Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Ramones for free in Holland & Brazil


In 1980 WEA in the Netherlands had a drive to promote a couple of new releases, among them the Ramones Phil Spector-produced album End of the century. When you bought the albums you got a promotion-EP for free with samples of 20 songs from eight different bands. The two Ramones songs are Rock'n'roll High School and Baby I love you.The New New Rock-EP has a fold out sleeve with information about the bands in dutch.
The albums in the campaign had a sticker that told the buyer: Ask for free promotional single – New New Rock – Limited edition, as you can see on the Pretenders first LP




Songs: Rock'n'roll High School/Baby I love you + 18 other outtakes from different bands
Number: WEA NR-80
Year: 1980
Country: Holland







By the same time WEA released a similar EP in Brazil called New Wave – O rock dos anos 80. This one has eight tracks, one of them is Ramones Baby I love you. The brazilian version also has a fold out sleeve but with information in portuguese.
These records are not the most essential in a Ramones collection but, as long as I know, it's the only time the Ramones have been on a single pressed in Brazil.

Songs: Rock'n'roll High School + 7 other outtakes from different bands
Number: WEA PRO 11.025
Year: 1980
Country: Brazil






Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Record of the week – Glad to see you go


"You gotta go go go go goodbye 
Glad to see you go go go go goodbye 
Goodbye!"
The opening track on Leave Home is Dee Dee's song about his then-girlfriend Connie. There are a lot of crazy stories about Dee Dee and Connie and finally the madness ended up in a classic Ramones track, Glad to see you go. It was released as a single in one country only – Italy.
And as if that wasn't good enough the single also has the song Babysitter as an extra track on the A-side, unreleased on any LP in Italy by the time.
Unlike all other countries outside the Uk and U.S. in the pre-Warner era (1976-1977) the Italian releases came out on the Sire label instead of Philips. I guess it has to do with the fact that RCA was the distributor in Italy instead of Phonogram.
The sleeve-designer did his or her best to put Ramones in the middle of the British punk-explosion with a big razor blade on the cover. I don't think the band had anything to do with that...
Never the less, a great picture sleeve, two great songs and the first italian Ramones single.

Songs: Glad to see you go/Babysitter//California Sun/I don't wanna walk around with you (live)
Number: Sire SAA 734
Year: 1977
Country: Italy
Notes: Stock version with yellow labels and a white label promo-version





Sunday, October 28, 2012

Leave Home – the first pressings

It's not easy to sort out all the different pressings of the LP's. This is an attempt to list the first pressings of Leave Home, an album that came out in far more countries than the first LP. On top of that there is the Carbona not glue-controversy, when the record company replaced the song to avoid a lawsuit. Although the song did come out in most countries. The oddest release is perhaps the spanish, where the record company chosed to remove Now I wanna be a good boy, instead of Carbona note glue, and replace it with Sheena is a punk rocker! 

First pressings of Leave Home:

Country: US  
Sire SA 7528         
Year: 1977      
Notes: With Carbona and inner sleeve with lyrics. Rereleased as SR 6031 with Sheena the same year.








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Country: UK  
Sire 9103 254  
Year: 1977  
Notes: With Carbona and inner sleeve with lyrics. Phonogram distribution. Rereleased with the same record number and distribution but with Babysitter the same year without mention the song on the cover. Released a third time after that with Warner distribution, Babysitter listed on label and cover and the year 1976 printed on the label!




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Country: Holland     
Philips 6370 809  
Year: 1977  
Notes: With Carbona. Phonogram distribution.




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Country: Spain        
Philips 6370 812  
Year: 1977  
Notes: With Carbona & Sheena, no Good boy. Phonogram distribution. Rereleased in 1980 as Sire 60.463 with Sheena.






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Country: Germany  
Philips 6370 809  
Year: 1977  
Notes: Carbona + sticker on cover. Lyrics sheet. Rereleased as Sire 26 436 XOT with Sheena some year later.





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Country: Canada  
Sire/GRT 9147-7528 
Year: 1977 
Notes: With Carbona and inner with lyrics. Rereleased 77 or 78 as Sire QSR-6031 with Sheena.




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Country: Italy  
Sire SA 7528    
Year: 1977 (?)   
Notes: With Carbona in both a white label promo version and a the yellow label stock version. Rereleased in 1980 in the Best Buy-series (logo printed on the sleeve).




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Country: Portugal   
Sire SR 6031NP  
Year: 1978 (?) 
Notes: "Repacked-marked" with Sheena. 





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Country: New Zealand 
Philips 6370 809 
Year: 1977 
Notes: With Carbona, Phonogram distribution. The backside of the cover is white, not blue!





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Country: Australia   
Philips 6370 809 
Year: 1977 
Notes: With Carbona. Rereleased on Sire with Sheena and inner with lyrics around 78.




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Country: Japan 
Philips RJ-7208  
Year: 1977 
Notes: With Carbona. Inner sheet with lyrics and Obi. WLP and stock version.







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Country: Ireland 
Philips 9103 254  
Year: 1977 
Notes: with Babysitter and inner sleeve with lyrics.


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Country: Norway  
Philips 6370 809 
Year: 1977 
Notes: For the Scandinavian market. With Carbona. 




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Country: Mexico 
Philips LPR 15148 
Year: 1977 (?) 
Notes: With Carbona and Spanish titles on the back of the sleeve.






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Country: France       
Philips 9286 743  
Year: 1977  
Notes: With Carbona. Phonogram distribution.



Sunday, October 21, 2012

Record of the week – Les lycée des cancres!


When the movie soundtrack to Rock'n'roll High School was released in France the record company didn't use the original movie-poster drawing on the cover as the rest of the world did.
Both the LP and the single have a different artwork on the cover, unique to France.
Here they are! First the single.

Songs: Rock'n'roll High School/Danny says
Number: Sire 2 C008-64253
Year: 1980



Album: Le Lycée des cancres
Number: Sire 2 C068-62922
Year: 1980