Running up to Record Store Day 2019: Part three, the most expensive singles I have ever bought

Years ago, if you'd told me that I'd pay £35 for a 12" single and £18.99 for a 7" single, I'd have been speechless.

But I have.

Both of today's singles were Record Store Day special edition releases by Florence + The Machine.

Of course they were...

It perhaps says something about my relationship with Record Store Day that I didn't camp outside a record store all night/morning to buy them.

I bought the 2015 Record Store Day release of 'What Kind of Man' in late 2016 via Amazon, having discovered that the B Side was 'As Far As I Could Get', an almost Patti Smith esque, tense stream of consciousness that is both perfectly executed and an absolute masterclass in controlled despair and rage.

You can't buy this track any other way and, having heard the bootleg of it on YouTube, I had been trying to track it down for about a year. The 12" was waiting for me in the hall after I got back from having my second tattoo done.

The 2018 Record Store Day release of 'Sky Full of Song' was purchased via Piccadilly Records, and I picked it up from the shop about a fortnight after Record Store Day 2018 had taken place.

Piccadilly Records basically advertise those RSD releases they still have left on their website after the event, and they're available to order/reserve on a first come, first served basis. Which was lucky for me in that I was still working at the library at the time and, as such, would have needed to book the Saturday off work to queue up outside the shop to get it otherwise.

I know that the queueing up with your list is kind of the point, that it's all part of the experience, as are the DJ's and in store appearances, but I only wanted that one record and, as such, didn't want to use up a day's annual leave to secure it.

As it was, I went after work one day to pick it up, a journey I will always remember for two reasons: I was body slammed by a a woman at the crossing by Newton Street in a particularly disturbing instance of pedestrian chicken gone wrong, and the person who served me at Piccadilly Records very kindly complimented me on my My Neighbour Totoro bag.

The 12" is pressed on milky blue vinyl and the 7" is pressed on a storm cloud grey milky vinyl. Shades of grey and white. It perfectly compliments the black and white video that was made to accompany 'Sky Full of Song'.

'Sky Full of Song', while not the lead single from High As Hope (that would be 'Hunger'), was the first single to be released from the album. As such, it seemed apt that the B Side to the single would be a spoken word piece by Welch, namely 'New York Poem (for Polly)', which would later feature in the book Useless Magic, and which gave the album High As Hope it's title.

There was a kind of synchronicity to this, given the way that poetry and lyrics, book and album, are so intertwined. Similarly, 'As Far As I Could Get' is the perfect B Side to 'What Kind of Man'. It's the quieter, sadder, side of the situation, it speaks of pain in a quieter way, but is equally as strong and ferocious for all that.

Running up to Record Store Day 2019: Part 2, the dark hinterland of Curve...

The mid 1990s, in retrospect, were quite a good moment for indie EP's.

One band who really seemed to embrace the 12" EP as a format were dark noise rock auteurs Curve.

Later on they would head firmly into the industrial dance end of gothic tinged indie, but in the early 1990s they were making full use of the smoke machine to shroud their particular brand of gothic indie rock.

The EP's they released between 1991 and 1992 reveal the band at their most post Cocteau Twins' esque ethereal (Cherry EP) as well as at their most despairing and self destructive (Frozen). With hindsight, it's easy to see that they were a band out of their time: Their particular brand of gothic machine rock wasn't really in vogue in 1991/2, and in fact a silkier, slicker and poppier version of it would be deployed to greater effect by Garbage a few years later. Similarly, the dancier element of their sound hadn't fully evolved so they weren't ready to dive headlong into EBM/Industrial dance either.

These four EP's are experiments in sound spiked by what can often be incredibly dark lyrics and intentions that can make them quite hard to listen to at times (hello 'Coast Is Clear'), but they are worth digging out and re-listening to, if only because they represent an intensity of purpose and experimentation with sound and technology that still makes for an exciting, if dark, listen.

Running up to Record Store Day 2019: Part One, the 10" single

In the run up to Record Store Day 2019, I thought it would be nice to dig out some of the more unusual items in my record collection and tell you a bit about them.

Today, it's all about the 10" single.

Over the years I have acquired four 10" singles which, thanks to their size in relation to the 12"s and 7"s, sit in glorious isolation at the front of my rack of 12"s.

The second 10" (we'll get to the first one in a bit...) I bought was Sonic Youth's '100%' in 1992. It was pressed on orange vinyl and was a concentric groove record, which I (eventually) realised meant that two different tracks were pressed onto one side of vinyl inside each other rather than in parallel.

In practical terms, this means that if you put the needle down on side A you can never be entirely sure if you'll be getting '100%' or 'Creme Brûlée'  or, on side B, if it's going to be 'Genetic' or 'Hendrix Necro'. If you get the one you don't want, you have to lift the needle off and put it down slightly behind or in front of where it was to get the other track. I mean, there's probably a more precise way of doing it, but I'm not a sound engineer.

I was 13 when I bought this single, and there was no Google so I had no idea why there was this random element to my listening pleasure. For ages I just thought it had been pressed in a weird way. Which, I suppose, it had really.

In addition to being a concentric groove 10" on orange vinyl, the record was individually numbered. It just screams early 1990s indie exclusivity. Even though Sonic Youth were signed to Geffon, which was hardly an indie label. It was post Nirvana's Nevermind, and as such, how things were done.

Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's Amber Gambler EP differs from the Sonic Youth 10" in a number of ways. Not just aesthetically and sonically, but also because it was released on a genuine indie label, Ankst, in Cardiff. But, as with the Sonic Youth single, it was also released on orange (or 'amber') vinyl.

It's typically Mynci in many ways, and captures the band at the point where they were about to leave Ankst to sign to Mercury in a bid for the big time.

Not only did the deal with Mercury lead to such knowing singles as 'Young Girls, Happy Endings', it also severely hampered the band in their desire to sing in Welsh. On their albums for Ankst, they'd made a point of singing half in Welsh, half in English, but Mercury weren't up for them doing that and compromises had to be made.

The Amber Gambler EP, as their final release for Ankst, represents the band at their weird and wonderful varied best. 'Lucy's Hamper' is a lovely slice of folk whimsy, there's a psychedelic take on country, and a lengthy piece of piano led orchestral. All in all, it is quite wonderful.

The oddity that is the 10" single is best reflected by the one off collaboration that is Taylor Meets The Headcoatees, which I eventually tracked down in Leeds' Jumbo Records. I'd previously heard Brian from Mancunian enfant terribles Bette Davis and the Balconettes play 'Meet Jacqueline' during one of his DJ sets at the Night & Day, and felt it was a particularly dance floor friendly slab of big beat garage infused pop. The patrons of the Night & Day didn't agree with me though.

This is effectively a re-mix 10", with the likes of 'Meet Jacqueline' and 'Have love, will travel' being given the big beat and drum'n'bass treatment alongside slighter and more tenuous bits of sonic experimentation. The double disc remix of Mirah's works, released as Joyride a number of years after this 10", works in a similar way: Remixers having fun with unfamiliar material to create a series of soundscapes often unrecognisable, frequently weird, but generally always interesting. As in both cases, once was probably enough.


The picture disc 10" of Voice of the Beehive's 'Perfect Place' is, at once, both the first and final 10" single I purchased.

I originally bought a copy from what was the only record shop in Hazel Grove at the time. I remember it as a very small, slightly dingy shop on the A6 that was very random in terms of what it stocked. It was staffed by a fantastically curmudgeonly man who always seemed to be either chatting to one of his friends in person, or chatting to one of his mates on the phone whenever I went in, which was generally on my way home from school. This would mean that I would have to wait ages to get served. Aside from any passing friends of this bloke, I would always be the only person in the shop so, in retrospect, it came as no surprise whatsoever when the shop closed down a few years later.

I purchased 'Perfect Place' at the height of my Voice of the Beehive period, so I would have been about 12 I think. Alongside the excellent title track, the single also included a non album track 'Shine Away', which was great, and two live tracks - a slightly sweary 'I say nothing' and an average take on James' 'Sit Down' (to be fair, I never liked the original either).

I basically played it to death and then, having tired of it, sent it to the charity shop when I was about 15. I later re-purchased it from Imbroglio in Sheffield sometime in my twenties.