Trees

David Hockney’s tree have nothing on this vintage budget album!

Private

I suppose it was inevitable that we would want to get onto the subject of privately pressed albums sooner or later as their covers are a source of never ending fascination to some. Here are four from the ST33 collection (with ‘best wishes”)!

8 Track cover girl fun

We’ve got a few pages devoted to those fab Top Of The Pops cover albums on ST33, but only on vinyl (of course). Yet there are still some people out there interested in more obscure formats, including the cartridge. Launched in America in 1965, the 8-Track cartridge enjoyed a fifteen year commercial run as a music carrier, before declining rapidly and disappearing from stores in the early eighties (albeit hanging on for a time through some mail-order firms). This of course brackets the Top Of The Pops albums nicely and it is no surprise that many of the bi-monthly titles were released in this format.
All such releases came shrink wrapped in clear plastic to save money (many major label 8-tracks were issued with card slip cases), the artwork simply printed on a label and stuck to the plastic case. These editions do not turn up very often. Given that for many years even the albums were regarded as very disposable, the 8-Tracks have mostly been trashed. I can’t recall ever finding any myself on my travels.
Have the survivors any value? There is undoubtedly a lot of retro fun to be had from displaying them, but unless you’re a really keen collector looking to fill gaps, they’re not worth more than a couple of pounds.
To whet your appetite for the Top Of The Pops book though, here is a great shot of some of the author Tim Joseph’s 8-Track hoard, salvaged from car-boots and charity stores over many years. I’ve also illustrated a close up of one above. We’re hoping the book will get wrapped up in the next couple of months by the way.

To Doug

Another tiny piece of personal ephemera which brings home what records meant to people. It is the first Christmas after the end of the Second World War, and Doug is being treated to a 78 rpm copy of Cherry Brandy (a suitably Christmassy title), though for the life of me I cannot be certain of the name of his generous  (records weren’t cheap at this time) friend – it looks like Ferd (short for Ferdinand?).
Clearly Ferd has been heeding the wartime message to save paper, I’m impressed by the way a gummed parcel sticker has been cut into four to provide a make-shift gift tag.
It’s the sort of label defacement which knocks down the value of a record to many collectors, but I’m certainly not going to try and soak it off.
This recording was used as incidental music in the moody 1945 British film The Seventh Veil and amazingly reissued by “the Beau Brummel of the alto sax” Harry Hayes on his own CD label fifty years later (I assume EMI didn’t have it as a priority reissue). Let’s hope he doesn’t fall foul of the recent copyright law changes…

Christmas cover

A rather smart Christmas sleeve from the seventies, courtesy of Polydor (and James Last). Click for details.

Vinyl bookends anyone?

Just spotted in John Lewis (or Coles as us retro locals still stubbornly call it) from a company called Spinning; packs of record label ‘coasters’ and ‘book ends’. The coaster idea is not new, I remember seeing 78rpm labels cut out and sold like this years ago. While the packs look nice, when you study them up close the makers seem to have just slapped clear sticky backed plastic over them, which is already peeling away.

The ‘book ends’ pack contains two 7″ singles creased at 45 degrees. For £15.00. A real ‘I saw you coming moment’ (large LP versions are also available, together with bowls, picture frames, etc). And to top it all off the pack says Made In China, which kind of implies the discs are purchased in bulk here, crated off to China, bent and shaped and then shipped back. Considering the packaging makes much of the word recycling, this all looks like an exercise in stupidity which would be hard to beat. The same firm are also selling C02 indicator mugs with a printed map on the side which shows the worst offending countries when you put a warm drink in…

For more on how to wreck old records read our Destroying Vinyl post!

Roxy Music • Country Life

A look at the famous sleeve, the people behind it, out-takes and alternate covers.

Another Demilio discovery

Paul has emailed with another of those great Demilio covers I covered some time ago. This is another by Edmundo Ros – Ros Album Of Boleros And Baions – issued by Decca LK 4111, Oct. 1956, and also in America on London Records. Edmundo actually died in October this year, aged 100. If you missed the original page about the mysterious Demilio who did a number of covers in this style, click here.

[Paul has a blog devoted to rock and pop from a German perspective, check it out].

Cheers

Paul

Jumbo in Leeds

Another survivor well worth a visit!

Limited edition prints

Two limited edition prints inspired by vintage vinyl. Click the image for details.