Tag Archives: Friar Park x Niwaki

More Limited (and hard to get) Harrison/Dark Horse

Posted on by
2

Dark Horse Records has announced just what will be on sale at its pop-up Friar Park x Niwaki x Dark Horse in Tokyo this week (October 14-15).

To celebrate the launch of the Friar Park x Niwaki collection on October 12, a two-day-only pop-up will be held at Light Box Studio in Tokyo. This pop-up store will feature the limited edition collection of Friar Park x Niwaki Japanese garden tools, workwear and accessories, along with a selection of rare out-of-print titles and collectibles from Dark Horse Records:

There are two pop-up store exclusive colour vinyls: Extra Texture in blue, and The Radha Krsna Temple in “fire red” which look interesting, plus Living in the Material World on purple vinyl – previously only available as a George Harrison Store exclusive when the 50th anniversary editions of that album came out in 2024.

The others are re-issues of all six Record Store Day Zoetrope vinyls released so far, plus ‘Be Here Now’ a fairly rare 12″ single that came out for Record Store Day 2025. This has George performing the song on one side and Beck giving his interpretation on the other.

And Dark Horse has just posted a second list of titles that will be available at the pop-up – this time the focus being on Joe Strummer:

Its our understanding that these Strummer and the George Harrison LPs will also be available at a second, limited-time pop-up store in Tokyo. It will be on the 6th floor of Tower Records, Shibuya from October 20 to 26.

Tower Records will be the main launch site for 13 titles (11 from George Harrison and 2 from the Traveling Wilburys) which are newly remastered and being released as limited SHM-CD/mini-LP editions. In addition, three of George’s LPs — All Things Must Pass, Living in the Material World and Cloud Nine — will be released simultaneously on the super-high-end “100% Pure” 45rpm vinyl format. Not only that, Dhani Harrison will be at Tower Records Shibuya on 20 October to give a talk, meet fans and sign CDs and an exclusive Japanese red vinyl edition of Dragonflies, the album he recently released with Nigel Godrich.

Oh to be in Tokyo and have the ability to drop into either the Light Box Studio or Tower Records Shibuya.

Is anyone planning on going?

Two VERY Limited George Harrison 7″ Singles

Posted on by
1

This month two very hard-to-get George Harrison 7″ singles hit the market. You’ll need deep pockets to get hold of both of them.

The first is part of a Harrison Estate collaboration with Niwaki, purveyors of high-quality Japanese gardening tools, clothing and other equipment. The collab is called Friar Park x Niwaki and it feeds into a Japan-focused series of events, initially in Tokyo, in the lead-up to the release of a new series of eleven George Harrison titles as Japanese SHM-CDs later in the month. These will be accompanied by three limited edition Harrison LPs also in Japan (All Things Must Pass 1500 copies, Living In The Material World and Cloud Nine 1000 copies), each on 45rpm high quality audiophile vinyl. Not only that, there’s two Traveling Wilbury SHM-CDs to be released as well.

But back to the limited edition 7″ singles….

There’s going to be a Tokyo Friar Park x Niwaki event on 14 and 15 October which will launch a limited edition collection created with Dhani Harrison and inspired by the gardens of Friar Park.

Part of that will include a Friar Park x Niwaki Collectors Edition tool bag, and in it will be a George Harrison 7″ single containing two songs inspired by Friar Park: ‘The Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)’ b/w ‘Crackerbox Palace’. Its on the Dark Horse label and sits in the tool bag in a unique picture cover:

Now, that tool bag will set you back around £666 or US$882 (and for us here in Australia, about $1,264)! It’s not clear if the single will be sold separately, but the marketing info suggests it will be at the event in Tokyo: “In addition to the tools and workwear of the Friar Park x Niwaki collection, there will also be a selection of highly collectable rare and limited edition vinyl available.” It looks like the collection will be for sale at the Niwaki store in London – but pre-sales are already sold out. There’s no indication that the 7″ is being sold separately in London. It might be, but you can’t order it online, at least not yet.

The other collectable 7″ single out this month we’ve already told you about. Its the previously unreleased George Harrison track called ‘Apres Moi’. It comes exclusively in the deluxe edition of his book of photographs, The Third Eye. The deluxe edition is £500 and US$500 (and an eye-watering $1,400 here in Australia).

I mean, the book and package looks great but it makes this record unobtainable for the majority of us mere mortals.