A grail added to my collection today! A rare band-produced bootleg mentioned in my entry last month – Loads of New Content from Fred Deakin! has arrived at Innerspace Labs from the UK.
May I proudly present, “Soft”/”Rock” – Lemon Jelly’s 7″ blue vinyl single from 2001. The single is enclosed in a screenprinted modified denim sleeve constructed from pairs of jeans with a flavored condom in the pocket, (mine is chocolate!), and was limited to just 1,000 copies worldwide. 15 very special copies featured hand embroidery by Laura Lees. “Soft” and “Rock” contained uncleared samples by Chicago and Black Crowes, so the band semi-discreetly issued the single themselves, bearing their tell-tale Lemon Jelly typeface.
What made this specific copy particularly appealing was that the original owner had clipped an article about the single from England back in 2001 and saved it along with the disc for the last 18 years. (I love a bit of contextual history with my rare releases!)
Though the seller couldn’t recall the details of the publication he believed it was from The Guardian so I went to work and quickly located the original publication information for the write-up, courtesy of newspapers.com and found a full live text transcript in the Guardian website’s archives.
Here is a copy of the transcript:
Publication: The Guardian Location: Greater London, England Issue Date: Friday, September 21, 2001 Page: 42
Overheard: Chicago
You think the Strokes made fashion’s favourite record of the year? Get back behind the velvet rope. Aside from Missy Elliot bootlegs, the most played song at the spring/summer shows has been an ultra-rare remix of a tune by Chicago (below). The track, which takes the vocals from If You Leave Me Now (No1 in 1976 – ask your parents) and puts them over a blissful beat, was mixed by London-based DJ-ing outfit Lemon Jelly. Called Soft Rock, the track was sent out to the select few earlier this year on blue vinyl 7″, packaged in the back pocket of a pair of jeans. It has now been heard at Luella in New York (selected by Steve Mackie of Pulp, the boyfriend of stylist Katie Grand) and Margaret Howell in London among others. We love it, but we’re worried.
Part of the tune’s allure is the fact that it’s so hard to come by (there’s a copy on eBay at the moment going for £34). Designers obviously have it in their shows for the exclusivity, but if it’s played any more, it’ll become ubiquitous and spoil the fun for everyone who managed to get hold of an original. Our suggestion – go truly obtuse and play Atomic Kitten instead.
CP
Of course, in the nearly two decades since its publication copies of the single have commanded a much higher price, but I was delighted to secure a copy with both a near-mint jacket, original plastic sleeve, near-mint denim sleeve, and the article all at a fair price.
This will be displayed beside my copy of “Rolled”/”Oats”, the duo’s other infamous bootleg. As I mentioned in my previous feature, the single was spray painted gold and screenprinted once again with the classic Jelly font and housed in a hessian (burlap) sleeve. “Rolled” samples “Feel Like Making Love” by Bad Company and is based on “The Curse Of Ka’zar” from their Lost Horizons double LP. “Oats” uses elements of “Closer” with a sample of George Michael’s “Heal The Pain”.
These are wonderful treasures for any fan of cheerfully eclectic music and proud gems of my library!
Friends, I have some very special records in store for you, and many more in the post on their way.
Recently I was exploring related-artist lists for long-standing favorites Sundae Club and Lemon Jelly on a number of music services. One result had quite an intriguing name, so I gave them a listen.
Public Service Broadcasting is a project of J. Willgoose and Wrigglesworth from London. The association with Jellyheads and fans of Sundae Club is instantly apparent – their music is electronic, but with a uniquely organic (and perhaps an emotive) element that separates it from the countless electro-pop artists of the day.
PSB uses samples from old public information films, archive footage and propaganda material, which fits well in a playlist of Found Sound Orchestra and Future Loop Foundation recordings.
The result, when paired with their minimalist geometric album packaging, is a krautrock-flavored mechanical sort of BBC documentary music, if you can imagine such a thing.
I enjoyed their INFORM • EDUCATE • ENTERTAIN LP, but was most impressed by THE WAR ROOM EP. Just one look at the album jacket and anyone who follows my blog with any frequency will instantly understand why I just had to acquire this glorious disc.
Here is your new desktop wallpaper. You’re welcome.
See if you can detect traces of the metronomic percussion of Neu!’s “Hallo Gallo” in PSB’s music, or a touch of Kraftwerk inspiration in the packaging of INFORM • EDUCATE • ENTERTAIN.
On to other treasures, I had perused the Record Store Day list for April 2014 but no items particularly grabbed me so I sat the holiday out and saved my cash for the seasonal record show that followed.
In the days after the holiday, I stumbled upon a redditor who ran an independent record store in the States offering limited edition RSD items at store-price to those who couldn’t make it that day. He listed an album that had entirely escaped my radar – a condensed and remastered 50-minute distillation of the epic 24-hour “7 Skies H3” by Flaming Lips.
Available exclusively for RSD, this was most fans’ only opportunity to own a piece of the notorious track, of which 13 copies were produced and sold on a hard drive encapsulated in a real human skull.
The offer was extended to fellow redditors at 11am on the morning of Easter Sunday, and I didn’t hesitate for a single second. To make the situation even more exciting, I discovered that I had just sold a record I had received for free for the exact price of the Flaming Lips album, which chalks up to getting it for free!
I should caution fans who acquire this record, however – The album ships with a download code from Warner Music, but the file is not what it appears to be. There are no options for MP3 quality (or for a FLAC download) – the album automatically downloads a set of files marked as 256 CBR. I was a tad suspicious of Warner Music so I tested the file and it appears to be only a paltry 128kbps MP3.
If anyone can verify this I would love to hear from you, but I was extremely disappointed that this rare recording was essentially presented in the sonic equivalent of a Napster file from 1999.
“I’m telling you… RealPlayer is going to be HUGE.”
Regardless, best to focus on the positive – like that mysterious KLF item from the Lips’ photo above!
I cannot express the level of my excitement in finally hearing this special recording. You may well recall my featuring of Disc 6 and of The KLF Remix Project Part III in earlier entries.
This new disc was to be the ninth in the series of unofficial reworkings of the KLF’s catalog – masterfully engineered and easily one of the finest ambient recordings of the year. Sadly, due to issues beyond the producer’s control, the disc will not be released to the public.
The disc contains a 2014 72-minute epic rework of the original Space LP created 24 years ago, originally as a collaboration between Dr. Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty – the original line-up of The Orb.
For those who aren’t familiar with the outstanding KLF: Recovered & Remastered unofficial releases from my past entries, let me bring you up to speed.
1987. British acid house. Drummond. Cauty. The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. The Timelords. The JAMs. One World Orchestra. 2K. The Stadium House Trilogy. Doctorin’ the Tardis. Anarchism. The White Room. The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Top of the Pops. America: What Time is Love? The Manual. A lost road movie. The K Foundation. Extreme Noise Terror. Why Sheep? Waiting. The Rites of Mu. Chill Out. The birth of Ambient House. Burning a million quid on the Isle of Jura. Abandon all art now. And Space.
There. That about sums it up.
20 years into the silence that followed the K Foundation’s exit from celebrity a man surfaced who set himself to the task of recovering and remastering the KLF’s catalog to fill the void left in Cauty and Drummond’s absence.
The first six releases, catalog #KLF 001 RE – KLF 006 RE were brilliant, and the sixth release, Live From The Lost Continent 2012 presented listeners with a 77-minute stadium-packed concert that never was.
Following this triumph, two more released emerged – KLF MINUS-ONE and KLF MINUS-FOUR, each better than the EP before.
But our hero had one last stupendous project up his sleeve. And in April of 2014, it was complete.
A message from its creator revealed that MINUS-SIX was to be:
“…a 72 minute remodel of the classic SPACE release, sounding like a cross between ‘Silence’ (from Pete Namlook’s legendary Fax +49-69/450464 label), SPACE, and classic ambient drone releases. It’s almost like Trainspotting for KLF fans.”
The original Space LP (1990)
The final piece is a monumental achievement – a new Music for Airports, or perhaps a new Selected Ambient Works Vol II. It effectively unites sparse white-noise drones with all of the familiar elements of the original Space record which made it so memorable. It is brilliantly subtle, while simultaneously making the sounds of simulated space flight an exciting and dramatic experience.
Then came the crushing news – the MINUS SIX project had suddenly been halted, and there were to be no more releases in the series.
I make no exaggeration when I state that, with this loss, the ambient music audience is experiencing its own Nick Drake, or more accurately – its own SugarMan.
At least this dude got his own movie.
Worse yet – because Rodriguez had a nation celebrating his work for generations an ocean away from his quiet daily life, and at least Nick Drake experienced posthumous success – becoming a household name in the years which followed his untimely demise.
But production of MINUS-6 has been cancelled. Quite sadly, the millennium’s ambient and drone audience and the millions of listeners who grew up with the KLF may never hear this record.
Its legend is shroud in mystery. Will KLF fans ever know the engineer’s name? Why the sudden cease just before unveiling his holy grail?
But perhaps it is the legend and the mystery that adds a touch of vitality to the series.
And I still have hope. The K Foundation announced a 23-year moratorium on all projects beginning November 1995. Perhaps, in honor of the 2018 reformation of the KLF, our mysterious friend will emerge.
My sincerest hope is that the man behind these nine fantastic EPs one day receives the recognition (and listenership) that he deserves.
The following info was compiled from the Pink Floyd RolO Database, backtrax-records.co.uk, and various other Pink Floyd archive sites. I’d like to post this as a “thank you” to Mr. Pinky, Historian of the Pink Floyd Vinyls throughout the world. His site, the Ultimate Pink Floyd Vinyl Discography includes over 2600 recordings! You can visit it at http://digilander.libero.it/mrpinky/
Mr. Pinky confirmed my research and provided additional information about a mysterious live LP of The Wall I found at a yard sale for a mere fifty cents. The blank white sleeve contained the unlabeled album in mint condition along with a 12″ print and a handwritten track list.
Here is what I came to learn about the album.
Title: Pink Floyd: The Wall Performed Live
Format: LP
Catalog: E.M.K.A. PROD (EMKA = MCA = Universal)
Matrix: (P-DA/PDF-B) ß Portable Digital Audio Tape
Source: 1980 London Earl’s Court, London 1980 August 6th
Sound Quality: Excellent Stereo
Comments: Italian bootleg with plain cover and paper insert with orange print. Pressed from the same plates as the e.m.k.a release on black and lilac vinyl with plain white labels. Later re-issued again with black & white xeroxed insert on black, green and lilac vinyl. A further pressing from these plates had yet another different insert and Avion record labels.
Rarity rating: **** (all issues)
Band: Roger Waters, Rick Wright, Nick Mason, David Gilmour
Pink Floyd never toured for The Wall, but only played between five and eight dates each at Los Angeles, New York, London, Dortmund, and again London during 1980 and 1981.
NOTE: Several live performances of The Wall are mis-labeled as this performance.
The following cd package is actually a recording from the Nassau Coliseum in New York on the 26th of February 1980.
And finally, the widely available live DVD performance of the Wall is clearly marked as Earls Court, August 9th, 1980. To the best of my knowledge, the August 6th concert has yet had no official release.
ADDITIONAL UPDATE: The master tape of this recording later appeared on the Siréne label on a released titled, The Warm Thrill Of Confusion (Siréne-063). Collectors Music Reviews added the following note about the tape:
It first surfaced on vinyl as The Wall Live, Wall, and The Wall Performed Live (E.M.K.A. PROD) and on CD as Live Wall (Satisfaction Guaranteed SG 054/55 ), Live Wall (Part 1+2) on Silver Rarities (SIRA 47/48), The Show Must Go On and the fan based Digital Floyd Project roio The Wall Earl’s Court 6/8/80 Performed Live.
So that solves the case of the unmarked album. Not a bad find for fifty cents.
The Innerspace Connection 