Friday, February 22, 2013

Ramones & GRT – the final chapter

The first canadian press of Road To Ruin.

Here is an update about the GRT distribution and label in Canada. In my list of Ramones-releases on GRT I missed the last one: Road To Ruin.
In most other countries Warner took over the distribution after Rocket To Russia but in Canada the old management lasted longer. Shortly after the GRT release of the album Sire/Warner did a re-release (QSR 6031) but the real canadian first press of Road To Ruin is the one on General Record & Tape.
Here is some more information about GRT:
From the beginning the company was specialized in doing casettes and 8-track tapes. The 8-track tape disappeared from the music-market in the early 80's but before that GRT and later on Sire released every Ramones album up to Pleasant Dreams on 8-track.
In 1976 ABC (who then distributed Sire in the US) released the first album on vinyl and had the 8-track made by the US division of GRT.
On the other side of the border GRT of Canada did both records and tapes, that's why they released both formats in Canada. A few years later GRT went bankrupt, Warner bought Sire and the GRT-chapter was history. After the death of GRT in Canada the whole stock of records went to the bargain bins and people in Canada are saying that all the cheap records helped the Ramones gain popularity in the country.
By the way, here you can find a list of all 8-track releases from the Ramones.
And here are pictures of the canadian releases of Road To Ruin:



Album: Road To Ruin
Number: Sire/GRT 9147-6063
Year: 1978
Country: Canada
Notes: First press


Album: Road To Ruin
Number: Sire QSR-6063
Year: 1978 (?)
Country: Canada
Notes: Second press




No comments:

Post a Comment