Tag Archives: Record Store Day

Heaps of RSD 2024 Titles for Beatle Fans and Collectors

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Apologies, but we’re a little slow of the mark with the Record Store Day 2024 news from last week. However, it has given us a bit more time to research and hopefully provide a few more details – so here goes.

First up, from Apple Records is another unique format first for The Beatles. It is a tiny The Beatles Limited Edition RSD3 Turntable, featuring a Beatle-branded dustcover and turntable facing. Each turntable is Bluetooth-enabled and housed in a Beatles’ box that includes four super small 3″ records featuring the four songs they performed 60 years ago on The Ed Sullivan Show: ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, ‘Til There Was You’, ‘She Loves You’, and ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. Each record is housed in an outer box and comes in a picture sleeve. There is also a poster for each. The package also includes a bright yellow Beatle-branded carrying case, which can hold up to ten 3” records. These little discs apparently play at 331/3 rpm.

If you don’t want the record player, the four 3″ singles will be sold separately, also housed in an outer box, with a picture sleeve and poster. The records only have music on one side:

The concept of these 3″ singles and their accompanying tiny record player have been around for a while (think the Foo Fighters, The White Stripes, or The Doors as recently as last year for RSD). However, they represent a limited format The Beatles have not yet embraced, making them a bit like those cards from last year containing special editions of the Red and Blue albums for kids to play on their Yoto players. So they could potentially reach a whole new younger audience. If you want to get an idea of just how small the turntable and discs are check out this Youtube unboxing.

Next up, from the John Lennon camp, comes a 4 track, 12″ EP teaser for the forthcoming Mind Games Ultimate Mixes box sets – due in June. Two versions of this will be available – one on “glow-in-the-dark” 140g luminous vinyl, and one described as “black ‘audiophile’ 180g vinyl”:

Gotta say the cover for the EP is great. The track list is:

Side A:
1. Mind Games (Ultimate Mix)
2. I’m The Greatest (Ultimate Mix) – feat. George Harrison & Ringo Starr

Side B:
3. Aisumasen (I’m Sorry) (Ultimate Mix)
4. You Are Here (Outtake, Take 5)

Ringo Starr will have an RSD 12″ 45 EP called Crooked Boy available on exclusive black & white marble vinyl – and also in a really cool cover:

Written and produced by Songwriter’s Hall Of Famer Linda Perry, Crooked Boy features four brand-new tracks from Ringo. The EP also includes guitar performances on every song from Nick Valensi of The Strokes.

On a recent video Ringo showed the inside cover:

And a quick shot of what looks like a green vinyl edition. Maybe that is coming later?

Zoetrope picture discs seem to be all the rage this RSD. There are no fewer than nine LPs being released, including artists like Blur, Marc Bolan and T.Rex, Fatboy Slim, Lily Allen, and even one from Doctor Who.

What is a Zoetrope Picture disc? They look fantastic spinning on a turntable. Have a look at this YouTube from last year of Blur’s ‘The Ballad of Darren (Zoetrope Vinyl)’:

Dark Horse Records and Record Store Day have announced a multi-year partnership to release limited Zoetrope picture disc pressings of George Harrison’s entire studio album catalogue. The first two titles in the RSD exclusive series – Wonderwall Music and Electronic Sound – will be available on Record Store Day in April 2024. Limited to 8,000 units globally and exclusive to Record Store Day, each is individually numbered in silver foil and will include an insert reproducing the original artwork. The front cover will look like this – with a cut-out window showing off the LP plus a hype sticker and limited edition numbering also on show:

As mentioned there’ll be an insert in each LP with the original cover artwork included:

Dark Horse is once again extremely busy this RSD. They’ll also have out a 25th anniversary edition of Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros’ Rock Art & The Ex-Ray Style, the debut album by the band in a limited pink vinyl Record Store Day exclusive 2LP pressing. The remastered 1999 album, which was Strummer’s first album release in a decade, is spread over 2 LP’s for optimal sound quality, and the original gatefold artwork by Damien Hirst will be meticulously reproduced:

One obscure Dark Horse release can be found only on the US RSD list as a Limited Run/ Regional Focus release with only 800 copies made. Its an album called Dreamers In The Field by Huun-Huur-Tu, Carmen Rizzo and Dhani Harrison:

From Wikipedia: Huun-Huur-Tu are from Tuva, a Russian federative republic situated on the Mongolia–Russia border. Their music includes throat singing, in which the singers sing both a note and its overtones, thus producing two or three notes simultaneously. The overtone may sound like a flute, whistle or bird, but is solely a product of the human voice. They also play traditional Tuvan instruments. However, in recent years, the group have begun to selectively incorporate Western instruments and electronic music.

Carmen Rizzo is an American record producer, mixer, programmer, DJ, remixer and recording artist. A two-time Grammy nominee, he’s worked with Seal, Coldplay, Dido, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Pete Townshend. In addition to collaborating with Huun Huur Tu, Rizzo co-founded the world/electronic act Niyaz with Azam Ali and Loga Ramin Torkian (with three #1 iTunes albums). He’s released his own solo electronic albums too, so this RSD release looks to be an eclectic sound mix!

And lastly, on the UK and Australian RSD sites, there are two Dark Horse Yusuf/Cat Stevens LP re-issues listed (….can’t seem to find these on the US list).

They are (from 1975) Numbers on black vinyl LP – which will be limited to 2,000 units globally, and reissued for RSD with a lenticular gatefold cover. Included will be a reproduction of the original 16-page book with lyrics and illustrations:

And also (from 1977) Izitso – again, limited to 2,000 units globally and presented in a lenticular gatefold cover:

So, a lot of product from Dark Horse for RSD 2024…..

Record Store Day 2024 is on Saturday, April 20.

RSD 2023 Beatle-related Titles Announced

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The Record Store Day 2023 release list has just come out and come April 23 there’ll be at least three titles of interest to Beatle collectors.

Probably the most interesting and hard-to-get will be a re-imagining of John Lennon’s Gimme Some Truth best-of compilation which is being re-issued as a boxset containing 9 x 10” white vinyl EPs. Each EP will feature four tracks. Only 500 copies of this will be produced, hence the ‘hard-to-get’ moniker….

Next is the highly speculated 50th anniversary release of Paul McCartney’s Red Rose Speedway in limited edition, Half Speed Master vinyl form:

According to the RSD list there will be 5,000 pressed so this should be much easier to secure. It follows similar Half Speed Master editions of McCartney, Wings Wild Life and RAM.

Then there’s a re-issue of the 1981 Ringo Starr title Stop and Smell the Roses. This is being re-issued on vinyl as a 2LP with six bonus tracks for the first time. It will come in a gatefold with printed inner sleeves, original record labels and specialty color vinyl described as lava lamp effect clear red/white for LP1 and lava lamp effect clear red/pink for LP2. There are 2,500 copies being pressed.

Stop and Smell the Roses will also be issued on RSD as a CD (500 copies).

So, that’s John, Paul, and Ringo for Record Store Day 2023.

But wait, there is a George connection too. Dark Horse, the record label he started up (now run by son Dhani Harrison) is releasing not one but two LPs.

The first is by Stairsteps, a band originally signed to the label back in 1975. For Record Store Day 2023 we’ll see their 1976 album 2nd Resurrection re-issued on black vinyl. Billy Preston played synthesizer and served as co-producer alongside Robert Margouleff.

Dark Horse will also have a 20th Anniversary edition of the Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros album Streetcore as a limited edition pressing on white vinyl for RSD:

RSD Black Friday – A Dark Horse Extra? (Plus Dark Horse Collecting – The Hard Way)

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Is it just us who completely missed this, or did Dark Horse Records surreptitiously slip an additional title into Record Store Day Black Friday last Friday?

We’re pretty sure when we published this heads-up post back in September detailing which records might be of interest to Beatle completists, this listing definitely wasn’t there:

But when we looked on 25 November, there it was: a Joe Strummer LP Live at Music Millennium, 3600 copies, on the Dark Horse label:

This is a soundboard recording of Strummer’s solo acoustic in-store performance at a record store called Music Millennium in Portland, Oregon on November 2, 1999. It is getting its first ever release for RSD Black Friday and features the songs “Junco Partner,” “X-Ray Style” “Island Hopping,” “The Road to Rock N Roll,” and “Trash City.” The record continues the ongoing celebration this year of what would have been Joe Strummer’s 70th birthday.

While on the subject of Dark Horse, their other title for RSD, Dark Horse Records: The Best of 1974-1977, looks like a great collection:

Side A
1. Ravi Shankar – I Am Missing You
2. Ravi Shankar – Dispute & Violence
3. Splinter – Costafine Town
4. Splinter – Lonely Man
5. Attitudes – Ain’t Love Enough
6. Attitudes – Sweet Summer Music

Side B
1. Stairsteps – From Us To You
2. Stairsteps – Time
3. Keni Burke – Give All You Can Give
4. Henry McCullough – Lord Knows
5. Henry McCullough – Mind Your Own Business
6. Jiva – Take My Love

One of our long-time readers and avid Beatles and Beatle-related collector – see his selection of McCartney III variations for example! – has sent us this photo with the simple caption:

“Dark Horse Records: Best of 1974-1977 THE HARD WAY”

Enough said!

Record Store Day – Black Friday 2022

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The complete list of Record Store Day Black Friday 2022 titles has been issued and there are a couple of Beatle-related items of interest for collectors.

Black Friday titles will go on sale Friday, November 25 and are only available through at brick and mortar independent record stores.

For Dark Horse Records fans there’s an interesting LP Dark Horse Records – The Best Of 1974-1977 (not to be confused with an album with a similar title by George Harrison from 1989 called The Best of Dark Horse 1976-1989).

This one is a newly-curated selection exclusive to RSD Black Friday of the artists discovered by, and in some cases produced by George Harrison, and includes two tracks each from Ravi Shankar, Stairsteps (formerly known as The Five Stairsteps), Splinter, Attitudes (featuring Jim Keltner, David Foster, Danny Kortchmar and Paul Stallworth), and Henry McCullough (Wings and Joe Cocker’s Grease Band). There’s also one track each from Keni Burke, and the band Jiva.

Ringo Starr fans are well-catered for this time around. There’s not one but five Black Friday releases.

The most interesting of these is the re-issue of a fairly obscure Ringo release called Old Wave. This originally came out in 1983, but only in limited places. Looking at the Discogs site it appears to have been released on vinyl only in Germany, Spain, Australia and New Zealand, Canada, Japan, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil. It did get a CD release in the US in 1994. But that’s about it. Critically known as “Ringo’s most overlooked album” and “Ringo’s solo masterpiece”, it was produced by Joe Walsh and Russ Ballard. It is set to be re-issued in 2022 on CD and on LP. The vinyl package includes an OBI strip, single album jacket, printed inner sleeve, original record labels and comes in a special brown and white smoke color vinyl. It also includes a bonus track available for the first time on vinyl “As Far As We Can Go (Early Version)”:

Here’s the CD image for Ringo’s Old Wave. It gets the bonus track as well and, as yiu can see in the list above there will only be 500 copies made available (in the US at least):

Another RSD Exclusive is Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band with a double LP Live At The Greek Theatre 2019:

The other two RSD Black Friday releases on the list for Ringo are what is becoming the obligatory coloured vinyl editions of his 1977 LP, Ringo The 4th. This time they’ve announced two different colours. One in translucent orange (1000 copies) and the other in translucent blue (also 1000 copies). We are told the LP’s will be house in a gatefold cover with rare photos and lyrics.

But hey. Wait just a minute. Didn’t they also announce this exact same thing for RSD proper on April 23 this year!?

Another Joe Strummer for Record Store Day

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Dark Horse Records has just announced there’ll be a further single taken from the Joe Strummer ‘best of’ compilation, Assembly, from earlier this year.

The label will be releasing, as part of Record Store Day Black Friday, a limited edition pink vinyl 12″ single with ‘Johnny Appleseed’ as the A-side and ‘At the Border, Guy’ as the B-side.

The 12″ will be limited to 4,500 copies worldwide and is out on 26 November. The single celebrates the 20th anniversary of Strummer’s album Global A Go-Go.

Both included tracks are remastered by Paul Hicks (The Beatles/John Lennon/The Rolling Stones/David Bowie) and will be cut at 45rpm on 12” vinyl for maximum audio quality.

The first single from Assembly was the picture disc 12″ of ‘Junco Partner’, released for Record Store Day Drop 1 on June 12.

Joe Strummer ‘Junco Partner’ 12″ Picture Disc for RSD Drop 1

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It’s June 12, and that means the first of two Record Store Day Drops for 2021.

We weren’t aware (until we saw it just now) that there was anything of much interest for the “must have it all” completists among us – but there is!

The first is from Dark Horse, the label owned and operated by the George Harrison estate. The Dark Horse Records revival continues with a Limited Edition 12″ picture disc single of Joe Strummer’s ‘Junco Partner (Acoustic)’/’Junco Partner (Live)’:

It is available as part of Record Store Day – Drop 1 on June 12. There are just 3,500 copies available worldwide apparently.

The A-side features the home recording of the song ‘Junco Partner’, taken from Strummer’s latest LP called Assembly which is a compilation released earlier this year on the Dark Horse label. The B-side features a non-LP track, a live recording of the same song from Strummer and and his band The Mescaleros at London’s Brixton Academy in 2001.

The second release is a little more obscure. This is the first release on newly set up War Child Records and it is only available as part of UK Record Store Day Drop 1, and only 1000 copies have been pressed.

Back in 1995 as part of a fundraising effort, the HELP EP and ‘Come Together’ single were released by Go! Discs. These were associated with the iconic HELP album, which helped change the lives of children affected by the Yugoslavian civil war. Now they’ve been put on vinyl together as a very special 12-inch for the first time.

The EPs have been remastered by John Davis at Metropolis Studios. Side A features Radiohead, PJ Harvey, Guru and Portishead. Side B features the Smokin’ Mojo Filters (with Paul McCartney, Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller), The Beautiful South, Dodgy and Black Grape. Cover art is by 3D (Massive Attack), which featured on the CD inner sleeve of the original 1995 HELP album, updated exclusively by the artist for this release. The back cover is the orignal John Squire piece which featured on the Help EP original cover in 1995, reshot for this release.

The cover for the RSD Help EPS

More on the My Sweet Lord RSD Limited Single

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The only Beatle related item in today’s Black Friday Record Store Day releases is a re-issue of the George Harrison single ‘My Sweet Lord’/’Isn’t It A Pity’.

This is described on the official RSD website as being a 7″ Vinyl, on the Capitol/UMe label, a ‘RSD First’ release, and that it would be limited to 7500 copies worldwide.

From the cover image supplied at the time collectors soon worked out this was going to come in a picture sleeve which replicated the one issued in Portugal, and was pressed in the former Portuguese colony of Angola way back in 1970. See our original post on this release for more.

Well, one of the new RSD singles has already popped up on the Discogs site – and it seems there is much more to it than that….. Firstly, from the hype sticker on the front we can see that the single is pressed on clear vinyl!

There’s confirmation it’s a reissue of the 1970 Angola pressing, but also that it is a numbered limited edition.

Additionally, the picture sleeve has been very faithfully reproduced – right down to the flipback construction style that would have been used for the original Angolan sleeve:

And we can see that the limited edition number is stamped in gold foil on the rear:So, there’s much more to this RSD release than we first thought. For collectors this sort of attention to detail is good to see. Well done Capitol/UMe.

Meanwhile, in other George Harrison news, it looks like there’ll be a big reissue program for the album All Things Must Pass in 2021.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary the George Harrison Estate has made available to stream a new 2020 stereo mix of the LP’s title song as a prelude of what’s to come.

“The new stereo mix of the album’s title track is just a taste of more things to come in 2021 as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of my father’s legendary All Things Must Pass album,” says Dhani Harrison.

 

All Things Must Pass – George Harrison’s Masterpiece Celebrated

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We’re not getting a 50th anniversary box set of All Things Must Pass, but the anniversary hasn’t been missed by the BBC. You can now stream a great 56 minute radio documentary narrated by musician and composer Nitin Sawhney.

The radio special tells the story of George Harrison’s most successful album and shows how its themes, lyrics and musical style put it ahead of its time. It’s a terrific exploration of the music, and the musicians, who made the amazing triple LP.

While there won’t be a box set celebrating All Things Must Pass (at least not this year), don’t forget there’ll be a faithfully re-created single from the album released for Black Friday Record Store Day – this coming Friday:

New George Harrison For RSD Black Friday

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This year Record Store Day just keeps on giving.

We’ve already had the main Record Store Day release program for 2020 spread out over three separate “drops”. This has stretched out the process considerably.

And now the folks at RSD are adding to that with the traditional Black Friday set of releases thrown into the mix as well.

Amonst the Black Friday offerings (which is November 27 this year) is one for Beatle collectors, a 45 rpm single of George Harrison’s ‘My Sweet Lord’/’Isn’t It A Pity’:

This will be limited to 7,500 copies worldwide, and comes in a re-created picture sleeve – the one pressed for the Portuguese market in the former Portuguese colony of Angola back in 1970. Curious to know if it will come complete with the same mis-spelling on the B-side of the original, ‘Ins’t It A Pity’?

Not sure why we’re getting this Angola/Portuguese picture sleeve, but it looks cool. I guess this is in line with the Beatles’ The Singles Collection box set that came out about this time last year, with every Beatle single in a picture sleeve from a different place around the world?

(Just as an FYI – Valentim de Carvalho CI SARL was a Portuguese record company that, in a joint venture with EMI, had the contract for pressing Beatle and Beatle-related titles back in the 1960’s and 70’s. They had a plant in Angola which, back then, was still a Portuguese colony. Aparently the quality of these pressings was excellent.)

Note that this reissue single is listed as a ‘RSD First Release’. These titles are sold first at independent record stores, but may also be released to other retailers or webstores at some point in the future.

For the full RSD Black Friday release list click on the icon below.

 

Record Store Day – Rescheduled Again

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Record Store Day, originally planned for April 18 and then resheduled to June 20, has now been moved once more – to not one but three different “drop” dates.

The official site now states that “RSD is scheduled to be celebrated with special, properly distanced release dates on Saturdays in August, September and October…..The titles on the RSD 2020 Official List, launched on March 5th, will be released at participating record stores on one of these three RSD Drops.”

The first of these “drops” will be on August 29th, the second is on September 26th, and the final is slated for October 24th. 

A new version of the RSD 2020 Official List, with newly assigned RSD Drops dates will launch on June 1 – so check back here for a look at when you’ll be able to pick up the titles on your wishlist at your local record store.

Of course the titles we’ll be on the hunt for remain Paul McCartney’s Half Speed Master of his solo debut LP McCartney; John Lennon’s re-mixed ‘Instant Karma’ single; and the first ever vinyl release of the George Harrison produced Chants of India. But which RSD “drop” dates will they be assigned to? We’ll just have to wait until June 1 to find out.