For those of you who moan that I may occasionally, every now and then, very seldom, once-in-a-blue-moon, twice decadely persuade them to spend their hard-earned cash/ill-gotten gains on music*, this is just to let you know you are not alone.
There I was blogging my little heart out about Hawkwind Quark Strangeness And Charm the other day when I realized that the 1977 original I thought I owned was a 1982 repress. Now, I want you all to know that I’m not the sort of inter-galactic wanker^ who gives a rat’s arse about that sort of thing (if you take the mid-to-late 80’s out of the equation**), I am perfectly happy with a cheaper later repress – the vinyl’s the thing. Except when it isn’t.
During my exhaustive pre-blog research I discovered that the original Quark Strangeness And Charm had an interesting inner sleeve, complete with message from the band and lyrics; all on some rather far-out spiral graph paper. Annoying. I wanted it but there was nothing remotely wrong with my own copy at all.
Then I spotted a copy for £4 on Discogs, for an LP that routinely goes for £25-ish for a very good condition copy. The catch being that the condition of the actual LP – the usual reason for buying, umm, an LP was ‘fair‘ – which in collector’s terms actually means ‘borderline shitty‘. But the cover was VG and that was what I wanted … the seller was excellent and it arrived, exactly as described with lightning efficiency today.
So here it is, in all it’s inner glory. What I want to know from y’all, my wise counsellors, is this a normal thing to do? does it make me the sort of insaniac sad sack that police only discover has been a serial killer for 40 years upon discovery of my posthumous diaries? I value your opinions^^.
The Hawkwind party:
To all space. This is just a small message to let you know we are back on course. Last year was the worst year for us. Finding us in debt and out of touch with the modern world. We have had a few changes, the sacking of Nik Turner, Paul Rudolph and Alan Powell and the arrival of Adrian Shaw, our old friend from ‘Magic Muscle’. Your letters do get to us, though a devious route had to be found. We do appreciate them and the ideas. So once again we we’ll try and get the motors running and take off. See you soon,
Hawkwind.
Now it strikes me as pretty unusual to glory in the SACKING of band members like that. I know all about the bad blood between Brock and Turner, but the other two seem more like collateral damage in this than anything else. It is interesting. Easily £4 worth of interesting, I hope.
Brock, for I assume it is him, appears to be every bit the compulsive used of capital letters I am and I have added some of my own punctuation in there too, because that is how I roll.
Even this doggerel that pours from my pen, Has just been written by Oh, another twenty telepathic men, Word for word, it says: "Oh, for the wings of any bird, Other than a battery hen". That's the spirit of the age That's the spirit of the age That's the spirit of the age That's the spirit of the age
981 Down (still).
PS: I far prefer the Mad Hatter Charisma Records label to their tidied-up early 80’s blue.
*hopefully always with positive results.
^I’m actually a totally different sort of inter-galactic wanker. It’s good to get that cleared up.
**when the vinyl was virtually see-thru and inner sleeves were plastered in shit adverts.
^^on the strict proviso they accord with and/or confirm my own.
