collectors the Xmas flexi-discs have become something of a holy grail and are difficult to find, particularly in good condition as they are fragile and - like all flexi-discs - prone to wear and creasing. Our discs are of VG playable quality, and very, very enjoyable to listen to - possibly some of the most off-the-wall stuff the Beatles did.
We also have a ‘signed’ Fan Club Card - we say ‘signed’ because they were usually signed by the Club Secretariat (Freda Kelly/Anne Collingwood) replicating the signatures of the Fab Four. However, Ringo could also replicate all four signatures and so who knows who produced these particular signatures! So, let’s look at each of the individual items:
The above is the Beatles 2nd Xmas disc (1964) and is simply titled Another Beatles Christmas Record. Issued in December 1964, the back cover has a great description of how the whole Christmas disc system with the Fan Club worked, and some nice notes about Paul nipping into the Fan Club offices in London and doing some of the signings and then taking the Secretariat team for lunch. It describes the Fan Club then had 65,000 members and was issued while the guys were still much more suited, booted, and serious. The later editions become much more ‘Yellow Submarine’, ‘Sgt Pepper’ and way, way out there! The group photograph is a separate item we have issued by Anabas Products copyright 1977.
Beatles 4th Xmas disc (1966, above) has a Pantomime ‘Everywhere it’s Christmas’ colourful sleeve designed by Paul McCartney and was recorded on Fri 25th Nov 1966. It contains a song ‘Everywhere it’s Christmas’ and another ‘Please Don’t Bring Your Banjo Back’, the Corsican Choir and Small Choir ‘Orowayna’; items such as ‘A Rare Cheese (Two Elderly Scotsmen)’, ‘Podgy The Bear and Jasper’, ‘Felpin Mansions: Parts 1 and 2′ - all very Goons inspired, and Monty Python would be proud.
Beatles 5th Xmas disc (1967, above) is titled ‘Christmas Time (Is Here Again)’ and has an amazing collage-cover made up of incredible old black and white photographs - much time could be spent simply looking at the images on the cover and wondering! Where they obtained the images goodness knows. Cover design was by Julian Lennon (*we guess the drawings on the back!), John Lennon, and Ringo Starr. It was recorded on Tues 28th Nov 1967 at EMI studios, St John’s Wood (LON). This time no details are given as to what’s on the disc except with the hint of ‘Special Guest appearance by the feet/voice of Victor U Spinetti and Something Else by Malcolm Lift-Evans’. This disc comes with an incredible insert (in excellent condition) of the National Newsletter written by the Fan Club Secretary Freda Kelly and giving more details about the contents of the record. On the reverse of the insert is a fabulous cartoon of the Fab Four drawn by Bob Gibson.
Beatles 6th Xmas disc (1968, above) is simply called ‘The Beatles Sixth Christmas Record’ and was recorded in Nov 1968 at the London homes of John, Paul, and George, and also in the back of Ringo’s Removal Van (*it’s apparent interest is changing by this time!). Part of George’s contribution was also achieved over the phone! A tiny interest is the small note referencing the huge contribution of #KennyEverett in the production of the disc - basically, Everett seemed to take a whole lot of random input from the Beatles and turned it into the disc! The tiny italics state ‘Non-Beatle Kenny Foreverett had a Nice Time mucking about with the tapes and deserves to be called PRODUCER although this is an unpaid position’! This disc also comes with an excellent quality insert detailing sets of Beatles photographs available for Fan Club Members to buy at the huge price of ‘3 shillings per photo, or set of 8 for One Pound’!
Beatles 7th Xmas disc (1969, above) is titled ‘The Beatles Seventh Christmas Record’ and now does not even give a hint of the contents save to say it’s a compilation of recordings from Ascot, Weybridge, St John’s Wood, and also the Apple studios. Kenny Everett again had the potentially unenviable task of ‘soldering’ (*as described on the disc!) things together to form the disc - credit is this time given to him using his real name of Maurice Cole. The contents seem to be for the majority a series of Goon-esque ramblings between John and Yoko with the odd christmas greeting inserted from various other Fab Four. There’s no insert with this disc.
We always use our Blogs/posts to simply share our knowledge with you folks and hopefully encourage people to become infected with a fascination for the preservation of vinyl and the history of the music industry. However, this is such a rare package if you’ve read this and feel it just has to be yours do please email us urgently at [email protected]. The value of this is £350-£400 for the five-disc set only (*you’d need to contact us separately with regards to the Club Card and photo if you have an interest in those). The discs are likely to go to Japan next week if there are no takers, so don’t delay if you are genuinely interested in purchasing. This really is something we feel privileged to be able to share with you, and also to offer for sale. It’s a fascinating collection of Beatle memorabilia.
#John’s Children: inspirations for #Punk and #Glam Rock...and anyone know who the young man is on the right?
This is a rare single by John’s Children a group formed in 1965 under the guidance of manager Simon Napier-Bell, of The Yardbirds fame and later responsible for managing Wham. But who is the young man on the far right ...
When Marc Bolan and T-Rex exploded onto the pop scene in 1970 it seemed to the general public that the ‘Boppin’ Elf’ came out of nowhere but, like his good friend David Bowie, he had quite a recording hinterland behind him. Yes, the young man is Marc, pre-massive curled hair.
He began recording in 1965 as a sort of Bob Dylan-wannabee (it has been suggested that his adopted surname BOLAN was a contraction of BOb DyLAN) and issued a number of 45s that sold poorly, and are now rare and expensive collectibles.
In 1967, he was being managed by Simon Napier-Bell of ‘above’ fame who was also managing the group John’s Children - a sort of Mod/Pop Art outfit who were influenced by The Who and Creation. They did action paintings on stage and other wild antics, but didn’t have the talent of those groups. In a strange move, Napier-Bell grafted Bolan into John’s Children. It wasn’t a good fit but Bolan enjoyed his time in this wild outfit and was involved in a handful of 45s issued by the band including this one, Desdemona. It achieved some notoriety by being banned by the BBC due to the lyrics ‘Lift up your skirt and fly’!
Copies in the picture sleeve are particularly rare and sought after, usually retailing around £100 and higher. Bolan also contributed other singles including ‘A Midsummer Night’s Scene’ which was never ultimately released but promotion copies were issued in small numbers and even back in 2002 a copy auctioned for £3,700. Ultimately, Bolan left the band and went on to form the psychedelic/folk duo Tyrannosaurus Rex with Steve Took, and issued a series of charming LPs influenced by Tolkien and Narnia. With the support of DJ John Peel, they became quite successful with a couple of charting albums.
By 1970, Took was gone and Mickey Finn was recruited and the name became truncated to T-Rex ...and a star was born! But sadly, the star also shone only briefly as Bolan was to lose his life at the young age of 29 in 1977 in a car crash. We can only wonder ‘what if’ ...
If you’re interested in our little journeys into all things Records/Vinyl do follow us on Facebook and Twitter . Our new online store is successfully progressing through testing, but if you’re interested to add to your collection you can also check out our stock at Musicstack or drop us an email at [email protected].
You’re out looking for vinyl and come across some bizarre singles: frequently ‘well used’ showing substantial wear, and worse (as can be seen in the example from our stock in the photograph above) you find the title of the single and the artist have been scratched from the label. It wouldn’t be surprising if you dismissed such a record as a ‘piece of junk’ ...but you’ve stumbled across an amazing piece of history. A piece of the history of #Reggae ...
Originating in Jamaica around the 1960′s, Ska - or Bluebeat - came over to the UK with people migrating from the Caribbean. Ska was aimed at the dancefloor and at getting people dancing, and only evolved later into Reggae when it slowed down and became more political. But within the Black communities, frequently not welcome at music clubs/venues due to prejudice in the ‘60′s, private house-parties became the order of the day as places to enjoy music and dance.
The sure way to gain access to the best parties was to bring the best music, and the way to repeatedly be invited to the parties was to ensure no-one else had the music you had, or knew the artist or title of the music - that way the only way it could be played at the party was to invite the owner of the single! Partygoers would acquire the latest music on 45s, scratch the name of the single and artist from the label and generally write their own name on the label (to ensure the single was returned to them before leaving the party). Some would even go as far as creating completely fictional song titles and group names to ensure that no-one else could easily access the music, yet it meant they could be identified as the person with ‘X’ song by ‘Y’ artist. Sometimes it could be many years before the true titles and group/artist would be identified.
These records would frequently become very worn purely because of the amount of times they were taken to and played at parties, and - for the usual vinyl collector - may be dismissed as worthless due to poor condition. But for Reggae collectors, these records are an important part of the history of the genre and culture of the time.
Our copy in the photograph has the artist, title and even year of production removed from the labels. The owner of the 45 has placed their initials ‘EHB’ onto the label. The centre had not only been knocked out but actually cut out. But ‘EHB’ would definitely have been popular at the parties: the single can be identified from the Catalogue number as #Gregory Isaacs’ ‘Love is Overdue’ released in 1974. Isaacs was, by the late 1970s, one of the biggest reggae artists in the world, on a par with Bob Marley. This single came out of his partnership with Producer Alvin Ranglin with whom he was to later achieve a string of hits. The 1970s and ‘80s saw increasing success for Isaacs, but it was the move to Island records and the release of his album ‘Night Nurse’ in 1982 that broke him onto the world stage. This relationship with Island was to be short-lived, however, due to Isaacs’ growing relationship with cocaine and firearms which was to land him in prison soon after the release of the album. But that wasn’t to be the end of Isaacs - the 1980s and ‘90s proved to be perhaps the most successful of his career. Simply Red also covered and had a hit with ‘Night Nurse’ in 1997.
Drugs, however, were taking their toll on Isaacs health in the 2000′s, and then in 2010 he lost his life to lung cancer at the early age of 59yrs. He was awarded the Order of Distinction by the Jamaican Government.
We can’t help wondering what history our copy of this single has seen! In varying conditions the value of this single can be anything from around £6 to £20 or more.
Perhaps not immediately springing to mind as a primary Reggae vinyl dealer, we do have quite a substantial collection with several hundred items in stock so if you are interested do contact us at [email protected] or check out our current listings at http://acousticsoup.musicstack.com and search under the genre Reggae.
We always like to share our love of music and vinyl collecting, so if you’ve enjoyed reading this do follow us on Facebook and Twitter . And if you want to add to your vinyl collection do check out our 67,000 stock items at Musicstack
#JeffLynne, #RoyWood, and #BevBevan ...The Electric Light Orchestra - ‘in the beginning ...’
Back in 1970 pop genius Jeff Lynne left the brilliant, but unsuccessful Idle Race to join pop genius Roy Wood in the successful Move, along with Bev Bevan. The idea was they would see out The Move’s contractual obligations and then all three would form a new band to take off where the Beatles left off with their pop/classical explorations on Eleanor Rigby. Thus was born The Electric Light Orchestra ...keep reading to learn more about this, their 1971 debut album.
Appropriately, it was issued on the progressive Harvest label and it is a fabulous mix of pop smarts and experimental prog rock with lashings of orchestral trimmings. But even on this first album, cracks were starting to appear between the members: despite playing almost all of the instruments on the album (an incredible musician!) Roy Wood was only really to last with the band for this album. On the track The Battle of Marston Moor, Wood also had to pick up the percussion when Bevan refused to play through not holding the track in high regard. Shortly after the release of this album, Wood split from the band likely during production of the second album ELO II* (*note: Marc Bolan also played guitar on this album and others) with Bevan continuing until the final break of the band in 1986. Why the break with Roy Wood occurred isn’t quite clear but maybe having two strong visionaries in one band was one too many. Lynne’s incredible writing and production skills alongside Wood’s - plus Roy’s jaw-dropping instrumental skills: on this album his impressive accreditation is Vocals, cello, oboe, acoustic guitar, string bass, bassoon, clarinet, recorders, slide guitar and percussion.
Taking control of ELO, Jeff Lynne set the controls for the heart of pop fame and fortune both in the UK and the USA. A further four albums were released between 1973-76 containing hits like Evil Woman, El Dorado, Strange Magic, Telephone Line, Livin’ Thing, and then came the album and concert tours of Out of the Blue. With an incredible set design by Stephen Bickford, the concert blew people’s minds by starting with a huge spaceship containing lighting, laser rigs and dry ice which ‘took off’ to spend the concert ‘hovering’ above the stage putting ELO out there with the first bands to use lasers at a concert.
Another four albums followed but times and tastes were changing and ELO in it’s original form broke up in 1986. Sad times followed as a rift lasting decades began between Bev Bevan and Jeff Lynne after Bevan set up ELO Part II much to Lynne’s chagrin.
Jeff Lynne went on to an incredible career Producing for big names and his producing connections with George Harrison, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison resulted in linking with Bob Dylan to create The Travelling Wilbury’s a band which continued until the untimely death of Roy Orbison.
An unsuccessful attempt at relaunching ELO in 2001 with Zoom caused Jeff to think that was it in terms of interest in the band. But in 2015, interest peaked again and Lynne set up as Jeff Lynne’s ELO releasing the album Alone in the Universe.
After once being described by John Lennon as ‘sons of the Beatles’ ELO was, most appropriately, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 7th April 2017.
But this wonderful album - The Electric Light Orchestra - was where the story all began. This copy has the almost impossible to find lyric sheet and the superb Hipgnosis gatefold sleeve. If you have this in your collection in Excellent condition with the lyric sheet, the retail value is around £100. But that’s likely to be nothing compared to the probable value of the Ingo Maurer Habitat lamp used on the front cover!
If you’ve enjoyed this trip into the world of ELO, do follow us on Facebook and Twitter where we try to share our knowledge of the interesting and unusual within rare records! Our new online store is now in Functional testing about to progress to User Experience testing, and then hopefully we will be very excited to launch and be able to share much more of our world of music with you.
‘Ogden’s Nut-Gone Flake ‘ - an amazing album by #TheSmallFaces ...and why were they called The Small Faces?
Creating an album cover that replicates a tobacco tin produced by Thomas Ogden’s of Liverpool around 1899 might not be what you’d associate with one of the most influential Mod and psychedelic groups of the 1960′s! But The Small Faces created an incredible work of art with the cover alone for the album Ogden’s Nut-Gone Flake. With music described at it’s 1968 release as ‘...incredibly, unbelievably irresistible - just groovy, and indescribable’ read on to learn about this amazing album and cover, and group ...
Only together in the original line up for four years (1965-69) and producing only four albums and a handful of singles during this time, The Small Faces still produced some incredible music that reverberated down through the years to influence major bands like Oasis, BritPop during the ‘90′s, and even influencing groups like the Kaiser Chiefs into the 21st century.
But why were they called The Small Faces? Believe it or not, because they were small, and a person of high-standing/recognisable within the Mod community was known as ‘a Face’ ...therefore they became The Small Faces!
Most well known for tracks like ‘Itchycoo Park’, ‘Lazy Sunday’ and ‘Sha-La-La-La-Lee’ amongst others, the group suffered turbulent relationships and ultimately sad endings for several of the original line-up. After the break-up, Kenney Jones, Ronnie Lane and Ian McLagan (who had replaced Jimmy Winston) set up with Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart as The Faces in 1969, whilst Steve Marriott moved on to ‘Humble Pie’ with Peter Frampton.
Ogden’s Nut-Gone Flake was a studio album raved about by the critics but with many feeling it was so complex it would be impossible to reproduce live - a viewpoint that possibly contributed to the break-up in terms of how they felt they were viewed as a serious group. The album contained ‘Lazy Sunday’, ‘Rene’, and the track that was to become their final single, ‘Afterglow of your love’. Side 2 is more fairytalesque and is a Mod Sgt Pepper, being a series of psychedelic tracks telling the story of a boy called Stan and his search for the missing half of the moon - critics of the time absolutely raved about the music but some found the story hard to take!
The album cover is a pure work of art: initially designed to be sold in a tin with a paper roundel insert, this caused albums to roll off shelves! (*Although later CD versions were issued in a tin). Therefore, the sleeve became a thicker card of four joined roundels that folded up to make the album sleeve. The front cover shows the brilliant coloured graphics of the ‘tin lid’, opening to show on the right an image of loose tobacco and cigarette papers, with the left roundel showing a graphic of an elf-type character smoking a pipe whilst resting on leaves amongst flowers, birds, butterflies and what looks like a queen bee. These two roundels open further to show four circular black&white photographs of the group.
Small Faces reformed briefly in 1975 in their original four and produced two further albums, following on from The Autumn Stone released after the original 1969 breakup. But almost immediately problems began between Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane - Lane had developed the onset on MS, but Marriott interpreted his behaviour as due to alcohol. Lane left the group and didn’t appear on either of the albums produced. The group lasted another 3 years.
Despite being acclaimed in the UK with this album reaching No1 for 6 weeks, Small Faces never broke the US market; and yet such is the recognition for the influence of their work now, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.
Very sadly, Steve Marriott died in a fire at his home in 1991 at the young age of 44; the Fire Crews who went in to rescue him were very deeply affected at finding him, feeling a huge influence on their lives had been lost. Ronnie Lane died from his MS in 1997 adding the final full-stop to The Small Faces career.
Although The Small Faces themselves claimed they hated Lazy Sunday and it had just been a joke, it’s one of the most recognisable tracks even to this day and was covered by the Kaiser Chiefs on French radio in 2008. But there was a great deal of truth in the track’s lyrics ‘Wouldn’t it be nice, to get on with me neighbours ...’ because Steve Marriott was described as having no off-switch. Continually on the go requiring only about an hour’s sleep, this was exhausting for other members of the band when they lived together in the same house - so much so that Kenney Jones used to be at the house during the day and go and sleep at his Mum’s house at night! If you want a trip down memory lane click the YouTube link at the bottom of the post to reminisce!
In terms of value, if you have this in your collection the original 1968 edition was issued as both Mono and Stereo on lilac coloured labels - these editions (with vinyl and sleeve in Mint condition) have a book-price of around £250 for the Mono and £200 for the Stereo. However, copies in true Mint condition have achieved significantly higher prices at auction. It was also reissued quickly (again both Mono and Stereo versions) on pink labels and these are worth less - approx half the value of the original lilac versions. In the 1980s it came out again on the NEMS/Immediate label copying the original lilac label (*so if you think you have an original, if NEMS is on the label it’s sadly a 1980′s version!) and this retails around the £40-50 mark but is still a nice item to have.
Our original copy recently sold (a certain person in the Acousticsoup household mourned terribly!), but we still have a nod of respect to the memory of The Small Faces and this incredible album/cover on the banner photo we currently use, so we can keep what is great in prominent memory!
As always, if you’ve enjoyed reading this we love sharing our love of rare records with you also. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch at [email protected] if you have any particular wants, and find our current stock listings online at MusicStack and CDandLP if you want to Shop. Please also Like/Share our Facebook page and Follow us on Twitter to keep up with our news. Our new online store is hopefully about to start the Testing phase soon, so keep in touch.
One of the first true picture discs #Magical Love by #Saturnalia ...a true thing of beauty!
Since the revival in records, we at Acousticsoup want to help you appreciate the artists and music, but also something taken for granted (and frequently overlooked) at the time - the production of albums and cover artwork. With the migration to CD and ultimately digital, the thing that died was the efforts made with post-production and album covers. Our hope is that the new generation of collectors will come to appreciate and value this artwork as much as the music/artists themselves. To illustrate the efforts made in production, let’s take a look at the Progressive Rock album ‘Magical Love’ by the group from Surrey, Saturnalia ...and also take a look at how picture disc are made!
Picture discs had been around in various forms since the 1920s, but frequently these were just quirky promotional items. In the 1940s, picture disc production moved to another ‘genre’ - that of Children’s records, most frequently made up of singles. Some promotional dance-step albums were also produced as a picture disc (at the time when people were following black foot print-maps to be able to learn dances, and the accompanying albums contained music simply incidental to learning the dances). But in terms of pop music not much happened with picture discs until around the 1970s.
In 1973, Saturnalia released their album in picture disc format and whilst classed as ‘one of the first’ it is almost certainly accepted as the first 3D picture disc - the centre labels (frequently now missing on many copies) are wonderful quality 3D hologram swirls. On one side (above) the white five-pointed flower/star morphs into the album title ‘Magical Love’ in green/pink, and the other side (below) is blue with swirls of moving white stars (*we’ve seen copies with the 3D labels applied onto different sides of the album). And this is before you even start on the artwork pressed into the wax!
The band were Adrian Hawkins, Aletta Lohmeyer, Rod Roach, Richard Houghton and Tom Crompton, with the album produced by Keith Relf of Yardbirds fame. The album was released in a clear vinyl plastic cover and came with a booklet about the band and their astrological signs (*we have the original plastic cover, but sadly our copy is without booklet). The A-side shows pictures of the group and the B-side shows amazing illustrations of the '12 Archetypes’ symbols that we would LOVE to know more about (*and if you’re lucky enough to have the booklet with your copy you will know more about!). The music is very psychedelic rock and was rereleased on a CD around 1993 after disappearing for many years; this was sadly probably because although picture discs are very beautiful to look at they play horrendously and it is known the band had terrible issues trying to get copies made by the German manufacturer where both sides would play at all, never mind play well! So, how are picture discs made ...
To understand why these albums rarely played well we need to understand the vinyl the music is pressed into: if you remember the thin floppy acetate singles that were sometimes given away as promotions (which also played horrendously) picture discs are a bit like making a hamburger starting with two pieces of those floppy, clear acetate-like vinyl. To make your ‘hamburger’ ...
PICTURE DISC RECIPE:
- take one piece of floppy, clear vinyl and place on the pressing machine
- add, face-down, a kiln-prepared paper image
- add a heated 2-3″ ‘hockey-puck’ lump of heated/soft black vinyl/wax
- add, face-up, the second kiln-prepared paper image
- finally, add the second and final floppy, clear vinyl sheet
- add heat, then apply the pressing machine to flatten the black wax out and melt the clear vinyl sheets, paper, black wax together to form the disc. Trim/cut the edges to make the disc.
- cut the grooves into the top clear vinyl layer with the music, and you’re done. Picture disc is yours.
Because the music can only be cut into the very thin transparent vinyl layer, this is why they rarely played well.
However: we hope you - like us - really appreciate this Saturnalia album for the work of art this beautiful album is. The brilliance of being in modern times is you can listen to the music on CD or digitally and own the picture disc just for the amazing artwork! In terms of value, you can pick these up in varying states of quality and prices - some that have lost 3D labels, booklet, and vinyl plastic cover can be picked up for £30-40. Albums with all these items intact can retail around £70-£100.
As always, if you’ve enjoyed reading this we love sharing our love of record collecting with you also. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch at [email protected] if you have any particular wants, and find our current stock listings online at MusicStack and CDandLP if you want to Shop. Please also Like/Share our Facebook page and Follow us on Twitter to keep up with our news. The new online store continues to progress slowly but surely and is looking good - we have about 200 Products in there now as part of the Testing phase, and once we get into the thousands/have enough products in there to feel we have something that will ‘wow!’ you, we’ll be ready to launch the store. Keep watching this space for progress and we hope it will be worth the wait! ...
Commonly known as #LedZepVIII: read about an amazing album+cover, Aleister Crowley ...and ‘words in dead wax’.
Let’s continue our music journey into rare records by taking a look at a classic album - #LedZeppelin Volume 3. Issued in 1970, it seems to get overlooked in discussions about which is the best album made by the band; but it is truly a classic and contains some of the band’s best work. It has a light and shade quality missing from the earlier albums. This may be because it was conceived in a Welsh cottage without electricity and so there’s a strong folk element running through it. There’s still plenty of power too - the thunderous ‘Immigrant Song’ and the long blues work-out of ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ which contains some of Jimmy Page’s best guitar work on record. And it has an amazing cover.
There are some significant variations on the early pressings which are important for collectors and significantly affect today’s collector prices. So: let’s journey into Artist/Manager disputes, Aleister Crowley and the Black Arts, and words in dead wax and also see a video of the amazing album cover ...
The very first pressing had the collectible ‘plum’ Atlantic label, which credited the Producer as Jimmy Page and the ‘Executive Producer’ as Peter Grant (the Band’s Manager - look for this accreditation on the album label if you’re into your collecting). As Jimmy Page had carried out the production duties himself he took exception to Grant being allocated some credit. As albums had already gone to press, at first Atlantic responded by placing a sticker on the labels which covered up Grant’s credit. Watch for these as these variations (both accredited and stickered) are now rare and very sought after.
On later pressings a new label was substituted which omitted Grant’s name altogether. These are still very collectible but less so than the Page/Grant accredited and stickered labels.
The rotating sleeve is a thing of beauty and, of course, an essential part of the package and was retained throughout the life of the album and even the later pressing from the 1980′s still have it. Only a video could do justice to us showing you the beauty of this album cover!
Jimmy Page was well known as an aficionado of the notorious occultist/black magician Aleister Crowley - Page once owned Crowley’s Scottish mansion and he collected items which once belonged to Crowley. On the early pressings of the album in the dead wax on Side 1 you will find etched ‘Do What Thou Wilt” and on Side 2 ‘So Mote it Be’ which are tenets closely connected with the philosophy of Crowley. If looking to collect, you will need to tilt albums into the light to find these words (if you are actually holding a version where they are there!) and look very carefully ...it has never surprised us that many of our serious Collectors visit us with Jeweller’s magnifying lenses!
This album is an incredible album with a cover that is truly a work of art (*there’s a possible article all of it’s own that could cover the roundel itself). It is one for the serious collector who will appreciate it for what it is and treasure it. In terms of values, this can go retail for anywhere from £60-£260 and above, with prices reflecting all of the differing intricacies covered above. We have several copies available in the store across the price ranges so if you’re interested in stepping into this market, do get in touch at [email protected] .
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News on our new website is we’re starting to upload Products, so hopefully not too long now! It’s been a long, very hard slog once again because - as many Vinyl dealers know - the web is not set up to be kind to the business model required to deal in records (*we’re working on software that underpins M&S, Debenhams, Rakuten and yet have just been told it, too, struggles with our product volumes). We’ll keep you up to date, but in the meantime if you have any Wants (or want to chat rare records!) drop us an email at [email protected] and check out our current listings at MusicStack and CDandLP.
Tie-dye, afghan coats and psychedelic horror weirdness ...
A genre of records some specialist collectors look for is called ‘Library Music’ - the albums are generally rare and expensive. Ever watched films and TV and wondered where that background music comes from? That’s Library Music and some of it - surprisingly - was done by famous musicians or by musicians who subsequently became famous. Most of it is fairly straightforward music, but in the case of Blue Phantom’s ‘Distortions’ the music is more suited to the gory horror films that came out of Italy in the 1970′s. Want to know more about this strange album with a retail price tag of £250? Then switch on your lava lamp, pull up your inflatable armchair and read on ...
Distortions was released in 1971 on the obscure Kaleidoscope label with very hideous primitive artwork. Goodness knows what was going on there ...that is a ‘wheel+axel’ in the centre of the cover not (as we thought) a dartboard with a dart in the bullseye. However, what it lacks in artistic cover design is more than made up for with the music on this monster instrumental psychedelic masterpiece.
Rumoured to have been made by Italian sessions musicians (the only musical credit is to H Tical who composed the tracks) the music is an astonishing tour de force of psychedelic riffs, heavy grooves and great guitar licks and sheer relentless attack.
But these are the albums for the true specialists - and hence the rare/collectible price tags - because it’s not music you’d spin up on your deck and mellow out to ...this is very menacing, horror film-type music. So, probably more cuddle up in your afghan coat, lock the doors, don’t be alone, and don’t be watching the ‘Walking Dead’ while you listen ...or not if you want to sleep at night.
And if you want to keep up with more about the weird, wonderful and fascinating world of collecting records, do drop us a Like/Share on Facebook at www.facebook.com/acousticsoup and follow us on Twitter at @Acousticsoup_. Progress is being made on our new online store, but in the meantime if you have any wants or queries drop us a line at [email protected] or pick up our current 67,000 strong catalogue listing at MusicStack or CDandLD.
‘A long time ago, in a cinema far, far away ...’ 40yrs of #StarWars
For those of us who queued to see the original #StarWars movie, it’s hard to believe 2017 is the 40th anniversary of that event. And May 2017, the anniversary of the release, will no doubt again bring back the sadness of the loss of Carrie Fisher at the end of 2016.
We’re celebrating that 40th anniversary with an early look at the original soundtrack double-album released in 1977 by 20th Century Records ...
The now incredibly recognisable theme music was composed by John Williams, who composed for all but two of Steven Spielberg’s films. The artwork of the album cover lives up to the quality of the film and music - a black front cover is simply, but starkly, emblazoned in white with what was to become the famous Star Wars logo. Small writing towards the bottom of the front cover tells us this is the original soundtrack composed and conducted by John Williams, and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. The back cover contains an incredibly powerful graphic of Darth Vader against a dark, starlit sky.
The black of the inner gatefold is awash with colour images from the film showing many of the characters and key film events - R2D2 being captured by Tusken Raiders/Sand People; C-3PO and Princess Leia; Luke, Han, Ben and Chewie on board the Millennium Falcon; several images of Vader, and others.
Inside the album cover were two additional items - a foldout poster of fighters attacking the Death Star (see composite image above), and a double sided sheet entitled ‘Star Wars, A Lucasfilm Production’ (see below). This sheet detailed on one side a description of the film interspersed with quotes from George Lucas (including his best quote summing up his description of the movie “It’s fun - that’s the word for this movie” - was he to know back then it was to become much more than that?!), plus the names of every one of the LSO musicians, and the background history of the music. On the other side is the track listing containing very detailed descriptions of what exactly was going on in the film when the track is played - several of these descriptions are half the length of a newspaper column. In fact, on that sheet you pretty much have a description of the contents of the film.
If you're going to get ‘Star Wars 40yrs-fever’ this year and will be looking for these collectibles, our advice is to start early: as with anything collectible in an anniversary year prices may sky-rocket if demand increases. Particularly, check out the quality of these albums carefully with your seller - many albums are missing the poster and/or insert sheet. Some of the black album front covers start to show a circular silver/grey wear mark where the album itself has marked the outer cover during storage. Be careful also to check out that your ‘original’ is a 1977 original, if that is what you are intending to buy, and not a 21st century copy.
Even now retail prices for these albums fluctuate wildly and we’re not even into 40th-fever yet - true MINT copies will be exceptionally rare and expect to pay in the region of £100+ (*at Acousticsoup we never classify on MINT because generally all used albums will have some age-signs, and we prefer people to be delighted not disappointed). Albums in EX/EX with posters and inserts can currently retail around the £30-50 mark depending on the quality of the inserts. Albums with inserts missing, or marked-albums (into the VG ranges) can currently be anything from £10-30. But these are current prices - our guess is they won’t stay there as the year progresses.
As always, if you’re interested in buying and want to check out that the Star Wars album you’re being offered is ‘a diamond’/the real deal, feel free to drop us an email at [email protected] if you want a second opinion if you’re unsure - we never want people to be disappointed when collecting records.
And do Like/Follow us on Facebook and Twitter - although we’ve been in the record business for over 20yrs, we’re pretty new to Social Media. So if you’re finding these posts interesting, any Shares and Retweets will be much appreciated. ..’‘May the Force-at-40 be with you’ ...
Pink Floyd and a dentist called ‘Mr W R Phang*’! ...(*yes, a real dentist)
Looking at what makes records collectible, we saw previously how the Rolling Stones got into trouble with Lucille Ball simply by not asking if an image could be used. A similar thing happened to Pink Floyd; this time they didn’t even upset anyone famous yet the impact to the vinyl production/distribution was massive. Do you have copies of these albums? ...
Back in 1973 Floyd decided to reissue their first two albums - ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ and ‘Saucerful of Secrets’ - on a double set titled ‘A Nice Pair’. David Gilmour has said it was done to ensure that lost leader Syd Barrett, received some royalties for his pioneering work on ‘Piper’; this was a nice gesture from his ex-bandmates who possibly felt a little guilty for dropping him and moving on to global stardom.
As usual for Floyd, the cover was designed by Hipgnosis and featured a series of pictures some of which were puns - ‘a nice pair/pear’ on the top row (*later censored with black bars/stickers), ‘a fork in the road’, ‘a fine kettle of fish’. But the issue came with the photo, top right, of the dental surgeon’s window - W R Phang. This is also another typical British pun in the vein of ‘Mr Bun the Baker’, ‘Mr Salmon the Fishmonger’ - ‘Mr Phang the Dentist’. But Floyd hadn’t banked on Mr Phang sinking his teeth into them ...
Sadly, Mr Phang took exception - it’s not clear why - and the cover was withdrawn. Mr Phang’s picture was replaced with what looks like some type of monk (possibly scanning the skies for a Saucerful of Secrets?). One possible reason for the objection was thought to be that dentists were not supposed to advertise, but this would be doubtful as Mr Phang hadn’t approached Floyd and would surely be considered a ‘victim’ if any dental wrong-doing was insinuated. Whatever the reason, Mr Phang certainly missed a trick: if he had gone along with the pun, he could no doubt have opened a chain of Phang dentists, making a fortune treating Floyd fans desperate to have their teeth fixed by a Floyd-approved dentist!
Three versions of this album exist, however: the first (the original) with the Phang photograph, the third with the photograph of the monk, and a second, intermediary version where a sticker was placed over the Phang photo to avoid having to trash lots of album covers.
In your collections, an EX/EX of the original Phang cover retails for around £50; the second version with the sticker in EX/EX retails for about the same price, and the third version with the monk-photo in EX/EX retails for £25.
If you’re interested to add to your collection, drop us an email at [email protected] and we’ll let you know about the various copies we have in stock. As always, if you are enjoying our little trips into all things interesting/unusual in vinyl, please Like/Share us on Facebook, and Follow us on Twitter - any retweets much appreciated!
Why collect vinyl? When Lucille Ball took on The Rolling Stones ...and won!
In our last posting we showed one intricacy of vinyl collecting by looking at The Beatles ‘Rubber Soul’ album, and showing why one album is seriously collectible/expensive and another - which to the uninitiated looks the same - is not. As well as albums released in different timeframes affecting collectibility/value, unintended issues in production can also create rare vinyl. Let’s look at this via The Rolling Stones album ‘Some Girls’ where Lucille Ball crossed swords with The Stones (and won!) ...
Back in 1978 The Stones issued what is arguably their last good album of original tunes - ‘Some Girls’. It came in a fabulous die-cut sleeve created by Hubert Kretzschmar and Peter Corriston, showing images of famous female stars and The Stones themselves advertising a selection of horrible, tacky wigs. The wig-advert itself is worth a look! Taken from one of those cheap ad’s that used to appear in magazines/newspapers way-back-when, it cleverly mixes track titles with genuine wig-names - so track titles of ‘When the Whip Comes Down’, ‘Far Away Eyes’, ‘Before They Make Me Run’ mix with genuine wig names. The reverse cover uses a similar ladies style bra advert, but refrains from adding images! It is very much in the style of Andy Warhol, yet almost takes that style further. Witty, sleazy, artistic, and very clever - exactly the way a Stones cover ought to be. It is a stunning work of art in it’s own right.
Images of female stars included Marilyn Monroe who had passed in August 1962 - and Kretzschmar/Corriston seem to give a respectful nod to her by selecting the wig for ‘Miss You’. But no-one had given any thought to whether the female stars selected for the cover would have any objection to being linked to The Stones - after all, they were uber-famous, who wouldn’t want to be on their cover? But at this exact time, some of the rich-famous were keeping their distance - Keith Richards had just been involved in a drugs-arrest, and Jagger was conducting an affair with Prime Minister Trudeau’s wife.
On the top row, ‘fourth wig from the left’ selected for the wig ‘Georgie Girl’ is an image of Lucille Ball. Exceptionally famous at that time, Lucille was not happy to be included amongst the parade of lovelies and she sued. Quite why she sued isn’t clear - whether upset by the publicity status of The Stones above, or perhaps believing they were trying to boost the album using her fame. But Lucille won.
The sleeve was immediately withdrawn and replaced with the bottom sleeve shown above; this still bore The Stones images along with ‘Under Construction’ notes where other female images had appeared. As a bizarre turn, other female stars came forward very keen to have their images fill in these blanks, but a third cover version never seemed to come about.
Our experience is the original UNcensored version is actually more common to find than the censored version ‘Under Construction’; but in the weird/whacky world of vinyl, the money is with the original, illicit version. If you have these in your collection, the retail value of the original/uncensored version is around £50 for an EX-EX condition, and around £20 for an EX/EX of the censored/’Under Construction’ version. But what we find collectible about this album is the incredible artwork - you can sit and look at this cover for hours and pick up lots of intricacies, even just wondering the thoughts behind why particular faces are linked to which wig (Jagger: ‘Heavenly Beauty’ and ‘Some Girls’? Wyman: ‘Beast of Burden’?). And the caption under Monroe’s image of ‘Lies, Lies you dirty Jezebel; why don’t you go to Hell?’ could keep discussions going over a beer for hours. It is a thing of beauty.
If we at Acousticsoup can help you start a vinyl collection, or add to or advise on your current collection please get in touch at [email protected]. We just love talking vinyl. We currently deal through MusicStack and CDandLP, and our own online store is under construction (*so bear with us if you visit our current homepage - with 65,000+ albums, category and product construction+management is proving a complex discussion currently. But we are getting there!). Also follow us on Twitter @Acousticsoup_ and Facebook www.facebook.com/acousticsoup
The intricacies of Vinyl trading: how to know if it’s a diamond or a dud ...#rarevinyl
‘You can’t run a business selling Vinyl, it’s dead!’ we’ve been told many times - we’ve been in the business successfully for over 20yrs and we have 65,000 stock items. We deal globally, and there are many other very successful vinyl dealers. Saying the Vinyl business is dead is like telling Sotherby’s and Christie’s auction houses they’d better pack up because antiques are dead. So: that makes vinyl worth collecting.
The Vinyl industry has far more intricacies for the serious collector than simply ‘have you got ‘x’ album?’. We hold a stock of over 2,000 albums just in the ‘Library Music’ genre - that’s ‘background and theme music’ used in film and TV, and there are collectors who only collect that vinyl. Those albums are very rare and, many, very expensive. We’re trading regularly in general albums worth £100, £500, £1,000 for an album. So: if you’re starting out what kind of things do you need to learn, to know if what you’re selling or buying is a diamond or a dud. Let’s take a look with one of the best known groups ever - The Beatles.
The Beatles are still the most collectible group on the planet. Their albums were on catalogue for decades, but we always have a sinking heart when someone approaches us with ‘their valuable Beatles collection’ because invariably we’re going to have to let them down, and tell them to cancel that cruise they’ve just booked because their albums are not what they think.
Take a look at the two albums in the photo above (*the rear cover below relates to the front cover above it). One retails for £150-200 and one is £20. Just take a few minutes before you read on to look at the photos and note down what differences you see .... [tick-tock, tick-tock] Which one are you putting your £200 on - Right or Left?
Here we go; see how you did. The starting point is the album label design. The original ‘60′s pressings have the distinctive black-and-yellow Parlophone labels with the ‘£’ logo at the top. Looking at the reverse-covers in the bottom photos, these albums came in sleeves that have a ‘flip-back’ design - where the front of the sleeve has been attached by folding over on top of the back-sleeve, instead of the photo on the right, where the front-sleeve has been glued inside the back-sleeve so no border is seen on the back. This album is particularly difficult to identify in this way, because in the right photo the border you see (on the right edge of the cover) is the high-gloss finish from the front cover not the construction of the sleeve.
The album on the right is the later pressing with the black-and-silver labels with EMI logos - the sleeves are sealed on the inside of the back-cover and so don’t have the flip-back design. If you spotted the orange highlights on the back-cover on the right, that’s just owner-vandalism (ahh!!!!!) - someone used a highlighter pen to highlight possibly favourite tracks and it simply reduces the quality rating of the cover (and therefore the price)!
In learning to be a vinyl expert, the above is only the tip of a large iceberg when it comes to The Beatles. Within all pressings there are quirks such as odd matrix numbers (the numbers in the dead wax* (*album centre where the black wax is shiny)) and mis-spellings on the labels which make certain pressings very collectible and - in some cases - very expensive. Whether albums were Mono or Stereo makes a huge difference.
The one that you might see is a copy of their first album ‘Please Please Me’ that has the ‘black-and-gold’ album labels. These are very collectible as it’s reckoned 25,000 were pressed. So, there may be a copy sitting on your shelf or in your attic. If there is, a Mono copy could have a retail value of £2,000; Stereo copies have auctioned for more than £10,000. But before you’re getting too excited, the quality of the cover and the album quality would all also massively impact those prices!
If you’ve found this interesting and would like more of the same, please Like/Share/Follow us and generally spread the news. Our next test for your brains looks at a Rolling Stones album - did you know the Stones crossed swords with Lucille Ball?
Although we’ve been around for years, we’re just coming into the 21st century with IT, so you can find us on Facebook (www.facebook/acousticsoup) and Twitter (@acousticsoup_). Our online store presence is being completely overhauled so please bear with us - it currently looks like some of our stock (out of the ‘70′s!) but we’re working on it. In the meantime, if you have any needs/wants or you simply want to check whether you’re about to buy/sell a dud, drop us an email at [email protected].
