Just when you thought that all the Egypt Station releases had been tapped to the full, there’s more.
The Record Store Day people have just announced that Paul McCartney will be issuing a further two tracks from his Egypt Station recording sessions as a limited edition vinyl single for RSD Black Friday, coming up on Friday, November 29. The songs are ‘Home Tonight’ and ‘In A Hurry’:Both ‘Home Tonight’ and ‘In A Hurry’ are previously unreleased and were produced by Greg Kurstin during the sessions for the LP – which has come out in numerous versions and iterations in the year since its release.
The limited edition vinyl picture disc will feature new artwork exclusively created for this RSD Black Friday release, based on the parlour game Exquisite Corpse, and includes a lyric insert.
On Black Friday last year it had paid off to get up bright and early to be somewhere near the front of the queue at the biggest and best independent record store in Sydney – Red Eye Records. This time around we got there so early the store wasn’t open yet and were actually the very first in line! Our massive fail from Record Store Day proper in 2017 wasn’t going to happen this time around, oh no…..
…or was it?
That sense of euphoria at being very likely to secure the new, limited-edition single was soon brought crashing down when we saw, much to our disappointment, this sign posted on the front door:
That was a blow. We’d checked their website earlier in the week and there’d been no indication of a delay. So we decided to stick around to see if the sign meant they hadn’t got all of their order, but possibly had received some.
When 9 o’clock rolled around and the doors finally opened the staff were very apologetic. They had in fact got zero of their entireRecord Store Day order. No Paul McCartney, but nothing of anything else either. None. Zilch.
The only bright side to the story was that they were expecting the new Paul McCartney. It’d been confirmed from the supplier that the single was definitely included in their order and so, because we’d actually come into the store, they were prepared to take our name and put one aside. When will we get it? ‘I Don’t Know’. But we’ve got one!
UPDATE: Seems that there are two different pressings of this single, one for the US market and one for the UK. The US version is hand-numbered on the rear (from a total of 5600 copies) and comes with a non die-cut inner sleeve:
While the UK/Europe version is not individually numbered on the rear, has no FBI anti-piracy logo on the rear, and comes with a die-cut inner sleeve that reveals the labels:
Just one more collecting wrinkle for those completists among us!
On November 23 Capitol Records will issue a limited edition, hand-numbered, one-time pressing of the special Double A Side single ‘I Don’t Know’/’Come On To Me’.
The two tracks, from Paul McCartney’s 17th solo album, Egypt Station, were initially only released as a “digital” Double A Side single in the lead-up to his LP release.
The vinyl single is described as a Record Store Day exclusive (i.e. a title that is physically released only at indie record stores), and only 5,000 will be issued worldwide.
Getting up early to go into Red Eye Records this morning for the two different RSD Black Friday releases of Paul McCartney’sHoldays Rule Vol.2 haspaid off.
This time around we got ’em both:
(Double click images to see larger versions)
This is in marked contrast to Record Store Day proper earlier this year and the quest to find The Beatles’‘Penny Lane’/’Strawberry Fields Forever’ single – which you can read about in two parts here and here…..it has a happy ending, but was painful at the time!
UPDATE: The Black Friday RSD singles above are Made in the U.S.A. We were not aware that versions of these coloured discs were also pressed in Europe – until one of our very knowledgable and well-connected readers, Andrey in Russia, sent us through scans of the EU pressings:
If you click on the images you can pull up larger images. In the small print on the rear covers you can clearly see that these are Made in the EU. The hype stickers on the front are different to those on the US copies as well.
On Friday 25 November, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States (called Black Friday), the Record Store Day people are making a whole load of special releases available for a limited time only to independent record store retailers.
This is not the same as the official Record Store Day – which stands as a special and separate day where independent record stores are encouraged and supported. On that day they also offer for sale a range of very special and limited vinyl record releases (see below for some previous Beatles-related issues).
The 2011 Black Friday event is a separate and additional day to do the same thing though – and artists, bands and many record companies have got behind it in a BIG way.
On Friday 25 November there will be two releases of interest to Beatles collectors. The first is a limited edition box set of four Beatles vinyl 45 singles, and the second is a 40th anniversary vinyl edition of John Lennon’s “Imagine” LP.
The Bull Moose record store in Portland, Maine has maintained a terrific up-to-date site detailing all the releases, including the two Beatles-related ones. They’ve also posted two lengthy videos highlighting some of the key releases for Black Friday, which includes collectors items from Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, the Doors, Miles Davis, Nirvana, and the Kings of Leon – to name just a few.
The special box set Beatles release is mentioned and detailed right at the beginning of Part Two of the store’s YouTube video and you can see that here:
For information about the Lennon LP re-issue you need to scroll in to about 6 minutes and 56 seconds of this Part Two video. Chris Brown from Bull Moose shows the box set of John Lennon’s “Imagine” re-issue. As you can see, it has a unique cover image:
Both these items will be strictly limited and released on Friday 25 November.
Previous Record Store Day Beatles or Beatles-related limited editions include the Beatles“Paperback Writer” single, George Harrison’s“All Things Must Pass” triple LP, and the John Lennon“Singles Bag”, all of which are really nice limited edition collectors items now.
You can find more details about the Black Friday releases at the official site here.
Both ‘Home Tonight’ and ‘In A Hurry’ are previously unreleased and were produced by Greg Kurstin during the sessions for the LP – which has come out in numerous versions and iterations in the year since its release.
